00jase

Got up stupidly early again (needing lay in pronto) And took the one hour bus drive to the Chengdu Panda breeding centre. It was a sunny but cool day. The Pandas were incredible, normaly they do bugger all and are quite placid apart from 2 days a year when its mateing time. Today was one of those days, all the adults were on heat and were wondering around, rolling around and generally doing active things that dopey Pandas dont normaly do. The most incredible part was the Baby Pandas. They were really mobile and playfull. They look almost unreal. The human like eyes (more so then the elephants) give the appearance of children in panda suites. I must have taken 100 photos of the baby Pandas allown. After a couple of hours and a museum we ... read more

Up after a good night sleep, got ready and went for breakfast. We checked out then caught bus for a 4-5 hour journey to the world heritage town of Lijiang. The journey was interesting and we saw a wide variety of things on route from farms, toens to Army shooting ranges. We arrived in Lijiang at about 1:00. We were staying in a hotel situated in the New town but just around the corner from the old town. We headed off in to the old town for lunch, where again it started to pour it down with rain. I almost killed myself a couple of times due to the slippery cobbled stones (and the fact I was wearing flip flops probably didnt help either.) Anyway had a steak for the first time in ages and ... read more

Got up lateish, and headed downstairs to drop off my bags then headed off to cafe China with Mick for some brunch. While leaving we were accosted by Mrs Money, some rich local woman who likes to beg as she finds it so lucrative. Met the others in the hotel lobby at 12:00 and we all jumped on a bus back to Guilin. The journey was only 1h30 to get to Guilin airport. Here we chilled out for a short while with a quick drink and sncks before boarding the South China airways flight to Kunming in the Yunnan province. The flight was again only just over an hour. The flight wasnt great as the pilot seemed to like to throw the plane about (maybe he was bored) and the inflight entertainment consisted of more Mr ... read more

Guilin - Yangshuo (Li river cruise) Asia » China » Guangxi » Yangshuo By 00jase June 20th 2007 Awesome Krast Awesome Krast Got up sort of last minute dot com but still managed to catch breakfast. We then transfered all our stuff to the bus down stairs and were taken to a small dock just outside of Guilin. Today we were heading to the beautiful town of Yangshuo. Well the town of Yangshou I didt know much about but what I did know was that the town is completely surrounded by beautiful Krast Mountains. Guilin is surrounded by a few but apparently nothing like Yangshou and the added bonus was that we were getting there by boat via the Li river which snakes its way through these amazing mountains. An hour before arriving at Yangshou we ... read more

Hong Kong day 5 (meet my China tour group) Asia » Hong Kong » Kowloon By 00jase June 18th 2007 Kowloon by night Kowloon by night Got up packed and checked out of the guest house in the Chung King Mansion. Then headed off to the Stanforf Hillview hotel just up the road (all part of the tour) much was really swish. Met my Room mate and one of the tour members I londoner ex puplican called Mick (really nice bloke). He was going off to see the Budda at lantau but being incredibly hot and the budda being a very new one (built 10 - 15 years ago) I left him to it. Went for a bite to eat in a very locals local cafe. Then stroled around the water front and around Harbour City. ... read more

Up late and got myself sorted before heading off into Kowloon. Looked around for a bank to change some travelerscheques but they were all really busy (had stupidly long queues.) Went for lunch to a japanese fast food joint. Here for hardly anything and just over a minute your served with a large bowl of pork and veg with rice. You also get a large bowl of soup, drink and a small pot of lychie jelly. Afterwards I went and spent a fair amount of time on the internet trying to catch up with this blog. Afterwrds I went for a hot chocolate and a read of the paper. Then went to the cinema to see the only thing on that I hadnt seen yet, Fantastic Four 2 (suprisingly not as bad as I first thought.) ... read more

Got up relatively late and I could just about tell from my window that it was a sunny day. Myselfe and Celine decided to head to the opposite side of the island and to the beach - Repulse bay. Caught the star ferry across to HK island then a cab (we did try looking for a bus, but couldnt find the right one) ovet to Repulse bay. It was really really hot. So strolled along the promenade for a bit which was mainly building site as they werein the process of constructing another giant plush shopping centre. Because of this when it came to getting lunch all that was open was a pizza hut! But thankfully the pizza huts here are nothing like the ones at home. Its was all set out (menu and decore) like ... read more