Ok everytime I say that I am only going to write a quick one this turns into a bloody great novel but I think that my plane is boarding soon so I have to type really really fast.
Yesterday i went to China for what turned out to be a 14hr trip including a boat trip, a 2hr cross-country drive and an express train across the Guandong province (sorry about the spelling). China is absolutely gorgeous compared to Hong Kong. Is really mountainous and green and the cities are actually really modern on the Hong Kong side of China. We visited Shekou (snake's mouth) first which has only been aorund since 1980 and now has 11million people. They took us to a kindergarton which I was a little weirded out by at first until they explained the situation with families in China and that the parents really love their children to be visited by foreigners so that they are more wordly. The kids were gorgeous and the kindergarton was so cute...tiny little staircases for little feet.
Then we went to check out the terrecota Waring houses exhibition from Xian. The terrecota warriors were magnificent. I now want to go to Xian and see all 800,000 of them. The detail on them is unbelievable and out guide gave us really good information on them and the history of the Dynasties. The gift shop unfortunately seemed to pre-occupy most of the people in my group. I can't understand why you would walk around a gift shop when there are some of the 8th wonder of the world standing in the museum. Saying that, I did by some presents there and two little minatures of an archer and a general...I couldn't resist.
Then we went to see the Panda at the zoo. I don't even want to type about her. She is called number one because she has the record for having the most babies -19. But the whole zoo was depressing and she didn't look very excited about being there either. Two women in my group work with saving orangutans so they were highly distressed by the whole thing.
A two hour bus trip across the province took us to the city which I cn't remember how to spell the name of. We had the most amazing and huge lunch at a thousand year old tea house there. I was on the trip with Kath (complete with frizzy perm) and her daughter who was the spitting image of Sharon. Kath wouldn't eat anything at the restaurant and wanted to stop at the 7 elevens for cadbury chocolate all the time and Shazza showed me the picture on her passport which I cracked up laughing at until she said that she had had it specially taken for this trip. Whoops. They were hilarious.
Oh crap I'm running out of time. Long story short (for the meantime) we went to a street market where they sold live scorpians large and small, snakes, toads and all manner of freaky things. Then we went to the 6 banyan temple to see the 9 story pagoda. Then onto president/prime minister/Mr something or other's (the father of China) memorial hall and were lucky enough to be able to watch a dance group practice a beautiful routine with pink silk fans.
A stop at another bloody souvenir shop to watch finger painting (amazing), painting inside bottles and porcelin painting and then on to the high speed train back to Hong Kong.
I was sad to say oodbye to the bakery on the Star Ferry peir that I have become so attached to but I went down early this morning and bought some filled fancy buns for the trip. AM about to jump on the plane to Manilla for a couple of days there. I can't wait. It'll be good to have some people company for a change.
Oh and in case anyone was wondering, I have zero success on the latenight shoe shopping trip despite finding three pairs I LOVEd - they didn't have my size. I did spend and hour and a half looking for the other outlet of the store where one pair of shoes was though only to give up and find it was on the corner beside my slum. Typical.
RIght, Still no sign of a computer with a usb. Fingers crossed for one in Manilla.
Love to all.
Torie
xxx
