The Dread Pirate Roberts Welcomes You To Shanghai How often can you say that you are living in a pirate ship? Not often, so when you are you have to make the most of it and living in my hostel in Shanghai was like having "International Talk Like a Pirate Day" every day of the year. The place was called "Captain Hostel" and for somewhat unexplained reasons the place was decorated like a ship: knots on the walls, a helm hung behind the desk, the staff uniform was white and blue with sailor hats, I slept in the "Sailor's Bunks" in [View Full Entry]

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Note to Self: Put Parents on Leash The plan: get off train at 6:00am, go to internet cafe, read email from parents telling me where they ended up staying (because they flew to Xi'an they arrived a day earlier than expected and the hostel was going to figure out a place for them to stay), get bus to hotel, wake parents, and go to see the Terracotta Warriors. Reality: I missed the early train so I only arrived at 9am, parents hadn't sent an email, buses didn't go to the hostel that I hoped they had ended up at, and when [View Full Entry]

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Super Happy Family Adventures Begin: Living a Double Life Thursday arrived with mixed emotions. When travellers talk about home they get a glazed over look of inexplicable pride and happiness, the concept of home feels good: safety, friends, family, good times, fun times, all the good things from our regular lives come flooding back to us. When you think back on home you only remember the good parts and your wonderful idealised home is the only thing in focus. For me, home has absolutely nothing to do with a place, I left my home town and have no intention of returning, [View Full Entry]

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Appologies are in order, this journal has somehow managed to get well and truly behind me. I've had good reasons for neglecting to keep you all informed about my highly exciting adventures: I've been run off my feet for the last few weeks. So lets all try to catch up with me. Last Vestiges of Minority Exploration Two reasons pushed me onto a train bound for Beijing, one was the fact that my Mum and Dad were arriving there in a week or so, the other was intertwined with an Indian trained exotic dancer, food poisoning and a bad reprimand from [View Full Entry]

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Meeting Myself in Chengyang I've met solo travellers, I've met travelling couples, families, newlyweds, sisters, brothers, best friends, tour groups, school trips and several undiscernably related travellers. In my opinion the option of travelling as a pair is optimal as it offers the best mix of freedom and security (this leads into concepts of "wingmen" and "package deals" but we wont go into these here now shall we), however, trying to find someone travelling in the same direction as myself has proven to be problematic. Recently, in Sanya that is, I met Felix and we have travelled for some two weeks [View Full Entry]

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This week, Felix and I ventured further north into the mountainous regions north of Guilin. I was in the region two years ago and loved it so much that I had to return, with the added bonus of being able to act as a tour guide for three youngsters and get a three day power trip. First stop was Longji, home of the Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces (Longji means dragon's backbone if you really wanted to know). The terraces are hewn into the mountainside high above the river which has carved the area into a massive gorge. The villages are [View Full Entry]

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Living up the Hobo Lifestyle Sanya was fun but I couldn’t stay there forever, so after many delays (some of which may or may not have included the following: late night pole-dancing related toe injury, late night injury sustained while trying to talk to a girl on a beach-chair, late night injury loosely related to an attempt at drinking a lit candle that I thought was my drink, and general laziness) Felix and I got on a midday bus out of paradise. By means of introduction, Felix is a young Danish entrepreneur/professional photographer (not really, but we can pretend) that I [View Full Entry]

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The Great Sanya Exploratory Mission My last report from Hainan wasn't very positive, I admit that. In fact, it was really harsh on the poor little island considering that I'd only been there a few days. Being the conscientious guy that I am, I decided to do some more detailed research into the workings of the island, an aim that I almost totally failed to succeed in. I've spent somewhere in the proximity of 12 days in Sanya now, the beach side metropolis that practically is Hainan, doing virtually the same thing every day. David (my Israeli roomate) and I wake [View Full Entry]

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Hainan, the South-East Asian Backwater Most Favoured by Mother Russia The island of Hainan lies just off the south coast of China, somewhere just a little east of Vietnam. Thus, the island has all the prerequisites to make it another perfect tropical island like those of Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam. It’s warm and sunny, a little too warm right now though, mile after mile of beaches stretch willy nilly around the island, and pineapple shakes are in ready supply. What could be better? This place sounded perfect, so I headed straight for the beachside town of Sanya. Upon arriving in [View Full Entry]

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Chinese Traveler Conundrum Number One: Did I Say Something Wrong? The scene is the Cavern club on Hong Kong island, it’s late and Paul is making out with the girl that I’ve been trying to impress all evening. I’m dancing (I guess that indicates my level of desperation), I’m surrounded by dancing girls, we’ve already sung along to “Land Downunder” at least once this evening. Events unfold: Tall, blonde, previously unknown, western girl enters from stage left, starts playing with my necklace immediately. Girl: I like this, it’s cute. Me: Thanks. Girl starts suggestively dancing right in front of me, I [View Full Entry]

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