The History and Nature of China

Good to Know

• Your international flights are not included in this tour, only domestic connecting flights.
• Since this is your first stop in China, your Beijing guide will tell you as much as possible about transportation, currency exchange, customs, and how to avoid tourist traps.

Evening Ideas

Your guide will provide you with a map of Beijing, and give you advice about where to eat and shop near your hotel.

Good to Know

• Enjoy lunch at Courtyard 7 Restaurant, rated #5 of 1,750 restaurants in Beijing on TripAdvisor.
• When you take your rickshaw ride, the hutong alley will be quite busy with people walking to and fro, but don’t worry, you’ll be in safe hands.

Evening Ideas

Have dinner at Quanjude Restaurant, famous for its roast duck.
Watch the famous acrobatics show at Chaoyang Theater. You may have watched some acrobatics on TV, but seeing it live might just take your breath away. Feel free to ask for your guide’s help in booking tickets.

Good to Know

• There are alternatives to using toboggan for coming back down the Great Wall (Extra fee are needed), and if you’d like to avail yourself of these, just tell your guide.
• There’s a lot of climbing steps and walking today, so comfortable shoes are required.

Beijing Free-Day Ideas:

Summer Palace (3 hours): an emperor built this complex as a birthday gift to his mother. It’s a fantastic place for spending a quiet and peaceful time.
798 Art District (1-2 hours): for modern-art lovers, this is an amazing district of galleries, creativity shops, ceramics, art, and fashion.
National Museum of China (1-2 hours): no entrance fee, great historical collections of ceramics, bronze and paintings, and most exhibits have English explanations as well as Chinese.
Temple of Confucius and the Guozijian Museum (40 minutes): the temple presents the history of Confucian thought, and how it influences Chinese society today. The museum explains how emperors chose their ministers, by having them take the Chinese imperial civil service examinations.

Good to Know

• To customers who prefer not to ride a bike, we recommend walking round the wall or taking a scooter club drive round (for an extra fee).

Free-Time Ideas

Learn to make terracotta figurines (1 hour): learn how to make a terracotta figurine in person in a pottery factory. You can take it back home as a souvenir.
Tang dynasty show (1 hour): a performance from China’s golden age of the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD), with traditional dress for ladies and gentlemen, performing traditional song and dance.

Xi'an Free-day Ideas

Big Wild Goose Pagoda (Dayanta,1hour): built during the Tang dynasty, a pivotal site in China's Buddhist culture.
Shaanxi History Museum (1 1/2 hours): located next to the Small Wild Goose Pagoda. The museum houses many collections from the Bronze Age, along with original statues from the Terracotta Army and some pottery.
Bell Tower (30 minutes): situated in the city center, wait to see a performance of Chinese traditional instruments there at 9:10;10:30;11:30 in the morning, 14:30;15:30;16:30 in the afternoon every day.

Good to Know

• Inside Reed Flute Cave has up and down stone steps; the floor is wet cause the dropping water from the top of cave, should mind your steps once you walk around there.

Evening Free-Time Idea:

Two River and Four Lakes (1 hour): an ancient circular water system that people refer to as little Venice. A boat tour lasts an hour and permits breathtaking colorful views of life on bridges and river banks, as well as a chance to see fishermen demonstrating how to catch fish using their pet cormorants.

Good to Know

• We will arrange for you to take a new three-story cruiser with a deck. New seats are wider and better than the old ones.
• Bamboo rafts are another popular way to see the river. If you like, we can arrange a bamboo raft experience for you on Yulong River.
• Don’t worry about your luggage. We will transfer it from Guilin to your Yangshuo hotel.

Evening Ideas

Night Show – Impression Sanjie Liu (1 hour 10 minutes): Directed by the famous Chinese director, Zhang Yimou, who was in charge of the opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympic games and a lot of world class movies, the show has a great set up and backdrop — 3 massive peaks which light up when the show is on. It tells the love story of a queen among local folk singers, and reflects local farming life.

Yangshuo Free-Day Ideas:

• Longji Terraced Fields (7 hours): the Zhuang and Yao ethnic groups live here. You will see their traditional wooden houses and the undulating rice terraces from which their livelihood comes.
• Yangshuo Chinese Calligraphy and Painting class (1 hour): a fun activity for families with kids. Learn the basic skills of how to use a brush pen and how to prepare ink and paper, observe Mr. Yang’s demonstration, and create your own ’masterpiece’.
• Taichi class (1 hour): a traditional Chinese muscle art. Teaching is provided for different levels, and class times are flexible, according to students' requirements.
• Yangshuo Chinese cookery class (3 hours): visit a local market, where ingredients are chosen by students. You can learn to cook three dishes and enjoy the fruits of your labor in a covered, rooftop patio-classroom. If you prefer, you can choose other favorite dishes for lunch/dinner.

Shanghai Evening Ideas

Go to Nanjing Road, the most famous commercial center in Shanghai, near the Bund, to buy some souvenirs for your family and friends. You can buy almost anything you can think of there.

Evening Ideas

The ERA Acrobatics Show is guaranteed to give you a wow night. Our Shanghai tour guide will help you book tickets.

Extend Your Tour

• Tongli Water Town (1 day): with numerous bridges and canals, and tagged as the little Venice of the East, Tongli is less crowded than other water towns. You can still see local people washing vegetables in the river and welcoming visitors into their homes. Tongli is such an authentic town, quaint and serene.
• Zhujiajiao Water Town (4 hours): this water town is not far from the center of Shanghai, an oasis surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the city.
• Huangshan (2 days): as one of the four famous mountains in China, this should be experienced once in a lifetime, seeing the stunning views from a height of 1,810 meters, with pine trees all around, but sometimes disappearing in a sea of clouds. If you stay overnight in the hotel on top of the mountain, waking up early to see the sun on the horizon would be a cool experience.
• A side-car drive in shanghai: ranked highly with a full score of 5/5 on TripAdvisor, awesome experience comes with a drive in the vintage side-car, care to go crazy? Request one with your travel advisor for a better rate! (Please make sure you book at least one day in advance.)