Discover China through its
people and places.

We mentioned in one email that our son was obsessed with trains. Jack remembered. He moved our Xi’an–Beijing train to an earlier service and took us through the station before it got busy. Jamie still talks about that morning. We would never have thought to ask for it.

My mum walks slowly and hates being fussed over. Lina understood that immediately. We started a little later, stopped when we wanted, and Mum never felt as if everyone was waiting for her.

It rained all morning outside Guilin, so the plan was scrapped. By lunch we were making noodles in a family kitchen and laughing at how bad ours looked. Honestly, that was probably our favourite day.