During the Mid-Autumn Festival, we set out on a trip along with millions of other Chinese people. The school break provided the perfect opportunity, and the youngest member of our family was participating in an international friendly soccer tournament for schools in Shanghai. Since we had never been to Shanghai before, we went along with him and spent half a day there.

During the Moon Festival, we continued our journey from Shanghai to Hong Kong. We had four days to explore this “Special Administrative Region.” The city-state itself is just as colorful and diverse as its history: British rule, Japanese occupation, British “rule” once again, and then, starting in 1997, it was annexed to China.

Our accommodations in Hong Kong were in Kowloon, in a convenient location that allowed us to easily reach several attractions by public transportation. I highly recommend the following places to anyone visiting Hong Kong, they won’t let you down.

There are days when you just have to let things go. The day we set out for the Peak was one of those days. According to every guidebook, the Peak is one of the must-see attractions on Hong Kong, that you simply must NOT miss.

We spent our last day in Hong Kong on Lantau. Lantau is one of Hong Kong’s largest islands and, in addition to its natural beauty, is famous for the Big Buddha statue and, of course, Disneyland.

We were in Shanghai again this weekend, but this trip had little cultural substance. Due to bad weather and other scheduled commitments, we spent our time shopping. Or, more precisely, window-shopping. We visited two places, and we may have managed to pick out the two extremes the city has to offer.

Confident that the weather forecast was accurate and that Sunday would indeed be warm and sunny, we began planning our weekend itinerary. We set our sights on the mountains. Several options came up, but the number of kids joining us had grown to four, which affected our choices. In the end, we decided on Daming Mountain.

In addition to Yellow Mountain, another highlight of our weekend was a visit to the Nine Dragon Waterfall. This waterfall is unique in China. Its uniqueness stems from its length - 600 meters, its elevation drop - 360 meters, and the surrounding geological formations.

Thanks to a school day off, we had the opportunity to travel farther, exactly four hours from our new home to Anhui Province. This is where Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) is located, a frequent theme in Chinese painting and poetry. The beauty of the landscape has been recognized internationally, and it has been a World Heritage Site since 1990.

I love the mountains. There are plenty of mountains in China. Shaoxing is a famous historic city, about a 1.5-hour drive from Hangzhou. It is the birthplace of many famous scholars and poets, and from spring through fall, it was also the seat of the Kingdom of Yue. About 20 km from the city rises a mountain known as the “19 Peaks.” It truly owes its name to its 19 majestic peaks.

In Shaoxing, we discovered East Lake. Hangzhou is home to West Lake, and Dong hu (east Lake) here is its worthy counterpart. It is smaller in size, with a more harsh atmosphere and less majestic, but its immediate surroundings are breathtaking.

We traveled to Beijing over a long weekend in June. These few days promised to be interesting in several aspects: it was our first time riding the high-speed train, we were meeting one of our children’s classmates, and the Forbidden City and the Great Wall were also on our bucket list.

You’ve probably already figured out that we love the mountains. You’ve read about Yellow Mountain, Daming Mountain, and the 19 Peaks, and in this post, I’ll introduce you to Yandang Mountain. This one is also on the list of China’s top 10. We haven’t really come across any major attraction yet that isn’t among the top 10 best and most beautiful.

Xi'an wasn't our original destination. There was a mix-up with our visas, so we had to cancel our original plans  So, after a quick search, we decided on Xi'an. This slightly adventurous episode was made even more memorable by the fact that it was my first solo trip in China with the kids.

I will never forget this day! I climbed the most beautiful mountain of my life so far, suspended between heaven and earth, high above the clouds. I experienced (once again) just how fragile and small we are compared to the power and majesty of nature, and yet how we can push ourselves to achieve extraordinary performances in order to realize our dreams and goals. Here’s a recap of our one-day hike on Hua shan.

We realized a little too late as so often happens, that we needed to plan our trip in time for the first week of October, the Golden Week. Quite by chance, I found an ad from a travel agency in Shanghai that, while it didn’t reveal the destination, featured a 3-day itinerary that looked promising.

Thanks to an unexpected opportunity, I was able to travel to Suzhou, but I only had five hours there. Five hours can seem like a lot, or it can seem like very little. I decided to try to make the most of this short visit.​

Pandas, opera, and delicious food; each on its own and all together are compelling reasons to add Chengdu to our list of places to visit during our life in China. The city and its surroundings are home to several UNESCO World Heritage sites, and the panda breeding center is a particular favorite of the Chinese people. To attract tourists, Chengdu has also been included among the 144-hour visa-free zones.​

During our trip to Chengdu, we spent a half-day on two trips outside the city, and these were definitely the most memorable moments. After visiting the pandas, which took us about two hours, and didn’t exactly wow the group, we continued on to Dujiangyan, one of Sichuan’s UNESCO World Heritage sites.​

Continuing my story about Chengdu, our next trip took us to the city of Leshan. The weather wasn’t very kind to us. It was a gray, cloudy, and gloomy two-hour journey. The city is located about 120 km from Chengdu, at the junction of the Min, Qingyi, and Dadu Rivers. It was formerly known as Jiazhou, and the area around the city was considered “Sichuan’s most beautiful landscape.”​

Sometimes you really look forward to or desire something, but then it doesn’t give you that “wow” feeling; and the opposite is also true. Our trip to Luoyang (Lojang) in Henan (Honan) Province began with the former feeling. We followed our standard approach when choosing a destination: it should be something we hadn’t seen before in China.

China has everything or almost everything. So it’s no surprise that there’s a Chinese Grand Canyon. In fact, there are several. One of them is in Zhejiang Province, and it’s not even that far from us. After a week-long period of rain, we jumped at the opportunity and set out to explore the West Zhejiang Grand Canyon.

As an Instagram user, I’ve seen photos of a stunningly colorful, striped mountain. It puzzled me that, in addition to Peru, the location tag rarely also showed China. After doing some research online, it became clear that there are two Rainbow Mountains: one in Peru and one in Gansu Province. There was no question that during our time in China, this place would make it onto our “must-see” list.

When you’re living in a big city with a population the size of Hungary’s, and you live in a country with over 1 billion people, it’s relatively difficult to find a place you can get to quickly that won’t be too crowded. Wuzhen seemed to meet one of the criteria. The weather - rain and clouds - gave me hope that perhaps few people would be traveling. Of course, that’s not how it turned out.​

During our time in China, we didn't visitTibet, instead we traveled to Yunnan. Countless natural attractions, UNESCO World Heritage sites, diverse landscapes, a rich ethnic mix, and its proximity to Tibet were all reasons to take the trip. Tailoring our itinerary to the free days we had available, we managed to put together a relatively packed and fulfilling itinerary: it included sightseeing, visiting temples, mountain climbing, and a gorge hike.​

On the second day of our trip to Yunnan, we woke up to bright sunshine. The temperature still wasn’t very high, but at least the rain had stopped. We took the nice weather as a good sign: our itinerary for the day included Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, also known as Yulong Mountain, and its surroundings.

I'm not sure if the Hungarian name is the most beautiful translation, but it clearly refers to the origin of the gorge's name. According to legend, a tiger jumped onto a rock in the middle of the Jinsha River, and then leaped onto the opposite bank, thus escaping the hunter’s trap. Several statues at the site commemorate this event.

Our final stop in Yunnan was the city of Shangri-La. The capital of the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is located at an altitude of 3,450 meters. It is home to 20 ethnic groups and, according to the Tibetans, lies in the “heart of the sun and moon.” Its original name was Zhongdian, but some sources say that Chinese authorities changed its name to Shangri-La after James Hilton’s novel "Lost Horizon".

There was a school break in May, so we had another chance to go on a trip. If you live in China, you can’t miss the iconic locations from the movie *Avatar*—Tianzi Mountain and Hallelujah Mountain. But while you’re there, you also have to see the famous Glass Bridge and the Tianmen Mountain. We slowly put together our itinerary and flew to the city of Zhangjiajie. Most people stay near Avatar Mountain and visit that first, then head over to Tianmen Mountain. We did this trip in reverse.

On the second day of our trip to Zhangjiajie, our destinations were Tianmen Mountain and the famous Heaven’s Gate. 天门山 - Tiānmén Shān is part of Tianmen National Park. It stands at an elevation of 1,519 meters, and there are three trails through the park.

The day after visiting Tianmen, we set out for the floating rocks of Hallelujah Mountain, made famous by the movie "Avatar". The national park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Visitors come primarily to see the more than 3,000 quartz sandstone peaks that inspired the setting of Pandora in the film. The park has five entrances; the southern and eastern ones are the most popular and are the closest to the city of Zhangjiajie.

The final stop on the last day of our trip to Zhangjiajie was Baofeng Lake. Before that, we visited the Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge and the canyon; Zhangjiajie’s Tianmen Mountain and the Gate of Heaven; and Zhangjiajie’s Hallelujah Mountain.