Around Fall this year, Nicolas, Cassie and I went on a road trip from Beijing to Suzhou. It would take about 13 hours to drive there, so we stopped in cities along the way.

Sleeping challenges

First, we arrived at Jinan, it took about 4 and a half hours… I sat in the front seat, next to Nicolas (who was driving). When I’m in a car with nothing to do, I tend to get sleepy, but it’s really hard to sleep in a chair with not much room to stretch my legs. So throughout the rest of the trip, I slowly mastered the art of sleeping in the front seat of a car, maybe I’ll write a book about it someday.

A really nice trip

The next stop was Lianyungang, It’s a small city but still pretty fun. It’s a coastal city, but there’s no beaches, mainly docks. After that we arrived at Yangzhou, it’s one of the most beautiful cities I’ve seen, It’s very well preserved, and there are no tall buildings to obscure the view.
Finally, we arrived at Suzhou, our goal is not really to go to Suzhou, it’s just the furthest south city we visit. We had a good time there and began to head back up north. We stopped at Yancheng, which means salt-city, we went to Macdonalds, the salt in the burgers tasted fantastic.
Next stop was Rizhao in Shandong, It’s the hometown of Cassie, we lived in a hotel next to the sea. The beaches there were very clean compared to Qingdao (too many tourists), even though it was a bit cold. Last, we went to Qingdao, where my grandparents live. It was really nice seeing them, we also met a lot of relatives there! At long last we arrived back home, I was relieved to see our home intact, somehow I expected it to catch on fire while we were gone.