As I resurface into the clean air and blue skies of the place I call home, after 2 weeks traveling in China I know I live in paradise and a choice I am glad we made 3 years ago

After a trip to the Dr on our return and a Forte dose of antibiotics, I took the R & R option so I will be able to get on the plane to Las Vegas and be at Blog World next week.

Besides some photos I will also share here my experience as an out of practice traveler- I used to be very good, but several years of no overseas travel have blunted my skills. This trip has them honed.

Also as a blogger I have a list that may help others both in preparing to travel and being on the road.

Rosalind Gardiner author of Super Affiliate Handbook has a very useful Pre Departure Checklist that she uses.

I would recommend this, and found it more practical than some of the others out there. It also reminds you what you need to check before you lock the door. You can download it here at Roamsters

On the blogging front unless you know for sure you will be able to connect to the Internet, or find an Internet cafe I would recommend being prepared so your blog doesn’t suffer from almost no posting as mine has done.

• Have back up posts, the ones Wendy talks about in her 10 days to a better blog, not just written, but finished, ready to be posted, with set times and dates. It is difficlt when travelling to keep up regular posting.
• Have you own laptop, when you have limited access, sharing a computer is a challenge. I thought i could get by with a 2 gb memory stick, but you still need to get access to a computer and the internet.
• If you are going to Beijing or Shanghai don’t rely on there being Internet cafes, what ever you read in the guide books. Here is a a sobering post for anyone who anticipates using an Internet cafe in Beijing .
• Be prepared for the visuals- have your Flickr account set up and understand how it works.
• Get your Gmail account working for you- you can have all your email easily redirected into Gmail. This also saves on the possibility of your email account becoming overloaded and your friends and clients being told your mailbox is full
• Take some broad spectrum antibiotics in case you pick up a nasty bug.

And now for a few of the highlights:

Des has written up a wonderful food experience we had after climbing the Great Wall at The Roadhouse.

I must say the food experiences of our visit were fantastic. The taste sensations, the variety from various regions opened my eyes to a new culinary experiences. I am not normally a fan of the Chinese food we are usually presented with in Australia, so I am looking forward to adding some spicy and not so spicy dishes to my cooking. I particularly loved the spinach, bean and aubergine dishes and and beautiful fresh shrimp in green tea.

The hutongs of Beijing and the lontongs of Shanghai,I found were fascinating and gave us a look at the China of old. Narrow laneways with houses, bars, shops and restaurants, a community feeling. We ate in a restaurant in the Hutong area of Dongcheng, Cafe Sambal and later went to a bar in the same hutong.

On the Sunday we went to The Drum Tower and then walked around the HouHai Lake district lunching at an Yunnan restaurant, South Silk Road owned by an artist Fang Lijun, whose first Yunnan (South China) restaurant was a huge hit at Soho, the previously trendy East Beijing district. The menu features spicy southwestern Chinese cuisine and the Yunnan specialty of Hotpots. The decor is stunning: Water flows under glass stairs. This is the new trendy area of Beijing.