20 July 2018, Friday This morning, we went for breakfast at our inn at 7:45am. Breakfast was included in our booking but sadly, it wasn’t very appetising. It comprised of corn porridge, soup rice noodles, hard-boiled eggs, steamed mantou and unsweetened soya bean milk. Just give me a cup of hot coffee, bread with peanut […]
Category: The Grand Adventure 2018
Asia | China | The Grand Adventure 2018
The Grand Adventure: Day 80 – China (Zhangjiajie / Fenghuang)
19 July 2018, Thursday After spending three full days at Zhangjiajie, it was time to say goodbye to Toro, the adorable Labrador Retriever at our cosy Wally House guest house at Wulingyuan. And of course, his owner as well. At 9am, we loaded our suitcases onto the van and made our way southwest to Fenghuang […]
18 July 2018, Wednesday It was our third and final day of our Zhangjiajie tour. In the past two days, we had covered the Wulingyuan Scenic Area, where we visited Yuanjiajie to see the famous Avatar Hallelujah Mountain, as well as Tianzi Mountain, Huanglong Cave, Baofeng Lake, Ten-Mile Natural Gallery and Golden Whip Stream. Today, […]
17 July 2018, Tuesday It was the second day of our Zhangjiajie tour and we would continue our exploration of the Wulingyuan Scenic Area. Yesterday, we went up the mountains and visited the majestic Yuanjiajie and Tianzi Mountain. Today, we would not be venturing up the mountains but would instead visit the attractions at ground […]
16 July 2018, Monday Rise and shine, exciting day ahead! We woke up bright and early at 7am and walked over to a small eatery near our guest house for breakfast. There was a “buffet” breakfast for only CNY 10 (S$2.09) but sadly, the variety of food available was very limited. We ended up only […]
Asia | China | The Grand Adventure 2018
The Grand Adventure: Day 76 – China (Shanghai / Zhangjiajie)
15 July 2018, Sunday This evening, we would be catching a short flight from Shanghai to Zhangjiajie, our next destination in China. I mentioned before that the concept for this Grand Adventure was to take one flight out of Singapore and make my way back home by land. So strictly speaking, I wasn’t supposed to […]
14 July 2018, Saturday For our final full day in Shanghai, we only had one objective today – shopping! We would be moving on to Zhangjiajie tomorrow and we knew that shopping opportunities there would be scant, so we made full use of our last day in Shanghai to shop to our hearts’ content. We […]
13 July 2018, Friday It was our second day in Shanghai and we started it by having a very sumptuous breakfast at the hotel. That is one of the good things about staying in a hotel – you don’t have to worry about finding food early in the morning or the night before, and you […]
12 July 2018, Thursday This morning, we checked out of our comfortable hutong house at 6:30am. Our Airbnb host picked us up in his spacious combo vehicle and sent us to Beijing South Railway Station. The morning traffic was heavy and it took us around 45 minutes to get there. On the whole, we enjoyed […]
11 July 2018, Wednesday For our final day in Beijing, we had only one place left to cover – the Forbidden City (故宫). It was raining when we left our Airbnb house at 10:15am. We had already delayed setting off but the weather forecast showed that it would rain the whole day so we had […]
10 July 2018, Tuesday This morning, we set off at about 9:30am. The first item on our itinerary was Yonghe Temple or Yonghegong (雍和宫), also known as Lama Temple. From our Airbnb house, we took the subway at Guloudajie station and alighted at Yonghegong Lama Temple station, just two stops away. When we arrived at […]
9 July 2018, Monday After an easy and relaxing day yesterday, we were all ready to explore Beijing at full throttle today. Our first agenda was to visit the Great Wall of China, one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. There’s a famous saying 不到长城非好汉, which means “He who has never been to […]
8 July 2018, Sunday This morning, I woke up to news that my family had landed safely in Beijing at 7:23am. The travel party consisted of six people – my parents, my Uncle J and Aunt C, and Uncle S and Aunt J. I had arranged for my host to pick the six of them […]
7 July 2018, Saturday I had a good sleep on the train and woke up around 9am this morning. I made myself a cup of hot coffee and admired the scenery outside the window. Now that I was firmly in China territory, there was a lot more greenery and farmland all around, a far cry […]
6 July 2018, Friday I woke up today feeling much better than I did yesterday. The medicine had worked after all. As arranged with my hostel, my driver showed up bright and early at Zaya Guest House and sent me to the Ulaanbaatar railway station, located about 2.5km away. I arrived at 6:50am, well ahead […]
5 July 2018, Thursday I woke up at about 9am this morning. I had been nursing a flu in the last two days but it seemed to be worse today. I felt rather weak and decided I should find a pharmacy to buy some medicine. This was my first time falling sick after more than […]
4 July 2018, Wednesday I woke up feeling a bit sick this morning. I’m not sure if it was due to the vodka last night, or it was from being exposed to the elements the past two days, but I was starting to nurse a runny nose and I felt a bit lethargic. Coupled with […]
3 July 2018, Tuesday This morning, I woke up at about 5:30am because Mrs Oyunaa was already up and preparing breakfast and starting on the day’s chores. I snuck out of the ger to see the early morning sun and snap some photos. There was still some mist hanging around and it was a very […]
2 July 2018, Monday More than 92 hours since boarding the train at Nizhny Novgorod in Russia, my Trans-Mongolian Railway train number 6 finally arrived at Ulaanbaatar railway station in Mongolia at 6:50am. After spending the past few days on the train with Ray and Tony, and later also with my new bunkmate Aveline and […]
Europe | Russia | The Grand Adventure 2018
The Grand Adventure: Day 60 to 62 – Trans-Mongolian Railway (Part 2)
29 to 30 June 2018, Friday & Saturday The next two days of the Trans-Mongolian Railway journey were pretty much the same as the first day. We made stops at major cities like Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Omsk, Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk. At every stop, I took the opportunity to sneak out of the train to take a […]