Dennis bought us breakfast at 0700 and left to borrow the car and bring it back.  We got going at 0930, picking Swee and Chen before leaving town heading towards Daoyun Lao in the Raoping area. Dayun Lao We arrived at Daoyun Lao around 1040.  This huge octagonal 1587 tulou was once home to 600 […]

Breakfast I’m nearly on local time after three nights and we didn’t head out for breakfast till after 0830.  With some items not ready yet, I happily chose a pork and century egg congee. Teochew congee is meant to be like rice in hot water and that’s the origin of the Thai rice soup.  Today’s […]

Swatow’s old centre Dennis left around 0530 today to catch the train to Guangzhou for some errands. Kim and I, Swee and Chen had booked to go to Swatow (Shantou) for an overnight stay to explore a different part of the region. At around 0900 Kim and I walked to the Vienna hotel where Swee […]

Breakfast and wet market I woke around 0600 with only one interruption around 0130.  We left home around 0700 to go to Dennis’ aunt’s place. Aunt took us for a little walk to a local eatery for breakfast.  The local specialty here was the Tenghun (which is literally the same words as the Cantonese Cheongfan). […]

Arriving and transit in Bejing With one sleeping pill, I slept soundly for about 4h30.  With about 3h remaining till the breakfast service, I reluctantly popped another half a pill which gave me another 2h.  Magic! We landed in Beijing Capital about 1h before the scheduled arrival time of 0530.  It was quite cool as […]

Final sightseeing It’s my last day in Xian and China today before a flight out after midnight.  I had they day to kill and I chose to do that with E  & BW.  Kim went out with Dennis instead, to do car “things”.  KL & M had departed this morning for Penang. The morning was […]

Transport to Huashan   Today we have a trip to Huashan.  I had booked the entrance and cablecar tickets as a combo with return transport from the city to Huashan which is about 2h away each way. We had the choice of meeting at a set pick-up point or from our hotel.  But because our […]

Main site Today we revisit the Terracotta Warriors outside town, combined with the Huaqing Palace near to the warriors site.  It is possible to do it by public transport but some of us decided it would be eaiser getting a private car.  It turned out to be a great decision as it was a long […]