Fuddland

For the record, here are the places I visited during my recent trip to the west of China:

• Yunnan
  • The city of Kunming
  • The county of Yuanyang
    • The town of Xinjiezhen
    • The village of Duoyishu
    • The village of Qingkou
  • Shilin—the Stone Forest National Park
  • Xi Shan—the Western Hills
• Guangxi
  • The city of Guilin
  • The Li River
  • The town of Yangshuo
• Hainan
  • Hainan Island
    • The city of Haikou
    • The Dadonghai area of the city of Sanya

I also dipped my toe into the province of Guangdong in order to catch a bus to the ferry port on my way to Hainan Island. And, okay, yes, I misled you in the title of this entry because one of the above isn’t really a province—Guangxi is technically one of the five so-called autonomous regions of China, like Tibet and Inner Mongolia, which means it has more legislative rights than a province, I think mostly due to having a higher population of a particular minority ethnic group.

I’ll be sharing photos and stories with you all over the next few weeks, but right now I’m hitting the books in swot-like preparation for the beginning of my Mandarin Chinese course which starts at 8.30 tomorrow morning at the local university. I’m actually looking forward to being back in the classroom after an extended break from learning!