Seeking the future in Wuhan: In a quiet alleyway near the Guiyuan Buddhist Temple in Wuhan, we seek the future. It's in Mandarin, which is a bit of an immediate barrier to enlightenment...but translation is a mere technicality. The fun is in the connection with a small corner of China that seems unchanged despite the 8 million people that call this city home. Here, locals smile at tourists and old men sit on street corners passing the time of day. And in the temple, they say, there's a special way of predicting the year's disasters. Story by Lee Mylne

Guilin: Taking a boat trip down the Li River as it meanders between towering limestone peaks is one of the world’s most beautiful river journeys, and one of China’s most popular tourist destinations.
Story by Lee Atkinson

Panda-monium: You can’t help but fall in love with the pandas at Chengdu’s panda breeding centre.  But there’s much more to this riverside city than first meets the eye, even if the fiery Sichuan chilli does make you cry. From golden buddhas and skin-eating fish, tea-time ear pickers and face-changing acrobats, Chengdu is one of China’s most surprising destinations.  
Story by Lee Atkinson

Cruising the mighty Yangtze: Cruising the Yangtze, the world's third longest river, is not the experience I've expected. Above the controversial Three Gorges Dam, we slip past massive cities and major industries. Then there is the dam itself, where tour guides spell out exactly what we are looking at and what it all is for, and where our ship takes hours to pass through the lock system. We worry about the lack of wildlife, and if a trip by small boat down a tributary gives us a glimpse of what the Yangtze once was like, it somehow doesn't seem enough. But despite the change, glimpses of "old' China remain in temples and villages along the way. Story by Lee Mylne

Getting an earful in Chengdu: There are dozens of people in this shady courtyard of a traditional teahouse in the Chinese city of Chengdu, but it seems the old man only has eyes for me, or at least eyes for my ears.  He’s an ear picker, one of an army of similar ear pickers who make their living visiting the countless teahouses scattered around the city, inserting the skinny steel spikes into people’s ears. Story by Lee Atkinson

Shanghai’s Top 10: From the dishy art deco heritage of The Bund to the new world order of Pudong and the maze of tiny back alleys in between, we’ve got everything covered in this Top Ten things to see and do in China’s most exciting city. Story by Lee Atkinson