Traveling in China - Day 12 and 13 - Going Home

Picture from the train ride home

By this point we were all pretty anxious to go home and do laundry. The trip was fun but there is something nice to being in a familiar bed (and being somewhere with a space heater).

Traveling in China - Day 11 - Nanning's Night Market

We took the train from Pingxiang to our last destination, Nanning (南宁). The train ride was about 4 hours long and cost ¥30 ($4.75). When we arrived in Nanning, it was crowded and raining. I missed the small cities already. The first hotel we went to was quite a bit more than we were used to spending, so we ended up spending the next 45 minutes finding a hotel. Turns out that hotels just cost a lot more in bigger cities.


View Forbidden Fort in a larger map

When we got to Nanning and settled down, there was not anything left to do but eat and call it a night. After we ate dinner, we went to Nanning's night market.

Traveling in China - Day 1 - Off to Guangxi 广西

Here in China school doesn't get out around Christmas time. Fortunately for me, this past Christmas was on a Sunday, so I had the day off, but I still had to teach English classes for a week afterward.

What IS nice however is that the Chinese new year is a <understatement>pretty big deal</understatement>. This means that from the beginning of January until the middle of February has no school! Woot!

I was able to endure a week of nothing in my apartment before I realized that doing nothing is only slightly more fun than actually going to work. That called for a plan. A plan to do SOMETHING! When most people go to China, the go with the intent to travel. Sounded like a good plan to me, so that is what I decided to do. I talked to a couple other teachers here who wanted to travel as well and we decided to go to southern China near the border of Vietnam. From Zhengzhou (Henan province) to Nanning (Guangxi province) is just over 1000 miles (see map below). It is about the same distance as driving a car from Provo, UT to Kansas city MO. (Incidentally, I just found out from Wikipedia that Nanning is sisters cities to Provo. How cool is that?!)




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The Joys of Traveling in China

I am in China! I made it! Lifelong goal checked off. In the first few days here, I have experienced nearly every method of travel possible. One thing is for certain. Traveling in China is different than in America. VERY different.

(Warning; this is a LONG post. I suggest only reading it while eating ice cream)