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Seasons greetings to you all! I hope everyone’s past few days has been filled with glee and festivities!

We just chilled for the first few days in Yangshuo, it was nice to do nothing in particular, and the whole place was pretty laid back.  Apart from the people who owned stores on the main street who shouted “I have a shirt for you!” as you walk past and then if you go in, hassle you until you buy something.  Anyway, it was pretty ace though.  And the scenery is awesome, massive huge green mountains just randomly poking out of the ground at random intervals, it’s very bizarre! Cool though. 

Christmas eve we booked ourselves onto a cooking course - best idea ever! We were taken to a market first, mental, sooo much weird looking food everywhere,  the meat market was the best, there were chickens and rabbits and ducks in cages for you to pick out.  And at the back, there was the slaughter area, with live animals behind the counter, and dead ones hanging up.  We saw dogs.  And a cat.  Apparantly cat is really unusual but not unheard of.  Argh! And the fish, they were literally just fish heads, their bodies just been cut of, but apparantly they can stay alive for a few minutes and they were just gawping and flapping and looking at us with their big eyes. We were then taken to an awesome kitchen right next to the river where everyone was given their own wok and food and stuff, and we set to work after instructions cooking the most yummy food ever.  God it was good! We cooked chilli aubergine, chicken and cashew, beer fish, garlic cabbage, and pork stuffed veggies.  Amazing! The best part was that we ate it all afterwards, i now think i’m a well good cook

We then tried the hostel “party”.  It wasnt a party.  We were the only westerners, which isn’t really important, but loads of giggling chinese people talking about things you don’t understand does make you feel a bit isolated after a while.  However, we amused ourself greatly by joining in with the dumpling making (yes, more food!) Well fun and well easy, and you can also pleat them and make them look really pretty!  Again, we got to eat them, and we ate more than i’ve ever eaten, they were well good and there were so many! Apparantly if you got one with a coin in you had to sing kareoke, but thankfully we managed to avoid that…!  We ended the day in a bar playing beer pong, that was ace fun..!

Christmas day was good but nothing really mega special.  Me and si had got each other some small presents which were great to open.  We had duck for lunch, then “christmas dinner” for tea.  The roast chicken was amazing, and so was the pumpkin, and the poatoes and gravy were nice, but not typically english.  Was great fun though, and we ended up drinking and playing table football with some english people.

We unfortunately though both had food poisoning on boxing day and for the day or so after, so that wasnt that much fun.  We ended up our visit to Yangshuo by cycling on the rainiest day (we got soaked) to a place called moon hill, which was pretty cool.  One day I’ll put some photos actually on my webite and show you!

We decided to spend the next week or so somewhere hot and sunny and relaxing before we go to the real world of work.  Hainan we decided would be too expensive and busy, so we found a hostel on a random island called Weikou, and although the island isn’t even mentioned in the lonely planet, we decided to go there anyway!

12quid on a ferry later, and a 5quid island entrance fee (this is a lot a lot of money in china!) we get to the hostel.  There is a gorgeous beach and a cute fishing community and a million banana trees and it’s great.  Except that it’s raining.  And cold. And the people speak cantonese so we cant even attempt to communicate. Hey ho, a friendly english speaking hostel guide is looking after us, and we’ve eaten loads of seafood (you can pick anything from a tub and theyll cook it for you) and wandered to another beach and a fake volcano.  All in all fairly good really!

Happy New Year guys and girls, I hope 2009 is amazing for everyone

well well it’s been a long time! i’ll keep it brief! ok, so actual china….

we went on a boat on the yangtze which was pretty cool.  we were the only westerners on the boat, everyone else chinese tourists, and we treated ourselves to first class which basically meant just us two in a room - it was definitely NOT first class standard; dirty, small, and when you flushed the toilet it sprayed some water from the pipe into your face. nice. anyway, the trip itself was really good, the bonus of the room was that it had one whole wall of the room as windows, awesome view.  We also got taken to all the sights along the way, temples, ghost town etc, and one day was cool as we went on a smaller boat, then a tiny pagoda type boat down three lesser gorges.

After this we stayed for a very short time in Chongqing, saw half a dog strung up on a street food market (no did not try it!) then headed for Yunnan province.  this was an excellent idea as it was absolutely gorgeous.  the old town of lijiang was v touristy,  but abolutely gorgeous.  all small and narrow windy cobbly streets (all pedestrianised) with lots of people in traditional dress, and a really nice relaxed feeling.  For a few days we trekked along the tiger leaping gorge - was immense.  absolutely STUNNING scenery, so beautiful.  Also nice and warm during the day which was nice! one day we walked down to the water, and on the way back up we went on a different path, and ended up climbing up about a 25m vertical ladder on the cliff face.  a bit nerve wracking but lots of fun! we spent a few more days in lijiang just chilling, it was nice to stay in one place for a while!

Got a sleeper bus (interestig) and went to kunming after that which was ok, but we planned to do the stone forest and a chinese cooking course both of which we’d seen advertised.  The first would have cost at least 25quid and apparantly wasnt very nice because it was waaaay too touristy, was also a saturday, and the second wasnt running. so we booked a sleeper train asap and spent kunming chilling out in a park, and shopping for jeans (i now have jeans! how exciting!).  18 hours on a sleeper train later, we are now in Yangshuo.  it’s nice here, very touristy again but that kind of makes it easier.  It’s quite small with a main pedestrianised street, and lots of chilled out bars and stuff which we need to check out! also found a climbing wall (cough with a bar cough), could waste some time there maybe.  it’s f-f-f-freeezing here though, the coldest i’ve felt, so i don’t think many places will be running outdoor climbs.  The hostel promises christmas eve entertainment so that could be interesting, we will see. 

anyway i’ve rambled  for way too long, hope you guys are all well xx

Me and Simon bought a tent, and decided to tackle the 70K Lantau Trek in a few days.  It was awesome.  We got a ferry across in the evening, then found our first campsite.  Our first day of walking was mental.  Bearing in mind we had our ridiculously heavy bags with us, we managed to walk up the third highest mountain in hong kong, down the other side, then up the second highest mountain in hong kong (highest in lantau.  They were 895 and 935 respectively, but seeing as we walked all the way almost to sea level in between, i think we were allowed to be a little bit tired! the scenery was gorgeous though.  we camped in ngong ping where there’s a MASSIVE buddha, you can see it from a million miles around.  really.  We continued walking for the next few days, but had to miss a section on the west coast as apparantly landslides had caused the path to be closed.  It was really dry whilst we were there, but you could see evidence that in monsoon times it gets proper heavy.  The best campsite was right next to the beach.  All the sites were free and had fire pits and we also never had to share with anyone else.  It is winter, but it’s still mid 20s in the day, and only about 8-10 or so at night.  Good times.  Anyway, back in HK now, hopefully heading in the China tomorrow, want to do a river trip on the Yangtze.  Although, we havn’t booked anything yet so we’ll see….!!!