I've got over the fail since my last post. Thanks to the thoughts from everybody, it did put it a bit in perspective. I now am looking at it as getting to the top of the mountain but with a more unusual technique than many...

( So you want to know about the eclipse then? )

Today has not been a good day. I have learned many things though including:

1) Mountains are big
2) Don't trust the hostel workers to know about things
3) Carrying people up mountains looks like really hard work
4) Carrying people up mountains earns a good wage
5) Mountains are actually quite dull.

( A bad day on a mountainside )

( More adventures ending in unplanned places... )

Editor's note: This post was originally written on Saturday evening. It is not up to date on where I am now or even where I was when I wrote it. I'll hopefully be writing more later, even if its a brief filler....

( A day in Xian - Terracotta warriors mainly )

Having flown to Xian because of busy trains I've now been told by somebody else wanting to get the train from Xian to Chengdu that there are no trains due to floods disrupting the service. I need to find out for sure tomorrow (I think I'll check first thing) but if so it likely means I'll be flying again. I considered either detouring or doing new ( Read more... )

So I'm now in sunny Xian. At least I assume its sunny. Its hot certainly. But I haven't seen the sun from the ground for some time now... I'm hoping in Chengdu it was just misty and cloudy though rather than it being as bad as Beijing and shanghai in terms of smoggyness. Though if its going to be smoggy a pea-souper might be fun ( Read more... )

Just a very quick post since despite being only just gone ten I want to get to bed soon...

Yesterday I did a tour of various places and today similar...

( Great wall, Ming Tombs, Tiananmen square and the Summer Palace (and prob other stuff) )

So yesterday was my last day in Shanghai.

( Jump straight in to the excitement )

So this is more of a filler than a detailed write up. I'll hopefully get a chance to fill in detail tomorrow or something but it depends how I feel really. Despite occasional temptation I will put more effort into seeing China than writing about it. :) This does mean you have some disjointed paragraphs of stuff...

( Shopping, walking, gardens, temples and museums )

I'm sorry to report I'm a bit under the weather today and indeed have been for the past few days. I'm not sure why but I'm hoping its just my body adjusting. The heat is feeling not too bad but I am sweating a lot and probably thus losing a lot of liquid and salt. Ive decided to stop drinking water to rehydrate in favour of other drinks with sugars ( Read more... )