We are off to China!

We are leaving for our 4-week trip in China in 7 hours and I've not yet packed!! Originally we had six weeks and were planning on doing a lot of DIY travelling but now that we are down to four weeks we have opted for the easy way out and will be taking part in guided tours for half of our trip. We'd heard about these ridiculously cheap tour packages sponsored by the Chinese government and designed to get overseas Chinese people to come back to their homeland and decided to give them a try. We are starting with the one in Shanghai and the surrounding areas: 6 nights' accommodation at 5-star hotels, three meals a day, transportation to and from attractions, all for $49/person. Can hardly pass that up.

The other two tours we've booked are Zhangjiajie (Avatar Valley) and Guilin (cool mountain and river scenes and rice fields). We haven't decided what we'll do with the few days in between these tours yet but afterwards we're gonna head to Luoyang (ancient town) to visit some friends, check out Xi'an (terracotta warriors and Shaolin Temple), then stop in Beijing to wrap things up with the Forbidden City and the Great Wall of China. Should be pretty cool.

I had intended to post photos quite regularly while traveling but I've since learned that the Chinese government blocks a lot of websites, including Google, Skype, Facebook, Blogspot, etc. Mike found some apps that should be able to bypass this but not sure if they will work 100%. You'll just have to watch this space I guess! :)