THE END ...... for now

So I am back to Ireland.

Here are some links to help make some sence of my very messy blog.
Index : I hope to link this up.

Photos
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To be continued ....

Hong Kong (3rd time)

After a few fun days hanging out in Bohol it was time to get the flight back to hong kong. This time I went to visit the outlying islands. Much quieter and only a short ferry ride from the center. The first day I went to Lemma island, I met a new friend and hung out on the beach, great. The next day it was meeting up with an old friend, we got the ferry out to Cheung Chau island and hung out on the beach there, great again. There was also time to go to Mong Kok, a very buisy shopping area. Yes very buisy in Hong Kong means very buisy, late night shopping every night, the streets packed. There are loads of electronic goods at really good prices.
My final day way action packed, trying to meet up with all my friends here before legging to the airport, for the long night flight to london.
At London they tried to delay me enough to me enough to miss my connecting flight but just failed, they took my potentially dangerous toothpast and the factor 8 sun screen that I brought around the world and never used. Neither Hong Kong nor London authorities seemed to mind the rasor blades.

Jagna

So my new local friends, two sisters, invited me to visit them at their home on the other side of Bohol. After spending a night in Tagbilaran we got the bus to Jagna.
This town was a bit smaller, "provincial", this means no shopping mall or cinema.
Their extended family live in the same area so I met loads of uncles, sitting around and fixing the fishing net. Then the dad arived with the catch of fish, loads of tropical ones in all colours, I'm sure nemo was in there.
Their home was just back from the sea which meant i got a chance to go snorkling and join the family for a picnic on the beach.
The transport around town consists of motorbikes turned minibus modified to take up to ten pasengers.
It's striking that everone in the philepenes want to get out of the country.
I met bank employees retraining as nurces because a job in a bank is too risky,
when your boss nicks the money you go to jail too!
The next most popular option is to get a foreign husband, or boyfriend willing to pay for a ticket.

Bohol

So after two nights in Cebu that was enough so got the ferry to the next island Bohol. That took just over 4 hours, maybe I could have got the faster one. Tagbilaran is the town that you land at and it had a crappier feel then Cebu.
Death trap pavements and begging children, well you can always go to the cinema. They don't even bother subtiteling the english language films, cushy.
and of course there's a fun disco on friday night.
I also went out to the surounds to check out the endangered tarsier,
the smallest primate, tiny and cute.
Next I decided to get to the beach and headed to Alona beach on the nearby Panglao island. It turned out to be a divers hang out and a bit pricy. Popular with German tourists, there are a load of buisnesses run by German guys and their Phillipena wives. I met some really cool local people and had a great time hanging out.

Cebu (Philippines)

So I rearranged my magic air ticket once again and this time its off to the philippines, well I still had flights to use up before they expire and you don't need to buy a visa for the philippines so here I am.
Cebu was the first place that the spanish set camp when they got here in the 1500's. Magellan the leader of the first round the world trip landed here and made some friends.
The airport is on a small island off cebu island called Mactan,
this is where Magellan made some enimies and got himself killed.
The city on the island is named after the guy who killed him Lapu-lapu, fair enough.
With all this history you can still see all the old sights of Cebu in an afternoon, including the little Jesus that Magellan gave to the Cebuans.
The best sight is probably all the modifed vehicels making up the public transport system, puts "pimp my ride" in the shade, colours flags, millions of lights and mirrors, cool.
So there aren't too many backpackers here, my accomadation seems to have more creepy old dudes. Still managed to find some cool guys my own age to go for a fun night out.
About everyone here can speak English and all the signs are in english only, strange.
The American coloniser have also left their mark on the culture, shopping malls and american style comercialism are all the rage.
The Spanish invluance makes the place seem a bit like south america, you can see alot of people who have spanish blood in them.

to Hong Kong

So I got the bus to cross the border from China to China (Hong Kong SAR).
Same country different world.
Although part of China the special administrative region feels quite different to Chinas other big cities. From developing world, or however you want to describe a country going through it's own crazy form of industrial revolution, to first world, ultra modern HK. You don't even get stared at for being a westerner, there are so many here. First world culture shock again, the pace of life here is frantic and after mainland china the prices seem crazy high.

eating in Guangzhou

.... then it's taxi to the hair salon.
I got my first hair cut in a long time,
a hair wash, scalp massage, shoulder arm and hand massage all included of course.
I didn't get a hair cut so far in China because like many massage and karioki places, many hair salons are just disguised brothels. This time I was with local friends so I could be sure the place was legit.

then taxi to get coffee,
coffee is terribly expensive (relative to other things) in China, so awfully posh.
then taxi to the snake resteraunt for dinner.
Yes that's snake, mmmm.
Conforming to the chinese idea of freshness the snakes are alive in cages untill just before you order them. You have a big boiling pot in the middle of the table where you cook the raw snake yourself, because everone of course knows the exact optimum cooking time for each part of the snake. Each part of the snake is quite different, raging from tender fillet to chewy skin, to parts just for the broth.
Oh and you get frogs too of course.

then lift home for a bit,
then lift to nightclub.
This is where someone orders all at the same time an indulgent quantity of overpriced cans for the table, and everone sits around and plays dice drinking games.
Then lift to late night barbeque joint.
Not your typical chicken hearts (really tasty) or pigs penis (really long and curly)
or even the flattened rat which was a sceciality in yangshou,
but the tastyist oysters, muscles and cockles I ever had, mmmm,
Other cullenary dellights from my time here include turtle, crab, fish, the list goes on.

Guangzhou

So it turns out that a friend that i made in yangshou was also going to Guangzhou and invited me to stay at their families home. What a stroke of luck.
An overnight bus to Guangzhou then a 40 minuite bus to a suburb an we're there.
Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong provence which is one of the richer in china.
It's built up pretty continuously for 40 minuites on the moterway.
The people here speak cantonese.
My host come from hong kong and have a holiday appartment in Guangzhou to live the good life at a lower cost I guess.
ahh the good life, the hospitality is unbelievable.
After catching up on some sleep my first day here consisted of,
taxi to posh resteraunt, posh in china means you eat in your own room and there are so many dishes that you don't need rice

Yangshou

So arrived into Yangshou and everthing is crazy buisy.
The is "golden week" the big chinese holiday week where everthing touristy is packed and everwhere increases the prices 4 times.
The first people we met were unplesent accomadation touts.
I had been recomended an english language school which provides free accomadation and food in exchange for speaking english for 2 hours twice a week and a 1 hour speach. Well this is the sort of thing i like to do anyway, you know talking in english, so kind of a cushy deal. So with all the trains booked solid for the week this really is a great place to relax a little bit removed from the tourist mayhem but still able to enjoy the holiday nightlife and wonderfull scenery.
the landscape here is a bit inbelieveable, impossibly steep peaks stick up all over the place, there's even one with an imposible cave making a whole to the other side,
difficult to describe but beutiful.
The china hazy (fog or smog?) means skys are never fully clear, and some places are a bit over developed, but there are lots of nice cycles and walks.
The people at the school turn out to be really nice, helpfull, the food great, you get free beer while on duty speaking english. The students are really sweet and interested in the differences with "western culture".
It's amazing all the differences that you just take for granted, you can spend ages just trying to explain why people spend so much money on engagement rings or discussing whether those prot ests in tainmen sq ever happend (note: paranoid censor avoiding spelling).
Another big celibration is mid autumn day.
This is celebrated by eating outside and enjoying the full moon, the school had a nice bbq by the river bank.
So I met loads of really cool people, loads of foreign teachers and students on holidays for the week came to find other western people,
loads of chinese english students come as it's a good place to learn english.
I hung out for the week with a nice american guy, going to the bars nearly every night. Great fun.