Hong Kong was pretty uneventful. Contradicortory to what my mother has told me, my dad was NOT in Hong Kong. We spent the night there and ate dinner at a falsely advertised "veggie" restaurant. I had a phonecall from my sister too which was nice =)
We took a ferry the next morning to Zhongshan, where the office is that we had left our luggage. We spent ages catching up with Doris and letting isobel repack her suitcases (yes plural) before dashing off to get a bus to Guangzhou where... I met my dad!! He flew into Guangzhou for the night to see me. I was very happy to see him and gave him a huuuge hug in the hotel lobby.
The 3 of us enjoyed a nice dinner in the hotel -they finally had to chuck us out just before one.
I got up earlyish for breakfast before setting baout rearranging my bags so that I had the heaviest handluggage I could possibly have.
I sat in dad's room for roughly 45 mins having a good old chat about nothing in particular until we had to get in a taxi and go to the airport.
My suitcase was a little overweight but they didn;t charge me unlike Izzie who was carrying 64kg and got hit with a huge fine to go with it.
I spent most of the flight asleep because I had 3 seats to myself oh yes so it passed quickly. We arrived but Peter (an employee of Isobel's Dad) was late picking us up. The airport was chaso with people and media everywhere. Eventually we made it to a hotel. I realised that I had left the key to my suitcase padlock in Guangzhou and the hotel's solution to this problem was to hand me a rusty saw and a hammer. DIY!
We went out for dinner with Peter, his wife and some of their friends. It was a nice affair with lots of laughing and I was sort of able to follow some of the ocnversations in chinese which pleased me, not that I could join in!
Tomorrow is the day I fly home, i',m currently updating my memory card with Izzie's photos from when i was ohne Fotoapparat.
It's wierd the idea about coming home. I have apprehensions of course but i'm very much ;ooking forward to seeign so many people again. My time in China is very nearly at an end, and whilst I shall mourn it, I'm lookign forward to uni, and home comforts and friends so badly! My next entry... will be from ye olde England!
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Wednesday, 6 August 2008
Bangkok
After my last blog entry, I wandered round the nearby markets as I had not the chnace to explore them fully yet. I had to buy a bigger bag as i was carrying more stuff than would fit into my tiny handbag. After that I wandered towards China town which was a little disapointing and not a bit like China. Next to it was India town if you can call it that. It was very obvious that one had left the thai area as teh attitude of people chnaged from happy-to-help to get-out-of-my-way. It was liberating to wander around at will so I quite enjoyed it with my coke in a bag. I also found the october 14th memorial dedicated to the students who stood up to the government forcing it to resign. Most interesting. That took up most of my day.
We rejoined for the 8 o'clock movie, after which we went in search of the Sex And The City movie which failed but led us to the markets where we sat down at a stall with a bucket of vodka, redbull and coke, this really isn;t as bad as it sounds and i detest red bull!
We spent the day after separately too as there was a crossover in what we wanted to do. We had lunch at an indian restaurant, as i love my indian food. I walked to the dusit complex to see the golden mansion.
This was not a great place for me. I had forgotten my grand palace ticket so had to buy a new ticket. Then had to give a deposit to rent "polite clothing" after that I had no money left to pay for a locker and you weren't allowed to take bags with you. I went to get a refund but the womand refused insisting that I had seen the museum and should now visit other things in the complex. The one other item which looked vaguely interesting cost more which I wasn't going to pay so I wandered round 2 awful exhibitions before finding some free lockers. I dumped my stuff and went back to the mansion to be told I wasn't allowed in because I had missed the last tour. I was not happy.
I decided to move on to Jim Thompson's house but had trouble finding a taxi. I bumped into a french medical student heading in the same direction so we shared a taxi. I ofund out that he's doing an iternship in cambodia, that there was only one cat scan machine in the whole of cambodia, donated by the frecnh and consequently none of teh doctors can analyse it's results properly. Comfortign for Isobel i'm sure.
The tour roundthe house was nice. I said bye to the french studetn (Stan) and headed to the victory monument which was a bit of a disappointment before gettign the skytrain to meet isobel at the shopping centre as arranged.
We shopped, I bought a few items of clothing and we had dinner. We decided to sample the nightlife that night too but it took us until 11 to even vaguely get round to leaving!
We met a bunch of irish people, an australian, a scotsman and 2 english guys, 1 of which is living in the same buidling as me as sheffield and the other comes from bamford and we knew lots of people in common. All was going well until isobel broke my shoe. Instead of receiving an apology I wa smet with "drink more alcohol and you won;t notice it's broken" which infuriated me becuase Isobal is incapable of saying sorry. Thus, we had a nice arguement and I stormed off to the hotel.
We didn;t talk the next morning just packed and got on the airport shuttle bus. After about 15 minutes realised I'd left my phone and my mp3 at the hotel and got the driver to turn around. He drove past the alleyway we had stayed on refusing to stop before finally letting me off a kilometre away. I was less tahn impressed. I collected my things and went straight to the travel agents to demand a refund which I got but it took some hassle.
We got in a taxi and immediately the driver asked if we had forgotten anything which made us burst into laughter and broke the ice between izzie and I. Things went pretty smoothly form then on and we arrived in Hong Kong completing the first leg of teh journey home.
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We rejoined for the 8 o'clock movie, after which we went in search of the Sex And The City movie which failed but led us to the markets where we sat down at a stall with a bucket of vodka, redbull and coke, this really isn;t as bad as it sounds and i detest red bull!
We spent the day after separately too as there was a crossover in what we wanted to do. We had lunch at an indian restaurant, as i love my indian food. I walked to the dusit complex to see the golden mansion.
This was not a great place for me. I had forgotten my grand palace ticket so had to buy a new ticket. Then had to give a deposit to rent "polite clothing" after that I had no money left to pay for a locker and you weren't allowed to take bags with you. I went to get a refund but the womand refused insisting that I had seen the museum and should now visit other things in the complex. The one other item which looked vaguely interesting cost more which I wasn't going to pay so I wandered round 2 awful exhibitions before finding some free lockers. I dumped my stuff and went back to the mansion to be told I wasn't allowed in because I had missed the last tour. I was not happy.
I decided to move on to Jim Thompson's house but had trouble finding a taxi. I bumped into a french medical student heading in the same direction so we shared a taxi. I ofund out that he's doing an iternship in cambodia, that there was only one cat scan machine in the whole of cambodia, donated by the frecnh and consequently none of teh doctors can analyse it's results properly. Comfortign for Isobel i'm sure.
The tour roundthe house was nice. I said bye to the french studetn (Stan) and headed to the victory monument which was a bit of a disappointment before gettign the skytrain to meet isobel at the shopping centre as arranged.
We shopped, I bought a few items of clothing and we had dinner. We decided to sample the nightlife that night too but it took us until 11 to even vaguely get round to leaving!
We met a bunch of irish people, an australian, a scotsman and 2 english guys, 1 of which is living in the same buidling as me as sheffield and the other comes from bamford and we knew lots of people in common. All was going well until isobel broke my shoe. Instead of receiving an apology I wa smet with "drink more alcohol and you won;t notice it's broken" which infuriated me becuase Isobal is incapable of saying sorry. Thus, we had a nice arguement and I stormed off to the hotel.
We didn;t talk the next morning just packed and got on the airport shuttle bus. After about 15 minutes realised I'd left my phone and my mp3 at the hotel and got the driver to turn around. He drove past the alleyway we had stayed on refusing to stop before finally letting me off a kilometre away. I was less tahn impressed. I collected my things and went straight to the travel agents to demand a refund which I got but it took some hassle.
We got in a taxi and immediately the driver asked if we had forgotten anything which made us burst into laughter and broke the ice between izzie and I. Things went pretty smoothly form then on and we arrived in Hong Kong completing the first leg of teh journey home.
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Saturday, 2 August 2008
getaway
I got the meeting place wrong. I was under the impression that I was meeting the others at the hotel at 4. It wasn't until 5.20 that I got a text telling me where they were because they had gotten fed up with waiting for me at the travel agents. They were at an irish bar so I made an appearance and swiftly left again to return to an internet cafe. I attempted to ring home but no-one answered so i settled for agreeing to my uni residence contract which got me all excited and reading up about my course modules (I disovered that I can take chinese)
I returned to the hotel, picking up my laundry and repacked my bag. I then had to move all our bags into the courtyard so teh woner could lock up the office. I had to wait in the rain until the other 2 came back and then literally run off to get some dinner.
The bus journey to Bangkok had more people on it than to Chiang Mai but my porblem was Craig, who was in front of me, put his seat almost horizontal and since the table was broken, I couldn't move without beating myself up. I got an hours sleep at most.
We found ourself a hotel eventually. Istayed int he taxi whilst teh other 2 asked around and I went straigth up and collapsed on the bed.
We eventually got moving around midday. We saw the royal palace with attached temples and museums, walked around the amulet market (an accidental find) an checked out wat arun and wat pho. Wat pho is the one with reclining buddha. It's huge and quite detailed as in he has nipples and toeprints.
Wat arun is the most famous and incredibly step. It fuelled my hatred of steps from huangshan. never again will I opt to be healthy takign stairs instead of an escalator! Comign down was more of a problem as it was windy and I was wearing a skirt. i think a few people got a bit much of a view!
We walked back and whilst I sat in the lounge charging up numerous electrical items teh other 2 went for a rummage round the street market. They came back pretty late and we went for dinner before takign a second glance over. I managed to lose both of them so got fed up and went back to the room. I was so tired. We had made plans for a night out but I decided not to go because I knew I would just be grumpy and wouldn't enjoy it. Craig left this morning. It was a really awkward goodbye because I think he was irritated that I didn't go out last night. Izzie walked him downstairs but she wears a t-shirt and shorts in bed rather than pyjamas in which i decided I probably shouldn't wander around Thailand. So Craig has gone now.
Izzie and I had a disagrement this morning. We bought photos from the elephant farm. One got soaked and is ruined the other is fine. The one that is fine was in my backpack(I used my raincover) but izzie is claiming that on as hers and the damaged one as mine which I thought was unfair and propposed that we went to a developers and had a copy made of the good one. Her response was that it was unfair that she got the damaged one since she wasn't the one who got it wet as it was in Craig's bag. I pointed out to her that wasn't what I had suggested and she bit my head off sayign what was the point in bringing it up. Apparently I'm not allowed to voice my opinion or get things off my chest, or even suggest a solution. we have decided to spend the day separately. You may have discerned that I'm not at my happiest today.
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I returned to the hotel, picking up my laundry and repacked my bag. I then had to move all our bags into the courtyard so teh woner could lock up the office. I had to wait in the rain until the other 2 came back and then literally run off to get some dinner.
The bus journey to Bangkok had more people on it than to Chiang Mai but my porblem was Craig, who was in front of me, put his seat almost horizontal and since the table was broken, I couldn't move without beating myself up. I got an hours sleep at most.
We found ourself a hotel eventually. Istayed int he taxi whilst teh other 2 asked around and I went straigth up and collapsed on the bed.
We eventually got moving around midday. We saw the royal palace with attached temples and museums, walked around the amulet market (an accidental find) an checked out wat arun and wat pho. Wat pho is the one with reclining buddha. It's huge and quite detailed as in he has nipples and toeprints.
Wat arun is the most famous and incredibly step. It fuelled my hatred of steps from huangshan. never again will I opt to be healthy takign stairs instead of an escalator! Comign down was more of a problem as it was windy and I was wearing a skirt. i think a few people got a bit much of a view!
We walked back and whilst I sat in the lounge charging up numerous electrical items teh other 2 went for a rummage round the street market. They came back pretty late and we went for dinner before takign a second glance over. I managed to lose both of them so got fed up and went back to the room. I was so tired. We had made plans for a night out but I decided not to go because I knew I would just be grumpy and wouldn't enjoy it. Craig left this morning. It was a really awkward goodbye because I think he was irritated that I didn't go out last night. Izzie walked him downstairs but she wears a t-shirt and shorts in bed rather than pyjamas in which i decided I probably shouldn't wander around Thailand. So Craig has gone now.
Izzie and I had a disagrement this morning. We bought photos from the elephant farm. One got soaked and is ruined the other is fine. The one that is fine was in my backpack(I used my raincover) but izzie is claiming that on as hers and the damaged one as mine which I thought was unfair and propposed that we went to a developers and had a copy made of the good one. Her response was that it was unfair that she got the damaged one since she wasn't the one who got it wet as it was in Craig's bag. I pointed out to her that wasn't what I had suggested and she bit my head off sayign what was the point in bringing it up. Apparently I'm not allowed to voice my opinion or get things off my chest, or even suggest a solution. we have decided to spend the day separately. You may have discerned that I'm not at my happiest today.
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