A Kiwi, two Irish, a Canadian and an American get on a train.... and no one in their carriage sleeps for the next 14 hours! hehehe, okay maybe we weren't that bad... but nearly! Most passengers enjoy the train or are indifferent about it, but these guys actually looked forward to the trains because it meant we would drink and play games all night. :-) We were also making up new rules to the games we were playing, so at one point we weren't allowed to say eachother's names; Matt the Kiwi became 'Sheep Shagger', Caoilfhion ("Keelin") the Irish became 'Spud-nik', Clare the other Irish became 'Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance!', Elise the Canadian became 'Maple Syrup', and yours truly was the 'Yankee Bitch', hehehehehe.
These pax were great because they wanted to do absolutly everything they possibly could in China during our three week trip. I got to have a lot of "firsts" with them because of it. Like the day we went to the Great Wall and there was SNOW! It was beautiful and cold and we ended up having a snowball fight on the Great Wall! That was definitly a first for me, and so flippin' awesome :-D We spent the night at a guesthouse near the Wall and the next morning we got up in the dark and went to see the sunrise. Unfortunatly it was overcast that day and the sun never really rose, the sky just kind of got lighter... me, being the smart-ass you all know and love decided it was the perfect time to sing (from 'Annie'), "the sun'll come out, tomorrow! bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there'll be sun!" ... :-) This was only the beginning, by the end of the trip we'd come up with nearly a song-of-the-day for the whole three weeks. The group favorite by for was "I like steamed buns and I cannot lie!" (think Sir Mix A Lot) LOL :-D
Our second stop was Xian, where we happened to be for Halloween. We'd decided that the whole group was going to dress up as Pandas for Halloween, hehehe, but as it turned out we went to a club and never went back to the hotel to get dressed up. That didnt end the panda idea though, we carried it on to Yangshuo ~ but more about that later. What did happen in Xian was that I taught these guys to play dice... and lived to regret it! I had no idea at the time I was creating four little monsters because they became absolutly addicted to the game! Caoilfhion even bought herself a bag of dice to take home and teach her friends. Of course she bought me a bag too so I can teach future pax ;-) Oh! Another "first" in Xian was that Clare, Elise and I went to climb Mount Huashan, a Buddhist holy mountain near the city. The pics are awesome, and more importantly, can you believe I actually chose to go climbing voluntarily??
From Xian to Shanghai, where we weren't too crazy. Clare and Caoilfhion did eat goose brains though... I have a rule for my pax that if they forget to bring their 'Responsible Tourism' reusable chopsticks to a meal, the rest of the group gets to decide what weird thing they eat! We happened to be at a dim sum restaurant when Clare and Caoilfhion forgot there's, so goose head it was! It was either that or the pigs nose...
Shanghai gave way to Yangshuo, where good lord these guys kept busy! Cormorant fishing, calligraphy, painting, tai chi, kung fu, kayaking, rock climbing, and mud caving. The coolest thing is, I went rock climbing too :-D It was awesome, I even did the 'fearless leader' bit and went first. I'm not great at it, and I got a few bruises (surprise surprise), but I'd definitly do it again. I also got to go mud caving for the first time with this group. What is mud caving? Basically after walking through a huge cave full of stalagtites (or stalagmites, does anyone ever remember which are which??), you reach a cave full of mud at the end and you get to jump in and get all muddy and get eachother muddy and have a great time! In addition to it being really really fun, we also took this opportunity to revisit our panda idea. Enjoy the photos, they are too funny, we couldnt find any face paints so I bought black shoe polish and white shoe polish for us to paint ourselves with :-D
The trip ended in Hong Kong much the same way it had been going for three weeks, lots of laughter and jokes, card games and beer :-) I couldn't have asked for a better group to finish off the season with. The season has absolutly flown by, I've done 10 trips total and the good thing is while I had 3 shit trips I also had 4 good trips and 3 kick ass trips! I've made some amazing friends, both in pax and in fellow tour leaders, I have probably never laughed so much in my life, I've experienced so many new things, and I have thousands of photos to show for it! hehehe. So now I'm here at our apartment in Hong Kong, getting everything sorted before I come home. On Tuesday I fly to Cambodia for a week ~ my plan is to be at Angkor Wat for the sunrise on my birthday! (hopefully the sun does come out that day ;-) And very very soon, before you know it, I'll be home...
Currently Reading: The Pact, and The Woman in the Fifth
Current Injury: fell off a bike AGAIN! If I hear even one person say "it's as easy as riding a bike" I'm gonna clock them! :-)
