Once again I give my apologies for my lack of entries on my blog….just having too much fun! Anyway as promised beginning where I left off…………..

We arrived alive and well but sleep deprived in Yangshuo. But no rest for the wicked. It was straight into lunch, immediately followed by at least a 10km cycle! It was a good cycle, cycling through the local countryside surrounded by Tor Mountains, into small villages where the locals are all farmers of the many rice paddy fields. Dinner was our first real experience of Chinese food and a great experience it was. We ate in a tiny village in an upstairs room of someone's house, where chickens and ducks roamed freely outside. Suddenly food was just produce in vast quantities. We were served a great range of dishes with rice, potatoes, eggplant, beef, pork and lots of veggies all served in different styles with lots of different sauces. Tasted great and of course no cutlery in sight! I started well with the chopsticks but after a while I slowed down and the fingers got tired, so it became a shovel in the gob job, which I think is the general idea anyway. My chopstick skills now however, are amazing to the point that I don't drop food down myself….for those who know me very well, I do drop some food down me most meals and that's with a knife and fork!

This meal was very much appreciated by all as we had by this point cycled many km's and had stopped along the way to trek up a hill call moon hill. I do not think I sweated so much in the whole of the trekking in the Himalayas', as I did that afternoon trekking moon hill. It was so unbelievably hot and a steep hill. At the bottom of the hill before you start the climb, are several Chinese ladies, some about 80 years old, each of whom carries an eski box with chilled drinks. They each assign themselves to follow you up the hill, hang out at the top of the hill with you and walk down with you again, in the great hope that you will buy one of their drinks off them!! They are def onto a money winner there as being so hot, that by the time you reach the top it's a welcomed drink! These older ladies are unbelievably fit though. They reached the top of the hill before any of us, with very little sweat on them! The view from the top of the hill was worth the climb. You could see for miles, all the villages and towns, rivers, between the Tors.

We eventually got back to the hostel and got the chance to have a good nights sleep on the MASSIVE double beds we all got each! The following morning, Charlotte and I took part in a Tai Chi class. Ed had taken one earlier in the morning, at an hour that Charlotte and I refused to get up at! The class was held in the middle of one of the towns squares, with just Charlotte, a guy call Matheius from our tour and myself. The class was led by a young Chinese man who was in training to become a fully qualified Tai Chi and Kunfu instructor. He was tres camp and just for our delight was wearing a bright yellow traditional Chinese silk top and trousers. He taught us a fairly simple Tai Chi sequence, teaching us step by step, and repeatedly we did this until we could complete it without our teachers help. The whole process of Tai Chi, as I am sure many of you know, is about slow coordinated/controlled movements, maintaining core stability throughout. Different movements/body postures reflect different energy flows. Throughout the lesson we had locals standing around and watching us, some filming! If China was allowed 'you tube', we would be on there titled 'Big noses attempts at the sacred art of Tai Chi'! Also had an incident where our instructor got a little wound up with one of the locals, whom kept attempting to join in with our lesson, but was too hysterical from laughing at us to do so. Instructors solution…….chase her into the nearest building! I enjoyed the lesson and could feel the effects on the muscles. One of the guides from our cycling the previous day showed us just how toned Tai Chi had made her, post giving birth. It was impressive!

After lunch we headed further out into the countryside to go bamboo rafting. We had imagined that this would involve us paddling along whilst sitting on literally a bamboo raft. However, it was a little more civilized than our imaginations. The raft was infact not made of bamboo as the name would suggest, but made out of plastic tubes, the ones used in pipe works for water etc! The only part that was bamboo about the whole rafting event was the bamboo seats we sat on. The raft actually had a motor and a driver, so no paddling required! We motored our way up a river to a point where there was a market on the floodplain. Here we pulled up so the locals got the opportunity to come and do some haggling with us. Some of the ladies working were as old as 60+, each carrying heavy loads on their shoulders with assistance of a bamboo stick. We also got the opportunity to see the birds that the fishermen use to catch fish. These fish are large birds, about the size of pelicans, that sit on the end of a bamboo stick which is on the shoulders of the fisherman. When on the water the fish go in, catch the fish, keeping it in their mouth, then the fishermen make the bird spit it out to add to their catch!

That afternoon Charlotte, Ed and I had a calligraphy lesson with an awesome 70 year old local man. He spoke very little English, but our lesson was great. He showed us how to write the basic Chinese calligraphy symbols such as air and water, using basic brush strokes. He would show us how to do the stroke and then we would practice them over and over again. Each time you did a good stroke, our Chinese man would exclaim 'Beautiful' with a brilliant smile, or when it wasn't going so well he would say 'no no no. Not good' and not look happy! With each different stroke he painted he would make a different sound, and do the same as we practiced our strokes. He was great!

That evening we spent in the bar in town and had some drinks and games of pool. The following day we shopped around the town and then headed back to Guilin, where we got the next sleeper train from. Another night of bunks, snoring, yummy food and foot in toilet hole experiences! From the train arrival the next morning, we got a bus for 4 hours until we reached a boat port. Here we boarded a small cruise boat, that we were going to be on for 2 nights to travel down the Yangtze river. The food on the boat was not a great experience, especially as we had been led to believe by our tour guide that the food was good food and he was Chinese. Suspiciously though he didn't join us for dinner! The next morning having floated down the river for a while, we got off our boat onto a much smaller little open wooden boat, so we could go down a narrower part of the river and visit a gorge. As we boarded we were handed a ticket with a picture of several men in a row pulling on the boats that we were about to board, and the men were butt naked! At one point of the river it gets very narrow to the point that its no longer possible to row the boat upstream, so a couple of the crew had to jump out, go up the bankside with ropes attached to the boat to pull the boat along from the top of the bankside. We all got a bit excitied when they picked up the ropes, thinking that this was when the men got their kits off, but alas they kept their clothes on! However, one of the other small boats also touring down the gorge did have his top off and had baby oiled! Plus all the men rowing the boat were wearing very short shorts and rowed forward standing up, so each time they leaned forward, the short shorts rode up a little!

After an exciting morning, we spent the afternoon off the boats in on land, where we hung out in a rather dead town, sitting in the park and then having a meal in a little restaurant. Whilst in the park some of us checked out the kids play area, where they had a little railway for the kids. We decided to have a go and get some pictures with a Chinese kid who wanted to join us. However, muppet here managed to derail one of the carriages, so I made a swift exit out of the area after that!

The next day we made our way back to the start point of our boat cruise, to spend the night in Yichang. Here we had a night out in a Chinese bar. Was quite a cool bar with some good cocktails, apart from the squatter toilets! They had some live music in the earlier part of the evening and then put on some dance music later on, so most of our tour group, minus a few who had moved on elsewhere, hit the dance floor and busted some grooves. The Chinese are hilarious when drinking as they cannot hold their drink at all. There was one couple who had fallen asleep on the table, and what was left of the others in the club, who hadn't been chucked out for being paralytic, were all holding each other up by swaying altogether to the music!

The next day we got another sleeper train to X'ian. X'ian translates into 'western peace' and is the capital of the Shaanxi province in the People's Republic of China. It is one of oldest cities in Chinese history and is one of the 4 great ancient capitals of China. Xi'an is where the Silk Road ends and houses the Terracotta army, which we went to see. Initially I wasn't very excited to be going there as I didn't really learn much history at school (lack of interest) and know very little of Chinese history, but when I was there I found it very interesting. It was a pretty impressive sight when you first go in to the building where they are housed. There are actually several buildings open to the public each containing various sections of the terracotta army, some reconstructed to show how they would have stood, and some left as they were found, crushed and smashed.

Whilst in X'ian we also cycled around the wall surrounding the city, which seems never ending whilst cycling it. We had a couple of hours to cycle the wall, but each wall looks identical so we took our time, thinking it was just the next wall along that we needed to return to bikes too. We had some fun taking some pictures at a random display of lifesize and bigger art, and general faffing around.Eventually we worked out that we were no where near our start point and had a distance to go, but very little time left! It was a super hot day so we arrived back absolutely nackered! We also went to visit the Bell and Drum tower which are in the central square of X'ian. The Bell tower has a huge bell which is hit with a huge wooden stick a few times a day. Inside the bell tower they have some very elaborately decorated rooms where they have little concerts using bells and other chiming instruments.The Drum tower, surprsingly has drums! Massive ones! There was also a night market there with all sort of things being sold and haggled for. Got to try some quails eggs dipped in penut butter which tasted great! Hidden amoungst the market is a temple which you would never know is there, unless told. It was huge as well, to our surpise. Micheal, our tour guide, was from X'ian and his wife not so long before he started our tour, had given birth to a baby girl. We were fortunate enough to meet his family whilst in X'ian. Throughout the tour, if asked about his daughter or wife, Micheal would go all gooey eyed and start getting out all his photos his wife and daughter. He clearly missed them very much whilst he was away. His wife and Daughter lived with his farther, which is tradition in China. Another tradition/common practice in China which took us a while to get used to was that they didn't use nappies or the equivalent on babies. To solve this they simply cut a slit in the trousers of the babies clothing and carry the child in their arms with a piece of cloth under the babies bum!

From X'ian we travelled via sleeper train (16 hours) to Shanghai. Shanghai is a very modern city, full of huge sky scrapers, businesses and massive shopping street. Here we hit the shops, where clothing is so much smaller, so the only size we can wear is large! One of the evenings we headed to the bank side of the river in the centre of the city to look at the lights, which were cool. We then made our way one of the business towers on the other side of the river. To do so we had to take the subway to the other side, under the water. By subway we thought they meant foot passage. We found our selves at a ticket office for the 'subway' which actually was a small train that goes under the river. The most awesome train ever!!! We though ok, fine few mins on train to go under the river, but it was sooo cool. They had decorated the tunnel throughout with different lights that all changed so basically the whole journey was a huge light show! Having had a great train experience we made our way to the tower we wanted to go to, to go the worlds tallest bar, which is on the 92nd floor of the building. Unfortunately it was closed when we got there, so in bad times such as these we had to settle for the lesser option of the bar on the 91st floor! And no less with those toilets (non squatter) that are entirely automatic and clean your bum and blow dry it when you have finished your business!!! Was most bizarre toilet experience, one that had me in hysterics! The view however, was not too good from there, as the weather for the whole time we were in Shanghai was rain, rain and rain with lots of clouds!Whilst in Shanghai, Michael treated us to a walking tour, where we started in the modern part of Shanghai, through to the older parts of shanghai, through some of the animal markets and finishing in the Yuyang Gardens.Here we had some dumplings from the famous dumpling house in China. They were so good. The oringinal dumplings that made the place famous are huge and have seafood in the middle. These dumplings, as do some others, have a hot broth in the middle of the dumpling, so the best way to eat them is to start by suckng up the broth through a straw!

From Shanghai we made our way via sleeper train to Beijing. This sleeper train journey was more interesting than the others as the train staff had given Michael some of the wrong train tickets, so some of us had no allocated bunks and the train was full. Most people got bunks, but there were 6 of us minus anywhere to go, Poor Michael had to have a long argument with the train attendant (there is one for every carriage), just a few mins before the train was due to leave. It ended up that we just had to jump on in a carriage about 7 carriages away from the rest of the group, and sit in the gangway for a while. We were an overflow basically. On the train they have one carriage allocated to those who have seating only tickets and non allocated bunks. They could see us 'big noses' sitting in the corridor of the next carriage and were furious as they were locked in their carriage until there was space for them elsewhere. After an hour of sitting in the gangway, Michael had haggled his way to get us some bunks for the night. I was allowed to sleep in the staff headquarters, apparently ladies only, but by morning they were all male bar one lady! It was slightly more up market than the other bunks, as we got a curtain separating our bunks from the commoners, and our own squatter toilet with toilet paper and some soap at the sink. Getting onto the top 3rd bunk though was more of a mission than usual as there was an additional curtain rail to contend with, plus I do no know any Chinese person with legs as long as mine, so I had to do a sort of very glamorous lunge onto to the bunk!

<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:1; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin-top:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:10.0pt; line-height:115%;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} -->

Beijing was very hot, humid and rained quite a bit as well.Upon arriving at Beijing, we all went off round the corner down some back streets to this tiny café to have some lunch. The lunch there was great, as they served us a whole array of Chinese foods, most notably the dumpling varieties, which were all great! After we went off for a walking tour around the main part of the city. Our first stop was to Tiananmen square, which was very hot!! I found it hard to concentrate on what Michael was telling us about the place, simply because the heat was too much. As it was monsoon throughout China, it was very humid. Tinanmen square is much bigger than I imagined and was very nice to look at. Don't ask me the history, cos I wasn't listening! Whilst we were there it was packed with loads of people from all over the world. One group of (possibly) Japanese people were there, with what looked like bomb/stab prove vests on, that or they had all just parachuted in and gotten rid of the parachute! They were all wearing the exact same jacket and it was black. Must have been boiling in the heat! There was also another group of Asian older ladies, who were being made to get into couples and practically march their way through the place by their tour guides!

After Tiananmen square we got the local bus back to where we were staying to go for dinner and then a small group of us headed to see a kungfu show! It was really good. Started off with some kids on the stage and an old man telling a story and not really doing a lot, so our thoughts were oh, were in for a long show, but shortly after it all started kicking off literally! The little kids in the show were brilliant and some of the choreography was really cool!

The next day was our biggest day out in China visiting the Great Wall of China! It was a long 2 hour drive out into the country to get to the wall, but it was worth it. When we got there we parked up at the bottom of the hill on which the wall is, where the facilities are complete with no less Subway (the sandwich company)! They get everywhere in every country! Michael also informed us there were two ways to get up onto the wall. One being the most obvious option, and climb up the hill, two being the cablecar! A few people including Ed wanted to climb the hill, so off they went and we met them along the way of the wall. Their starting point on the wall was further back on the wall so they have further to walk. For the rest of us lazy peoples, we enjoyed our ride up to the wall in the cablecar! We arrived on the wall at tower 14, so walked the rest of the way on the wall to tower 20. The walk up to the last tower is lots and lots of steep steps!! Lo and behold but who should be up the top……..a Chinese lady selling cold drinks out of her Eski! Having made our way up to tower 20 we had to head back, but further on past where we started, so we could make our way down. Of course we could have made our way down the conventional method, on foot, but that would be boring. We tobogganed down!! Great fun, especially when the Chinese men monitoring the run are telling you to slow down and being English you can fly by saying you don't understand! Who would have thought you can cable car up and toboggan down the Great Wall of China?!

That evening we all had our last group meal together in a restaurant that apparently sold very good peking duck. The chef when serving it comes out to your table and carves the duck infront of you. It tasted great and we all enjoyed it at the time, but later in the evening a couple of people got sick. One of the girls who was flying the next day started vomiting. I managed to get the squits the next day! Was a shame as all three of us had managed up until that point, not get food poisoning from China.

The following day, having said goodbye to the group, we made our way to our hostel we were staying in for a couple of nights. That afternoon we headed out on the metro to the Olympics site. Unfortunately whilst we were there, the swimming centre and gymnastics centre were all closed to the public. We did get to go into the main athletics arena (birds nest) which was massive. It looks so much bigger in real life than on the TV. Will be interesting to see how the Olympics site in London turns out!

We also got the time to visit the summer palace, on the outskirts of Beijng. Had fun walking from the metro station as its not really sign posted, and we had a Chinese man on his cycling tuk tuk who kept asking us if we wanted a lift. He wasn't quite understanding, as many of the Chinese don't, the word no! The summer palace was nice and very oriental, much of how I imagined China to be. Later on in the day we headed to Beijing zoo to see the pandas. Got to see one doing what a panda does best…eating bamboo! The rest of the zoo left a lot to be desired though, not because of the lack of animals as they had plenty, but the conditions in which they were living in were not nice and the animals looked like they all had problems. Just before we were leaving the zoo the rain kicked in with a proper storm . It left us with many others in the zoo sitting it out in one of the shelters, past the park closing time!! The lady selling the ponchos was sitting on a gold mine that day! During our time sitting it out, we got to witness one of the older local men doing a few stretching exercises, hopping on one leg and engaging the hips in some swinging action! We also got a different perspective of the city walking back via the back streets in the flooded roads. The following evening we got the sleeper train to Shanghai, so we could fly to Australia!

We stayed just a couple of nights in shanghai, in a really nice hostel which had a great selection of pirate DVDs (something the security officer didn't notice when he came to inspect the property!). For meals we were recommended a really good dumpling café where we had a good few meals! The following day, we didn't do that much was worth mentioning other than our short trip to the propaganda art museum, which was interesting. Mostly it was against the Americans, but they did have one or two slating the british as well. The English back in those times were depicted as a short fat dumpy man with eyes bulging out, a big nose and riding a horse!

The day of the flight, I made sure to have the hostel big breakfast (western style!), and it was worth it! We then headed to the airport, hoping to arrive there on the Maglev train, which gets from the centre of Beijing to the airport in 8 mins, travelling at 400km/hour. However, we could not find the point from which to pick the train up from, even though we got to the station we were told it goes from. Instead we had to get the metro there. But we made it!