Hi again,
Well, as you could tell from my blog, I had an absolutely wonderful time in China. I really wish I could have stayed another year, or so!
I guess you also noticed that the two places you were looking for reports on, Songshan and Emeishan, I didn't get to...go figure.
I found that I really enjoyed not constantly moving, but staying in one place long enough to get to "know the area" and the people a little bit. That's why I stayed in Beijing a little longer than planned, and why I stayed in Chengdu two extra nights, instead of taking off for Emeishan, as planned.
Well, there were a couple of other reasons, too:
All they had was a hard seat to Taishan, and I didn't want that to be my first train experience (I waited two days to get a soft sleeper). Then, as you mentioned, I believe, it was really hard to get a train out of Taishan and, as my "schedule" had me in Xi'an the day after I came down from Taishan (and I had my only hostel reservations at Jiuzhaigou, which came right after Xi'an), I went ahead and flew from Taishan to Xi'an.
With Chengdu, it wasn't only getting to know the locals, it was my love of hot and numbing (ma la) food, that Sichuan is famous for.
Thanks for your comments on my blog. I plan to travel there again, to visit the south part of China, in either 2 or 4 years. The alternate year, I plan to go to Europe, to travel around on a motorcycle.
Have a good one,
Scott (
http://www.thoughtbyscott.com)
If you can't explain it to a five year old, you don't understand it well enough yourself...