Latest posts
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The Eastern Qing Tombs and Dowager Empress Cixi’s Final Resting Place
Weekends are for daytripping – at the end of last month that motto brought us to the Eastern Qing Tombs in Zunhua, almost 130km northeast of the Jing in the province of Hebei.
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The Pride of Lions guarding Beijing’s Marco Polo Bridge
Saturday, the 29th of April 2017 One more of Beijing’s sights is down from our tourist bucket list. Last weekend we took a bus all the way out to the suburbs of Beijing and visited the Marco Polo Bridge, a historically significant place in the south-west of town. There is not much else out there,…
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Hiking along The Great Wall Mutianyu
This is a flashback to last year winter, in early January 2016, when we hiked along the Great Wall at Mutianyu.
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Backpacking Northern Vietnam Part I – Crossing the border from Hekou to Lao Cai
January the 28th, 2017 Not too long ago we had this idea of traveling from China to Vietnam, crossing the border from Hekou (Yunan, South China) to Lao Cai (North Vietnam) on foot. The easiest and most straight forward preperation we did was to buy a Lonely Planet of the destination country and do some…
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Temple of Ancient Monarchs Li Dai Di Wang Miao in Beijing
Saturday, the 21th of January 2017 Today is another day of brilliant blue skies and sunshine in Beijing. Three weeks into the new year the weather is freezing cold, but due to the icy winds the air is clear again and you can see the mountains surrounding the city miles away. Naturally, we always want…
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Winterly Temple of Heaven in Beijing
It’s our first week back after the Christmas holidays and I have to say the weather treated us very nicely. Over newyears our friends who didn’t return home as well as the German media repeatedly reported the devastating smog situation in Beijing, and I already expected the worst. Fortunately, we brought the clean air back…
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Five Day Trip to Seoul, South Korea
One of the banes of living abroad (and especially in China) are visa runs – being forced to leave the country simply for the purpose of renewing your residence permit. So why not use the compulsory trip to catch up on some long due traveling, in our case bridging the 1000km distance from the Jing…
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Heilongtan National Scenic Area – Beijing’s Black Dragon Pond
Some 60 k out of Beijing one can visit the Black Dragon Pond, or Heilongtan, in Miyun district. The area is marked by a collection of small ponds of clear water, that are fed by a well somewhere in the mountains above. It is a nice change to the busy city life in Beijing proper,…