16/Feb 2012
By Jesús Roncero
2 min. read
So, I don’t really know why I chose to visit China in the very first place. I was mildly interested in it, but never had a massive interest in it. Maybe because my friend Pablo went there in March last year and he liked it. Maybe because it’s an exotic location which doesn’t see as many tourists as other places. The fact is that I chose Hong Kong as the first destination in Asia (not having been in Asia before) so that my first experience would be a bit westernised and I wouldn’t suffer too much from the cultural shock.
16/Feb 2012
By Jesús Roncero
2 min. read
So, I don’t really know why I chose to visit China in the very first place. I was mildly interested in it, but never had a massive interest in it. Maybe because my friend Pablo went there in March last year and he liked it. Maybe because it’s an exotic location which doesn’t see as many tourists as other places. The fact is that I chose Hong Kong as the first destination in Asia (not having been in Asia before) so that my first experience would be a bit westernised and I wouldn’t suffer too much from the cultural shock.
15/Feb 2012
By Jesús Roncero
6 min. read
Yangshou is this little town south of Guilin which is famous because of its fantastic landscapes, the Li river and because it’s a climbers’ paradise. To get there you can take a bus that takes 1 hour and a half. Or you can get a tour through the Li River, which is what I did. With this they pick you up from your hostel, drive for like an hour and then you get on a bamboo boat for another hour, then another bus to Yangshou.
21/Jan 2012
By Jesús Roncero
2 min. read
So, you guys know that the Chinese (at least on some parts of China) eat about everything, no? I’ve read that in Guangzhou, Cantonese cuisine, they eat ‘everything that has four legs but a table, everything that flies but an aeroplane and everything that swims but a submarine’. So, yeah, anything really. They eat dog food. I got to realise this on my first day in Guilin when I saw a guy on a motorbike carrying three dead dogs on the back of the motorbike.
20/Jan 2012
By Jesús Roncero
4 min. read
If you are in Guilin there are many tours that can take you to the Longji rice terraces, called like that because from the top they resemble a dragon’s back (longji = dragon’s backbone). It’s in the mountains and apparently it’s extraordinarily beautiful in spring. Not so much in winter, but anyway, I already know the drill. Some minorities live here like the Yao ladies. They are not the only ones, you can find some other minorities there as well.
13/Jan 2012
By Jesús Roncero
6 min. read
I came to Guilin because some people told me that it’s very nice and has beautiful scenery They also told me it’s an interesting city. So why not?. I decided to stay here for a few days before going to Yangshou, a small town which has an amazing scenery. it’s also a climbers’ paradise, it seems. The whole area is made of karst hills and caves that look like the set of a fantasy film.
9/Jan 2012
By Jesús Roncero
4 min. read
Arriving to China. I left Hong Kong and jumped on a train to get me to Guangzhou (广州), a big capital close to HK (12 million people). This was my first experience and it was not so nice as I arrived in the evening during the rush hour. Grabbing the underground is madness. The trains are overcrowded and the only way to get in or out is to push people like there’s no tomorrow.