TravelStream™ news feed for member thebigh on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/thebigh en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:18:38 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/thebigh/2/1233580620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/thebigh/2/1233580620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/thebigh/2/1233580620/tpod.html Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:18:38 -0500 The Dream Team Travel China and Beyond

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Hanoi, Vietnam

The Lunar New Year. Good evening one and all from an distinctly snowless Hanoi. I'll start quickly with a couple of Birthday wishes. First up is Mr Jimbo Higgins who's age will start to catch up with his hairline on the 5th of February. On the 7th now oldest brother celebrates his 35th birthday. Dan's hairline however is showing no signs or retreating and is as curly as ever. On the 14th of February forget about buying into yet another capitalist free-for-all and think instead about a young boy named Tommy who unlike Peter Pan is now getting older and will soon be 26. I can assure all of you though much like the boy who hates pirates Tommy will never grow up. Ok now I have finished insulting some of my closest friends I shall move on to a little bit of news. The 9th of February is My sisters and Dan's wedding anniversary so congratulations guys. My biggest news however comes again in the form of congratulations and this time they are sent out to my main man the fighting Jew. Dr Josh Parsons. He recently completed his phD and is now a certified bad ass. Well done Jooy. Ok onto our lives as I know that's the reason you all opened this message. I can inform you that over the past week or so we have done almost nothing as it has been the Tet holiday which is the Lunar new year. During this time everywhere closes, school, shops, EVERYTHING. That has left Sarah and I without money or work for a couple of weeks so we have been budgeting. The first thing we did at the start of our holiday was take a trip to "Dan's Bistro" it's a little diner with a shop off to one side where you can buy all things western. It is awesome. Imagine being away from all those things you get at home so easily. Mince, Boneless/Headless chicken, cream, flour. The list could go on. Anyway we went to this place and bought ourselves enough food to last us over the festive period after that we spent most of the time at home watching tennis, doing washing and playing scrabble. Really living the dream. Now this house as some of you may have seen is a delightful 4 story place with a roof garden and a further root top terrace. We have an oven and all things useful in the house including a bath and of course urinals in each of the 4 bathrooms. There are however a few little annoyances about the place. The afore mentioned bath is so narrow that even I, Harry "The sauce bottle" Waters, can't fit in it at the shoulders. I won't even go into how short the bath is, it also sadly requires about 8 trips, down 3 flights of stairs to get the really hot water from the kitchen in order for it to be a decent temperature. I must however admit that it was nice to take a bath. Another issue we have with the house is, it's cold. In these here parts they don't build houses to hold heat because it's normally fucking hot here. So in these icey cold lows of 14 degrees the house plummets even lower to around 12 degrees. It's not easy to relax and watch tv fully clothed with socks on. I just wanted to lounge around in my pants and watch episode after episode of Curb your Enthusiasm and not have to hug a hot water bottle the whole time. On the few occasions we did venture outside it was generally warmer outside than in. Aside heat the place doesn't prevent sound penetrating at all. So throughout the night, in the morning and at various points in the day we can hear people hocking up phlegm opening and closing doors, taking out rubbish and of course the obligatory old woman walking around shouting ringing a bell intermittently. The sounds are most irritating at night as I can't get to sleep unless I can confirm what a sound is. So I spend a few minutes wondering around, this time in my pants, looking for the offending area. It is normally just a house sound. I sound like I am complaining bitterly about my time off. I really have enjoyed it. The highlight was probably going up to the roof and watching the fireworks on "new years day". By watching the fireworks I mean looking in the general direction of the occasional flashes in the sky. You see the problem with having fireworks in such a polluted city, whilst it is very very overcast and rainy, is that they can't really be seen, at all, by anyone. So we stood there up on the roof looking at the nice pink and green clouds. It was nice. The lowlight of the holiday for Sarah was however probably breakfast yesterday. We had bought some duck eggs for a change and upon opening the first 2 Sarah let out a wail of disgust at the horrendous smell of the clearly off eggs. She did however continue onto the third egg. Now what happened next is something you would normally write into watchdog about. She cracked the egg and within 2 seconds was in the living room shaking and squirming in disgust. What she had cracked open wasn't an off egg it was in fact a duckling. Mmm what a delightful way to start your day, a fluffy ball of cuteness. I then disposed of the offending items and attempted to clear the putrid smell of rotten eggs and decomposing duckling from our kitchen. Anyway we're back at work tomorrow so our life of leisure will have to be put on hold for a few more weeks. Until next time. Peace out and Big Love H and S xx
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/thebigh/2/1232861100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/thebigh/2/1232861100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/thebigh/2/1232861100/tpod.html Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:26:39 -0500 The Dream Team Travel China and Beyond

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Hanoi, Vietnam

I tried so hard to write about what I'd learnt in China but I realisedthat there really wasn't much. Had I written it 3 months ago it wouldhave been bitter and full of anger however I found a great few friendsand all my hate went away and with it my huge doubts about China, theirpeople and how they blindly follow everything their government feedsthem and failing to protest when everything is so highly censored. I'd left for China with the aim of learning some Chinese and changing my opinion of a country I had huge doubt about. I failed in learning much Chinese and yes m views on the countrychanged but not in the most positive manner. I did learn however thepeople are extremely friendly and the economy is on the up and in myopinion will be the worlds super power within 5-7 years with theeconomic climate the way it is. Right enough about China, We're in Hanoi now in Vietnam. When we firstarrived it felt like maybe we had come at the wrong time as the LunarNew Year is fast approaching and work was at first seemingly very hardto come by. However, both of us now have work and we've got a nice bighouse to live in for the next 4 weeks. So things are looking up. So what have we done whilst in Hanoi. Well. As it's still pretty coldwe've put off our little trip to Ha Long bay as I really don't fancyswimming in the sea when it's only 18-20 degrees outside. As soon as we got off the bus we headed straight across the square,filled with crazy people on motorbikes, for the nearest hotel. Itwasn't the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in. It wasn't that when I wentto bed it was like sleeping on a rotten sponge a meter too short forme. I mean I've been in counties built by "shorter" people for the last2 years so I'm used to having extremely cold feet. I also can't blame the hotel for the people screeching inane procommunist babble at 06:30 every morning, telling people to sweep theirfront doorstep. What I can blame the hotel for though is the fact theonly windows they had to prevent this noise penetrating the room wereall broken. However this isn't the primary reason for my distaste ofthe hotel. Let me point out now that I really don't like dorms at thebest of times, but when I've paid for a double room I really don'texpect guests to be in the room with me. However we had other guests inour room and they were the kind of guests who keep you up all night.They pissed me off so much one night I was forced to throw a remotecontrol at them. I think I was well within my rights however as havinga group of rats living in your ceiling is pretty much unacceptable nomatter how scummy the hotel is. They moved us to a different room after 2 nights with the rats. Now allthat woke us up was the hotelier shouting to his maid/wife just afterthe megaphones and then the maid banging on the door to clean the room,long before we were even ready. Ahh well we've moved out of that dumpnow so I'm much happier. We haven't however just been job hunting and living with rats for thepast 3 weeks we have done a whole host of other exciting activities,which included our second New Years together, a cyclo tour of the OldQuarter and many many attempts to get ourselves run over by insanemotorists everyday.Our New Year was nice, we bumped into a group of Idiots from Ketteringand decided it might be amusing to tag along with them for a while. Itwas. I greatly enjoyed watching a group of 30 year old chavs fallingall over the place and making complete c&nts out of themselves. Itreally does feel great when you can laugh at the Idiots rather than cryinto your pillow at night at the fact they really are winning. I hateidiotsOne thing I have touched upon on a couple of occasions during thislittle message was the traffic. Again big problem here is idiotswithout any patience. People just won't wait for anything. If a busgoes round a corner and needs to reverse it just won't get the chancebecause the bikes just swarm around it like flies round shit. There areso many bikes crammed into such a small space it's impossible to evenwalk along the road. The pavement isn't an option either as it'scrammed full of people selling stuff and making things. It's strangehow no matter what country I go to it's all ways things and stuff thatreally get in the way. Another strange thing I noticed one day wassomething I had never seen and never even considered seeing in my life.I saw a man on a motorbike with a Clementine bush attached to the backof it. Now I thought bar seeing an Elephant fly I had now seen prettymuch everything. Turns out this isn't a rare occurrence at all. In factsince the day of the first sighting of the "bush man" I have seen atleast one a day. The buses are another matter. They are possible the most illogicalthing in the world ever. The bus I take to work is the number 18. However I need to be careful as the number 18 takes 2 different routes.Instead of pointing this out with an 18a and 18b they just leave you toguess. Sarah has the same problem with the number 9. I mean honestlythere are enough numbers in the world to use a different one for eachbus route. To add to the madness instead of putting bus stops onopposite sides of the road to each other for the return journey theyput them about a kilometre apart from each other and send them on asimilar but considerably more confusing route. All I can say is theplanners of the bus routes in this town were clearly taking somethingwhen they finalised them.Other than all the crazy mentalness it's a pretty normal city. Wellaside from all the people break dancing on every available publicsquare and the women doing their dance aerobics along side the breakdancers outside in the extremely polluted air of Hanoi.Right we're off to get out visa's extended.Peace out everyone.Big LoveH & S
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/thebigh/2/1230721740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/thebigh/2/1230721740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/thebigh/2/1230721740/tpod.html Wed, 31 Dec 2008 06:10:36 -0500 The Dream Team Travel China and Beyond

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Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang, China

  Christmas in ChinaAfter we finished our last class we picked up our bags and made our way to Hatim's place to warm up for the festive season. We bought ourselves a tree, which Sarah decorated in a very tasteful manner whilst Hatim and I sat and watched. The next day two of Hatim's friends arrived, Maro and Patrick, ready for the Christmas madness to begin. Christmas eve was a nice affair. We spent the day shopping for gifts and food and the night at a foreigners in China get together in a huge villa near Hatim's place.I can honestly say that the food we ate there was by far and away the best food we'd had in China. There was more meat there than you can possibly imagine. A turkey 2 huge joints of roast beef, sausage stuffing, Chicken, 3 enormous slabs of fillet mingon, genuine Italian Spaghetti bolognese, Beef curry and lot's more. I had 3 servings and barely touched a vegetable. The closest I came to veg was some nice butter mash. It was truly delightful we even took home some beef for Christmas night snacks. Aside the meat we also did a fairly surreal fashion show, where we dressed some people up and paraded them in front of some of the children at the party. The most interesting point in the evening was probably when a child who is a little larger than life got on a fairly sturdy looking swing and really swung as hard as he could. It snapped and smacked him on the head. He ended up in hospital getting 3 stitches. Everyone said how brave he was. I don't think anyone really wanted to say how stupid he was for going on the swing like that when he is quite clearly over weight. Fatties on swings... just say no.Christmas day was awesome. Patrick arrived back at the flat from the previous evening he had spent with Maro's dad in a city nearby. That was when the drinking really started. We had quite a bit to get through so we really hammered it pretty hard. By 2pm when Wade had arrived for the barbecue I was already blind drunk and really ready to eat. After pounding my way through half my body weight in meat I was ready to start drinking again. It was at this moment Maro arrived back from a shopping trip with his father and the heavy drinking really began again. We gave each other gifts. I got a harmonica from Maro and Patrick, which I busted out a little later on to many tunes. I also got a wikid good book from Timo. Sarah got some nice things too but I shan't bore you with details of presents as I'm no longer 14. We all know Christmas isn't about presents it's about drinking and eating as much as possible and then trying your best to make a fool out of yourself. After a few hours more of drinking we had pretty much ran our supplies down so we decided to "hit the town" we went to Alex Bar where, Maro bust out his moves and showed us all how to twist again as if it was in fact last summer. Just imagine a 6 foot 5 German giant busting his moves on the stage. He really did manage to draw attention away from a bloke who thought he owned the place much to that blokes disgust. Who on more than one occasion tried to remove him from the stage. Maro was having none of it. A little while later Wade said he was leaving so Sarah and I joined him and left the lads to have a night they tried hard to remember but will certainly never forget. That night I had a few problems sleeping. For a few days I'd been having stomach problems. Now for those of you who are slightly faint hearted I suggest you look away now. At about 4am I really couldn't get to sleep so I decided to get up for a pee. I returned to bed and 5 minutes later I needed to really take a dump so I went ahead and did so. I again returned to bed. After about 15 minutes of rolling around trying to get comfortable I decided I really hadn't finished getting out whatever was ruining my insides and went back to the toilet. Alas nothing was coming so I pushed a little harder. Then harder still. I kept pushing until my eyes were almost popping out and had I passed anything it would have most likely been a lung. Finally an imbalance in pressure or something happened and the food and drink I had consumed earlier that day did in fact come rushing out of me sadly it came out the way it had gone in and I was left a crumpled heap of a man vomiting through (and on) my legs into the toilet below. It was mid vomit my body decided I was ready to unleash a what was inside and I began shitting piss at a rate so fast I couldn't tell what the splash back was any more if it was vomit or arse piss. After 5 minutes of agony it was over I washed up and went back to bed. It was a truly satisfying end to what had been a fantastic Christmas day. Christmas is a time for family but I have discovered over the past 2 years that you can make your own family. Christmas is really only about having fun and we all certainly had fun.We decided not to leave on boxing day as the visa office in Nanning was closed at the weekend. Instead we sat around doing very little. Saturday came around and Maro negotiated in fantastic Cantonese that we were stupid foreigners who had no idea about anything and got us a refund on our bus tickets and we were free to enjoy a few more days with our family in China. On Sunday it really was time for us to leave so before our bus left Maro and I went to get a haircut leaving the Sarah, Hatim and Patrick behind. When we got to the hairdressers we decided to go all out and have a facial and a head massage, well the lot really. They had a really cool machine whereby they steamed your face for 10 minutes then used a vacuum type thing to suck out all the blackheads on your face. After our 2 and a half hour pampering session we picked up some lunch and headed back to eat up and say our goodbyes. At 7pm we left. Got on our extremely comfortable sleeper bus and headed off to Nanning. We arrived in Nanning at 08:30 and by 17:00 we had managed to book a hotel eat breakfast and lunch, book our tickets to Hanoi, find the visa office and get ourselves visas for Vietnam. Between all this we even managed to fit in a 4 hour nap. Not bad for efficiency if you ask me. Sadly we had to encounter a massive knob head in this process who thought he was awesome and great because he could speak Chinese. Sadly for him he is ugly, ginger and a massive twat so unlucky Christopher James Jackson.The next morning we got up at around 06:00 and headed off to start our new adventure in Vietnam.The border crossing was extremely easy despite the fact we had overstayed our visas in China. I think we were helped out by the fact the customs man was extremely taken aback by Sarah's beauty and he just let us through. Not until he had pointed out just how beautiful Sarah is though. Now we all know how beautiful Sarah is but for someone at customs to actually wear a smile and speak that's really something else.We arrived in Hanoi and got ourselves settled in had a look around the old quarter and started applying for jobs. We've got 2 interviews on Friday so wish us luck. I really like it here and I think we're going to have a great next 6 months.My next update will include a full summary of what I learned in China. Until then Tam Biet. Or goodbye in Vietnamese.Big LoveHarry and Sarah.XxXxX
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Hong Kong, China

Ne Hao. How are trix y'all? Things are ok for us out here in China, with just over 7 weeks left until the end of our contract some more interesting updates from Vietnam will soon be coming your way. For now however you are going to have to put up with life in China for the pair of us over the past few months. Today you're going to get a quick run down of our colleagues, teachers day and what we got up to before the visit of my wonderful parents. Before I begin I would like to wish Julie a happy birthday for the 31st . Right, so, I left the last, rather dull and uninteresting update, with us in a restaurant with our co-workers, bosses and government officials. One of whom, Steven, had taken a quite obvious liking to Sarah and showered her with praise and compliments throughout the meal. He was verging on lecherous to be honest, but she knows how to deal with that and she did so pretty well. Another official was one who had taken an obvious liking to me, my school Dean, Jason, a lovely guy but possibly the campest Chinese gentleman I've ever met, who has a wife and child obviously as gays, light lefties, don't exist in China. So the other foreign teachers we have the delight of working with. I'll go around the table. Next to us were: Ben and Kate: Similar to us in many ways, they keep themselves to themselves and entertain each other. Ben is from London with an accent boarding on comedy and Kate is Polish. Both of them are really lovely and we like them a lot. Hayden: When we first met Hayden he didn't really say much, in fact we didn't even speak to him at all until about 8 weeks after this meal but he is a top bloke, quite funny and really not bad at all. Sonya: What can I say about Sonya. Quite a lot but I won't say it all. She's ok. She's from Croydon and has one of the strangest posh/droopy dog hybrid voices. One that Sarah imagines a cabbage would sound like if it could speak. She dresses like a trout and has a weird cat bum mouth with mash up teeth. She's not a bad person at all, just someone I can never envisage myself spending any time with for fear of pointing out her glaring downfalls. Jason: He's an Aussie chap who is as gay, if not gayer than AIDS. Ok gay friends please don't take offence at this it's just a saying. He is mega gay though, like Graham Norton gay. Don't get me wrong I do like him, he's a bit rude in the way all Aussies are but what do you expect when you descend from convicts. Tahsa: Another typical Aussie, nice enough. She could do with some surgery on that gigantic nose of hers. I can't talk really as I do have a fairly large and nose but honestly this is a nose of epic proportion. I feel sorry for her because other than that she's only semi ugly. Tim: Now what can I say about Tim. I'll start with his good points...... Ok that's it. You know when you meet one of those people who supports Spu*s you think right away he's a cu*t. Now imagine someone who supports Sp*rs, loves Coldplay, thinks Ashley Cole is a model citizen, listens to music on the bus on their mobile without head phones, chews gum with their mouth open, doesn't ever wash their armpits, is as ugly as sin but still thinks they are gods gift, walks really slowly in front of you on a busy street, stands the wrong side on an escalator, talks really loud on the phone and rolls their eyes at you as if you are part of their pathetic conversation, eats puppies and rapes children. Well when you imagine this person you immediately think, well hey at least he's not Tim. Tim is quite possibly and almost certainly the biggest idiot I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. He is a wanker of the highest magnitude. He is a know all piece of shit, everything you have done or look forward to doing he has done better or more often. He thinks 90's R 'n B is the greatest period in music history (Ashanti being his top choice, was she really 90's?!). He walks around wearing an Adidas track suit. He loves himself more than I ever possibly could love myself and he's lived here for 2 years. When Sarah asked him why he said it's because he lives like a king here. I mostly think it's because everyone he's ever met in England can understand what he's saying and realises he is a complete and utter fucktard of the highest degree. I would go as far as to say I would be happy if he was in a horrific accident that left him without the use of his voice box. Maybe some kind of horrible torture accident. Tas: Is a bit of an idiot but hey, at least he isn't Tim. So there you have our fellow workers a fine bunch of individuals. Not at this meal was Wade a really top bloke from the States, pretty rare I hear you all say, out loud. Go on, say it. Well he is really nice so.... of course the company moved him 2 weeks after getting here to a place over an hour away on this delightful public transport system. We like Wade, which is clearly why they moved him away, cun*ts. Just one of a number of issues we've had. Along with the lack of payment for our escalating visa costs and lack of respect. This really is a fantastic company to work for. Right enough about them back to me. Teachers day came around, a school holiday in Brazil, a huge day in Latvia and nothing in England. I had no idea what to expect. What I certainly didn't expect was to walk into school ready for my first lesson to see 2000 kids in lines ready to perform a dance saying how much they loved their teachers. It was a pretty crazy sight. After the synchronised dancing they gave flowers to all of the teachers, me included. I got 3 bunches of flowers and a jar of hand made paper stars as well as a card from one of my more advanced classes. Sadly for Sarah she got no cards, gifts or even any dances. She did however get invited to a meal for her school which I had to leave her at due to having an evening class. She was left on a table with no English speakers and some food which wasn't all exactly to her liking. Poor thing. We were also invited out for a meal with either Bond (our company) or my School. We chose my school. Which turned out to be a good decision, the food was ok. It also turned out it was only Tim who went out of the teachers to the Bond party in the city. Which was not a teachers day party at all it was a "look at this new kindergarten" party. Which (no offence Callie) is run by mostly Mormons, so there was no alcohol at that party at all or even fun... maybe. "Wow" I hear you erm think, "That sounds as fun as a year 8 disco" It would have been about as fun as that but minus the cider you might have downed on the park before you went in to spice it up a bit. So there's not much left to tell apart from our appearance in an advert for a local lighting company which is yet to be sent to us. I will give more details when it comes out. All I will say is Sarah was in hair and make up for about 45 minutes and came out looking similar to a pineapple. We were on the screen for about 30 seconds. There was no Air conditioning which was pretty much terrible for me under the lights. I think I lost about a stone, which as you all know I can't really afford to lose. Anyway I played the head engineer and as our voices weren't being recorded I just spoke utter nonsense to the Chinese people in the advert which made me laugh an awful lot, on the inside but being the consummate professional I am I kept it straight on the out side for the camera. A few days later it was time to go to Hong Kong again and renew our visas and pick up my parents. More next time Big Love Harry and Sarah Good day everyone. I hope this finds you all well and good. In my last update I told you of our glorious new friends. Today I will go on and talk about our penultimate trip to Hong Kong and picking my parents up from the air port. We realised that we would have to spend about 4 days in Hong Kong and we were going to have to be really tight on cash, so we decided to get a hostel with WI-FI and spend our nights in rather than out drinking beer which costs about £4.50 a pint. Hong Kong is a very international city and with it come very international prices. This hostel wasn't great it didn't have WI-Fi in the room and it was in Chunking Mansions. For anyone who has seen Chunking you'll understand that the rooms are not exactly nice. They are part of a 15 story building which houses an eclectic array of shops, sweat shops and "guest houses". These guest houses really are the bottom of the barrel stuff. Just little rooms all connected by over filled lifts or disgusting grotty stairwells. Yet it's still over £10 a night. Which is stupidly expensive for what they give you. To those of you who see this sign **** you might want to know that you are my special friends who get to know about the fact we also managed to get a little bit of hash in HK which also forced us to try hard to save after spending about £60 on an 8th. Too expensive I know but when it's been this long I reckon I'd have sucked of a spliff.***#8 We just went for a walk around on our first evening trying to get some fresh air and not stay cooped up in our tiny little room . ****We were of course trying to find somewhere to have a spliff in a city where you can't smoke anywhere and there are so many people everywhere then you're likely to get caught. We opted for a park type place, well a park. We found what seemed to be a sheltered area which had a clear view of anyone coming and low and behold after about 4 tokes a security guard turned up. I put down the spliff and Sarah and I pretended to be in the middle of a passionate kiss. The security guard just walked on by. We decided it'd be best to go on back to the hostel. We went to one of the stairwells and sparked it up again, we heard someone coming from below us so we went up the stairs, then someone from above so we went down the stairs. This little episode continued for the whole spliff up and down stairs through corridors and then more stairs. It was a real key stone cops kind of thing. It was doing a lot for getting me more stoned but sadly nothing for my lungs, we went back to the room relaxed. This would be the same routine for every spliff we had. Rank stairwells and lot's of running.**** The pillows in our room on the first night were something I would much rather forget and they prevented me from getting any sleep at all, which was nice. We changed room on the second night and I was left a little more comfortable. We then picked up our visas and got locked into conversation with 2 people we work with in Xiaolan. Pretty strange but not entirely surprising as it's happened since on our most recent visit as well. The next afternoon we were due to go and pick up the olds. We arrived at the airport a good 40 minutes early after taking the cheap not exactly express bus. My obsession for being punctual for things like this came into the fore again and left Sarah fuming thinking we would be in the airport for hours waiting. It turned out it wasn't as long as expected but still a bit of a wait. Then finally we met them woo hoo. Time to get the bus back to Xiaolan. Little did we know that getting a bus back would be so difficult. We had to go to Shenzhen on the border then catch a bus home. We weren't entirely aware that we were going to be taken back to a different border and the easy walk to the bus station had now become a little more difficult than we had remembered. My parents first hour or so was spent looking for said bus station in a heat they hadn't experienced in a little while. We eventually got a taxi to a different wrong station and waited for 2 hours to catch a bus to near where we live, well 30 minute taxi drive away. Our ideas of being back in the flat by 18:45 were almost accurate, well only 3 hours out but hey what can you expect. After we got in we went to the supermarket and cooked Mum and Dad up a little storm before our little trip down to the sea side. The bus, which left at 07:00, was a fairly interesting ride with fairly interesting views both outside and in. Outside we had rolling rice paddies, inside we had "Cuboid and his Crú" The next big thing in China. By that I mean the next big thing because this shithead little child and his crú of shit heads didn't stop eating for the whole 3 hours we were on the bus, after that they didn't stop eating until we arrived at our first attraction then after the first attraction began eating straight away. This attraction I'm speaking of was one of the main points to the trip we took. Rapids, now my parents are pretty active so I thought rapids would be a lot of fun. I however didn't think that the rapids, like everything else in china, would be man made rapids. It's just insane. They were however a lot of fun. After waiting in a pool at the top being splashed by lot's of Chinese people and fighting our way to the front in a chance to go down the rapids we got our chance to fill our little dingy the whole way down. It was at this point we realised why everyone was carrying little pink buckets strange how we didn't realise it would be essential to bail out a lot of the water that got into the boat. I used my helmet. After the rafting we went back to the hotel changed and got on the bus to go and get something to eat. We were taken to a little fishing town. Thankfully we had been befriended by a girl called Janet who wanted to practise her English. This was very lucky because the food was not like anything else we'd seen before. We walked around a fish market for a while and bought lot's of fresh sea food. We then took the sea food to a canteen, one of 15, about 150 metres away. This is where you take your newly purchased food and tell them how you want it cooked. There were about 12 of us and we had A LOT of food. Prawns Carb, fish, winkles, heaps and heaps of stuff to eat. When the bill came the total was about 60rmb each which is about £4.30. not bad at all. That night we got to go to the hot springs. They were really cool. Lot's of little pools all very hot, some massagey type things and a snow room. Now bare in mind most of these people haven't seen snow so we got there and queued for a little while to go into this snow room where there was snow and a toboggan. Which was fun to go on. What was more fun was Mums face as she came whizzing around the corner. Never one for a thrill ride were you mother? More a merry-go-round person aren't you! The next day we went to "Black Sand Bay" Where we were to spend 4 hours. I had an image of a beautiful volcanic beach. My dream was shattered about 8 minutes before actually seeing the beach. Not only was it a cloudy and a bit of a rainy day but the beach was also about 2kms from a nuclear reactor. Wow, I'm so excited to go and jump into the toxic sea in the rain, sounds like a great idea. The beach did fail spectacularly to live up to my expectations and was in fact the worst beach in the world ever. This is without the fact it was spitting distance from 3 bollocked and 12 fingered babies. The sand wasn't black it was like builders sand. The water was not clean. The sand itself was covered in rubbish and cars. It was a truly terrible beach. Neither the rain nor the disgusting conditions however could dampen the enthusiasm of the Chinese tourists, they had their holiday at the beach and they were going to enjoy it. So with their umbrellas up they sat and played in the sand and went into the sea. Yes I actually saw someone with an umbrella up in the sea. A little strange I must say. After 4 spectacularly long hours we got back on the bus, the back seats of course, we are the cool kids after all, and watched Cuboid and his Crú eat the whole way home. By the end of our little trip I was ready to go home for a little while and relax, ready to bed down and prepare for another exciting day. Right more soon, I'm off to let my girlfriend draw pictures of me. Peace and Fucking H & S XxXxX The clock Ticks I was amazed when I came to sit down and write this how long it had been since any kind of update. Over 6 weeks. Now this you may think is due mainly to Lazy Harry coming to the fore, however it is mostly because we have made some friends who live an hour of so away and our lives at the moment are some what distant from being particularly interesting. That said it has been pretty fun leading an almost normal life of late. Aside the usual massive bombardment of Christmas build up it's starting to feel a bit like home. Yes home for me was Northampton and I wanted passionately to leave it most of my adolescent life but I loved it and I am starting to really not hate here so much. Plus we do have a bit of Christmas cheer. Somewhat strange I thought a country without Christianity but perhaps more importantly a Communist government and it's celebrating the biggest Christian festival/Capitalist free for all of the year. The restaurants are playing Christmas songs a bit and the kids are even singing carols now and again. I'll admit the rubbish trucks blaring out Christmas songs was pretty strange in March but it now feels somewhat appropriate to walk down the street accompanied by a stinking pile of rubbish and a ice cream vanesque Jingle Bells wailing along side you. It fits in well with the 24 degree days. I wouldn't change it for the world though. In one week well be free again to set off on our adventures. So as you may have guessed we are approaching the end of our time here in China. What has it brought me well a lot but I shall delve into that further in my Christmas/Leaving addition of the story. For now I'll get back to what we've been up to the past few months. When I left you it was midway through my parents stay here with us before they went off to Australia to Celebrate their 30th anniversary, which may I add is tomorrow so Happy Anniversary you two. Anyway they were still here and Dad still hadn't had a hair cut. I saw him on webcam yesterday, I can promise everyone things have got a whole lot bigger. It's incredible hair. Again I digress. We had just been on our "adventure" weekend to the man made rapids, the filthy black beach and hot springs so we decided to head back have some drinks and prepare to go to a temple the next day. Wade came over and we got fairly drunk abused each other and played cards. The next day Wade got moved to another city and we walked up a hill to see a temple, which was nice. If not a little uninspiring. We also went for a really cheap full body massage, it was pretty abusive and I didn't even get a happy ending which was pretty disappointing but I guess that's probably best when your girlfriend and mum are in the room The next day however was the day I'd been pretty excited about. I know it's geeky but I was really excited to take my parents into school with me and let them join in with some of my classes. Of course the school Dean was delighted to have three English teachers in the school and welcomed Mum and Dad with open arms. Now I'm not sure if they were shocked by the amount of people in a classroom its not easy to imagine 55/60 kids in a classroom until you see it. Anyway it was really fun and the kids enjoyed have us all around. They were also all at pains to point out how attractive My mother and father are. Of course this statement is pretty redundant on me I know this already I look at the perfect combination of their genes every morning when I gaze blankly in to the mirror at my intense good looks. We were invited to a meal out with the teachers in Mum and Dads honour, it was the top restaurant in Xiaolan and we had a really good time before going over to KTV and singing and Dancing (in mum and dads honour of course) until about 00:00. That night the only way home was on the back of a motor taxi. I took great delight in watching both mum and dad climb onto the back of a motorbike I'm not sure how the driver felt about it however. To be honest they got home much quicker than Sarah and I did. Which was funny because of course I had the keys and the money. Sadly the next day it was time to bid farewell to my parents. We got an unexpected call from the office asking if we would do some tape work for a learning English book thingy. We were interested of course and did it for a couple of hours. Which was quite fun. Trying hard to out act someone on one of those tapes is difficult but Sarah and I both did very well. I think the most difficult was the scene when 2 men were talking to each other and I had to talk to my self in 2 different voices. To this day I have no idea why I chose Cheesey American advert voice and Silly English idiot voice (my normal voice) but I did. I was really sad to see my mum and dad leave, whilst they'd only been here two weeks I'd become really attached to them and it was really cool having someone to cook and wash up, thanks dad. Not only that however mum even cleaned our kitchen too. It wasn't only that though. When you don't see someone you love for a long time it's sometimes difficult to say goodbye again when they leave as you won't know the next time you'll see them. I'm sure it wont be long until mum conjures an excuse to come out and visit us again. She has been planning these trips meticulously for years and now everything has fallen into place. Ok that's probably too much credit for a woman who pours coke into her handbag. Now I do have about another 1000 words up my sleeve at the moment but they are in no way related to the events of my mother and fathers visit so Ill write them now and send them on to you in the next few days, my next update will bring you right up to date with what we are doing now and where we are going soon. Love to all of you H & S Xxx We made some friends Now much as you all like to think of me as a judgemental, hypercritical, people hating social outcast. Those opinions can be dispelled completely as recently Sarah and I have made a whole group of new friends. One night we were sat in Friends bar with Wade, who had been moved to the city for reason as yet unapparent to me. However now I am glad he was moved there as it gives us an excuse to go and visit him and gave us the opportunity to meet Hatim. We were sitting outside friends bar one evening after being approached by an agent of sorts, more on her later, and Hatim came over and introduced himself. We did the obligatory how long have you been in China, where are you from what do you do here, then 15 minutes later Sarah, Wade and I were all back at Hatim's beautiful apartment with a few beers. Now by this stage we'd been invited to stay over and Hatim's generosity seemed to know no bounds. It's for this reason and perhaps the fact she had recently read American Psycho, that Sarah was a little worried that he was too nice to be a real person and he might cut us up whilst listening to Phil Collins. A few minutes later she pulled herself back into reality and realised that Hatim is just a really nice kind person who would never listen to Phil Collins. We had a good night though and arranged to hook up again. The next weekend, after Obama's awesome victory in the states, we headed back to friends bar for the big match. Arsenal Vs Man utd. Again Wade was in tow, which was awesome as he has proved to be the Arsenal lucky charm. The two matches he's watched, we've won. Against Chelsea and Man U. That was another great evening however. I was completely lacking any confidence in Arsenal so when I was asked what the score would be at the end of the match I went with the fence sitters choice of 2-1 Arsenal. In the end it turned out I was right and I won a prize for my amazing prediction. A skull astray, or the "skull of glory" as it is now known which sits proudly in Hatim's apartment and reminds me of that glorious evening. I have previously mentioned an agent person approaching the table. On our first night in Friends bar she came over to the three of us and asked if we would like to be in a TV show. We all said yes, of course and had some professional photo's taken. It later transpired that she only wanted Sarah for the TV show and that Sarah would possibly get paid less than she is for teaching so Sarah kindly declined. It was nice to feel almost famous for a wee while though. The next weekend we had to go back to Hong Kong, again, to renew our visas. This time we decided it was time to take in some of Hong Kong so we took a trip up the worlds longest escalator and also a tram up to the peak. The escalator was pretty shit and was being worked on in sections. Hey ho its another box ticked. Walking around the business and bar district in HK was really a lot more fun than we'd had before when walking around the tourist hot spot that is Kowloon. Don't get me wrong I like Kowloon but after 6 trips there it really grates on you. I swear to god if I had been asked if I wanted a suit or copy watch one more time I would have been extremely likely to have killed someone. The peak was absolutely beautiful at night with a great view of the HK skyline. After we'd been up to the peak we went for something to eat. After trawling the streets for a while and struggling to come to a decision we went with our first choice, a small family run Mexican place. We made an error here. The food was served in plastic baskets, the portions were about the size of my cock after a cold bath and the service was shocking. The waiter asking us before we had sat down if we were ready to order then he was abrupt when taking our order and literally threw our food at us when it arrived. When the bill came we refused to pay the service charge as the lad had been so disgustingly rude. I hate service charge, it really should be at someone's discretion if they want to tip, which I would normally do through my staunch British politeness. We straight up refused there though and the lad got a bollocking off his Mum as we left. Shame, dickhead! The next day we went back and picked up our visa's ready for a return to the mainland and the mundane reality of everyday life in Xiaolan. Don't get me wrong I am enjoying my time here, well more than I would be at home but it isn't living the dream at the moment it's just straight up normal living. Not long until we're living the dream again though. Its strange because at no point in my recent life have I really lived for the weekends. At the moment however I really am. We look forward to going to the city having some beers and just relaxing watching planet earth and having the odd barbecue. It's quite annoying that it's all happened so late in our time here. It will however give us something to miss when we leave. The next few weeks passed by in similar fashion Sarah and Hatim falling asleep while I watch football, waking up and eating a late breakfast and just having a lazy Sunday, the way Sundays are meant to be really. We were even invited along to a wedding reception in the grounds of a lovely restaurant. That night we met a number of other foreigners from the City. In fact our table consisted of someone from each continent aside South America and hey I've been there so it basically counts. It was a really nice evening. That really takes us pretty much up to today. We have 4 days left of work then we are going to Hatim's to spend Christmas there, then we're off to Vietnam. Hanoi for new year, then a 4 day cruise around Halong bay (Sarah's Christmas present) then on to Ho Chi Minh City for about the 2nd/3rd of January where we will settle back into working again, as soon as we get jobs that is. Until next time when you will get my post China and Christmas reaction update I will bid you all a fond farewell. Here's to living the dream. Peace out H & S XxXx
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Zhongshan, Guangdong, China

Blogging AgainNe Hao. How are trix y'all? Things are ok for us out here in China, with just over 7 weeks left until the end of our contract some more interesting updates from Vietnam will soon be coming your way. For now however you are going to have to put up with life in China for the pair of us over the past few months. Today you're going to get a quick run down of our colleagues, teachers day and what we got up to before the visit of my wonderful parents. Before I begin I would like to wish Julie a happy birthday for the 31st .Right, so, I left the last, rather dull and uninteresting update, with us in a restaurant with our co-workers, bosses and government officials. One of whom, Steven, had taken a quite obvious liking to Sarah and showered her with praise and compliments throughout the meal. He was verging on lecherous to be honest, but she knows how to deal with that and she did so pretty well. Another official was one who had taken an obvious liking to me, my school Dean, Jason, a lovely guy but possibly the campest Chinese gentleman I've ever met, who has a wife and child obviously as gays, light lefties, don't exist in China.So the other foreign teachers we have the delight of working with. I'll go around the table. Next to us were: Ben and Kate:Similar to us in many ways, they keep themselves to themselves and entertain each other. Ben is from London with an accent boarding on comedy and Kate is Polish. Both of them are really lovely and we like them a lot. Hayden:When we first met Hayden he didn't really say much, in fact we didn't even speak to him at all until about 8 weeks after this meal but he is a top bloke, quite funny and really not bad at all. Sonya:What can I say about Sonya. Quite a lot but I won't say it all. She's ok. She's from Croydon and has one of the strangest posh/droopy dog hybrid voices. One that Sarah imagines a cabbage would sound like if it could speak. She dresses like a trout and has a weird cat bum mouth with mash up teeth. She's not a bad person at all, just someone I can never envisage myself spending any time with for fear of pointing out her glaring downfalls. Jason:He's an Aussie chap who is as gay, if not gayer than AIDS. Ok gay friends please don't take offence at this it's just a saying. He is mega gay though, like Graham Norton gay. Don't get me wrong I do like him, he's a bit rude in the way all Aussies are but what do you expect when you descend from convicts.Tahsa:Another typical Aussie, nice enough. She could do with some surgery on that gigantic nose of hers. I can't talk really as I do have a fairly large and nose but honestly this is a nose of epic proportion. I feel sorry for her because other than that she's only semi ugly.Tim:Now what can I say about Tim. I'll start with his good points...... Ok that's it. You know when you meet one of those people who supports Spu*s you think right away he's a cu*t. Now imagine someone who supports Sp*rs, loves Coldplay, thinks Ashley Cole is a model citizen, listens to music on the bus on their mobile without head phones, chews gum with their mouth open, doesn't ever wash their armpits, is as ugly as sin but still thinks they are gods gift, walks really slowly in front of you on a busy street, stands the wrong side on an escalator, talks really loud on the phone and rolls their eyes at you as if you are part of their pathetic conversation, eats puppies and rapes children. Well when you imagine this person you immediately think, well hey at least he's not Tim.Tim is quite possibly and almost certainly the biggest idiot I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. He is a wanker of the highest magnitude. He is a know all piece of shit, everything you have done or look forward to doing he has done better or more often. He thinks 90's R 'n B is the greatest period in music history (Ashanti being his top choice, was she really 90's?!). He walks around wearing an Adidas track suit. He loves himself more than I ever possibly could love myself and he's lived here for 2 years. When Sarah asked him why he said it's because he lives like a king here. I mostly think it's because everyone he's ever met in England can understand what he's saying and realises he is a complete and utter fucktard of the highest degree. I would go as far as to say I would be happy if he was in a horrific accident that left him without the use of his voice box. Maybe some kind of horrible torture accident. Tas: Is a bit of an idiot but hey, at least he isn't Tim.So there you have our fellow workers a fine bunch of individuals. Not at this meal was Wade a really top bloke from the States, pretty rare I hear you all say, out loud. Go on, say it. Well he is really nice so.... of course the company moved him 2 weeks after getting here to a place over an hour away on this delightful public transport system. We like Wade, which is clearly why they moved him away, cun*ts. Just one of a number of issues we've had. Along with the lack of payment for our escalating visa costs and lack of respect. This really is a fantastic company to work for. Right enough about them back to me. Teachers day came around, a school holiday in Brazil, a huge day in Latvia and nothing in England. I had no idea what to expect. What I certainly didn't expect was to walk into school ready for my first lesson to see 2000 kids in lines ready to perform a dance saying how much they loved their teachers. It was a pretty crazy sight. After the synchronised dancing they gave flowers to all of the teachers, me included. I got 3 bunches of flowers and a jar of hand made paper stars as well as a card from one of my more advanced classes. Sadly for Sarah she got no cards, gifts or even any dances. She did however get invited to a meal for her school which I had to leave her at due to having an evening class. She was left on a table with no English speakers and some food which wasn't all exactly to her liking. Poor thing.We were also invited out for a meal with either Bond (our company) or my School. We chose my school. Which turned out to be a good decision, the food was ok. It also turned out it was only Tim who went out of the teachers to the Bond party in the city. Which was not a teachers day party at all it was a “look at this new kindergarten” party. Which (no offence Callie) is run by mostly Mormons, so there was no alcohol at that party at all or even fun... maybe. “Wow” I hear you erm think, “That sounds as fun as a year 8 disco” It would have been about as fun as that but minus the cider you might have downed on the park before you went in to spice it up a bit.So there's not much left to tell apart from our appearance in an advert for a local lighting company which is yet to be sent to us. I will give more details when it comes out. All I will say is Sarah was in hair and make up for about 45 minutes and came out looking similar to a pineapple. We were on the screen for about 30 seconds. There was no Air conditioning which was pretty much terrible for me under the lights. I think I lost about a stone, which as you all know I can't really afford to lose. Anyway I played the head engineer and as our voices weren't being recorded I just spoke utter nonsense to the Chinese people in the advert which made me laugh an awful lot, on the inside but being the consummate professional I am I kept it straight on the out side for the camera. A few days later it was time to go to Hong Kong again and renew our visas and pick up my parents. More next timeBig LoveHarry and Sarah
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Macau, China

  All Change Good day everyone, I hope this instalment finds you all in good health. If it doesn't, get well soon.Our trip around China was pretty rushed but really fun none the less. Now however, we were back after a month off and ready to go to work, well kind of ready. We had a couple of days to settle ourselves first so we looked into winding down. Sadly winding down would not be an option. They day after returning to sunny Haizhou we received a phone call telling us our office had been closed and we would have to leave within the next 4 days. Where to? We had no idea. Teaching who? Well our employers didn't know yet so how could we. The reasons behind our office being closed down were fairly hazey. The official line being none of the schools in our town were paying Bond for our work. The truth however was that the bosses wife had an argument with the official in charge of our office and the renting of said office. Gary, my manager, bless him has always done everything in his power to help us because he knows that not only am I a fucking good teacher but I also work long hours if they want me too. He told us we could go to Xiaolan with him and check out what it is like. We were taken to the dirtiest, scummiest, skankiest area of town and shown to a shitty, grimy terrible flat. Unsurprisingly we kicked up a bit of a stink and sent a fairly frank message to the owner of the company outlining our issues with the company. There were so many issues it made my blogs look short. A meeting with the foreign teachers boss was organised and offers of pay rises were thrown about however we just wanted to leave by this point. They eventually blackmailed us into staying we did however get a much nicer apartment over looking the shopping centre with Air con in each room and considerably less cockroaches.On Sarah's birthday we had a bit of a lean one. After trying my damnedest to get rid of her so I could go and buy some token gifts I eventually just said I was going to buy some milk and disappeared for an hour or so. I made her a birthday card, bought her some hair grips, made 2 little collage things and got her a torch. The reason for the torch was as we lived in Guzhen, China's lighting capital, a town with 3000+ lighting stores and over 10 miles of streets containing lights Sarah made a valid point that you couldn't buy a torch anywhere. I eventually, after weeks and weeks of discreet searching found one for her. It's really good too. So after our lovely day of fun we were then taken out to a Birthday meal for Sarah as this was another issue we had outlined in our letter of complaint. The fact she had been completely overlooked due to the fact I was here to meet her and show her around. The fact we had fuck all money by then had nothing to do with it. It was a really nice meal and Sarah was given some flowers, which died pretty quickly, to buy her affections. It didn't work she was still pissed off and really wanted to bring her issues up with the boss. She didn't have the chance as the meal in her honour was also thrown because a new troop of Mormons had arrived from Utah to work for free and John was clearly here to make them feel welcomed. They are all super nice though and it was a really nice night in the end.So after our stream of endless disappointments we were told we'd be allowed to leave 3 months before the agreed end of the contract and they'd give me a little more towards me visas. Now this visa issue will be ranted at great length either later on or in our next blog because it's something that makes me want to smash things and I've just tidied the apartment and I really don't want to have to do it again for at least a week. The day we moved all our shit to Xiaolan was also the day we had to cross the border to Macau to extend our tourist visas. We did so. Macau is an instantly missable place, there was very little to do there for a day tripper. The excitement of going to Macau was such that when we arrived it was so disgustingly disappointing we basically wanted to cry. I was mostly excited to be able to use some Portuguese again, however for a place that was a Portuguese colony until 1999 a ridiculously small number of people spoke the language, in fact we were better off speaking English, which pissed me off quite a bit. Macau is famous for having loads of Casinos, we are poor so Casinos are bad places for us. An little fact about Macau (a fact that is more interesting than the place itself) more money is gambled in Macau than in all of Las Vagas. Because we had no money or time to really look around we walked to the top of a hill to see a "fort", got some fairly cheap food and came home again at about 22:30. To our delight there was a Bond (our company) bag hanging on the door. Oh a nice welcome gift we thought. You guessed it, we were wrong. Unless you count a welcome present as books the classes 10 hours later and a note telling us where to be. Let's bare in mine for a moment here Sarah is yet to teach, we are yet to unpack any of our stuff and Sarah's contract, which she hadn't yet singed, didn't start until 2 days later. However we decided to do the classes anyway as they knew we would because we had no money left at all after going unpaid for 6 weeks. The next day Sarah and I were taken to our schools and introduced to one or two teachers. Jason, the Dean of my school and the government officer for all foreign teachers in Xiaolan invited me to a start of term BBQ. I accepted not realising he meant in about 20 minutes. I called Sarah and told her to get ready quickly. Obviously she was pretty unimpressed but did it none the less. We got to the Barbecue and we had a really good time. After all the bullshit we'd been through over the past few days it was a welcome respite. Everyone was really friendly. Particularly Jason who knew I started the next day but still insisted on plying myself and Sarah with lot's of beer and introducing us to as many people as he could so we had to down our glass each time. Sarah decided against eating some of the fair interesting food, I however devoured close to my own body weight in what I think was Chicken and possibly a pork ball or two. As the evening went on all of the teachers did a performance of the other teachers. Mine and Sarah's favourite was a PE teacher who busted out some Napoleon Dynamite break dance moves. Oh my gosh it was as funny as the first time I watched that movie. I had to try really hard not to fall of my flimsy little stall. Eventually the principle and Jason persuaded me to do a performance and I sang Hey Jude a cappella the closing stages of which I had Sarah and Julie as backing vocalists. After my stunning performance the head brought the performances to a close, obviously no one could top me, and we all finished up our drinks and made our way home.The next week or so went just fine and we settled in very nicely to our schools. However soon enough we were summoned along with all the other western teachers to go out for a meal with Bond and some government officials. This would be our first chance to get to meet all the other western teachers in Xiaolan and see what we had in store for us over the next few months.The meal and what came next will all be in my next update, probably due in the next day or so. Big love one and allHarry and Sarah xx
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Yangshuo, Guangxi Zhuang, China

Yang's shou Beautiful Hello kids. It's been a while but I have been a very busy bunny looking after my delightful parents and shiz. Back to our trip around China. The train journey to Guilin was fairly pleasant. We had the bottom bunk so space wasn't an issue. Apart from the fact the guy sleeping above me had the remarkable ability to make some of the strangest noises at the most inappropriate times our 25 hours were pretty dull. I did however take this time as an opportunity to to teach Sarah how to play cribbage, officially the most addictive card game ever. After we arrived in Guilin we jumped straight on the bus to go to Yangshou. We were charged double because we were taking up a seat with our big bag which we thought was a little harsh but then hey ho. The conductor will be as ugly as sin for the rest of her life and if doing that one thing makes her feel like she's got one up on us then fair enough. At the end of the day we all know she's the loser. God damn ugly loser. Yangshou itself is delightfully picturesque. A little tourist town set on the background of cliffs covered in trees and rice fields all around. With a beautiful river that which you can take a bamboo raft down. We checked into our hostel and went out for something to eat. Now despite it's hugely touristy nature I fell in love with Yangshou. To be honest we were ready to indulge in some western food and speak to people in a free flowing English. Our second day in Yangshou was spent in a cave, recommended by the hostel. We got to the cave and there were no lights at all so we couldn't see any of the stalagmites or stalactites aside the ones smashing into my head as the cave was clear designed for people almost 2 meters tall. Oh no it wasn't it was made for midgets. Our guide was one of those midgets who stank like a four week old rotten corpse. She was disgusting. Thankfully Sarah had taken it upon herself to go right behind her to block some of the stench. Later on the trip we got to walk around in mud. Which was basically muddy water. A puddle on the racecourse would've sufficed to be honest. By the end of the tour I was ready to go home. Don't get me wrong it was fun but it was not what I was expecting or really what I wanted. I had wanted to see some stuff and have fun in mud baths, not just a man made puddle. Ahh well it was still fun. Swimming in the little "fresh" water lake was fun. Until I got on a 3 meter diving board and flopped into the water as I was so shit scared the pool wasn't deep enough. It caused a laugh for the 25 people standing and waiting to go in the cave and made my face go as red as my poor belly. The last few days of our trip were spent relaxing drinking coffee and me being "hippied". As one or two of you may know I really enjoy moaning. One thing I hate moaning about is my shoulder which always hurts because I carried my school bag like a retard and now am in almost constant pain. So I decided to go for acupuncture. I really wanted to believe it worked so I just assumed that it would and decided not to ask how it worked. Sarah however was a little more curious and asked the good doctor what happened, assuming it would be something to do with pressure. Oh no. The pain is because my meridians are blocked and I need to get my chi flowing properly again. Fuck I thought. Now I'm really going to struggle to believe this is going to work. It did work a bit and the pain has eased somewhat but I think I'd need some 7ft long dreads and constantly be tripping for it to actually work fully. Before we left Yangshou we had the joy of seeing such people sitting around various parts of the town trying to learn how to play the flute. To me they looked like wankers. I'm sure in their tiny little hippy brains they were going to end war or free tibet by learning to play that shitty little pipe. We also took a bamboo raft, which was actually plastic tubes, down the river Li, which was tres romantic. We got on our 8 hour bus to go home. It was an over nighter so we got to sleep on it. It was cramped 3 rows of bunk beds in a normal sized coach. There were over 40 people on the bus. Unsurprisingly I didn't fit in the bed pod thingy and spent the next 11 hour huffing and puffing about how uncomfortable I was. It was also really smelly and really hot so Sarah and I were pretty happy to get home in the end. It was a very interesting way to end an excellent trip. 26 days, 8 cities, 4200kms covered and 117 hours in transit. A whistle stop tour of China if ever anyone had one. It's something which I am totally against when it comes to "travelling" because you really don't get a feel of anywhere and are just rushed about everywhere but it was a fantastic experience and a great first holiday to have with Sarah. Here's to many more in the future. Big Love Harry and Sarah
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/thebigh/2/1221629400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/thebigh/2/1221629400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/thebigh/2/1221629400/tpod.html Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:32:03 -0400 The Dream Team Travel China and Beyond

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Shanghai, Shanghai, China

The first thing that stuck me about Shanghai was a genuine comedy moment. One of 3 classic slapstick moments that you just think never happen in real life. It was one of those, something I never thought I'd ever see in my life. Now I've seen someone slip on a banana skin before, so that's number one out of the way. I've even seen someone smash through a pane of glass, not quite in the film style but I have seen it. The one I thought would never happen, happened as the bus was pulling into the bus station. Someone had actually crashed their car into a fire hydrant. They really had. Water was everywhere. I think my life is now complete for slapstick moments and when I die I'll be a happy man. Our hostel was ok. It was pretty good in fact, we however had to plump for a 4 man dorm with no windows as it was the only room left and it was very late when we checked in. We met a number of young travellers there which you might think was an obvious thing to happen in a youth hostel, but up to this point we'd not really spoken to anyone else. I don't know if that's because I'm an anti social judgemental shit stain, a lack of young travellers or the fact that everyone we had seen of a similar age was a complete dick stain. I fucking hate backpackers. A bunch of self important know all wankers. To be totally honest people that similar to me really piss me off. This place was different though, we met some really nice guys. I think they were mostly nice because they weren't British, Australian or American. They were in fact Swedish, Finish and Swiss. So me being the clever guy I am named them Sweden Finland and Switzerland. I couldn't be arsed asking them their names. I'm not sure what it is about foreigners who speak English to an exceptional degree but I find it immediately commands my respect. It's the same with the Dutch. I just love them. We went to the Shanghai version of the silk markets after being advised to do so by Miles. We got loads of bargains. I got some flip flops (which are now broken) some shorts, a belt, a watch (now broken) and various other items for considerably less than we had paid in Beijing. We were an awesome duo when it came to bartering for clothes bouncing off each other and refusing to pay their stupidly high prices, I mean come on who pays more than 68p for a pair of “D&G” boxers? I got lots of pants and sock. I was a very happy boy. Sarah got 4 now dresses and a real leather belt. The way they prove anything is real here is by holding a lighter to it. I guess it's good we didn't buy anything silk.We decided that as we were in Shanghai we'd now take the plunge and have a big night out. We had befriended a guy from Middlesbrough, bless him and he told us of a few good places to go. He eventually decided that we were a bit too cool not to go out with. So we went to a bar where every drink was 10 rmb. For those not up with the conversion rates that's about 68p. So Sarah was bang on the tequila and I was drinking more girly shots which tasted good and got me just as drunk. After an hour in this bar drinking far too many drinks and waiting for the pool table to be free we decided to move onto a different bar where some friends of Kevin were playing a little gig that night. I have to admit the girl was a really really good singer. Sarah however, more than a little tipsy by now, decided that this woman was the greatest artist of all time and decided to tell her this by gushing over the young ladies performance as if she had just given us a show worthy of Wembley Stadium. Like I said she was good but I think Sarah may have actually fallen in love with her. Shortly after her performance Kevin got up and played some fairly depressing songs that made us want to leave. By all rights I should have taken Sarah home but she insisted she go to the next bar. As soon as we arrived she decided it was time to go home because she wanted to vomit..When we got back to the hostel she did just that. After putting her to bed I went for the obligatory poo, when I returned she had vanished. I went looking for her and found her eventually slumped on the toilet floor with her head half way down the toilet groaning and retching. I put her back in my bunk and let her pass out. I was forced to clamber up into the top bunk. Something I found extremely difficult as I was also slightly beyond tipsy by this point.The next morning brought about perhaps the most surreal wake up call I have ever experienced. Prior to opening my eyes I heard a commotion in the hall way, with people shouting and banging on doors. Obviously I ignored this because it was 10:00 and I was sleeping off my first hangover, after my first night out in a long time. The banging continued with shouts of “Get out, get out” again I thought it was just some c*nt waking us poor souls from our slumber. Eventually the girl sharing the room with us said: “do you smell fire?” we did.We jumped up and got panicked for a bit, Sarah running round in circles crying telling me to get her some clothes as she was in a complete state of panic and confusion. I couldn't find what she was wearing the night before so I unlocked our locker and took out a new dress for her. I threw some clothes on and thought, “if there's a fire I don't want all of my stuff burning, I'd better get my bag!” So I picked up my bag helped Sarah out, gave her my shirt to cover her mouth from the smoke and then put my bag back in the locker and ensured I picked up my key card so I could get back in. I have no idea where this idiotic thought process came from but it happened and as soon as I got out side I realised I had taken my bag out packed it then put it back in there to burn. All Sarah could talk about was her GHD's.When we got into the street we were greeted by the sight of 3 fire trucks and many many hungover westerners. One of whom had clearly been so worried about the fire that he had run outside in just his boxers. Which really made us laugh a lot. The cause of the fire had been a gas tank in the kitchen.After an hour or so of waiting in the baking heat of the street we were taken to a nearby hotel. Whilst sat in the hotel we all laughed about how we were woken up. Not by a fire alarm but by a whole bunch of workers screaming at us to get out. Sweden told us that the guy who had come into his room had pointed out of his third story window at the crowds outside. In his tired state Sweden had assumed the guy meant jump out of the window. So he grabbed his passport and headed for it. As he was about to jump he was pulled back by the workers and guided down stairs. By this point Kevin had joined us and told us he was woken by a fireman shaking him to get him up. Now I'm not sure about protocol with the fire service in China but I'm pretty sure that in most other countries when someone has passed out in a gas fire they are normally carried out of the building by a fireman, not just shaken a bit. I'll have to ask Dano about this. Then again a hostel with over 100 guests would tend to have a fire alarm in case of such emergencies. When we asked why there was no alarm we were told: “there are a lot of guests, we didn't want to wake them up.” Again I apologise if I am being ignorant but is that not what a fire alarm was designed for, to wake people up when there is a fire. My email of complaint is on it's way to HI.After a couple of hours we were allowed back in the hostel. By this point my hangover had really kicked in and I was a walking zombie when Sarah went to get food. I refused her offers of pizza and just went for 6 poos in 3 hours instead. That night we went and did the tourist thing looking at the Bund, a pretty skyline and ate some wikid good egg friend rice from the street. When we got back we went to bed Sarah, after seeing one of our room mates in the lobby, decided it would be funny to imitate what had happened earlier that day by banging on the door and screaming get out. Sadly she had forgotten an older gentleman had checked in that afternoon and 23:45 was probably past his bed time. By the time I had opened the door, he was sat up in bed with a frightened look on his face. I just removed Sarah and apologised on her behalf saying she had thought she had lost her key card. It was no surprise that when he left at 07:00 the next day he did it in the noisiest way possible waking us both up. I don't blame him, it's what I would have done none the less I wouldn't be upset to find out if he was injured in a freak accident.We left Shanghai for Guilin that day, a 25 hour train journey. On the way to the train station Sarah decided to misuse her subway ticket and put it in, and turn the turnstile without her self in it. Thus wasting a ticket. She just pulled that face when she does something really dumb and the conductor guy just let her through. Sucker.Right I'm back off to class now. Just one more update after this one of our travels around China then you're left with our interesting life here in Xiaolan for the next 3 months, Joy.Big LoveHarry and Sarah.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/thebigh/2/1221565920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/thebigh/2/1221565920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/thebigh/2/1221565920/tpod.html Tue, 16 Sep 2008 07:54:08 -0400 The Dream Team Travel China and Beyond

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Hefei, Anhui, China

Hefei was a brief and fairly irritating experience all we got was a bunch of idiots who were unable to read a map crowding around us like we were some kind of special attraction. I know we are devilishly attractive but the smell of some of them really made me want to vomit. It was intense and they were all just shouting inane babble at us, or Chinese as some people call it. This little episode put Sarah on the edge of explosion, I had to gently remove her from the situation and deal with it myself. It was infuriating. We got out of Hefei after about 16 hours. It was well shit. We were on our way to Huangshan. A big mountain, one that's written about in many guide books and the thing I was most looking forward too on the whole trip. We arrived late at night in Tankou a town just outside and bedded down ready for a proper hike the next day. At about 08:00 we went looking for transport to the mountain and were set upon by a strangely small man, one of those who can't see over the steering wheel properly. He introduced himself as Mr Hu and told us his restaurant was in the Lonely Planet. Page 477,  he thought. He took us up to the bus station to get the bus to the mountain. As well as that he offered us bus tickets, a tent for the night and all sorts of other stuff in the 5 minute journey. We declined all his kind offers and went and got on the bus. We got to the mountain and paid the extortionate fee to go on what we were thinking was going to be an amazing hike. Yet again we were wrong. The mountain was paved the whole way up and it was rammed with tourists. Chinese and Western. It was terrible. Shit and poo. What was amazing was the porters climbing up with shit loads of stuff on their backs. When we got to the top we were amazed by the view we had been rewarded with after 3 hours of ball aching steps. Yes it was a stunning view of the rolling hillsides and mountain scape's all around us. Sadly for us it was all covered in fucking cloud. So after all that walking we just got cloud, thick horrible cloud. The only thing that cheered me a little was the fact all the other cun*s who'd climbed it that day were faced with the same outlook.We decided to take the cable car down and get the bus back to town. We called Mr Hu, who came and picked us up and booked us on the bus to Shanghai that night.  A 5 hour drive away. We sat in his restaurant, ate his wife cooking, which was beyond amazing, and waited for our bus. We went on a public bus for an hour and a half before we caught the main bus to Shanghai. On this public bus we were treated to the truly original sight of a woman bring as much bad luck on herself as possible by opening her umbrella inside the bus. I was expecting her to get a ladder out and smash a mirror with it whilst walking in amongst a group of black cats. Silly mare.The bus to Shanghai was unsurprisingly longer than expected, mostly due to the fact we went back on ourselves and past the town of Mr Hu. About half an hour after passing Tankou a whole bunch of other people got on the bus and it was very crowded all the way to Shangers. It wasn't until about 3 hours later and a toilet stop that the fun really began.We had been talking to a guy called Miles previously about what to do in Shanghai he had given us a few tips. It was verging on late by this point, around 21:45 and a few people had got moved about. One guy who'd been stuck at the back in the middle decided to place himself just in front of me, where a lady had previously been sleeping. Fair enough I thought he was surrounded by children and didn't look very comfortable. What we thought was fair apparently wasn't and the woman who had previously been sleeping there kicked up a massive stink shouting at the man to sit elsewhere. He caved. I decided this was now my battle to fight. For those of you who know me, you'll know I derive a great deal of pleasure in the suffering of others but I do have a sense of justice. I gently placed my foot on the place she had previously been resting her head. She turned and gave me a serve in Chinese, I used my Chinese numbers and told her she had 2 seats for one person. She gave in for a minute, then when she couldn't get comfortable she tried it again. I just ignored her and made mimicking noises to her shrill tone. This vexed her even more. About 10 minutes later she went to the front to "tell on me" for apparently kicking her stupid head. The drivers mate came back and, through our friendly translator Miles, asked me to move. I showed him how tall I was and that I needed to put my foot there. Miles then told him how much of a dickhead the woman had been to the other guy and the drivers mate just told the woman to get over it and went and showed the man, who the woman had moved earlier, how I was irritating her. He laughed. As soon as the drivers  mate had gone the woman tried again to tell me to move. I was highly amused by her frustration and put my finger to my lips and loudly shusssshed her and told her to sit down. The surrounding passengers burst out into fits of laughter and left the woman feeling like a right tit. This continued for about an hour with her constantly turning and complaining, I just ignored her and everyone who she had woken up told her to be quiet and hated her. I had won. My petulance had won over. I felt great. The position I was in was disgustingly uncomfortable but I didn't care, not until the moment she conceded defeat and sat up. The second she did so I moved my foot. Oh I'm such a shit.We arrived in Shanghai at about 01:00 and checked into our hostel after a bit of bartering with an concomitant taxi driver who stuffed us in his van and took us the long way to our hostel. Shanghai really was an awesome stop. More tomorrow.Big LoveHarry and Sarah.
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Guoliang, China

Guoliang, Red Cliffs and one lovely train ride.Good day one and all. I assume you are all refreshed from your 5 days of bloggless ease. I am back on the case now to continue in the trials and tribulations of Sarah and I on our quest around China. We have just moved cities, jobs and apartments so I'm sure you can imagine it has been a fairly hectic weekend.I would like to say a quick thank you before I continue to Rene and her Mum for their lovely compliments about our updates. They are greatly appreciated.Ok so back to the journey from Xi'an to Xinxian. We had bought our tickets earlier that day and were all ready to get the train. As I previously mentioned we were expecting a 6 hour journey, at worst 8 hours, well that's what all the information we'd received, told us anyway so we opeted for a seating ticket over a sleeping ticket.. So, we arrived at Xi'an train station my regulation 45 minutes early. For those who don't know me at all I am a stickler for time. I guess it kind of borders on obsession. I have to generally allow for at least an hour extra on top of a half an hour waiting time for any journey. No matter how small. I hate being late. This has started to grate on Sarah a little, none more so than in Xi'an. Xi'an is a fairly big city with a lot of tourists passing through it on a daily basis, so you would expect a nice clean well kept train station. Oh dear how wrong you would be. For all these tourists who have come to see the terracotta warriors and other such delights they are left with what appears to be a homeless shelter. People laying on the floor with bags scattered all over the place. Oh I seem to have forgotten to mention that it stank of shit, piss and sick as well, not to mention the horrendously sweaty locals who appear not to understand that showering is not only good for yourself but also for those around you. Stinky fuckers. Anyway we got onto our train, which was somewhat dated compared to any others we had experienced, and settled into our seats. Or squeezed ourself onto our benches should I say. After 3 hours of the journey we were informed by a nice young lad that the journey all the way to Xinxian would take about 11 hours, oh joy. Our seated carriage was filled with others standing as well. There was no kind of air con and the fans were broken. Now I don't think I'd be understating it one bit when I say we felt like Jew's in the 1940's on our way to Auschwitz. It was crammed hot and disgusting. It seemed the smell of shit and piss had followed us onto the train. I have a sneaking suspicion that Sarah had just shat herself. We made it though, propped up in strange positions trying to squeeze in a few hours sleep and failing. By the time we arrived at Xinxian we were exhausted and really didn't fancy the prospect of getting on a motortaxi to get to a bus stop to take a bus to get to another bus stop where we could catch a bus to a town where we could pick up a mini bus which would take us to the bottom of a 3k hike to the place we wanted to go. When a taxi driver offered to take us there for about £12 we just said ok and slept in the back of his cab for the 2 and a half hour journey. The only thing I really remember about that journey wasd when the driver didn't fancy paying to use a toll road he bought a packet of fags and gave it to a farmer to let him cut across his field. Which was pretty funny I thought. We got to Guoliang at about midday and had to go and take a quick nap in our newly built hotel. I'll give you a little history about this beautiful cliff top town. There are around 300 residents and until 1976 it was virtually inaccessible. In 1976 however 12 “brave” men hollowed out a road in the side of the cliffs creating a safe passage way up to the town so tourists and film crews alike to get up there. It was a stunningly beautiful place and one I'd recommend to anyone in that region of China. It is rapidly turning into a big tourist spot for Chinese holiday makers and Westerners alike. We saw 3 other whities in our time up there. It's also a place very popular with young artists. With dozens of them dotted around the tiny village and placed strategically in the most picturesque of positions on the outskirts.Words really can't describe the ornate beauty of Guoliang, the pictures don't do it justice either really. All that can be said is it was amazing. By 10 every night it's bed time simply because there are so few lights in the place. The next morning we woke up nice and early to the delightful stench of poo. I think it's just something to do with the Chinese drainage systems every where or perhaps they just like piling their poo near the foreigners.After overcoming the smells of the bedroom we went and bought some snacks for the day ahead, we were going on a walk around all the hotspots of Guoliang, and we had to hurry to beat the throngs of Chinese tourists who would be dithering and shouting at each other ahead of us. We failed for the first attractions, which wasn't that attractive really and went on ahead of them all to really enjoy a beautifully scenic walk, up cliffs, through caves (which may I add we not safe in anyway whatsoever) and past fresh springs. Which I would like to point out now were not so fresh after my little visit. Along the way we had a number of request to have photos taken with us. One woman with a very interesting set of teeth took a particular shine to Sarah and even picked a flower for her. Because Sarah is as beautiful as a flower.After our long walk we ate some lunch and I taught Sarah how to skim stones, for a few hours, she managed to miss my greatest ever skim when recording in completely the wrong direction. Never mid though. We decided to leave the next day, while we were waiting for our transport though we took it upon ourselves to put some decent stepping stones in to aid a young artist with crossing a small ford. Before long it was being used by everyone, it was kinda like a bridge over troubled water you could say. You wouldn't say it, but you could.We arrived back in Xinxian and bout our tickets bus for Hefei the next day and were taken to a pretty expensive hotel, which was terrible and the town was terrible. To be honest I'm getting a little angry thinking about it so I'll move right on to our trip to Hefei. We were yet again deceived by the length of the journey. We were told it would take 8 hours again it was over 10. The first driver, who caused a significant addition to the journey not only smoked whilst he was driving but also had driver 2 tell one passenger in particular it was a no smoking bus. This was right before he drove over something at stupid miles an hour and blow one of the tyres causing us to drive along at about 20 for a long period. This delay wasn't helped by the fact he was using his horn everytime he went past anyone on the road, which was pretty often. It was also made particulaly unbearable because of the music videos blaring out on the bus was some kind of Chinese 90's pseudo trance and techno mix. It did however include the all time favourite “No Limits” by 2unlimited. When we finally got to the “service station” (a man with a few tyres and a jack.) The passengers were allowed to smoke and even go to pee. I took this second option and almost instantly regretted it. I wish I had a photo of these toilets. They really were something else. It was a long hole ============= like that just along the floor with no doors no noting just a tiled hole. Now I really don't care where I pee to be honest, after my incident in Xi'an caring where I poo has gone out of the window, but having to stand next to someone squatting to take a dump is a bit strange to say the least. This incident was made more strange by the fact, this other passenger squatting away was just reading a news paper and even gave me a nod as I walked into the bathroom. It was disturbing. Sarah and I rushed out to tell each other our stories of disgust. It was great.We left and driver 2 took over he and his buddy continued smoking the whole way, which we got use to in the end. What we found a little more disturbing, when trying to get to sleep was the fact this guy was even more eager to use his horn. At one point he used it over 60 times in a one minute period. I swear that is the truth. Then a little later we were going down a completely deserted road and he beeped again at nothing at all. He was beeping so much it sent Sarah into a laughing fit. We decided that the key to his beeping was that there had to be either something in the road ahead of us or nothing in the road ahead of us, if either of these two things happened then he would beep. We had a game of guess when the beep will come, It was however impossible to predict when the next beep would come. We did however arrive in Hefei alive and well and made our way to a motel where we would rest for the night before taking a bus to Huangshan the next day. Right I'm back off to class now.Hope you're all ok.Big LoveHarry and Sarahhttp://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=150307&l=bf55e&id=774575150
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