Greg in China

I’ve been unable to access this blog for the last 2 days and at first I feared the worst (see photo). It turns out to a bit of trouble with IP addresses and DNS files (don’t ask me). Its all [...]

I witnessed a bit of an altercation this morning involving a slightly senile old man, his wife, his son, and the owners of a small jiaozi & baozi canteen. And of course the obligatory onlookers. I asked for some baozi but there weren’t any left so I settled for jiaozi. The old man was slurping [...]

I didn’t make it to Fenghuangcheng (凤凰城) – Peacock Town in the end. I’m in Kunming instead nursing my first Baijiu hangover for a few years.

As its the Chinese National Day on the 1st October everyone in China is travelling and its really difficult to get tickets anywhere. I decided that if I went to [...]

I arrived in Beijing yesterday morning at 6am by train from Qingdao. Didn’t get much sleep on the train as I felt quite dodgy – I must have eaten something in Qingdao which didn’t agree with me as I’ve spent the last 24 hours in considerable discomfort. Arriving at Beijing station desperately needing a number [...]

Just a quick post to say that I’ve arrived safely. I’ve been in Qingdao since Monday evening catching up with old friends. My Chinese has been coming back really quickly, I’ve surprised myself at how much I know. Mr and Mrs Xue have been very welcoming and I’ve also been to have dinner with [...]

So, I’ve got 2 days to go hopefully – I say hopefully because I don’t have a visa for China yet. When I arrived at the embassy to collect my visa on Friday morning they told me there was a problem with my application and to take a seat and someone would speak to me. [...]