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Hey folks, I just uploaded our Malaysia/Borneo photos in the Photo Gallery here. I’ll be updating this post with an actual detailed post later… sorry I’ve been lazy.

Hey folks, I finally got all 3 parts to our Malaysia video up online, using vimeo, you can see it below. I used iMovie software editing the video, which was relatively easy and it’s my first travel video so give me some feedback! The trip photos will be posted soon…(you can watch the video in HD through the link)

Malaysia Trip 2009 Part A from Alan Tek on Vimeo.

Malaysia Trip 2009 Part B from Ket Nala on Vimeo.

Malaysia Trip 2009 Part B from Ket Nala on Vimeo.

Finally at our last leg of the China tour was Macau, or the Las Vegas of the East.  With it’s Portuguese architectural influences and World famous casinos, it was a nice change for us and not what we originally expected.  To get there, it was a relatively cheap ferry ride from Hong Kong on the Star Ferry; it was a very high speed and bumpy ride there.

Macau falls under Chinese rule, but we still had to get our passports checked on arrival. We only spent one day there (which is all you really need to sight-see the island), and there was plenty of helpful info/maps at the ferry terminal.  We took a bus to get into the center of town and stopped by the beautiful ruins of the Church of St.Paul, the old and new Lisboa Casino, and went into the Sands Casino for dinner/browsing, but no playing.  Along the center of town, there were plenty of special Macau treats such as almond cookies, dried meat and egg tarts to taste.  It was a great end to our China trip, and we actually ended up staying a few more days in Hong Kong to sight see/ shop around a little more.

My parents ended up making it over to Taiwan to see how I lived, and I posted some pictures of our day trip to Toroko Gorge and our Tea time in Jiu-Fen. Since, Nat and I’s previous attempt at Toroko was Typhooned out, and I had a damaged camera, this time’s pictures give you a better glance at what it’s like there. You can see all the photos HERE.

(note: I added 7 more Macau pics, in case you found them already in my photo gallery)

Our next two destinations from our hub in Shanghai was Suzhou and Hangzhou.  They are both relatively close to each other and can be reached by train or bus in a couple to few hours.  Suzhou was by far our favorite of the two (but not as nice as Zhouzhuang).  In actual fact, Hangzhou is more well known and supposed to be more beautiful due to it’s famous West Lake 西湖… but we didn’t think it was that special.  Suzhou was another town surrounded by water, and we took a really peaceful ride on a boat with the boat-man doubling as a driver and singer.  Suzhou is known for its beautiful gardens… when you think traditional Chinese gardens, Suzhou is where everyone borrows  or steals the look from.  We only visited one garden, the Humble Admisistrator’s Garden 拙政園, but it was exceptionally good.
Suzhou is also well known for it’s silk, so there were plenty of silk shops around this  area. Hangzhou was a bit of a let down for us as it was supposed to be one of the most impressive sites to see in China, but it was just okay.  You can see some of our photos HERE.

Last stop is Macau and then back to Taiwan!

Alright folks, so the next stop on our China trip was a bus ride from Shanghai to Zhouzhuang which was a really beautiful canal city only an hour or so away.  It was a really small and beautiful little town, and we ended up watching an entertaining on-site musical play in the evening.  This town was also featured at the end of Mission Impossible III, if you watched that one. There aren’t too many photos to see, but you can see them HERE.

Next stop was Xi’an where we had to take an overnight train for 11 hours from Beijing. Needless to say, it was the worst train ride I have ever taken. All the private bunks were full so we had to sleep in upright seats, and of course the person who booked our tickets didn’t put my parents and I together.  I ended up being awoken a few times during the night due to an old man trying to grope me (this is Alan speaking here), which I didn’t even recollect until after the train ride. Fun Times.

So we arrive in Xi’an and end up staying at a dodgy hostel which was nothing compared to the one in Beijing, we only had a day or two max, planned for Xi’an so it wasn’t a big deal. The next morning we began our bus ride to the area of the Terracotta Warriors which is the main tourist attraction in Xi’an.  The bus ride there and back was quite pleasant due to the nice scenery on the way to the ‘hanger’. There were fields upon fields of pomegranate trees and the farmers method of catching them was putting small plastic bags under each sprout. As for the Terracotta Warriors, it was quite an amazing spectacle to see. The site was only discovered some 30 years ago and is one of this centuries most important finds.  The preservation site is divided into 3 different buildings (pits) holding the stone warriors.  The 2nd and 3rd pit contain different warriors and horses in different formations.  The largest and most impressive pit is the 1st one which contains more than 6000 statues and horses. Although, you can’t get that close to them and you feel like you’re in an airplane hanger. It’s pretty amazing to think that people handcrafted each and every warrior with such detail; I’m pretty sure the king who wanted this shrine made for him was quite mad.

From Xi’an we flew to Shanghai which was our hub for traveling for the last leg.  Shanghai is China’s homegrown New York City and it really does feel like a metropolitan city. However, there is a large contrast between the new and the old which is easily viewable through poor areas of the city. Our favorite part of the city was the YuYuan Garden area/Bazaar which is full of Shanghai special cuisines and old style buildings.  We weren’t sure at first what to think of the city but we warmed up to the city the longer we stayed there. You can see all the Xi’an and Shanghai photos HERE.

Next stop Zhouzhuang 周庄.

Our next, and by far my favorite stop was Beijing. With Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the Great Wall, the 2008 Olympic Games stadiums, and numerous markets and Hutong communities, Beijing shows you ancient history to present day. The architecture from all eras is amazing to see.

We visited the Summer Palace first, which took an entire day to walk through. The weather was quite cold to what we expected of China, but it was a nice change. It included a huge man-made lake, hand-dug as a birthday gift to the queen. That night, it was the site of the 2008 Olympics. Unfortunately, the Bird’s Nest stadium was no longer lit to save energy, but the Water Cube was in full swing. Both were very cool to see up close! The next day was dedicated to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. As impressive as they are, we were there in peak season, which meant we had to battle the crowds to catch a glimpse of anything or to get a good shot. We decided to ditch the crowds and go to the Temple of Heaven, where seniors practiced karaoke and calligraphy in the surrounding gardens.

The next day was my most anticipated destination, the Great Wall. We visited the Jinshanling section, and walked to Simatai, we were told by many people that the more tourist (trap) friendly section called Badaling, was really ‘Bad’, full tilt with souvenir shops/McDonald’s . It was a pretty challenging little hike, considering the condition parts of the Wall were in. Regardless, it was a beautiful day, and was certainly all we had expected and more. You can see all the marvelous photos from Beijing HERE. Next stop, ]Xian/Shanghai.

Hey everyone! There has been a lack of posts recently, but I wanted to fill everyone in on what Nat and I have been up to.  We had a wonderful Turkey dinner on Christmas day that our roommate, Beth, organized at a nearby Italian restaurant; needless to say it was a huge success! To kick off 2009, we went to see the Taipei 101 fireworks with our friend Emil which were the best 3 minute fireworks display we have ever seen, although it was a tad short.

We also bought a new digital camera, a Panasonic Lumix FZ28, which all the recently posted pictures were taken with. It has a really far optical zoom which is a feature we were both looking for and the price was right. We are both really satisfied with the purchase and I should have some good Christmas/New Year’s Eve HD videos posted up soon. You can read more about the camera here.

We are both heading to Malaysia/Borneo for Chinese New Year for a 2 week vacation which we are both extremely excited for — so planning for that has taken up most of our time recently. You can see all our recent xmas/new year’s pictures HERE. Thanks for checking out my site and comments are always appreciated!

After HK, it was on to Guilin and Yangshuo. To get there, we took the oddest bus I’ve ever seen–an overnight sleeper bus full of tiny, coffin-sized bunk beds. It looked like catacombs, and if you were more than 5′8 and 150 lbs., you’d be on the floor if the bus took a corner. After an 11 hour ride, we were there, and upon exiting the bus, random strangers were in hot persuit of us trying to sell us tours and get us to stay in their hotels. For our entire stay, the people here were very pushy, but the amazing scenery made up for the persistant locals.

On our first day, we took the bus to visit Seven Star Park. The highlight of this was definitely the Seven Star cave–a really impressive cave with tonnes of colored lights placed around the rocks to accent the formations. It took about a half hour to walk through the entire thing. Then we found a taxi driver willing to drive us around all afternoon for the bargain price of $5.00. He took us to the Reed Flute cave, which was basically the same idea as Seven Star, but a bit larger and more impressive. That night, we took a took a river cruise, and along the way saw plenty of pagodas and a short opera performance.

The following day, we booked a day tour of Yangshuo, which is much more rural than Guilin, and has a much more impressive scenery. It has narrow but tall, green rolling mountains everywhere. Unfortunatly, like the majority of tours in China, we were roped into going to a stupid crystal factory where they herd you into the showroom and expect you to buy things. Luckily, it was short lived, and we moved onto a river raft cruise followed by the highlight, a two hour boat cruise down the Li River. If you’ve ever seen The Painted Veil, this is the same type of landscape. That evening, we got tickets to to a show called Impressions Liu Sanjie, a show that took place entirely on water. It is directed by Zhang Yimou, who also did the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The choreography and sheer manpower of this show was amazing.

The next day, it was off to Beijing. You can see all our Guilin/Yangshuo photos HERE - Nat

Hi everyone!! We finally made it back home to Taiwan. It was a really awesome trip, I’ve been on a few and this trip has definitely been the most history enriched and sightseeing vacation that I have ever taken.  Hong Kong was a blast, with its metropolitan city life, amazing night markets, shopping and amazing food! This city really feels like it never sleeps. At night, the streets are filled with night markets, bright neon signs and people eating and walking around until the wee hours of the morning. We all stayed in Hong Kong for the first 4 days until we got our China visa and lived on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong across HK island.  I have posted pictures in the photo gallery HERE.

These were some really cool things we liked about the city: there are whole streets/areas dedicated to selling fish/aqua life, a huge flower selling street, Lantau island (big bronze Buddha, and amazing cable car ride), Hong Kong’s amazing skyline, night markets with loads of counterfeit stuff, and so much great food. I have also made some comments with particular photos.  I will try and post a set of pictures for each city we visited in China, in each coming week.  There were some really amazing photos that were taken so check back soon! Next stop… Guilin.