Contrary to what this thing tells u, we're actually in HONG KONG!!!

yay finally some proper photos for u all to look at!

ok, well, we explored Yangshuo, and i can probably say that its my favourite place we went! It had such amazing scenery, and the people were so nice, even though they were constantly trying to sell us little keyrings they had made out of bits of stone! The 'city', they call it, was absolutely tiny, but somehow it had a population of over 400'000! the place was full of tiny little shops, tailors, barbers, a few markets, and our quaint hotel called Fawlty Towers, which we found amusing! everything there was so cheap, hannah and i even went for a facial and massage, cost only 2 pounds for an hour, which we thought wasn't too bad really. lol

the next day we went on a boat trip along the Li River. it was such a clear sunny day, so we could see for miles. Yangshuo is surrounded by over 20'000 limestone mountains, from where the land used to be under water. so wa got some amazing photos! have way around the river, the driver pulled the boat up onto the beach, and we were allowed to attempt to talk to some of the locals that lived there. they lived way back off the beach, under teh trees on the actual mountain, but there were quite a few people washing clothes, and food, and they had set up little tents on the beach. the people were really nice and one lady gave me a bit of radish which she was washing!

we were transfered out of the city to the countryside of Yangshuo, to a small farmhouse style guesthouse. it was all old brick buildings with large beams. it was so quiet, not to mention absolutely freezing! electricity is too expensive for them, so they have a tiny little fireplace in the restaurant bit, and everyone crowded around to try and stay warm!

we went ona bike ride one day, whihc i wasnt too worried about. until i saw the bike i was going to be riding for the day! from the 50's, rusted through, squeaking, oh no! it still had one of those dingy bells! but, i stepped up to the challenge and off we went. it was an extremely painful day, as all the roads were dirt tracks and the bike obviously had no suspension at all! after about an hour, we got to this big hill/mountain, where our leader said we could climb to the top because it had really beautiful views. (we had definitely been hearing that statement a lot recently!) we got about half way up, bsoultely exhausted, sweating, i wanted to cry! the insult was they had made us pay to go up! ok only 70p, but still! an old chinese lady, about 80years old, practically ran past me! i drank half my bottle of water, and carried on trudging up the steps, which far too late i had discovered there were 800 of! but in the end we reached the top, muscles screaming! click, click, a few photos, lovely, back down we go...

the highlight of this day was our bike leader, George, lived in the area, and had organised us for us to go a local house for homecooked chinese lunch. We went to on old lady's house, which was just a small brick outer building, with wooden planks dividing the rooms. the lady's husband had died recently and she had no family, so she let her house out to tourists to use to get a little money. the meal was amazing! the best one we had in the whole of china! all the meat and vegatables were grown in the village by her house, and because she couldnt afford too much oil, it wasnt greasy! delicious! we all payed her 20yuan, 1pound 40, and we had 7 dishes. we cycled back to the guest house in unbelievable amounts of pain, but stopped on the way at the local primary school. George said we could just go in, so we crept in, and all the children got really excited! we tried to take photos, but they were quite scared at first, and kept hiding. but after a while they we ok, but only if u showed them the photograph u took straight away! they loved being able to see themselves on the camera!

our next stop was to the Lonji Rice Terraces. It took 700years for them to complete them! impressive! that meant a lot of trekking! we had to walk up the mountain to get to our guest house, which was right at the top because the leader thought we would like the lovely scenery! after that 30mins of pain, i was really getting sick of 'lovely scenery'! the next day we did the big trek, from one village to another. this was 4hours, and pretty hard. when we started off at 9am the temperature outside was 4degrees, but by 12pm it was 20degrees. the heat was what made it so hard.

next day was our final overnight train! 17hours to the Hong Kong border! Hong Kong is an amazing city! its like Beijing and Shanghai bacause of the lights and business, but it's so much more attractive! we looked around some markets and went out for our final group dinner! how sad for us all!

Right now Hannah and I are on a really small island just off the south of Hong Kong Island. The apartment overlooks Aberdeen Harbour, see picture! today we did a bit of shopping and walked by the beaches which are so beautiful! it's so hot here at the moment, we're really not used to the sun and heat! although we've been told that its actually cold weather for Hong Kong!

we're having such a great time! plans for xmas day? well, so far ours are to sit in our pjs, watching loads of movies, have a few drinks, eat a lota chocolate..... yes, lovely!

bye bye for now xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx