My last stop after Beijing was Xi'an, a city in central China. I left Beijing from the colossal train station for a 15-hour overnight train to Xi'an. It was around Golden Week (the busiest time of year for traveling) and all the sleeper trains were booked up, so all that was left were seats and "standing room". I bought a seat. I wasn't sure what to expect but was up for anything. Besides, who could complain over a $23 ticket? Little did I know, there was plenty to complain about after that train ride! My seat was pretty much padding set against the wall and I didn't have the luxury of getting the window seat for something to lean on. At about 3:00am, exhausted and frustrated at being jerked around by the train and being unable to get any rest, I finally managed to get an hour or two of patchy sleep by sitting sideways in my seat, crossing my arms, leaning over, and resting my head on my arms. The people who bought standing room tickets and were sleeping on the floor looked more comfortable! Fortunately, as all things do, the train ride came to an end when I finally reached Xi'an.

I arrived early in the morning and planned on heading to Huashan that day, but I had to take the day off to recoup from the train ride. I got to my hostel and slept on my bed, dirty and fully-clothed, until 1:00 in the afternoon. I woke up feeling refreshed, took a shower, ate then went out to explore the city in the remaining amount of daylight left. I visited the Bell and Drum towers, walked around the malls, spent some yuan and a few hours at the outdoor Muslim market then went up onto the ancient City Wall that surrounds the downtown core. I rented a bicycle on the wall and spent an hour riding on the bumpy cobblestones around the entire wall. It was a hot and sticky day so the novelty of riding a bicycle on a 640-year old wall that was used for centuries to fend off attackers, combined with the nice breeze and exercise, definitely made my day.

I spent the following two days on Huashan, just outside Xi'an, but on my fourth and last day I made a half-day trip out to see the world-reknown, super famous Terracotta warrior statues, dubbed the "8th Wonder of the World"! ...It was kind of a dud. The size, scope, and historical significance of them are pretty amazing but it was a bit over-rated and there wasn't much to see. I went to see statues and they were literally just a bunch of statues. You could barely see some in display cases and the rest from railings 100 feet away. I saw the entire museum (some parts twice) in an hour before returning to Xi'an.

I spent the rest of my time in Xi'an discovering delicious Chinese food restaurants and exploring the rest of the city. I met up with two Japanese people in my hostel who took me to a small, local restaurant for delicious spicy fish soup (for $1!). As I was wandering the city at one point I decided to follow a big, dense group of people walking down the street, figuring they were heading somewhere interesting. It wasn't until ten minutes later when I realized that it wasn't a group of people, just a normal, overcrowded amount of people on the sidewalk heading nowhere! On my last night I caught a moto-taxi to the Big Goose Pagoda to watch the nightly water fountain show. It's basically a huge public fountain that sprays colored jets of water into the air in turn with music. It was wicked! Who would've thought water and gravity could be so entertaining?

When it was time to leave Xi'an I caught a 2-hour domestic flight on Shenzhen Airlines for $80 instead of taking another overnight train. I was done with trains! I arrived in Shenzhen, directly across the border from Hong Kong, and went through a harrowing 2-hour experience from the airport to the Hong Kong border, switching buses, going through customs during the Swine Flu scare (when HK "quarantined" 280 in a hotel because of one sick Mexican), switching buses again and then getting to my hostel in Tsim Sha Tsui. I didn't stay at the same hostel as when I arrived but got a different one in the same building. I spent another two nights in Hong Kong before catching an early flight back to Sapporo on the Sunday before I returned to work.

It took me the following week to recover from my travels and catch up on sleep. It's been almost three weeks since I've been back but it seems like so long ago. Time here moves so differently! I'm really glad I decided to go to China and it was a great experience to travel solo, which might be a bad thing because now I am hooked! I want to go back to China again to see all the spots that I missed on this trip. China's a huge country with beautiful landscapes and I was only able to see a tiny fraction of it. I managed to do what I went there for - to hike the Great Wall - I ate amazing Chinese food, met travelers from all around the world, learned to become more independent, and I didn't catch Swine Flu. I'd consider this trip pretty successful.

My next trip overseas will be during Christmas time.. hmm.. Where to?

Check out my album for more pictures of Xi'an

After spending a few days walking around in the heat and crowds of Beijing, I was ready to get out of the city. On my fourth day, I caught an early morning bus with a tour group to visit The Great Wall of China. I decided to go to a more deserted section of the Wall, about three hours outside Beijing, because that day happened to be a national holiday and one of the busiest times of the year for tourists. Most people head to the Mutianyu section (an hour outside of Beijing) so I was hoping that fewer tourists would go to the section I was headed to.

The hike along the wall began at Jinshanling and ended at Simatai, about 10km and 30 watchtowers away. In Jinshanling you can take a cable-car up to the wall but I came to hike so I opted to do the walk up to the wall. On the way I met an American guy from my group and ended up walking together. On the wall we met up with two Dutch girls who walked with us until Simatai. If you're reading this, Erika, I think I met your twin!

I was unprepared for my first view of the Great Wall from on top of the first watchtower. The view was absolutely stunning! The entire reason I came to China was to hike the Great Wall and there I was, on top of one of the greatest monuments in the world. I couldn't believe it! Everywhere you looked was the perfect postcard. The wall was restored at Jinshanling but the further along I went it began to crumble and I saw it in its natural state. The watchtowers are on top of peaks so the wall drops down only to soar into the air again. It was too amazing to describe, so I'll let the pictures do the talking...

At the end of the hike in Simatai there's a zipline called the "Flying Fox" that goes right over the reservoir. I stopped to watch a few people go and after a few minutes a girl nearby, who was also watching, looked at me and said "What do you say, let's do it?" I hadn't planned on it but when I realized it was only $6, I couldn't pass it up! (also, I figured this was a quicker way to the bottom). So I strapped into a harness with my big pack on my back and flew down the reservoir on the Flying Fox. It was exhilarating, and the perfect way to end the day! At the bottom a boat took us to the village where my bus was waiting to take us back to Beijing. On the ride back I fell asleep, happy and content, after one of the best days of my life.

Check out my album for more pictures of The Great Wall of China.

From Hong Kong I took a 24-hour sleeper train to Beijing. I spent a lot of the trip talking to an English and Armenian couple I met who were sharing the same cabin as me which helped pass the time. I also managed to sleep 11-hours, almost half the trip, in the comfortable, narrow bed. When I arrived, I stepped out of the massive Beijing West train station into a sea of people crowding the front of the station. I caught a bus to my hostel in central Beijing but accidentally got off one stop too early and spent the following half an hour wandering the streets around the Forbidden City before I finally found the hostel. Once I arrived I dropped my bags off, took a shower, and spent the next five days exploring Beijing.

Beijing is, well... Big. There were a few things that struck me about the city - the first being the sheer number of people. There are 17 million people in the city and no matter where you go, you can't escape the crowds! Another thing was constant police and security presence everywhere you went. I've never seen so many police and army personnel randomly standing around before.. but then again Beijing is the capital city of Communist China and all. Before you're allowed to get on a subway train, you have to put your bags through a metal detector at each station! To enter Tian'anmen Square you have to pass through another metal detector and get patted down, discouraging public demonstrations of civil unrest.. most likely due to the infamous protest of '89. Not to mention the random policeman positioned wherever you looked (even in empty alleyways) and the security cameras "hidden" inside all the street lamps throughout the city. You could just feel the oppression. The last thing I noticed (and it's hard not to) was the pollution and all-pervading smell of car exhaust and construction. When I think of Beijing I think of that smell. There's a constant haze above the city (making the sun a dim red even on a cloudless day) from the millions of cars being driven everyday.

I spent the first few days exploring the area around my hostel, which was conveniently located right next to the Forbidden City. I spent a good three hours there, wandering the massive pavilions, temples, gardens and streets. It was an amazing castle to visit, rich with history, full of Chinese culture.. and flag-touting tourist groups. In front of the Forbidden City is the massive Tian'anmen Square with Mao's Mausoleum in the center. It's the largest open square in the world and takes at least 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other. On either side of the Square is the Great Hall of the People and the National Museum, making the Square the literal center of Beijing and political China. The other few days I spent visiting the other sites of the city, including one day of renting a bicycle and randomly riding down the hutongs (old, haphazard urban streets) until I got to the Temple of Heaven, I watched people practicing Tai Chi and Wushu in the park, visited a night food-market and ate delicious dumplings, noodles and seafood-on-a-stick, went to the Silk Market to haggle with salespeople over the price of fake-brand named clothes, paid a visit to the Ancient Observatory to see the old astronomical instruments, ate Peking duck with a Brazilian I met at the hostel, journeyed to the Beijing Zoo to see the Panda's (I personally don't like zoos but I had to see the Panda's!), rode the trains to the Olympic Center to see the Bird's Nest Stadium and Aqua Cube from the 2008 Summer Olympics, walked around a few lake parks in the middle of the city and, of course, did the one thing I came to Beijing in the first place for - visited the Great Wall of China.

One thing I should mention about staying in Beijing (and traveling around China in general) is that everything is really, really cheap! Riding the subway to anywhere in the city costs 1 yuan (or 20 cents), 5 nights at my hostel cost $70, meals anywhere from $1 and up (depending on where you go), and a 1.5L bottle of water is 75 cents, just to give you an idea. I brought a lot more money than I thought and actually had trouble spending my money so I got a massage, bought souvenirs, and opted for a domestic flight back to Hong Kong instead of a train. Anywho, after spending five days in Beijing in the scorching hot weather visiting all the sites amongst the crowds of people, I was ready to move on. It's a great city to visit, but I think the only reason I would go back would be to see the Great Wall again. I'd definitely recommend a visit to Beijing at least once, just be prepared for it!

Check out my album for more pictures of Beijing.

I started off my Golden Week in one of the biggest and greatest cities in the world: Hong Kong. I arrived at night and caught my first glimpse of the city from the airport shuttle. It's a busy city, bursting with high-rises apartments, an endless horizon of skyscrapers, double-decker buses navigating the narrow streets, endless displays of neon signs, high-class shopping malls selling expensive brand names next to numerous 7-11s, stores open until all hours of the night, restaurants with amazing cuisine lining the streets, and busy sidewalks bursting with people from all over the world - Hong Kong is an amazing city.

I stayed five nights at the Mirador Mansion in the Tsim Sha Tsui district, famed by backpackers for some of the cheapest accommodation in Hong Kong. My first exciting few days were spent taking in the sights and sounds and randomly wandering the city. Victoria Peak is where you go to see infamous city skyline but it was rainy and humid when I went and couldn't see anything but the clouds I was in. I wandered over to Shirley street, a shopping district with the longest escalator system in the world, went to a few museums (including the Space museum that the nerd in me insisted on going to), took in the sprawling night market on Temple street, ate delicious Dim Sum and Chinese food, wandered Kowloon park, took a peek at the numerous shopping malls, walked up and down bustling Nathan Road and rode the extensive subway system to the outer edges of the city. At night I went down to the pier and watched the infamous light show where most of the skyscrapers on Hong Kong Island are lit up in tune with music.

What made me fall in love with Hong Kong wasn't the city itself but the outlying islands that are only a short ferry-ride away. Two islands I went to - Landau and Lamma islands - was like going to a completely different world. The islands are still relatively untouched with tiny fishing villages (and great seafood, I might add), tree-covered mountains and deserted beaches. On Landau Island I took a cablecar ropeway up to a place called Ngong Ping village which has a Buddhist monastery and a huge Buddha statue on top of a mountain. There were a few trails leading off from the main path so I decided to follow one and ended up at the top of Landau peak two hours later. After a few days in downtown Hong Kong, it felt great to get back out into nature again. I originally planned on taking the ropeway back down but I decided to continue on hiking down the other side of the mountain with a Swedish guy I met on the peak. We walked down to the highway where we caught a bus to a small fishing village and soaked in the scenery there for a bit, then I caught a ferry back to central Hong Kong. I fell asleep just as the ferry left the sleepy fishing village and woke up as it arrived at the downtown pier crowded with people and busy traffic. The contrast is incredible!

Lamma Island was another amazing island I went to by hopping on a random ferry. It was like a tropical island, full of palm trees and beaches instead of tree-covered mountains like Landau Island. I walked for two hours along the hiking path from one fishing village to another in the scorching 30 degree weather and saw amazing views of the beaches and harbors. It's the perfect place to get away from the city!

There are countless other little beaches, islands and other places you can go (including Macau!) but unfortunately I didn't have enough time on this trip. Hong Kong left a lasting impression on me and I'll definitely have to go back again one day, maybe with a little more time and money.

Check out my album for more pictures of Hong Kong.

So I've just returned from my two week trip in China on Sunday night and had to wake up for work early the next morning. It was an amazing trip and I'll probably spend the next few days recovering from it and catching up on sleep. I want to write up some posts about the places I've been but, while I get myself organized and back into the swing of things, here are some of the pictures that I put up on Facebook.

Hong Kong | Beijing | Great Wall of China | Xi'an | Huashan

I've already received comments that some of the pictures are amazing - and most of the props goes to my new camera - but if some of these photos or places inspire you to get out and travel to see them for yourselves, that would make me happy. Some of these photos just can't capture the experience of being there and feeling it for yourself. The Great Wall and Huashan are two places in the world that I will never forget, and which words or pictures just cannot describe. I've always wanted to go to the Great Wall but didn't take the idea seriously until a few months ago. I juggled my time and money and somehow I was able to go there and make it happen. For anyone else wanting to travel, it's not that difficult, it just takes a little bit of commitment. Get out and see the world!

The countdown is on - 6 days until China! I've got everything prepared and ready: flight, check, bookings, check, itinerary, check, all the gear I'll need, check, and finally, Visa... er, check. My adventures in China don't start until next week, but I've been having them even before I've arrived!

It started a few weeks ago when I tried applying for my Chinese Visa. I mailed off my passport and application and waited for it to return in the mail. I got it back a week later but there was no Visa! They returned it back to me – forms, money and all – without processing it. There was no explanation so I combed through the embassy website to figure out why when found the one line that explained it all, “Mail application is not accepted.” D'oh! The only way someone can get a Chinese Visa in Japan is to get it done in person. Luckily, there’s a Chinese consulate in Sapporo, so it was just a matter of getting there…

I was at work on a Monday, at the end of Spring Break, when I found this out. I looked at my calendar and realized the only day I'd be able to Sapporo would be... the next day! I resigned myself to the fact I'd have to take another nenkyu (paid vacation) day just to get the Visa so I filled out the nenkyu form, gave it to my supervisor and explained why I was taking the next day off so hastily. She understood and told me to have fun, but I knew this trip to Sapporo would be anything but that.

So here was my first situation: The consulate in Sapporo closes to the public at noon. I live 3 hours away by train. The earliest train that left from my town arrives in Sapporo at 11:46am, so that was a no-go. The only place I could catch an earlier train was in Asahikawa, about a 2 hour drive away. From this, the only way to make it to Sapporo on time would be to wake up super early, drive to Asahikawa, and catch the 7:05am train that arrives in Sapporo at 8:30am, giving me enough time to get to the consulate right when it opens. All fine and dandy.

Here was my second situation: I was running low on money up until then (for reasons I won’t go into *ahem*) but, luckily, I would get paid that morning. The first thing I would do was go to a 7-11 (which is open 24/7) and use the ATM to get money for the train ticket and to fill up my gas tank (which was only ¼ full at this point). All fine and dandy. I thought through my plan and decided it was the best thing to do, so that night I went to bed at 8 o'clock to wake up early and start my journey across Hokkaido.

I got up at 4:00am the next morning, made breakfast, and left my house just as the sun began to rise. I went to the 7-11 close to my house and was the only customer in the store at that hour. I went to the ATM, inserted my card, input my pin, waited a few seconds… and watched my card get spit back out. There, on the screen, flashed a message that politely told me the ATM was open from 7:00am-7:00pm. It took me a moment to sink in.. but since when did ATM’s have hours!? This is Japan! I was definitely not happy.

So now, here I was in my third situation: I only had ¼ tank of gas, no money, and two hours to wait until I could get money. I didn't have enough gas to get to Asahikawa so I had no choice but to wait until the ATM's "opened". I decided on driving as far as I could until I couldn’t (or didn’t feel safe to) drive any further and then I'd wait at a 7-11 until 7:00am. It also meant that I would definitely not be catching the 7:05am train from Asahikawa. If I got to Sapporo any later than I planned, I would get to the consulate after noon and miss my chance at getting the Visa, which meant I would have take another nenkyu day to go to Sapporo for a 2nd attempt... I decided that was not happening! I ended up catching the 9:00am train from Asahikawa after a brief 30 minute wait in a town called Kamikawa. I made it farther than I thought was possible on that ¼ tank of gas (given I was nervously driving 60km/hr the entire way) so I was less than an hour from Asahikawa by the time I stopped. When I got into Sapporo at 10:30am, I still had another hour and half to make it to the consulate so everything was still fine and dandy.

After I got off the train, I B-lined it for the railcar (the old-school style trains that run down the middle of the road) which would take me close to the consulate. In my haste, I got on at the first railcar station I came across and didn't realize until ten minutes later that I was actually going around the wrong way around track! Instead of taking 6 stops it was going to take me 20! There I was, sitting impatiently, cursing each stop light we came to and watching the time tick by on my watch. I was debating getting off the train to run but realized that even with all the stop lights, I was still going faster than could have running, so I stayed on and suffered in silence at my stupidity. By the time I got to my stop it was 11:30am and I still had 8 blocks to go. I double-timed it and finally made it to the consulate, tired from my run and pumped full of adrenaline, at quarter to noon when the guard let me in. Phew! It was relieving! The Visa application went off without a hitch and I was out of there five minutes later.

After that I chilled out, took my time eating lunch, then did some errands and went shopping. I was only there for a couple of hours before I caught the train back to Asahikawa for my long drive back home. I made it home at 8:00pm and didn't feel like staying up so I went to bed and crashed. It was a busy and (kind of) exciting day. Hopefully, if this was any indication of things to come, China should be a blast!

This time of the year is special in Japan. The snow is melting, the weather is getting warmer, the sakura flowers are blooming and everyone is returning from their Spring holidays. It's a time of new beginnings.. and one of sheer madness!

In Japan, everything starts and ends on April 1st. The fiscal year is finished, students return for a new school year, university graduates are just entering the workforce, and teachers across the country play a colossal game of musical chairs! During this time, teachers wait in anticipation to hear where they will be working for the next year school year. There's no guarantee they'll be at the same school or even same town, and there's a good chance they won't even be teaching the same grade. A Gr.6 teacher may suddenly find themselves teaching a Gr.1 class, for example. The reasoning behind the constant mix and match of teachers among different grades, students, and co-workers is to allow them to gain a wide range of experience in different positions. Of course, this also prevents a teacher from getting good at teaching a certain grade so I don't completely understand the rationale. All public servants who work for cities and municipalities also go through the same blender. A Board of Education employee of several years may be suddenly moved to the Tax Department even though they have no training. Job-security might not be a problem, but it seems job-location-security is!

The crazy thing about all this is that it takes place within a two week period. The names of all new teachers at the schools are published, on an official date, in the newspaper near the end of the semester. The knowledge of where each teacher is moving to is kept very hush hush until then. Once the teachers find out their new locations they have to pack and move houses, get acquainted with their new city, and prepare the curriculum for the upcoming year.. all within two weeks! I'm currently working with a new JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) who is fresh out of University and has never taught a class before. She just moved into my town from Sapporo five days before she took over the role of main English teacher at my school. I taught with her this week and it was obvious she was pretty nervous through the whole ordeal. I knew exactly how she felt though because I was in the same position when I first arrived; being thrown headfirst into a classroom full of kids and having no clue what to do. The school themselves also do a sort of spring-cleaning in the teachers office. All the desks are removed, cleaned, and rearranged according to grade. It was fun coming to the schools this week to find my desks halfway across the room (or in the case of one school, actually having a desk now). With the new influx of teachers, I'm looking forward to the upcoming school year since all the new teachers and kids makes everything feel renewed and fresh.

Maybe the Japanese actually know what they're doing in this; by switching everything up, everyone is forced to start a new routine and are constantly challenge themselves to become better at their jobs. Instead of dredging away at the same job and place for years and years on end, their job always changes each year making it more enjoyable. I know I'd definitely prefer it that way.. except maybe with more than two weeks notice!