Although it was nice to leave what was essentially prison yard-style accommodation in Hong Kong, arriving in the centre of Bangkok it was easy to see why Paul had previously called this place Bangkokroach. The place was bustling with people trying to hassle you, foreigners on every corner and a generally feel of over-commercialism gone bad. But then 20 years ago this city probably didn't have the economic success it has now so swings and roundabouts I guess. But the 30 degree heat was a god-send compared to what we had had in China, and also the fact that the day [View Full Entry]

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Okay, after yet another fantabulous entry by Ross I'll move us on to the rest of China. We left the beautiful lake and scenery at Hangzhou behind and headed on our first bullet train experience to a town around the middle of South China called Nancheng. Organised as ever, we we're running a smidgen late, so we both ended up pounding down the station platform, laden as pack mules, on a hot China afternoon. We managed to get on the train before it headed off into the sunset and it was a good job too, the bullet trains travel at over [View Full Entry]

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Arriving in Shanghai, we were given the first real culture shock of the trip thus far. Whereas Japan was similar to the UK in terms of cleanliness and development, China certainly wasn't. In a way this was a good thing as it really signified the start of the varying cultures we have come to experience on this trip. Shanghai is a real city of 2 halves. On one hand it has come through its tarnished reputation of 50 years ago when it was famed for its illegal trading (black market goods) and drug using citizens. There is a stunning view from [View Full Entry]

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Good-day faithful blog readers, good-day, First and foremost I'd like to offer an apology for the lack of blog activity over the past few weeks. The communist regime in China didn't let us actually access our website the whole time we were there (along with several other key websites like Wikipedia, BBC News etc...) and we've been pretty busy in Thailand the past few days. Up until now that is, now you have my undivided attention and I'll try to follow Ross' sterling effort with the first blog entry with one of my own. I believe Ross left you with a [View Full Entry]

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Konnichiwa from Japan! Welcome to the first entry of our blog. Sean has kindly given me the privilege to write this chapter so here goes....... Even though we have only been here a week, it has been non-stop and its amazing thinking back to all the stuff we have done over the past 7 days. We've met quite a few people, drunk a lot of beer and done a hell of a lot of wandering around, looking like stereotypical lost tourists! The flight didn't seem to take too long, probably because we were eager to get out here, and also probably [View Full Entry]

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