Update on my China activities

After almost a year off, it's time to reactivate this blog.

During that time, I've made two trips to China, finally got a new website on traveling in China up and running, and have written seven podcasts about Beijing for VisualTravelTours. The podcasts should be up and running soon, and available for purchase. You can then download them to your IPod wherever you are, and off you go.

I really enjoyed doing the podcasts, and learned a whole lot about Beijing in the process. I will look at the city through different eyes the next time we go back.

My husband and I went to Shanghai in March, as planned. We really don't like Shanghai that much -- it's much too frenzied and fast-paced. We spent about half the time away from Shanghai, on an overnight trip to Wuxi and Yixing, and day trips to Tongli and Jiading. We also spent Easter Sunday holed up in our friends' apartment where we ate a lot of food and had an Easter egg decorating contest. The person who had the best decorated egg won a chocolate bunny. What else!

We returned to China in October, this time to Beijing, spending 12 days there so I could do research for the podcasts. Even though it'd been only two years since I was last year, there were a lot of changes. The expanded subway system is great!

Since we've been back, I've started a new website, Cheryl's China. It's not as comprehensive as my old one, but I'm updating it a couple of times a week, so it's getting there. I'd eventually like to get it up to about 100 pages. The old one was only 10 pages, so this one will be a whole lot bigger and better. Check back regularly!

I'm also a contributing writer for Suite101.com, writing mainly about travel in China. I write a couple of stories a week for them. Click here for a list of articles I've written for them.