Tag Archives: china

Wulingyuan National Park – Zone 1: done.

Next up – Zone 2. More of the same, you’re thinking? Well, kinda – but not quite…

Sure, we’re talking extraordinarily gigantic and fantastic rock formations, but in Zone 2 they possess a wholly distinct character: not as smooth – as in more jagged. Still utterly unbelievably awesome…

Read on…

Day three of my China-2023 trip, and it was time we dived into one of the most fantastical natural installations on the planet – the Wulingyuan national park. Now, I don’t want to come across as a broken record – much less the boy that cried wolf wow, but this place – it’s simply magically, wonderfully, impossibly off-the-scale magnificently gorgeous and grandiose! I could add more adjectives of praise, but I think you get the idea already; I mean – just take a look! ->

It’s a biggie too: the most impressive cliffs cover an area of around 10×10 kilometers:

Read on…

You’ve already read so much and seen so many pics from our China-2023 trip – but that was just the first day! Yes – action packed that first day sure was, taking in Enshi Grand Canyon in the morning, and the nearby cliffs and crazy paths in the afternoon. Which brings us, logically, to day two – and another… grand canyon! Well, why not? (You can never have too many grand canyons on a trip to China)…

Introducing – Pingshan Grand Canyon (as is common for lesser-known (to foreigners) Chinese tourist attractions, there’s no Wikipedia page for it). Its depth is around a hundred meters, and just a dozen or so in width = a super-thin crevice. The clean river water that runs through it is emerald green, apparently colored so by the dissolved minerals in it. Which minerals? Not sure – it seems only the Chinese internet knows ). What I am sure of is that tourists are taken on narrow boats like this one down the river ->

It’s situated around half-way between yesterday’s Enshi Grand Canyon and tomorrow’s Wulingyuan Scenic Area – here. Indeed, you can check out the canyon, plus take the boat ride along it, and by evening make it to the next attraction, which is what we did.

Read on…

Enshi Grand Canyon – done. Enshi cliffs (set back a short distance along the canyon) – coming right up!… ->

Oh my Grand-Canyon! Is that a footpath attached to that cliff face? I believe it is. Good gracious me. We gotta have walkies along that! My first thought though was how we were going to get up to the path in the first place…

Read on…

Often, it’s not the filtering and editing of photos and deciding which ones go where that’s the tricky bit. Much harder, IMHO, is calming and formatting personal impressions, and dimming the brightness and contrast of emotions that are still all over the place as after-effects of one’s latest typically unorthodox spot of travel to a far-away beautiful land – this time China. But, what can I say? Hard or no – I’ve finally pulled it off: all my memories and impressions and photos and videos duly sorted, de-chaffed and compartmentalized – all ready to be slotted into the various chapters of my latest travelogue series…

Which brings me to why I’ve been so quiet of late on these here blog pages of mine – I was in deepest China for quite some time in October. And I was so busy with my tourisms of the unexpected (added to the above-mentioned over-abundance of photos and videos) that I never got round to starting this here series. Well that procrastination stops here, now…

First up, Enshi Grand Canyon – here.

Read on…

Next up – we fly southeast from Guiyang to Shenzhen. Sure, the center of the city is radically urbanized, but we saw none of that; for we spent all our time in the city in… its parks! Yes, you read that right. See, we were in Shenzhen to pay a visit to our friends at Huawei, which is headquartered in the city, and it just so happens that the road between the airport and said HQ is lined with nothing but parks!…

Everywhere you look – greenery and lakes. It resembled more Singapore than the stereotyped image of a large Chinese metropolis…

Read on…

From Beijing we flew into Guiyang (here), the capital of the Guizhou province (here). Though they call Guizhou a “third level” city, it still plays a key role for China’s economy – since here are located large logistical centers, plenty of other businesses and industries, plus… the largest data centers in the country. Which is why we paid a visit. Our annual Chinese partner conference also takes place here. But about that later. Today – tourism!…

Since Guizhou is mostly mountainous, the topography-geology of the province is off-the-scale beautiful, with the tourism built up around it correspondingly enormous in scale. It also holds records for the number of bridges and tunnels in the country.

For our portion of tourism while in the province, we were told we should get ourselves to Tianhetan for its waterfalls and caves (here), since it’s the one of the province’s most unusual places. Which turned out to be entirely true – with a twist…

Read on…

Hi folks!

Been a while – yes; but I’ve been busy. More on that…

So, you know how business trips for me are pretty much always intense, hi-tempo, tight-schedule, action-packed affairs? Well, guess what? This summer that “template” transferred over to my summer holidays. And I couldn’t be happier for it!…

In almost three weeks – first with colleagues and then with family – I visited a full 10 locations, staying in hotels, villas – even tents! Put another way, for 18 days we stayed in one place on average 1.8 days. More specifically: Beijing; Shenzhen; Guiyang; Nairobi, plus another six overnight stays across Kenya (the final one being next to Diani Beach, where we decompressed for a few days after all the tourism-till-you-drop:).

I said above I couldn’t have been happier; however, not everything went smoothly. Luggage went missing, and there were flight delays of several hours. Fortunately, the first such delay we found out about in advance of setting off for the airport, so we killed time whiled away the time leisurely at Lake Houhai (situated near the center of Beijing, some two kilometers north of the Forbidden City)…

Read on…

Hi all!

Today, a brief interlude to my ongoing lux-adventure-tourism series – from Beijing! I was there the other week, and came over all nostalgic since I hadn’t been there since… September 2019 – nearly four years ago!…

The first thing I noticed was that the Chinese capital had freshened up: the air quality seemed much better – so much so that you can walk the streets without a respirator. And the photos taken from my hotel room (almost) showed the distant horizon! ->

In the past, the smog would get so bad that buildings just a few kilometers away couldn’t be made out. Here’s proof!

Read on: A visibly clearer, cleaner Beijing – no more stingy eyes or respirating!

Normally, my work schedule is made up of all sorts of meetings, press interviews, taking part in exhibitions, speaking at conferences all over the globe. Normally. Not this year, darn it!

Now, some of the events I get to are one-offs. Some are regular, recurring ones (mostly annual) but to which I get only once in a while. While there are some recurring events that I deem simply must-attend. And one of my main must-attends every fall or early winter is the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, organized by the Cyberspace Administration of China, which I’ve participated in every year (up to 2019, that is) since 2015 – just a year after it’s ‘inauguration’ a year earlier. This year, alas – no traditional trip to eastern China; however, much like here at K, not being able to be present in-person does not mean a big and important event can’t still go on. Which is great news, as this means I can still get what I want to say across to: the main players of the Chinese internet – state regulators, heads of provinces and regional development institutes, and also bosses of the Chinese big tech companies; and all from a huge screen – perhaps the biggest I’ve ever seen!

Sure, it would have been nice to be there in person – to stroll around the quaint cobbled narrow streets of the old ancient town (as old as the Tang dynasty, apparently) and take a boat ride along its canals, which indeed some folks did manage to do, somehow. But I was playing it safe. Still, the plentiful ‘in-person’ activity at the venue is at least cause for optimism during these remote-everything times.

But now for the main thing: about Wuzhen superstition…

Read on…