CHONGQING TO XI'AN Siobhan has fallen asleep again while reading "The Man In The Iron Mask" and, thankfully, the young man in the opposite bunk rolled over on his side and stopped snoring loudly. We are on the train from Chongqing to Xi'an in a second class sleeper car with 64 other passeengers in eleven open compartments of 6 bunks in tiers of three. There are fifteen cars on this train, including several other second class sleepers, one first...

WUHAN IS NOT LIKE WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT IT People keep telling us NOT to visit Wuhan because it is hot, dirty, and boring. It is a working class city, a steeltown. Definitely not a tourist destination. Those denuciations only make it more tempting to visit because that's just what people in Canada say about our hometown, Hamilton. Wuhan has the reputation of being one of the three "furnaces" of China, which traditionally experience very hot tem...

I am the first person on deck this morning. It is 5:30 am and the dawn is rosy pink. Suddenly, a crew member brushes past me. He races down Deck 3, the exercise deck, along the green outdoor carpet, towards the stern. I walk a little faster to discover what's so pressing at 5:30 am. I turn the corner above the stern and witness the crewman raising the red flag of the People's Republic on the flagpole on the great Yangzi River. The river is green, the flag i...

20 THINGS WE LEARNED FROM CHASE Chase is a 22-year-old American from Florida. After finishing his undergrad degree in chemistry, he decided to teach English in China and says it was the best decision of his life. He has been teaching English at a local university in Nanjing and also giving private lessons to Chinese students whose parents want to enhance their kids' English-language skills in advance of studying North America. With two incomes, he says he live...

Huangshan Hot Springs I wake up to a cold room in the villa at the undeserved four star Behai Hotel on top of Huanshang (Yellow) Mountain. With a force of will, I jump out of bed in my socks, slippers, jeans, and red parka, and dash to the washroom. Darn! Siobhan must have shut off the hair dryer or else it's simply burnt out. I turn it back on and splash some warm water on my hands and face. Ahhhhhh, that's better! It's overcast but light outside. ...