going home

ok, back in singapore now, wasting time on the internet, waiting for our next flight which is in about 3 or 4 hours (I think it may have been delayed a touch?). The holiday is over... it's sad, but I'm glad to be going home as well.... back to normal toilets, and an absense of truely gross people.
I've had SO much fun though - it's been an absolute blast. It's been hard to write on here properly, and I've missed alot of the good stuff, but I've kept a diary so I'll fill you in on the details (I"ll try not to publish a novel on here....)
but my time's almost up, so this is all I can type.

there better be lots of hugs waiting for me when I get back.

:)

THE CRUISE FROM HELL

AH the last couple of days have been pretty SHITE actually - but it's all good now. We're finally back on track, this is what happened:

Origional plans were to travel by tain from Xi'an to Chengdu (where we are now) and do a heap of stuff around here for a week, but when we talked to the nice guy running the hostel we were staying at, he sugested we go on this 'cruise' down the Yangze river instead (I don't think I spelled that right) because, I don't know if you know, but it's all going to be destroyed by 2009, because China are building the biggest damn in the world (and destroying the 3rd largest river in the world in the process, and uprooting 1000's of peopel - entire towns....). He convinced us to go 1st class, which cost more, but he said it would be the experience of a life time... and boy was it.

first we had to take a 16 or so hour train ride (what it would have taken to get to Chengdu in the first place) to Yicheng (the ride wasn't so bad - we managed to score some 'soft sleep' tickets, which were pretty comfortable, and I managed to make a friend on the way, who sat in our compartment and talked with us all night!!!! I'm going to send him an email tonight... he was very cute - but I think he's gay... so when I say 'cute', i mean 'squoochy-woochy cute, not 'hot'), and from there we were supposed to get on the boat. But when we got there, the people who were picking us up from the station said because our train was late we'd missed the boat, and that it would be waiting for us at anohter town, even though we got in at like 9am, and we were told the boat wasn't leaving till at least 4pm or later. But they drove us to the next town, and told us to go wait in the building/harbour whatever it was. They promised us it would be comfy and warm in there, and left us, but it was cold and uncomfortable, and the boat ended up being 2hrs late.... Now, alarm bells started ringing in my head as soon as we walked into the place, becuase it was full of what seemed to be migrant workers who were waiting with us. At the risk of sounding completely bourgeois (that's not how you spell that either) we weren't looking forward to spending a boat ride with this lot - all they did was stare at us.. and I mean STARE in a very peculiar way.... All of a sudden our '1st class cruise' - which I forgot to mention we payed alot of money for - was starting to look less cruisey.

so the boat came, and we all cramed on fast - with little heads sticking out the windows oggling us again. It was very disconcerting. And we soooon realised that this wasn't a cruise ship at all, but a workers transport ship..... we got to our rooms and there were people sleeping on the floor at the end of hall - the hall stank of stale urine, and the rooms smelled even worse of it. The air was thick with the stench. The 'bathrooms' were only one of the hole-in-the-floor toilets (that I'm becoming very used to here) that was stained a splotchy brown, and the 'showers' that we were promised were right above said holes, and ther ewas no hot water. The carpets are beyond description. They weren't just stained - they were encrussed with god knows what, and we were afraid to put bare feet on it. The linen was stained as well..... I slept in all my clothes.

THEN after finally trying to (unsuccesfuly) air out our rooms, we finally got down to sleep - oh, this was after calling the guy who set all this up for us and compaining. He is actually quite a nice guy, and he ended up getting us an offer for 4000 yuan refund - a little over 2/3s... we siad we'd sleep on the offer. I locked the door, but we forgot to lock the window - I didn't think there would be any problem - there was no deck outside, we were on the 4th floor of the boat...
At about 2am (I checked my phone) someone tried to open our door - it was just me and Carl (a guy we're traveling with)... and he was really deeply asleep, so he didn't notice. But this person outside kept trying to get in, and I could hear scrabbling that I thought was someone trying to jimmy the lock - and I checked in the morning and the wood on the door was all chipped and scraped. they kept going away and coming back, and I could see shadows of feet under our door. I was pretty scared - obviously they were tying to comein to rob us - but becuase they kept leaving and coming back I didn't know if I should do anyting about it (like wake carl) becuase I didn't know if it was necessary. Finally, I coughed really loudly to let them know I was awake - and they finally left and didn't come back. So it tooke me agest ot get to sleep again, cos I kept hearing noises that I got paranoid about... but finally I did.
But then at about 4, 4.30am I woke up again, in time to see our window open, Carls backpack on the ledge under the window (not where it was supposed to be) and I sat up to see someone climbing up outside our window to the ledge above. I grabbed the bag and my phone which was sitting there as well, and lay back down, and it took me ages to summon enough courage to sit back up and close the window. It was pretty scary - but nothing was taken in the end. I was sleeping with my money belt on anyway - and I'm glad I did.

We talked to the staff in the morning, andn they said the couldn't do anything about it, but they must have told some police who were on board, cos one came to talk to me (and cindy, of course - i can't speak the language!) and we told himw hat happened. He said he would sleep on our level that night to keep an extra eye out - and we made sure we locked the window, and we made an elaborate trap at the door to let us now if anyone was trying to get in.... so I slept a little better last night, but i also slept with my money belt on, my camera bag around my legs and my wallet and phone in my pockets.
The boat ride was terrible - all the 'sights' that we were supposed to see we passed at night time so we COULDN'T see... and we were only on there for 2 nights and 1 day (it was supposed to be 2 and 2) but in the end we were SO GLAD to get off the 'hell boat' as we call it now, that we didn't mind. But then we had to travel 5 hrs on a bus to get here to Chengdu today, so we're finally abck on track, but now we're going to miss out doing things here, because we wasted time. We did however, ring back the dude who was organising things and told him everytghing that happend... and we ended up getting a full refund, so that was better... still not great... but.... at least we're all ok and now washed and happy. (I didn't change my clothes for 4 days - ew).

so it's happy again now. We're travelling to see the 'great budda' tomorrow, and from there we're going to visit a little town, almost on the boarder of tibet, so it's basically a little tibetan town, and stay there for a night or two. Then we're coming back here for a couple of days, then going to Baotou to see Cindy's family.

The hostel that we're at at the moment is really cute and I love it here - I wish we had more time to spend here... As we walked up there were all these people singing along to a piano accordian at a cafe out the front, and there's a dog and it's just all round really cute here. I've taken photos.

I'm still going to try and post some as soon as I can get that worked out...

Xi'an

SO

I feel the need to tell you about my experience of the Great Wall, which happened about a week ago, but it's been too hard to try and get to a computer from then till now...
IT WAS BLOODY FANTASTIC!
We didn't go to the main toursit spot, but another place that Ben and Cindy went to before. It's closed off to the public becuase they're supposed to be doing renovations, but it's pretty much deserted there now, except for some people who run a gift shop and a restaurant there, who were happy to let us sneek in. Now, saying 'sneek in' conjures up images of us just walking through a hidden door and just having a look around, but what really happend was this:
Fist we had to walk along a damn wall, on one side of which was a thinly frozen iced lake, and on the other side was a not frozen lake which was 10m drop down. Then we climbed in through a window of one of the towers, and then had to scale a mountain. I'm tempted to say 'scale a rocky cliff face' but that's a tad dramatic... but it was more than than just walking up - like, there was literally me trying to find hand and foot holes and CLIMBING up... It was actually really scary, and I wasn't looking forward to getting myself back down... Jess was skitsing a little bit, and I think that was the only reason that I didn't... Then we had to scale the steps to the next tower, and they weren't just steps. This bit was almost as bad as the little cliff/mountain bit - they were mostly broken, and quite thin, and VERY steep. OH - and did I mention that all of this was done while THERE WAS SNOW EVERYWHERE????? yes.... this was no ordinary walk in the park ladies and gentlemen...
After that it was much better, and after a bit more exploration, we found a MUCH better way to get down. (actually, we were pretty stupid for going the way we did, it was unnecesarily dangerous... I think the ladies at the bottom of the hill must have thought we were idiots) It was on eof the most beautiful views ever.. and I was just so proud of myself that I got up there... this is not something that I typically do... there were a bit more hard bits that required a bit of coaching from my part to help Jess and Cindy get up bits (apparently, when it comes down to it, I'm actually quite the little rock climber), and a little bit of 'ass-toboganing' which was fun... and of course, I bought the t-shirt that says 'I climbed the great wall' cos, boy - did i ever!

unfortunately that night I got really bad food poisoning or something... vomiting and general nastiness from the bottom end... basically cleared my system out completely... and I didn't feel to good for a while after that...


but
We've now gotten to Xi'an, which is south of Beijing (and I'm feeling perfect) - and is where the Terricotta Warriors are... Been here two nights now, all of which have been pretty bad sleeps... Unfortunately we're now stuck in the same room with a dude (I'm talking about Ben here) who has sleep apnia (or however you spell it). It's fairly violent, and it's bloody noisy.... but I think I'm slowly getting used to it (and the chewing gum in the ears helps - seriously... apparently the Chinese don't know what ear plugs are... or they know but they refuse to use them...)

Our plane got cancelled on Friday night, which is when we were supposed to leave origionally, so we actually had to sleep at the airport in a little hotel all together. 6 of us in the one room, with two single beds and no extra blankets.... it actually wasn't soooo bad.... another story for my travel journal...

BUT: here in Xi'an: We've now gone to the City Wall, the Hot Springs, SomeDude's Tomb, the Terricotter Warriors, the Temple of the Eight Immortals, the Big Goose Pagoda, and the Tang Dynasty Music and Dance Show. All in two days. It hink that's fairly impressive actually...

The City Wall was cool. We were just wandering around and came upon this huge wall, and a ticket booth, and a really scary looking ladder that I first thought were stairs, but no - turned out to be a rickety ladder... and I couldn't make myself climb it... but after some to-ing and fro-ing we finally found a place I could get up, and get up I did. Yes, I know, mere days eariler I was scaling the Great Wall, but a little ladder stopped me in my tracks. ah well. Once we were up there it was nice to look around - it goes around the whole city (duh: hence 'city wall'). We found out that you could hire bikes, so hire bikes we did - and embarked upon the 14km ride!!!!!!! (this is massive for me, I havn't ridden a bike for 8 years or more) (oh, and I'm grossly unfit) It really became more about the bike and less about the wall, but it was still fun. I was proud of myself for making it all the way - and not being the only one complaining of their legs dying. Actually, it was my ass more than anything else - which, after that, the great wall, the fact that we're staying ont he 5th floor of the hotel here, and there's no elevator, and all the other steps and things we've climbed here - should be looking pretty fine once I get back home!!!!!!!!!!!!

The hot Springs were beautiful - and hot. You can still bathe there, and get massages and the like, as well as look around allt he historical buildings and stuff.... but we didn't have time for that. The Tomb of the such-and-such emperor (the dude who commissioned the warriors) was a bit of a let down... there was a massive hill, whith a massive staircase that we walked up, but when we got to the top it was actually about the view, where-as we thought we were going to see a tomb (not that a tomb would necessarily be that exciting... but.... you know... my ass was sore again....) The warriors were cool too - although, after the second big, massive, gargantuan room full of them, they tend to look the same (but, as my mum said: imagine how the sculpors must have felt... hyuck hyuck)

The temple of the eight immortals was great today as well. I'm finding the temples really really interesting. There's such a sense of peace there... I could stroll around for hours and smell the thick insence and listen to the soft chanting in the background..... ah..... soothing. The Big Goose Pagoda was just yet another massive tower that we had to climb (like I said: ass = fantastic), that was all about the view. And maybe for the sense of satisfaction - or something to do with inner enlightenment... it's a Buddist thing... I don't think I get it.
the show tonight... well... it was..... nice.... lets just say that.

I could probably type for ages.... (already have) so I think I'll just stop there. So much to tell, so little time....

ah- living the life of an adventurous traveller.... hehehehe it's so cool!
(and all the guys think I'm hot - I got told I look like a doll, a BARBIE doll this morning - by the hotel owner - a little guy called Jim Beam... seriously that's his name)

oh, and I think I've forgotten to say before now - but for some odd reason, I can update my posts, but I can't look ant anyone's blog, including my own - so I can't reply to any of the comments, nor keep myself abreast of what's going on with everyone else. Hope all is well!

still.... in..... china.....

knowing that it only cost me about 3 yuan last time (approximately 60 cents or so) to write blogs and emails and stuff, makes it slightly addictive!!!!

but: to business...
I promised to write about THE BEST NEW YEAR KNOWN TO MANKIND... or something to that affect didn't I?

WELL!!!!

Jess, Gareth (her boyfriend we're traveling with), Cindy, Ben (Her boyfriend who happens to be Gareth's brother), Carl (an aussie guy from Brissie who is teaching english here with Ben) and Clancy (yes, that's his name, and he happens to be American, and very annoying - also teaching english here) and me all got an illegal taxi into the city - sitting in the back of a very dirty, rickety old van... gareth bouncing around on the floor.... and met up with a friend of Cindy's in the 'embassy district' which is, you guessed it, a big place for foreigners. We all went to dinner at a 'fast food' restaurant, which really, was only slightly faster than everywhere else we'd been so far! Started drinking beers - you can get a long neck in a place like that for about 4 yuan - and we were off to a good start. 'Mary' - the dude we'd met up with, took us then to a little bar around the corner - which was really really cool. There was much debate about where to go, cos most of the places around there had pretty expensive cover charges and all that cos it was New Years, but where we ended up didn't, and it was especially cool to boot. I convinced everyone to get a round of Ansinth, and that started a trent for everyone to buy a round of drinks for everyone else - we took turns, and that worked out well. 8 Absinthe's only cost about 200 yuan, which is what... $40 or something? THen there was tequila, then beer then I had gin and tonics... and we started playing some drinking games and it was all good. But we were on some couches up the top of this place that had actually been booked by other people, and when they came, we had to leave. The rest of the place was packed, so we had to find somewhere else.
After wandering around the streets for a while, trying to find somewhere suitable, we eventually found a restaurant that had turned itself into a bar for the evening, that wasn't as 'cool' but was still nice. They were playing some western music, so even though it was like '50 cent' and all that... I could at least sing along and all.... hehehehe
Then a friend of Mary's came and met up with us - Peter - and we started playing the EVIL DRINKING GAME, which shall go down in history for ever as the MOST EVIL of DRINKING GAMES... basically you have this small dish and two dice - and you go around the circle and take turns in rolling. If you roll a 7, you have to fill a glass halfway with beer, if you roll an 8 you have to skull half of whatever's in the glass, if you roll a 9 you have to skull a full glass. If you roll doubles, you can choose someone else to skull a full glass. If one or both of the die roll out of the dish, you have to skull a full glass. AND, what makes it particularly evil, is that you have to keep rolling untill you get a number that's not one of those... meaning to say, you can (and I did) have to skull 3 or 4 glasses of beer, if you're unlucky enough, before it passes along to the next person. I lernt to be very afraid of the die after that night. And beer.
But it was alot alot alot of fun.
Upstairs was another little room, and the toilets, so while I was waiting for the toilet, I just started being silly with some of the people up there (dancing and stuff) and it turned out that they were all americans (quite nice ones) and that one of them was called ALIA - no shit! I've never met someone with my name before, and she spelt it the same way and everything. We ended up laughing and hugging alot and getting very excited - and she invited me to come drink champagne with her, but after I went to the loo I ended up just going back downstairs... but it was still very funny. They left soon after that, so I didn't get a chance to take everyone up there to join forces.
Then on another trip up there - I was waiting again, and Peter came out and went to go back down, but I grabbed his head with the intention of giving him a kiss on the cheek, just to be funny... but he ended up pashing me.... PASHING!!!! hehehehehe we spent the next, I don't even know how long, up there making out and doing all sorts of interesting thigns. I think I flashed my boobs to more than one person who came up those steps.... I think it's fairly safe to say that fuckapalooza has finally been started and kicked off in grand style. He wanted to take me back to his house, but I was too scared- being in a strange city that I couldn't even speak the language of and all... and not being able to get hom or anything. Also - from all our little things that we did... I found that he was..... well....... let's say...... very very very little................. which wasn't that big of a turn on. But it was still heaps and heaps of fun - and he seemed quite interested... he kept asking cindy about me apparently, and he took my phone no. and email address - but later another friend of theirs rang Cindy and said apparently I'd given him the wrong one or something.... they thought I'd done it on purpose- but I'd just been really really trashed, so I dont' know what I was doing. Turns out it's for the best though, cos I'm certainly not interested in anyting, and it turns out he's got a girlfriend or something anyway. Which is more than a little bit wrong... apparently they're 'on a break' or some bullshit. I mean - I dn't really care, in fact, it makes it easier to say 'no thank you' but... still.... blah.
But it was all SO much fun!
We ende up squeezing 5 of us into a normal taxi, with Gareth lying across our legs in the back... poor thing. I just sat there and tried not to be sick. Jess was as soon as we fell out of the taxi, and I think Cindy might have been at soem point too. What was scary was that for the whole time I was upstairs with Pete, they'd continued to play the drinkign game!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, I was fucked as it was... and they kept going!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and had thrown popcorn everywhere, and lit bastkets on fire and all that kind of stuf... crazy...)

But yeah - fun fun fun fun.... hehehehehhehehehe fuckapalooza baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hehehehehe


now, I can't be bothered writing about everything else that's happened, but I'll give you the highlights from an email that I just wrote mum:

I am VERY happy! Everything is so much fun here! Yesterday we just went to the supermarket, and I enjoyed that just as much as when we went to one of the touristy places and took photos. Everything's so different - like, this supermarket we went to was over 3 levels high, and all the products were so different! We managed to get a small jar of Dolmio sauce (Jess and Gareth want to make spaghettie) but it was hard to find ordinary pasta. And forget about tinned tomatoes - they don't exist here. The supermarket also had a small section of clothes and bags... and there's ready to eat food stalls and everything. It's crazy! there are also soooo many staff it's not funny - they're everywhere just standing around. You can barely look at anything without having one hang over your shoulder... and the cadbury chocolate bars had magnetic security strips in them... I guess they're an expensive item or something. Most of what we bought from the supermarket was junk - because no one really cooks for themselves in the city. When we go to Cindy's parent's place apparently we'll get plenty of home-cooked meals, but around here, everyone just goes out to the restaurants... and that means FATTY FOOD as well - I think I can forget about loosing weight here... everythings dripping in oil - even just a plate of bok choy and mushrooms... cos it's all about TASTE, of which there is alot... :) Everything has cucumber in it too, which is odd.. but tasty too. I don't think i'd ever had cooked cucumber before I came here, but it's in almost every dish...

I realy really miss my music though - I wish I could have brought my ipod with me after all... I'm going to start going crazy if I don't have something I can have a good sing-along to... after this, I'm going to go to one of the dvd/cd shops around here and try and buy a couple of things... for around 10 yuan (or $2) you can't really go wrong....

Last night was heaps of fun as well - we went to a Public Bath-house, which was awesome. Well... it's a bath house, but also a brothel, or so I'm told - we didn't go for the 'special massage' of course, but we did get to have a nice long shower (which, after the system here at Bed and Cindy's was such a luxury) and sit in the sauna and get a body scrub.... ALL COMPLETELY NAKED - which was very confronting. Actually, we al found that it was more the act of getting naked infront of each other (just the girls by the way, there were seperate places for the girls and boys) than actually just being naked... does that make sense? I mean, once we were and having showers and all that, it was fine... but it was just the taking off of clothes that was hard. But then we got to put on silk pyjamas and we went up to this big room that was full of Chez Lounges (or however you spell it - ROman Sofas?) in which the boys were already reclining like Roman Emperors, smoking cigarets and drinknig beer... it was very funny. We then got foot massages that lasted for 45 minutes while lying there together, and then there was a show that we whatched, and a free buffet (the buffet's quality was questionable.. but it didn't matter). The show was strange to whatch, partly cos there was a whole comedy section that we didn't understand - cos of course it was in CHINESE.. and there was a guy who was doing a show that involved stabbing himself through the arm with a needle and haning a bucket of water from it.... breathing fire through sawdust packed in his mouth.... and SWALLOWING A LIVE SNAKE AND THEN BRINGING IT BACK UP...... it was GROOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSEEEEEEE and a little disturbing. but, 'that's entertainment' I guess....
Then we all got a full body massage - done of course by the ladies of the house, which I'm told are the prostitutes. I managed to score a nice looking boy who turned out to only be 20 years old... Cindy kept telling me that she thought he was interested in me... but if he was 'for hire' as well... of course he's going to flirt. It was very funny though - they kept trying to talk in very very broken english to us.. and asking us questions. One question he asked me was 'how many kilo's are you?'.... ouch. I think he was just being cheeky.... but still.... ouch.

we're going back there before we leave, cos it was so relaxing and nice. I felt so amazingly decadent and everythign.... that was the life, I'll tell yoU!!!!

My market experiences have been crazy and wild, but the boys just don't have enough stamina to keep up with me/us... so I havn't really bought much stuff yet... I think they're going to have to drop us off one day (or at least drop ME off) and let me do a days worth at one place. I am looking forward to going to Chengdu though, cos there's a large Tibetan culture there, and I'm looking forward to being able to shop there too!!!!!!!!!!
oh, one market we went to I saw the MOST AMAZINNGLY beautiful coat - and after talking to them, they said they could custom tailor one for me... and that I could have it in a week. It was going to end up costing only like $150AU (expensive for around here... but not for a really good coat from where I come from!) and it was all good and I payed a deposit and everything, but then Cindy got a call and they said that all the workers have gone home for Chinese New Year, so it won't be done for ages. (they would have known that int h first place, which annoys me) but I think what I'm going to do is get it done anyway, then later, Cindy can post it to me... I think it's worth it!
________________

there.

I'll leave it at that for the moment.
Update again soon....

1st week in China

so to start... lets just preface everything with the fact that its fucking cold here... most of the time... but indoors it's hot so you can imagine that the body get's a tad confused.... which makes people sick - I've so far been ok, but it's hit all my traveling companions... (touch wood)

NOW!

arrived in China 7 days ago (6?) (I find it hard to count properly - I blame the cold again)
Cindy was waiting for us at the airport and we got in a taxi and went back to her and Ben's house. It was so nice to see her again after all this time (mind you, it's only been like 6 months or so, but still....). Their apartment is TINY... I'll post pics as soon as I can figure out how. You MAY have to wait till I get home....
then the next day we went to Tienamen Square and had a look around, and Mao's Mausolium... standard tourist sites that I have to admit I found a tad bland... I don't know what I was expecting - but..... yeah.....
that afternoon though we went to our first market - which was CRAZY. I tell you, shopping here is quite an experience. Everyone yells at you to come have a look at their stuff - and it's no good expressing interest in ANYTHING unless you have a definite intent to buy it cos the people start haggling with you and shoving it into your hands and grabbing your arm and yelling at you as you walk off down the street. I'm getting a little bit better with the haggling... but I'm still a little scared of it all. Basically, it's best just to pick a low price and stick with it. If it really is a fair price 7 times out of 10 they'll call after you as you walk away and say ok. Like I bought a wallet for 20y, after they offered it to me for 160y... these are the kind of mark ups that you're dealing with... :) or, my friend Jess was buying a fake louis viton bad and some other fake wallet and they were asking for 1600y for them both... she ended up paying 200y, which Cindy said was even pretty pricey really for what they were...

1 yuan basically equalls about 20 cents or so.... so sometimes I feel petty haggling over the difference of like $1 or whatever... but sometimes it's just the principal of the thing - cos they all want to get as much out of the foreigners as they can.

Cindy is just AMAZING to have around... I don't know what we'd be doing if not for her - I just wouldn't know what to do... or where to go... or what to say - or things like how much things should cost and all of that... Jess Gareth and I went into the city for the first time without her yesterday, and we did ok - but then when we wanted to come home we were too tired to deal with the pub trans (3 different trains and a bus) and wanted to get a taxi - so we had to call cindy and handed the phone over to the taxi driver so he'd know where we wanted to go.
I felt kinda sorry for her - cos she wasn't feeling great for a while, but I think she felt like she had to come out and stuff just for us.... I wish I knew a bit more of the language just to spare her the effort some times. It must be hard when you have to order food for a whole table cos they can't read the menu. :)

We went one day to this Taoist temple, which was fascinating and beautiful. I can't wait to share photos of that too. I could have spent ages and ages just wandering around and looking and taking photos.... it was just amazing. It was funny too - as it had all these 'departments' that you could go and worship at, or make wishes or whatever. Some of them were quite funny, like, there was the 'Department of The Hell', 'Department of 15 kinds of Horrible Death', 'Department of the Animals', 'Department of Justafyable Wealth'... I bought a wish, but I didn't make it when I was there, I'm going to bring it home. I figure I can make it when I get home (oh, they're these red talisments that you write your name on the back of and hang in the appropriate place)...

We also explored the Hutongs - which are these little old alleyways in amongst Beijing City... we got on these bike/cab things - basically a little carriage for two people to sit on while a guy pedals the bike in front - and they took us around to look down all these different little streets. It was amazingly beautiful. And odd. I felt stragne - cos I was witnessing such extreme poverty in some places - cos while some of the houses were abandoned, some of them were still being used, and everything was so old and run down.... it should have been sad. But I couldn't stop myself from just thinking about how much character everthing had, and the history to it all, and how long it had been there, and how just plainly beautiful it all was. I felt like a spoiled, superficial westener..... but I guess who am I to judge how people should live their lives? And if they're happy, which most of them seemed to be.... why shouldn't I think of that as beautiful? Or is that just another lame justification.... ??

We went to the Forbidden City yesterday - which was... 'nice'.. It was such a touristy place - even though it was freezign yesterday, there were still hundreds of people there... We got an audio-tour thing which you can listen to as you walk around... which was really good and interesting, and I think without that it would have been much worse. I don't think it was as beautiful as some of the otehr places we've been so far - it was huge and magestic, and I did have fun imagining it filled with people from 500 or more years ago and what it would have looked like and all that, but after a while all my photos started looking the same... The gardens out the back was my favourite... but by then they wanted to clsoe and we didn't get as much time out there as I would have liked.

I just can't wait to get some photos up here!!!!! I want to share the china-love!!!

I'm going to have to go soon - but remind me to tell you all about my AMAZINGLY COOL WONDERFUL BEST NEW YEARS EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER!!!! and share with you the EVIL evil evil drinking game we learnt that night!!!!! or, I'll remind me.... or whatever...

next time I'll bring my diary so I remember more stuff....

keep warm for me!!!