http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Chris and Alex/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Chris and Alex en-us Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:52:35 BST Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:52:35 BST We arrived in Madrid not having a place to stay for the night but we easily found a hostel and slept soundly with eight other French guests. We spent a good amount of time lounging about lazily in the many wonderful street cafes that make Madrid and I would guess many other European cities so great.We ate and drank and spent way too much money but had a great time doing it. We did manage to http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/District-of-Madrid/Madrid/blog-274437.html We were a little travel weary by the time we got to Egypt and Cairo was the perfect place to sit an relax for a while. We checked into the Nubian Hostel downtown and chilled out pretty agressively for a couple of days. We sat at the sidewalk cafe positioned directly under our window chowed down at the Egyptian fast food joint on the corner and milled around in surprisingly cool weather.A SNAFU http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Lower-Egypt/Cairo/blog-272105.html Before we entered India we of course had to exit Kathmandu. Both Chris and I were frisked and our bags searched 3 separate timesonce at the entrance once at the gates and once in a special frisking tube just outside the airplane. Hurry up wait. Hurry up wait. One of the security staff upon seeing my 1 miao Chinese bill inside my purse declared I like Chinese money. I smiled nodded http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Rajasthan/blog-272091.html We left Kathmandu and headed for Pokhara the jumping off point for Annapurna treks via tourist bus. Tourist buses in Nepal are not the fancy comfortable airconditioned luxury liners that they are in Taiwan. They're not even the intensely uncomfortable new airconditioned budget mobiles of Japan. They are squeaking shuddering cramped dusty affairs that hurtle along illmaintained mount http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Annapurna/blog-261656.html We headed to Nepal not really knowing what to expect. Neither one of us had been there before and for some reason we had both decided against a guide book. We were quickly and efficiently relieved of our first small bill by a free but not free airport trolley service wheeling our bags along all of 30 meters or so. But a sign for Christopher and Alezander and the man who was to be our trekkin http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-261548.html If I had to choose one word to characterize our time at Koh Jum it would have to belounge. In our entire eight day stay we probably strayed no farther than 300 meters from our little bungalow. Bungalowgtfood hutgtlounge hutgtbeachgtfood hutgtlounge hutgtfood hutgtbungalow. Perfect. Koh Jum was exactly what we wanted. Good food. Decent beach. Warm water. Fun an http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/South/Ko-Jum/blog-253257.html We headed to Krabi with two goals in mind. Diving and relaxation.Alex learned how to dive from a Hong Kong national named Klins at the Blue Juice dive shop in Krabi town. Krabi itself isn't a beachcovered paradise it's more of a base of operations out of which you organize trips to beachcovered paradises jungles and the likes. Klins was a patient teacher and in no time we were out in the wa http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/South/Krabi/blog-253244.html Bangkok was a welcome respite from the chill of East Asia. We were eager to jump down to the beaches and sights of southern Thailand so we crammed as much as we could see of Bangkok into two days. We spent a day on Bangkok's notorious tourist mecca Kaosahn Road where you can get just about anything a farang foreigner could wantexcept a tshirt big enough for Chris. We helped ourselves to http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central/Bangkok/blog-253221.html We left Xi'an and headed to Shanghai to ring in the new year. Shanghai is no doubt the lively interesting dynamic town it's cracked up to be but Chris and I kind of missed it all. Shanghai is so dynamic that in order to find the hot spots you have to check the local English language magazines which can only be found at hot spots. So we hit the waterfront instead to await a fireworks show http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangxi/Guilin/blog-249594.html Xian was recovering from a snow storm when we arrived and it showed. The streets were covered in ice and snow and mud and it was freezing cold. This ancient city is divided up into two halves one side being very nice new and well kept and the other is a dark dirty filthy pit of poverty... guess where we stayed.Our hotel was nice but the area was horrible. We took our good friend Al's ad http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shaanxi/Xi--an/blog-248942.html Long gone are the days when only Nixon could go to China. We booked our tickets well in advance to avoid any Chinese New Year travel clogs booked our hotels and headed to Chinafirst and third stops Beijing.The first thing we did was head to our hotel after realizing that we didn't actually have the address. Our enthusiasm was slightly deflated. No problem. One hyperexpensive email check http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-248936.html We headed down to Kyoto by night bus after a few days in Tokyo. This was one horrible night. We we're cramped into two tiny seats in the front of the bus and didn't get much sleep at all. When we arrived it was raining and we walked around for fortyfive minutes looking for our hostel. Once there we crashed on the couches until our rooms were ready.Kyoto's weather got better and we went out to http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Kyoto/Kyoto/blog-247059.html It was finally time for us to leave familiar shores and head into the great wild yonder. We shouldered our packs lost a hat each and headed to Tokyo to relieve ourselves of some unwanted cash.Japan greeted us with a frosty welcome. There was no snow on the ground but it was close to freezing. We checked into our hostel and headed out to see the city. Tokyo amazed us with its ability to stay http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-245520.html Taiwan can make you chuckle scream in frustration or gasp from the beauty. You really never know what you might see. Colorful temples hide on small streets next to hip urban clothing stores. One cannot walk down the street without finding something amusing. Two older ladies chat while driving their little rascals down a narrow alley. Crepes are all the rage and come in little crepe carts. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/Chiayi/blog-242326.html The trip to Taiwan was mostly to see friends and see friends we did. We stayed with Ty and Beth in exchange for taking care of their cat while they were on vacation. All our friends gave us a warm receptionand there was much rejoicing. Yay.Our Taiwanese friends Nick and XieYun fed us and stuffed us full of tea for the duration of our stay in Taiwan. They were also kind enough to take time o http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/Chiayi/blog-242318.html It's good to head home before any long journey so we scheduled a trip to good ol' Chiayi Taiwan. We were greeted by old friends both Chinese and expat. Needless to say as soon as we hit the ground we started eating. And eating. Nick and XieYun had opened their breakfast shop in March and Chinese hospitality demands that guests be stuffed and stuffed we are. We have been enjoying an unend http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/Chiayi/blog-238625.html We said a teary goodbye to the cats as we sent them to America and left South Korea to begin our journey around the world.We capped off our year in Korea with food and shopping. Mrs. Hwang our surrogate mother made sure that no one left this Korean ribs place hungry. GalbiKorean pork ribs Kimchi and Sojumild Korean liquor were never in short supply.We made one last trip out to Seoul's http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Seoul/blog-234852.html