Seven weeks travelling in China (+Hong Kong) with kids | Parenthood4ever

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We spent seven weeks travelling through China. When we first started it felt like it was going to take forever.  But actually, it passed really quickly.  We travelled in summer time, which was a bad idea as it was too hot and too busy!  But we still enjoyed it as much as we could and loved our #travelinChina!
Here’s my story about family friendly trips in China with all destinations listed. #travellingwithkids

Beijing

The first stop on the way was China’s capital city Beijing.
We arrived at midnight exhausted after being on two five-hour planes (one being a A380) and passing through lots of time zones. We got a taxi to are hotel and went to sleep.
The next day we got up and went to find our next hostel and rested there for the rest of the day.Next of on the list was the Forbidden City! But the thing we didn’t know was how humid it could get, it was 38 degrees, but felt much higher!
We then made our way back and started to search for somewhere to eat. Eventually, we decided on this noodle place that only did beef, and it was awesome. The next day was another big one because we were going to the great wall of China.
We got in a car at 6am and had an hour and a half drive, then we arrived at the Great Wall of China, Mutianyu entrance. They say, it is one of the best choices when travelling to see the Great Wall of China. It was very quiet, which was unusual for China. We travelled on the shuttle bus to the main entrance and climbed one of the walks to Tower 6. The walk was tough, but not impossible.

The views off the wall were astonishing.

We were right over the city on one side and the other was the beautiful Chinese countryside. We started to make our way to Tower 1, but all the way it was ups and downs. We even saw a few bright yellow and black centipedes.

We walked up ladders, through battlements, passages and lots more.

Once we had made our way to Tower 1, we had a pit-stop to admire the view. It was unbelievable! After our stop we started to make our way back towards Tower 10 where we met another path and strolled down. When we got down, the queues were really long. I felt ecstatic that I’d just climbed one of the seven wonders of the world. Everyone’s legs were wobbling, except mine! Shows who’s the strongest!

Olympic Park

One afternoon we went out to see the Science museum and to see the Olympic Park. The science museum wasn’t really that good and the queues were giant. We didn’t stop for long and eventually we got shooed out by the security guards because it was closing. All the escalators which switched to down and the guards were all shouting and blowing whistles – it was quite funny!
After the Science museum we started to walk towards the olympic park. We were getting hungry, so we went into the shopping centre and had our first dumplings. Dad’s kinda addicted to them now. After we’d eaten we walked over to the bird’s nest and Water cube.

Jasper and I started running and jumping around and generally going crazy while we waited for the lights. At 8pm all of a sudden, all the lights just flickered on. The best lights were the Birds Nest, Water Cube and the Olympic torch towers. While we were waiting, we were mobbed by tourists wanting to get a picture with us. I felt like a celebrity and I liked it for a while, but soon it got old!

Tiananmen Square

The day after, we decided to go to Tiananmen Square – the largest square in the world. As I said, before we had no clue how hot it could get, so we walked into the square and it was frying us alive. After we got over the heat we watched the soldiers swap positions and then went back to are hostel.

Xian

Before Xian we went to Pingyao which is where the Kung Fu Panda movies were based on. We got there on our first train. In Pingyao we climbed the city walls. Then after about three to four days in Pingyao, we got on a train and set off towards Xian.

Finding the Hostel

Before we could do anything, we had to find our hostel. After the train journey we got on the metro. Once we finished with the metro, we walked down a lot of small alleyways. Along the way you could see boxes full of crickets which made a racket. Also, we saw butcher cutting up the different meats. All in all, it was great! I felt so alive. Eventually, we got to are hostel and settled down for the night.

Terracotta Army

I woke up feeling very excited. We were going to the Terracotta Army today and I’ve heard it’s one of the best discoveries in recent years. We got a local bus to the bus station and transferred onto a tourist bus to go to the Terracotta Army. We bought some tickets and set off towards the warriors.
We decided to go to Pit 1 first, as it’s the biggest pit of all. As we walked in it was so, so busy. It was impossible to get the front, but I managed to squeeze my way through. And then I saw it!

There was rows and rows of soldiers, cavalry, horses – all facing different directions to protect their king. It was tremendous!
We learnt that majority of the soldiers were facing forwards, while guards on either side were protecting the flanks. We made our way down the walkways and saw a chariot and a tomb. The Terracotta Warriors were constructed by Qin Shi Huang. It was said, that each warrior was once a real soldier from the original army. We also saw broken soldiers being pieced together with sticky tape. They looked like zombie warriors!
We then went to Pit 2 where we saw most of the archers and chariots. This was where we also saw the method of how they preserved all the soldiers. As it turns out, they put wooden planks above the soldiers’ heads and covered them with mud and clay.

In Pit 3, there were nowhere near as Pit 1 and was still being excavated as the Terracotta warriors were only discovered in 1976.

Eating out

That evening we went down to Muslim street and saw lots of different foods along the way, such as Cuttlefish on sticks, crisps on sticks and Chinese hamburgers.
When we ventured down, we saw one particular place which had a giant queue for the Chinese hamburgers. So, we thought that if everyone else liked it, we would like it too! Mum waited in line while we walked down the street seeing butchers cutting meat up, people doing silly dances and, generally, a lot of people.
We watched how he made the hamburgers and it was lightning fast. It took about four seconds for him to cut up the meat, slice open the bun and stuff it with braised beef. We all tried some, but I didn’t really like it. Though dad seemed to enjoy it a lot.
We started to look for somewhere to have dinner, so we wandered down the street and found a restaurant. We ordered quite a few things we liked. We ordered some sweet and sour crispy pork. It was delicious!

Muslim Quarter

The next day we decided to go to the Bell and Drum towers, so we got up and went out to explore. We almost got lost the second we got out of the door. There was so many different herbs and spices, such as cumin and coriander. It was so enticing!

Haggling in Xian

Unfortunately, I lost my sunglasses in Beijing, so we had our hopes up to find some in Xian. We stumbled across a side street which was selling lots of different things (including sunglasses!). Dad started haggling until, eventually, he came across someone who was willing to accept the price that dad had put down. It was very entertaining to watch!

Meeting another travelling family

Mum arranged to meet with another travelling family, so we went down to the Drum Tower to meet them. Braxton and Lincoln were kids and Logan and Paula – parents. We took them down Muslim Street and back to the same restaurant, as it was so nice. We sat with the boys and had a delicious dinner. It was such a lovely evening. They were so nice.

Chengdu

After Xian we visited the Giant Pandas at Chengdu.

Zhangzhajie

Then we caught our first sleeper train to Zhangjiajie to see the avatar mountains and explore the national park.

We went to Shanghai for a couple of days before visiting the small Watertown of Zhouzhuang, then onto Hangzhou and Huangshan, where we just chilled out a little. Finally, we reached Guilin.

Guilin

Longji Rice Terraces

While we were in Guilin, we decided to go to Longji Rice Terraces. We got a 3-hour bus to the area and then had to walk for about an hour just to find out hostel. We were given instructions, but they were so complicated! We even found a few other people who were also going to our hostel and were lost!

The views from our hostel were just beyond words. Everyone told to just stay for one day, but we wished we’d stayed for longer for the amazing views and the peacefulness. The first evening I walked with dad up to the Golden Buddha. Jasper and mum were too tired, so went back. We took some phenomenal sunset pictures across to the rice terraces.

The next day we got up and explored the other two viewing points which were a Thousand layers and Music from Paradise. All of which were unbelievable!
We made some friends at the hostel and played table football and Chinese poker. It was great fun. The next day we went back to Guilin.

Yangshuo

After we stopped for another night in Guilin, we travelled to Yangshuo. We spent a week here. There we hired bicycles, a scooter and visited the mud caves. Also, mum and I went to “Cloud 9 cooking school”.

As part of the cooking school, we went to the local farmers market, which had everything jumbo sized. From frogs to dried squid and even giant cucumbers. There were two different markets: one for vegetables and one for meat – where we saw dogs and cats – yuk!

We planned to travel in Yunnan but, unfortunately, did not have enough time. Instead we headed to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong

After Yangshuo we had to cross the border by train into Hong Kong. We stayed at a hostel on Hong Kong Island. Hong Kong was crazy, but in a good way. Everything was so compact and there was no space at all. The only way they could keep building was to keep going up and up, and up!

In Hong Kong we watched a light show which was o.k. The real cool thing though was the actual city! We got the star ferry back to Hong Kong Island.

We visited one of the beaches on Hong Kong Island, called Deep water bay. It was great fun as we haven’t been in the sea since Croatia! I saw with dad out to the three rafts in the bay, it was awesome – I miss swimming!
We got up early one morning and got a tram to the top of Victoria Peak. We went for a walk around the top. We saw some amazing views over Hong Kong.

There were lots and lots, and lots of shops in Hong Kong. It was hard to find pretty much anything because everything was right above you. But on the plus side there was a McDonalds and Starbucks on every corner!
Thank you for reading my blog about travelling in China! Ethan
P.S. Most of these are all my own photos – hope you like them!

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