With everyone stuck at home during the COVID-19 outbreak, I see several silver linings to the global "shut-down". All challenges present opportunities. Even being trapped in your neighborhood can lead to an excellent outdoor adventure...maybe in a few months.
Suggested hiking route through a Civil War battlefield PLUS a possibly historically inaccurate history lesson
Highlights of the light show in Guangzhou, China along the Pearl River
Nara Park, only 45 minutes by train from Osaka, is home to hundreds of Sika Deer that roam the city freely.
After a few days in Osaka and Kyoto, we moved outside of the big city to Arashiyama; located on the outskirts of Kyoto. This is more of my kind of town since I’m not a big-city kind of guy. However, the big cities in Japan are remarkably clean, safe, and quiet compared to the rest of the world. In Japan, I didn’t feel as compelled to “escape the city” as I usually do in big cities.
It turns out we picked a few temples for the itinerary. I didn’t know what to see in Japan. So when we decided to travel to Japan, my wife did most of the planning. Looking at the map, there are too many temples to see them all, but I suppose we made it to the major temples. Additionally, we saw most of the major attractions and popular street markets in two major cities.
With one free day in Hong Kong, there is only so much you can do. There are several options for popular tourist attractions. Despite Hong Kong being a rather small area, there is still a lot of ground to cover. Since we were stuck in a city during our previous day in Macau, we opted for some “non-city” attractions while in Hong Kong. That sounds unlikely if you have ever seen a picture of the skyline. However Hong Kong has an amazing countryside outside of the urban areas.
There are few options when traveling between Macau and Hong Kong. The fastest and most economical method is the ferry (or water jet). It costs the equivalent of $25 USD. There is also an option to take a helicopter, but I assumed that the cost of that ride would cost slightly more than the ferry.
A few days after arriving in Guangzhou for the start of our trip, we were headed to Macau, a Special Administrative Regions (SAR) of China. Macau is known for it’s casinos and gambling industry. We weren’t there to gamble, just to check it out for the day (half of a day really) before taking a ferry to Hong Kong.
If you were to guess where the biggest waterfall in China is located, what would you say?
China is home to some of the biggest mountains and longest rivers in the world, it would have to be near one of them right? That’s what I would have thought.
Here is a very basic itinerary for 3 weeks in China and Japan: Guangzhou, Macau, Hong Kong, Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara. Included in this post is an essentials packing list. In addition, there are some suggestions for what to pack and how to keep it lightweight. Traveling light can make life easier and more enjoyable.
And it was dry!
I open with that statement because Dolly Sods is notorious for wet and soggy conditions. It is a minor accomplishment to be there when it is not raining. There wasn’t much rain in the weeks leading up to our weekend, so that allowed for many of the “slushy” trails to dry up significantly.
