The biggest square in the world and a lovely looking palace with lots of different areas for different ceremonies and loads of history.

On this tour, everyone is paired with a roommate to keep the costs to a minimum. At the Jade Hotel, we managed to get a four-person room which is nice cause there’s a bit more room. This hotel is a bit nicer than the Shaolin hotel but the scenery directly outside is not as good.

On route to Beijing, we went to see the Longmen Grottoes this was really interesting there were loads of buddhas in the mountain with a massive Buddha carved into the middle.

Fantastic place, when we arrived we see hundreds maybe thousands of monks practising various kungfu moves.     Day two we visited the Shaolin temple which is full of stunning buildings which have lots of colour. We then hiked Mount Song this had amazing views all the way up and the temple at the top […]

So this place is the most interesting hotel. The room has no AC or hot water and there are plug sockets in the shower room. But we are staying a short walk from Shaolin Temple.

This was a great journey the ticket inspector made it. Without a word of English, he brought us Chinese tea, gave most people aback massage as this was a hobby of his. He gave people with serious back knots some Chinese heat pack to apply. He then arranges it so that we get cheaper beer […]

A few of us found a Chinese brewery called wild west brewery and sampled the local beer, found a really good one called China White which has peppercorn, coriander and orange peel sounds strange but was really tasty. Would recommend this to everyone. The whole group went out for the Hotpot which is a massive […]

This was an interesting hotel. The bathroom has a curtain for a door. On top of that, you can open the blind in the bathroom so you can see the whole room.

The sleeper train was an experience we all got local McDonald’s I went for the hot dog burger which was much better than expected. Then we got a load of beer and went to our “rooms” on the train had a more than a few drinks and then I managed to sleep through the night, […]

I turned up late to this hotel due to the VISA issues, it was not the planned hotel. This was another nice hotel they all seem to be clean. Nice size shower here a few issues with the door when I turned up but someone was here quickly to repair it.