It was just a quick trip to China. China, huge as it is with a history going back thousands of years? Yep. A cousin of Megan's was going and we joined in. It was easy, being a guided tour, but a set of 12-hour days and regular 15,000 steps and one 999 step cultural outing thrown in. Four cities, some very significant historical or natural sights and some great guides to inform us. Saves on reading too much. Upmarket hotels, too: considerably more than my normal selections. We didn't have too much time to ourselves during the formal tour, but we arrived a day early and explored some of Beijing with cousin Tom, finding a backstreet bar set up by a Cordin Bleu-trained chef. Classy and an opportunity to chat with English-speaking Chinese women who inhabited this place. The people were lovely, although most didn't speak much English and my Chinese struggled to express "thank you" by the end of the trip. One other thing of wonder was the quiet streets, virtually all scooters, bikes, cars were electric so the street sounds were just occasional toots. China is a fascinating mux of the past and the future. Not many police but lots of cameras, many for the roads. Australians can just register and enter for 4 weeks. Perhaps the biggest issue was getting around the local apps, WeChat, Alipay, Amap. Western net services, Gmail, Facebook, WhatsApp, were sometimes unavailable but mostly accessible using our eSims.
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