Wake up late. Our boat arrived in
I spend much of the day in internet cafes or in my room watching the Guinness World Records show in China! Highlight was the man who used his fist to crack open nuts… he cracked
I chat to Lisa, my tour guide from the dam. She seems to open up to me and tell me all about her troubles at home and how she wants to leave, but its too scary for her! Why does this always happen to me?
Early night!
Wake up with a bit of a cold. Find it hard to get out of bed! The excursion today is to the
On the way back, I hear one of the most disturbing thing ever! The old folk on the tour start discussing how they are going to leave all the room keys on the table and swap wives!!! I am truly disgusted!
Have lunch, then we get invited to go look at the bridge. It’s pretty cool, just 3 guys sitting in a room and steering! I then have a nap! I wake up and then go to the free tea and biscuits give away on the viewing gallery. Weren’t great bickies! End up chatting to old Aussie couple again and Claire and her mum! Topics end up on politics and free press. Claire’s mum ends up calling me a cynical youth!!! I don’t think I’m cynical, in fact I confess that I bloody love my life and everything in it! It’s great! But some things just don’t add up in the world and that’s the way I see things!
The captain has a leaving banquet for us… free wine! Then we have performances on the ship from all the people on board. I go up and play a few songs of course! A guy from Cumbria does a poem recital, which I found it hard to figure out, god knows what the Chinese on the ship thought of it!
Wake up too late for Tai Chi, but find out it was a bit rubbish anyways! Today’s excursion takes us to the Lesser 3 Gorges. We disembark and get on a smaller ferry and then get taken to a place where we transfer to even smaller Sampans. Amazingly, the rain stops today! And we get to see some really beautiful landscapes! We were rowed up the river for 45mins, then the boatmen jumped off and towed the boats from ashore. Originally, the river was only
After lunch, we hit the Second and Third Gorges. It’s pretty amazing! Just like Chinese paintings! I can’t even think of the words to describe it. Just look at the pictures! I’ve seen some of the best views in
I went back onto the viewing galley and chatted to Claire, a traveller from Oz. She was on her way around the world and is going to a place near Xian to teach for a while. Had dinner and then chatted to an old Australian couple. Things got really weird and the topics ranged from society, socialism and technology! I really don’t know how it happens! People just seem to want to talk to me about these things! Spend the rest of the evening chatting to the riverboat guide, Vincent. I learn all about the life of a riverboat guide. He is only a few years older then me, but feels he is in a dead-end job! No chance of finding a good woman and no job prospects! The guys on the boat actually work 10 months straight, 7 days weeks, only getting half-a-day breaks before each journey.
Wake up to the boat disembarking! I open the curtains and see a wall of rock! Pretty impressive. I’m happy as no one was moved into my room last night, so I am staying in a double room and paying only the single! It’s drizzling outside!
I go for breakfast buffet, and as Leo (my man in Hong Kong), the food is just okay! I get put with the English speaking group… group Lisa, named after our local guide Lisa! We get on the coach with all these tired old people who are acting like teenagers on board! “Let’s sit in the back and cause trouble” “where’s my woman gone?” and then they start singing too! Oh dear!
The coach takes us to the Great Dam, but the rain means that we could see pretty much bugger-all! I manage to haggle for some postcards from Y20 to Y10. I’m happy! Others in the group start to complain about the standard of Lisa’s (ching)lish! Does take a lot of concentration for even me to understand her, but their tour guide rebuts them by telling them that her English is way better then their Chinese! I start chatting to the guide and help her with her English, picking out things she has said wrong! She is very grateful and I could see her using the words I helped her with in her spiel and a big smile on her face when she knows she has got her pronunciation correct!
I talk to an old Australian couple, saying how it’s a shame that it was raining and we could hardly see the dam wall. “Oh well, we can come back and see it again”… whoops, they went silent and give me a strange look… I don’t think they will be up and about for long!
We get taken though all the gift shop areas and I see some how silly some of the mark-up prices are for souvenirs! A chess set which I brought in Yiwu for the business had a price tag of Y3800. I brought it from the manufacturer for around Y
On our way back to the boat, the guide sings a folk song for us! She told us of her story, how she used to live in the city, but then her father, an engineer moved to the 3 Gorges area to work on the dam. She became very very depressed as she was away from all her friends and couldn’t do all the things you could in the city; go shopping, hang out, find a man! But her father always told her that he was doing some thing very very important and that by building the dam, many people in
Before I get back on the cruiser, I buy some beers from a store. I get 7 beers for Y35. Some weird looking can! I get back on board and then go up to the viewing deck to watch us go through the lock system. I start conversation with the tour manager of the
We then watch the safety presentation (Chinese one had a total of 4 people turn up!) which wasn’t really that assuring! The riverboat guide didn’t seem to be taking it too seriously and I find it a bit funny that the talk is after a whole night on board the boat! Though Gillian says that it is the same in
I get talking to more of the old folk on board. We then watch a talk on pearls, where I meet two girls from Gunagdong. One was alright looking. We get chatting and I show them all my pix from my travels! Captian’s welcoming party in the evening – free champagne! (for half an hour!) Dinner was followed by a talk on acupuncture and foot massage, where Vincent, the river guide, seemed to be making a lot of it up! We then were treated to a fashion show, costumes through the ages, ethnic minorities, and surprise surprise, clothes from the store on board!
I sit on the deck round the back and play guitar for a bit and drink the beer I smuggled on board… turns out to taste like shit! Never get round to finishing the 7!
Wake up to Chinese guys in my room talking loudly; “that girl likes you... she likes you... you have a better chance... is she looking in?” It’s like 13 year olds! I decide I'd better get out of bed and make an early start to get to Huangshan. Shower and then check email... decide against Huangshan after talking to Ting Ting. So I surf the net instead and decide on my next move. I almost forget to check out!
New plan: bum around for today and wait for sleeper train to Wuhan, then get a bus in the morning to Yichang and get on a boat and go to the 3 gorges and end up in Chengqing. But what boat to take?
I meet Roger whilst I check out. We sit and chat whilst I have my lunch and the topic seems to get really deep again. What is wrong with me? Everyone I’ve spoken to recently, the topics have got really deep like people’s living standard and politics!!!
Can’t get through to the train station by phone to buy my tickets, so I decide to go directly and buy it myself. I follow a group of German guys but they talk me to the wrong bus stop, as they are going to another station. Damn Germans! The bus back from the train station was a tour bus!
Back at the hostel, I meet a Canadian couple who had done the cruise downriver, and from their experiences, I decide to take the expensive luxury cruise up! Though they paid Y1200 each, which didn’t include food, excursions and they had to share a cabin with 2 other people, all in all costing them Y1400. The 5-star cruise that I am looking at is Y1800! I’m so glad that I have friends in the travel business here in China to get me the deals!
Watch Alien vs. Predator in the Hostel. Another hour and a half of my life I will never get back! Then go get dinner with Jay, a Londoner! He is on his way to Australia via China, and was waiting for a flight to Zhengzhou tonight. I don’t think he liked the local food all too much! I get a toothache. We see Tatsu with his “girl friend”... funny that, as last night he was saying how his girlfriend was in Japan and this girl was Chinese!
I send Jay off in a taxi to the airport and go back to the hostel. Super Size Me is on. I decide to go read in the reading area as the film is too depressing for me, but an American guy at the hostel seems to love it! They put on Alien vs. Predator again! Decide to watch the first 20mins which I missed last time round! So an hour and 50mins of my life gone now! I say goodbye to Roger, who seems to be accompanied by his Chinese friend (also a young girl), everyone's just picking up girls? Is there some sort of female escort service at this hostel?
I get on the sleeper train to Wuhan at 11.20pm. I am lucky to get put in a cabin with an elderly couple. We talk for a bit with the only notable subjects; University system, families and living together and then I taught the wife some English; “goodnight”.
Shopping!!!
I leave my Uncle and Mr Jin at 2 to catch my train back to Hangzhou. I decide to take a motorbike taxi back to the hotel with a box of stuff which my uncle needs to take back to UK. We get stopped by police! He asks for my ID, so I give him my British Passport. The police officer is dumbfound! He doesn’t know what to do or where to look at it! After studying my passport for a while, he gives up and gives it back to me. On hearing that I’m from England, the motor cab driver decides to quiz me! “are English girls pretty?... I would like to get with one... Chinese girls are like tigers” Then he asks me, “How do you say; I want to make love to you?”, so I translate, and tell him that I’m not that way inclined!
I get my stuff and head to the train station. I go to the toilet with my pack on my back and daybag in front. It’s at these times which I am glad I am not travelling with Eamonn and I would be prime for a pushing over, and with one hand holding my cock and the other holding my day bag to one side, I would not be getting up!
I am glad about spending the last few days with my unlce in Yiwu. It was a reality check and helped me sort a lot out. And I got a good hotel and good food!
People are selling torches on the train journey again.
Arrive at Hangzhou again and book into a different hostel; closer to the station. It seems okay and I meet a Japanese guy, Tatsu, who has been cycling from Vietnam all the way to Shanghai! It seems amazing... I want to do it! It’s all unplanned, he just gets to a province, buys a street map and then rides to the next province! He turns out to be a right laugh and we have a few beers.
Can’t decide on where to go next, as my intended place, Huangshan seems to be cloudy and will rain later. Seems a bit pointless going if its shit weather and won’t get to see the sun rise! But still can’t decide.
Wake up at 9.30, shoulders still hurt and I find it really hard to get up. I suppose I’m not used to waking up so early from waking up around at least midday in Shanghai! I get ready and find out that I had the taps the wrong way again yesterday for the shower! STUPID!!! I get a decent enough bike (yesterdays was a little too small) and ride out to get breakfast in town. I meet Andrena at the Ming Hostel in town.
We get her a bike from the hostel (more expensive then my bike!). My first impression is that she doesn’t look too ‘mobile’ on the bike! I ask her when was the last time she rode, it was only a few weeks ago in Xian, though that was on the city wall, not on busy streets! I’m glad we changed our plans, as originally we were going to go ride through the mountains!
First stop, Yellow Dragon Cave Park. We dismount and walk up to the pagoda. Looks pretty different to all the other pagodas I’ve seen. Andrena whips out her wide angle lens for her compact camera. It looks pretty cool actually, bit weird for a compact camera but pretty cool gadget! We then trek up the mountain which gives pretty cool views of Hangzhou and try and find the Sunrise Terrace. We finally find it after getting lost and then bump into Paopin Temple, one of the places I wanted to go see.
After two hours of trekking in the park, we leave and go for lunch. Go to a pretty posh looking place on the north bank of the lake and turns out to be pretty expensive! Y50 each, but it was pretty nice food, had West Lake Fish, a speciality of Hangzhou.
We then re-saddled and cycled across Baidi Causeway and went to the provincial museum. It was actually pretty good, and free! I’ve never been to a free museum in China before! Would have been better if I hadn’t just been to Shanghai Museum the week before and Nanjing Musesum the week before that… I don’t think I will be going to another museum for a while! We then get to General Yue Fei’s Mausoleum. He was a general in the Song Dynasty who successfully fended off several invaders, but then was betrayed by the court and executed (fucking Mandarins!).
We then rode down Sudi Causeway and then all the way around the lake to return to the hostel where we rented the bikes! The hostel looks a lot livelier then the one I’m in at the moment! We go to the Old Street to look around and go for some tea tasting! Dinner was good, ate fatty pork (aka heart attack in a pot)!
Knackered, return to my hostel and use free internet!!!
Wake up late… shoulders hurt! No hot water for shower! I have breakfast/lunch at the restaurant downstairs from the hostel. It looks as though it used to be just a restaurant, but then they added a hostel on top. There’s a nice water feature at the restaurant. I eat noodles. I then rent a bike and ride into town (my hostel seems to be miles away from town). I get to a pagoda which I enter and climb. It’s really nice and the views are pretty good, but I just can’t be arsed with anything! I’m just bored of it all now!
I ditch my bike and then pretty much force myself to walk by the West Lake (bikes are not allowed) which is full of people. What’s worse, it’s full of couples. Yea, it’s pretty romantic, with all the cheesy love songs blaring out the speaker system, but it gets a bit too much for me! I start to hate all the people who are showing too much affection for each other in public! (I used to be unashamedly be one!) Then I see all the doochebag looking people with their girlfriends. I don’t know which is worse? Overly affectionate or dooschebag couples?
I find a pavilion with people taking turns in singing opera and playing music. Nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon methinks! Then I get to this square where it seems that people are just gathering in crowds and arguing! It looks pretty heated! I suppose ancient Greece was very much like this?
I meet an Aussie lady called Andrena from Melbourne outside the ticket booth for a boat trip. I approach her and make conversation and try to help translate for her with the ticket booth lady. I crack one of the best jokes ever! “I don’t know if I wanna go on this boat” “me neither, I suppose we’re in the same boat!” hahahaha… I guess you had to be there! We take the boat trip and see all the islands in the lake. Not much to say. Just some islands innit! We decide to have dinner and have a Hangzhou specialty: duck. It was pretty nice, a bit on the salty side though.
Andrena then goes to a show which apparently foreigners always like to watch! It’s Y300 so I decide against it! I find a busker on the way to my bike and then start chatting and play a few numbers! Yes… I did. I played Wonderwall!
I finally find my bike and cycle home. I chill out and use the Internet. When I go to pay for it, the boss tells me not to bother, just use it! I also meet the other person staying in my room. We chat and he says that as long as I’m Chinese, we are friends! He seems real nice, a art student from Dalian. A big group of students arrive in the hostel tonight, but not in my room!
Mozzy last night kept me up! The bastard bit me on the forehead as the rest of my body was wrapped up in my sleeping bag! I finally make it to the museum (third attempt!) and the whole place is full of children on a school trip. I get myself an audio tour and then go to the top of the museum and worm myself down (the opposite to the school kids). After 2 hours of museuming, I have a break and have a chocolate cake. The kids have seem to have gone, but they are replaced by even more annoying Americans!
I would say that this museum is my second favourite in China, 1st place going to Beijing Military Museum, but that’s mainly because I got to ride in a tank there! After the 4th hour, I regret bringing my Lonely Planet with me, as my shoulders start to ache! I leave at chucking out time, spending a total of 5 hours there. I think I saw everything, but the last hour was very rushed! Maybe should have woke up an hour earlier!
On the way home, I see a street-peddler selling Monopoly. I don’t know if it’s the Shanghai edition, but I get it for the boys as a gift for letting me stay round for soo long! I’m happy as I haggle it down by a lot!
Monopoly night! I win!!! I’m great! Max is the funniest person ever!
Sleep in till 1. Doesn’t look like I will be going to the museum today! Cook noodles for lunch at home. I feel real bad that I have wasted yet another day, so decide to leave the house and just go somewhere. I end up going to the old town… I’ve been here before! My dad took me last time I came to Shanghai! Worse, it’s full of people! I’m not really feeling busyness today!
The metro system in Shanghai is very similar to Hong Kong in the fact that the platforms have glass panels to stop people falling/jumping and have doors at where the doors of the train would stop. But unlike HK, the doors were open all the time, rather than just when the train pulled up. Sort of pointless now having a safety system when you don’t use it? My thoughts on the savvyness of the Shanghainese changes. Even funnier, the trains aren’t even the whole length of the platform, causing stampedes of people running up the platform when the train stops… surely not safe? Worst of all, I get stuck on my train as I can’t get off because the crowd of people rushing in when I am trying to get out! My metro experience was not very good today!
Have dinner with Eamonn, Neith and two other Irish, Amy and Keane from the flat downstairs. Big Halloween night tonight, but I am too tired to go with them! Also, I was determined to go to the museum tomorrow! I was asked what food I really wanted to eat. I answered; “shepard’s pie” the response was “fuck off back to England!!!” I settle for a lasagna instead! Go home and have early night.
Wake up and drag myself up! I’m such a bum nowadays! I’ve woken up the last two days when Max gets back from Uni at midday. I tell him I’m going to the Shanghai Museum and set off to get some foodage! I force the food down me, but I’m not really enjoying it any more! Feel pretty miserable! I talk to Lisa, which cheers me up, and then I decide it’s probably best to just go home and sleep. So I go to the supermarket and get myself some snacks and fruit and then head home.
I sit and watch some more BBC News and then I hear a key rustling at the door. Now, I know Eamonn is at work, and Max had just gone to Chinese class… it’s the third house mate who I have not met yet! She walks in with her mum and uncle; “hello! I’m Eamonn’s friend” I’m glad she didn’t find me in my underwear with a beer in my hand (the thought had crossed my mind… what? No one was in the house!?!?) Was still pretty awkward though! But they left after a bit so I was left on my own again!
Nap!
Wake up to Max returning after lessons. “Do you want to come play football?” My answer? “Hell yeah!!!” So he lends me some shoes and a t-shirt and we’re off to play football with the French. Most fun I have had in a long time!!! Showed my skills and most importantly formed part of the Great Wall of China in front of our goal!
Return home HUNGRY! Have a shower and shave my scraggly beard! Go and have dinner with the French… order the typical Kung Pao Chicken and Sweet and Sour Pork. Get a call from mum and wish her happy birthday. What a great son I am, I make her call me to wish her birthday wishes! The French guys go up to their apartment to have a smoke. I decide against it, as I feel the high is not worth the risk. I was told that it’s not that risky, as most police officers don’t know the smell of weed, so even if they investigate, they wouldn’t know what it was! Though life sentence in China doesn’t sound that appealing for me for a few drags and a high!
Spend an hour and a half trying to find credit for my phone and panicking so that I could call Olivia and meet up for drinks tonight. Her mobile wasn’t working, so I was relying on her calling me, but you can’t receive calls in China unless you have credit. Gay system! I finally get credit at around midnight and receive call from Olivia. It was only her 2nd attempt to call me! As usual, she wasn’t even ready or packed (her flight leaves tomorrow at 6am). We decide to meet at 1am! Girls ey?
We go for drinks and stay out until around 4. No sleep for her tonight! Taxi home was pretty scary, the driver was actually falling asleep at the wheel! I decide to talk to him to keep him awake!
Wake up and try and make it to the Shanghai Museum. Decide to meet Neith for lunch, though it takes me about an hour to find where she works! We have a good natter about missing home and eat a sandwich! I then try and find a bus back into town for People’s Square, but I’m not sure which one to take so I ask someone. Their first reaction is "are you from Hong Kong?"
I decide to get into a taxi and have a nice chat with the driver! He thinks I am a film director! The topic gets onto people from UK and about class differences and such. I know I might be heading for a particularly sensitive subject so just decide to tell him that at the end of the day, everyone is the same everywhere and so are governments! Phew! He likes me and says that I am a descendant of the Yellow Emperor! He then asks me about the doll in UK. I tell him I know little about it!
Make it to People’s Square, but it’s too late to go to Shanghai Museum (3 o’clock by now… I’d need a good 4 hours and it closes in 2) so I settle for the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum instead! Pretty good museum, though it got rather tedious at the end as I don’t really care too much about Shanghai to be fair :P
Read in People’s Square and then decide to go for a walk. This walk becomes a mammoth walk which gets me lost and covers around 10miles!!! I just started walking and couldn't stop!
Meet Olivia (friend from BLCU who was visiting Shanghai too) at around 11pm. Tell her how fed-up I am of travelling! She tells me I look very thin and I realise that I haven’t actually been eating lately! Maybe why I keep doing stupid things! We hang out at McDonalds!
Miles walked: 166.903m
Wake up to piano playing from upstairs. Would sound real cultured and cool if I could say what was being played… but I’m not cultured and cool! Look out the window and see children playing in the park. Big contrast to what had happened the night before. I go to the living room and turn on the TV. They have satellite! I watch Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back! I also find that they have BBC News! Quality!
Have dim sum lunch with Martin. Was alright dim sum, nothing on the stuff back in Hong Kong! Eamonn takes me to the French Concessions and a swanky place called Shin Tian Di. There are soo many fit girls, both Chinese and Western! Eamonn leaves me to go help a friend with her English… apparently she has fit friends!
I walk around the French concessions and it feels like being back in London! There’s enough whiteys, though they all speak French! I walk a good few miles and get tired so I decide to go home via the metro. I take it the wrong way and get lost twice! It’s a silly system! People seem so much savvier here in Shanghai. Very un-Chinese!
Get home and upload a bollock-load of pictures! So much faster here and using a decent PC! Go to a ramen place for Dinner; one of my favourite places when I was in Hong Kong. Meet Eamonn again and the drinking starts! I won’t get into too much detail of the night out, but we went to a place called Bon Bon (all you can drink for Y120) and ended up with a Danish passed out on the sofa, whilst Eamonn had to escape the clutches of Helgar, the German who was after his Irish bits! Return home at 6am!
Pack my bags and it ends up heavier and bulkier than before! Maybe it’s the make up bag the Danes left which I was taking to them! I have a Burger King with Tom for breakfast! We walk pass another internet café which is closer then the one we had been going to all this time round the corner. I say goodbye to Tom who is the first person I have spent more than one day hanging out with!
I top up my phone, buy an Y100 card for Y105, a common thing I found out from now on as I have a Beijing number and that takes a different top up card.
I get a ticket to Suzhou and I think it is 1st class again when I get on the train. Pretty short trip and I sleep for most of it. I get off the train and find a whitey tour group. I leave the station and am swamped with people selling maps and homeless people with limbs missing. Not the best first impression! I buy a map and then someone asks me if I need a hotel. I tell them I got a hostel booked and they ask me the price. I tell them Y40, they turn away knowing they can’t do much to match that!
I get into a cab and am taken to the hostel by a nice man who is learning English and Cantonese! We chat away alternating in the three languages and I help him with some of his homework!
I arrive at he hostel and I am told there is someone from England who looks just like me who left yesterday! I have a doppelganger!
I walk around the streets. It is really pretty… so are the girls! It was like walking backwards in time and the canal is really cool!
Arrive in
Miles walked: 143.750m
Just couldn’t get the day started! The amounts of times we left the hostel and had to go back for things or got distracted by things! We head to
I get distracted by a book store we walk by and I decide to go in to solve my lack of reading material problem! I am browsing the English section as Tom has to use the facilities, when a Chinese girl comes up to me and starts talking. I’m not sure what she is talking about, but she shows me a flyer for an
We then board a bus takes us to the old Ming Palace Ruins, the predecessor to the Forbidden Palace in Beijing. On the bus, we see a girl who gets off at the wrong stop and has to ask her friend who is on board for Y2 so she can get back on again. It is mildly funny!
Nanjing Museum is okay. Not that much is labelled in English even though the Lonely Planet says otherwise. The most impressive thing of note was probably the lacquer-ware. Most other things in the museum I have seen before in either
We returned to the hostel to have dinner and chill out. I decide against going out on the town with Tom as I am still feeling ill and I have to be better for when I get to Shanghai. A lot of drinking to be done then! So I have a shot of Jim Bean and take a rain-check with Tom. He decides to go out and tries to find the girls who work at the hostel at a nightclub they said they would be at. I notice a picture of Sam in one of Tom’s photos! So that’s two different sets of people we both have met on our journeys!
I speak to the night porter at the hostel and it turns out he is from Guangdong. He tries talking to me in Cantonese, but I understood him better when he spoke Mandarin! I also find a guy from
Miles walked: 136.063m
Wake up and check out. Internet is down at the hostel, so don’t get to check up on my Facebook before my long train journey! I get in a cab for the train station and pass the bus station which I arrived at. The meter showed Y10… I paid Y72 on my way in… fucking cowboy taxi driver!
Hour and half into the journey, I decide to go check out the facilities! I press the button for the automatic door for the toilet… it flings open and there’s a Chinese guy pissing… ARGH!!! Pretty embarrassing! I don’t stick around to say sorry!
Miles walked: 113.960m
Wake up and go for a massage with Anna. Just what I needed, though I am still ill and getting worse. Anna gives me a lot of advice on travelling alone and she tells me that it looks like I had hit traveller rock bottom (with my illness) but I still had a smile on my face. This made me feel better about myself already. I go to the pharmacy to get me more drugs. I am so glad that we had the ‘going to the doctors’ lesson at BLCU (Beijing Language Cultural University).
Say good bye to Anna, she was on her way to Korea to find a job. I’ve still not hung out with anyone for more than a day! Starting to get to me a bit! I hang out at the hostel for a bit and then decide that I want to go see the sea. It’s always nice to sit and chill and watch the sea.
I find some street food boiled stylie. Basically there’s a table in the middle of the road and a pot in the middle with fish balls and different types of sea foodage! I eat five skewers and only pay Y2.5! Bargain! I go to the internet cafe for a few hours and then come out and eat at the street food place again! The lady recognised me! I want to get some fried fish, but all the fish vendors had closed.
Go back to the hostel and have a spag bog and watch Night at the Museum. A big crowd of Chinese guys gather to watch the film. I’m the only person to laugh at the subtle English jokes… feel a bit of a plonk! It was like when I watched that Hugh Grant film in the cinema and I was the only one laughing at the music based jokes... on my own!
Not much to write when I am sitting about recovering from illness!
Miles walked: 100.343m
Steps taken: 55,454
Sleep in today as I’m feeling pretty ill and I thought I would take Greg’s advice and just be as lazy as possible! I finally haul myself up and shower. I ask the reception girl if I can get my laundry done anywhere near by. I had asked her last night and she said I could do it myself at the hostel. Fuck that am I going to scrub my own clothes and hang them out to dry! She directs me down the road and round the corner to a dry cleaner’s. Turns out to be Y10 a piece!!! I decide to do my undies myself and gave the lady all my over garments. I have to haggle off the time she can get it done for me… how strange!
I go back to the hostel and find Greg. We go and have breakfast together. I don’t think he was overly impressed with my choice of hole in the wall restaurant! To be fair it was a little manky! I then go to an internet cafe for four hours! Longest I’ve spent… manage to upload a lot of pix though!
I then buy some soap and prep myself to clean my own undies! I go back to the hostel and decide I’ll go explore what facilities they had… I find a washing machine… and a tumble drier!!! GAYNESS!!! I just spent Y66 on dry cleaning and Y2 on a bar of soap! The machines cost Y8 each and when I was using the tumble drier, for some reason it worked without me putting money in!
I decide to sit in the common area and play guitar to chill out. All is well until the owner comes in and tells the bar staff to put on some music. This I do not take kindly to! So I play louder and sing a few songs! After twenty minutes, the bar man comes over and gives me a beer. It was from the owner! I think I made my point! I’m feeling very petty today!!!
I finish my washing and decide to go for a walk and explore the surroundings. I do a big loop around and walk down the high street. It definitely seems more European, especially the high street. Just like back home. I think to myself, if I was home right now, the Christmas trees would be out! I see kids playing on the street; they are jumping up and then off steps. One of the kids accidentally kicks the other one mid jump and he lands on his face! It looked painful! He cried! I eat at the same restaurant as last night. Wish I wasn’t ill and I could eat all the yummy grilled seafood! It looks sooo nice!
I head back to the hostel and watch Die Hard 4. It was wicked! Scottish girl called Anna arrives. She seems pretty nice! We watch Pan’s Labyrinth until the last ten minutes where the disc is too scratched! Pretty annoying… dodgy Chinese DVDs!
I had asked for a cup of tea whilst watching the film and when everyone had left and I was on the internet, the barman tells me that the tea was Y5! Tea!!! In China!!! Y5!!! I am fuming… so I turn off the computer when I finished just to spite him! I’m feeling REALLY petty today!!!
Miles walked: 94.312m
Steps taken: 39,982
I check out and go to Zoucheng (Mencius’ hometown). We drive past a street full of shops selling cannons and artillery pieces! Sat next to a really cute Chinese baby – she was being taught numbers! I’ve got to say, anyone out there who wants a cute Chinese baby… I am willing to spread my seed!
I get a motor cab from the bus station to the Mencius Temple. Lonely Planet suggests it’s a Y10 ride, I get it for Y5, but the more I think about it, I could have got it for even cheaper! A thought comes to my head; I’ve never seen a Chinese person blow their nose before! Is that why they always spit? I think more research is needed on this matter!
I start to feel really ill so get bus back to Qufu. A beggar at the bus station starts to really annoy me. I tell him I have nothing to give him and he gets annoyed with me. I mean, I’m not a mean person and maybe he got down on his luck, but him getting annoyed at me for not giving him any money is just stupid. He’s lost all pride in himself.
The bus journey to Qingdao was pretty crazy! The driver was just weaving in and out of traffic like a madman! A few near misses! Hold a pee in for a good hour and half… almost wet myself!
Once in Qingdao, I jump in a cab. Turns out the bus dropped me off in the suburbs and the hostel I want is in the city! The taxi man is very talkative. I miss most the things he says, but he seems very proud of his city and seems well travelled (
Arrive in the hostel, turns out to be Y20 a night! The cheapest I have had so far in
I have some freshly made noodles in a hole in the wall restaurant. Was so nice that I have a second bowl! Fat bastard!!! Play guitar in the common area… first time I’ve touched a guitar in a few weeks. They turn on the music which annoys me so I move out to the foyer and serenade the reception lady! She is nice to me from now on!
I return to my room to sleep but an American Hong Kong lady talks at me even though I tell her I am ill and need sleep! We get into an argument about
Miles walked: 90.559m
Steps taken: 30,432
