imo hall

I arrived in Tasmania first thing in the morning and caught a shuttle bus to where I was staying in Hobart. I spent the morning exploring the dock and Salamanca market and then in the afternoon I called practically every single cherry orchard in the state looking for work! I'd heard cherry picking wasn't bad as you can make some decent money and it's one of the less strenuous fruit picking jobs.. but still after 3 days of non-stop cherries, I decided I wasn't going to make much money or have much fun and threw in my job to go travelling round the island with a group of others. Before we left I managed to fit in a cruise around Bruny island, which is right at the south of Tasmania where we got to see ... read more

Our overnight train arrived at Guilin quite early in the morning and we had to drive for another hour to get to Yangshuo. On the drive there you're surrounded by karst hills (very pointy, picturesque looking hills) -it was really nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of the huge cities we'd been to and to be in a more rural, less polluted setting. Yangshuo is quite touristy but I think that somehow gives it some of it's charm. There are lots of bars, cafes and loads of little shops to wander round. In the afternoon we went to the Li river which is just the most stunning setting you can imagine. We got on bamboo rafts and went for a cruise up the river- it''s so peaceful and you're still surrounded by these ... read more

On day five we arrived in Shanghai where we then had a pretty crazy taxi ride to our hotel. The driver was literally in and out of the lanes over and undertaking people to go as fast as he could- it felt a little like a high speed chase in a film!! Arrived at our hotel in one piece though- it was on the corner of a really cool street with lots of neon signs and things. The second hotel was also quite a lot nicer than I think a lot of us were expecting as we thought that they were going to deteriorate in standard as we went along! Walked to the bund and went up to the top of the world financial centre- the lift alone is quite an experience, you feel like you're ... read more