Jan 2007

I must apologise for falling behind on the blog - is not as easy to keep up with as one may think! So I have summarised Hong Kong into one big entry.

So, for the past five days we have experienced Hong Kong, which for me anyway was the place that I was most looking forward to, and due to my endless harping on about it had convinced Dom that he was too! It is always so worrying when you have high expectations of a place as most of the time you end up disappointed, especially when you start off on the wrong foot. However, even after a 22 hour journey getting here, being dumped at a pretty dingy hotel to say the least by our tour company then immediately been told 'good-bye, best of luck' before we had even seen anything - it hasn't seemed to have mattered, the city shines!

It is so different from mainland China, especially in terms of price. Everything from food, electrical items and accommodation is also dearer, so the budget went out the window a bit. On our first afternoon we stumbled across an Irish bar and thought sure, why not, one pint wont hurt - Believe me it hurt! Dom had a pint of Murphys (up cork!) and I had my usual pint of guiness (well the usual is a glass of Guiness but I decided to go all out with a pint), they were 4.80 Euros each...but here's the kicker, they were happy hour prices, they are usually 6.30 Euros each! We only had one pint.

We have been staying in a wonderful hotel called The Salisbury (Thanks Carmel & Tim!), which I would highly recommend, there are a couple of pools, jacuzzi, gym, sauna etc. plus all the rooms have all the mod-cons including...wait for this...A TV channel dedicated to the English Premiership - so Dom is in football heaven! (I have noticed though in between games they have nothing to show except the previous games over and over again which I think is actually annoying Dom as he is complaining about seeing the Newcastle/West Ham & Middlesborough/Bolton so much - this will come in handy as justification not to get sky sports when we get home which I think he has his eye on!)

HK is so amazing as it has so much to offer all within a close vicinity. It has everything from traditional temples (although these are more common in the outer territories rather than the centre), to modern attractions such as Ocean World and Disney Park (which we actually went to neither!). Where we did venture was on the 5.2 km sky rail on Lantau Island which gives absolutely phenomenal views leading up to see the largest outdoor Buddha in the world. You can see this sitting high on the mountain from such a distance. Before we went there we figured that this was an old monument built hundreds of years ago - but we were wrong. In fact it was only built beteen 1986-1989, so it shows HK is endeavouring to develop modern tradition as well.

Another absolutely breathtaking attraction is the 'Peak Lookout'. This is a lookout point where you can see the whole of the HK skyline. We went up there in the evening time when every building has a rainbow of neon lights! There was supposed to be a light show at 8pm which happens every night, the pictures of the light show are great, but to be honest, we didn't make much of it. The only unfortunate part about this view is that unless you have a good camera, you are unlikely to get a great picture to capture it. Even though my camera is less than two years old, we couldn't get a good picture...eventually we got one on someone elses. The lookout part is not the only experince at the peak, the journey to get there is in class of its own too. To ascend the peak there are two main methods: 1. Walk 2. The Peak Tram. We chose the tram - wow! Apparently, the HK people doubted the British when they wanted to build a tram to the peak because of the physics, well, the British proved them wrong! (BTW I heard that somewhere, its not fact, or opinion, its humour people!). The tram ascends 386 vertical metres in about 8 minutes - you literally feel like you are flat on your back, and if you look out the window the buildings are at 45 degree angles - it actually can feel quite sickening if you're not prepared for it. When the tram changed its angle of ascent, it was quite funny as everyone on the tram goes 'woohah' in a variety of languages.

Apart from the big attractions, we spent a lot of time just walking around the Kowloon peninsula and Hong Kong Island taking the city in. I found that it is so 'cosmo' with lots of swanky bars, restaurants, clubs, coffee shops etc. I thought Barcelona was filled with loads of designer shops, but it doesn't have a patch on HK. Here there is a Gucci and Louis Vitton on every corner and at least one Chanel, Cartier, Dior, Burberry, Tiffany and Co, Prada...etc in every mall, with at least one mall in every building!! At home I never go into these shops anyway as the people who work inside always vet you as you go in and if you dont look like you have money then they are rude to you (maybe I watched Pretty Woman too many times though!) But Dom was having none of this, he knew I really wanted to go in so he just strolled through one of the malls meaning I had no choice but to follow him though the most expensive shops in the world in a scruffy t-shirt and jeans - was great fun though! When I come here next time (when not if), I won't even bring a bag - I'll buy one here and fill it!!

There are still traditional market areas as well where you can find a lot of fakes and a lot of shite - we found a few good bargains, although bartering is different here to in China. In China the people chase after you if you aren't sure about an item and are definately willing to barter as they constantly bring down their price the more you walk away. On one occasion I was told to F-off because I didn't want to buy, even though I told the woman at the beginning I only wanted a price as we were just looking and not buying. Then on a second occasion I was looking at an item which again I said I only wanted a price for, the man said to me "Its 1000 HKD (approx) but for you 30% discount so 500 HKD" (I know the math doesnt add up), then he said that if I wanted to buy for 500 then I had to buy it now, I thanked him for the price then told him again that I was only looking I dont know yet if I want to buy, then he told me to get out of his shop and if I did want to buy to not buy from him! Out of all the prices I got his was actually the best, and I probably would have bought the item, but out of pure principle I didn't - his loss.

We also ventured out of the main city towards the south of HK island to Stanley bay. Being there was quite similar to Blackpool/Bournemouth beach. Basically the bay revolved around a beach (obviously!) then the beach road was lined with English bars and English chippers. It was nice to visit but it wasn't life changing.

Overall the whole of HK that we saw was so enjoyable and I will definately be here again - hopefully with Doms credit card as he'll be earning the big bucks by then!

Onto Thailand next...

Team Domro

Our last morning in Yangshuo (overnight Train tonight!) we headed to see the sights of the Li River, the scenery of which is on the Chinese 20 Yaun note, for anyone who has one lying around the house. Unfortunately it was absolutely pissing rain,which kind of took away from it. We had a one hour bus journey down to the river, and from there we headed down the river on our boat. It was cool as you could head out onto the front of the boat.The scenery was alot like you would see in Jurassic Park and King Kong, me and roisin even started making dinosaur noises--hillarious! Another great thing when you were out there was all the Chinese people would wave at us vigoursly and shout HELLO. To be honest i would say on another day the views and scenery would have been even more spectacular, but the weather dampened everyones mood, and of course we had the night train to look forward too. Now you might be thinking, what the hell are they giving out the night train for? they got pissed on the last one. Well for me personally the reason i was dreading was that Liverpool were playing Chelsea at Anfield and i would be stuck in bunkbeds, with no room on a feckin train. I asked Tim to text me the score as soon as the result came in. Roisin's phone could recieve texts but couldnt send them, also it hadnt been charged for a few days (surprise surprise!) so i didnt even know if id get it on. I knew the game finished at 10.45pm our time. Also, we knew we wouldnt drink as much as last time. A few people in the group had been ill, and i dont think anyone felt 100%. Jamie copped the worst of it and even collapsed in the train station 20 minutes before the train was due to leave. We got him onto to train to into the bunkbeds and he was ok the next day. Kinda of an eye opener as to how safe you have to be as it is so easy to get ill, and its not nice too see anyone like that.

Anyway lights went out at 10pm and everyone hit the beds straight away there was no way i was going to bed. I waited till 10.50, then i turned on the phone praying for good news (and the battery). The phone came on anyway, I waited a few minutes and a text came through. It was from Tim. "2 Nil to the Pool" it said, i clinched my fists.FUCKIN CLASS. I got to sleep happy that night.

You'll Never Walk Alone

Team Domro

This morning started with a two hour bike ride up to a place called Moon hill. Even though I haven't ridden a bike in years, the saying is true, you don't forget. Dom was not looking forward to this however as apparently he is not a great fan of bike riding. Conveniently his back was at him so he sat this activity out. It was a hard slog up to the moon hill through muddy paths, shabby villages and even shabbier looking people. The funniest thing was that when we were in the middle of a load of rice fields on our merry way, with the last village being at least 15 minutes back, a woman on a bike appeared out of nowhere trying to sell us postcards and some contraption that resembled a table tennis bat with chickens on it. We couldn't figure out how she could have known we were there until we came up with the theory that our tour guide must text all the sellers when we are approaching so they know when to come. This seems far fetched...but we have evidence. We had taken no pump with us in the case of a flat tyre, which of course happened to one of the guys. Conveniently as we were wondering what to do, the woman appeared...our tour guide then went over to the sellers bike and took it! With no question! So our tour guide must have known her even though she denied it...its all a big ploy to get the tourists money!

Anyhoo, we eventually got to moon hill which is basically a big rock with a massive hole running through it on top of a mountain, hard to describe! To get to the top of the mountain took about 20 - 40 minutes up steps (im not totally sure, it just seemed like an awful long time!). Once at the top, we could see for miles. Once we got that far it seemed a shame not to climb right to the very top of the actual moon hill. This however was not up steps. I think this would also count as the first actual trekking I have done on this holiday (remember Doms in bed with a 'bad back'). The four of us had to climb rocks and wade through trees and mud to reach the top, when we got there though, this place was like sitting on the edge of the world. You could quite easily sit there for hours. Funnily enough, going down was tougher than going up but thankfully my trusty new boots had a good grip, but they aren't so white any more!

As ever with China we had a 2 hour journey to get back to our base. As we cycled there, we had to cycle back...doh! I definately knew at this point that I had earned the right to stuff myself tonight in the Chinese cooking course that Dom and I were going to...

Dom is going to take over from here...

The afternoon was something we were really looking forward too- Chinese cookery course.So myself, Roisin, Kate, Katie and Sarah were collected from the hotel. Our first stop was the market, where the first stage of the course began. Unfortunately the market really could have done damage to our appetites from what we saw! It started as fairly standard stuff, a few funny looking mushrooms and gigantic cucumbers. Then we saw ducks and rabbits in cages and people picking the rabbit they wanted. Obviously you all know what happened next! Anyway then we saw some meat hanging off the railings so we went to see what it could be. It was dog, you hear about the Chinese eating dog but you don't really believe it until you see it. There were dead dogs everywhere, they still had all their fur on and everything, but they were slit down the middle in their chest and pulled open so you could see inside them. Then there was a load of dogs in cages waiting for inevitable. Also, as they slaughtered the animals there and then, we were standing on rivers of blood. One guy loaded three dogs onto the back of his motorbike. It really was quite full on and not for the faint hearted or dog lovers. So that was an experience, and not a nice way to get into an afternoon of cooking meat! We left the market and were picked up in this small van, we started driving into these really remote areas, it actually felt like we were being taken kidnap. Of course we weren't and when we arrived in the cookery place it was fantatsic. We each had our own cooking area, each had a wok, oils, ingredients etc. There were 5 dishes we would be preparing and we would eat our own dishes after we had cooked them. The first dish was eggplant in an oyster sauce, basically fried aubergines in oyster sauce, the 2nd was Beer Fish, the third was steamed stuffed vegetables, the fourth chicken in cashew nuts and finally garlic vegetables. The chef showed us firstly how to make them and then just left us do it ourselves. It was great fun, although very tough to get every dish perfect, i think we manged it though, they all tasted pretty delicious to us and i had the satisfaction of knowing i cooked them myself. The evening was finished with a few beers in the bar in the hotel (well i had a few beers, Roisin and Kate decided to have a Muff Diver Shot, cream everywhere although i think thats the idea!). We watched U2 live in Slane so a nice way to end a great day.

Tomorrow is the last day in China, we set off for Hong Kong in the afternoon after a cruise up the river Li.

Team Domro

Just a short one for today, as we spent most of the day travelling and trying to get over our hangovers. We had a bus trip from our hotel to the airport, then a 2 hour flight to Guilin and then finally a 2 hour bus to Yangshuo, which is like a backpakers paradise, full of bars and Western food places. We were starving by time we got there and we went to the bar in the hotel and praise the lord they had some great food on the menu- chinese food is nice but imagine eating 8 takeaways in a row. Anyway we had a choice to make- pizza, steak,burgers, pasta.Really tough decision, i went for steak with peppered sauce and mashed potato with onion rings,fuckin great. Roisin got mashed potato with cheese and bacon and of course tomato ketchup and lots of it. That night we headed down to the river to go Comoron fishing. Its basically this guy on the raft who goes downstream with bout 5 Comoron birds around him. They catch fish along the way but he has tied rope round their necks so they cant swallow,he then fishes the birds out and gets them to spit the fish into a basket. Was fairly cool, then we had the opportunity to have our picture taken with the birds on our arm. I wont even touch our dog Holly at home so the chance of me touching one of the those things was very slim.Roisin did it though,although she didnt look overly comfortable, picture will appear when we get it from Nick. That night we explored the town a bit and we found a dvd store selling tv series. We managed to get Series 3 of Desperate Housewives for 40 Yuan, which is about 4 euro and seen as i spent 120 euro buying the other two for Roisin i was firmly in favour of the purchase.

Thats all for 2day

Team Domro

Hello to everyone,well Roisin has finally got me to put something on the travel blog so i decided it should be my birthday (Thanks Nana for the text by the way). Just to let all you fans of Roisins writing style know you should expect a different style from me,so watch out for swearing and plenty of football references! Firstly id like to say thanks to all for commenting (Colette, Jen, Rachel,Carmel, Sorcha and even Luke with his many words of wishdom).Luke (and Morgan) just to let you know i forgot to do the feckin Father Ted joke at the Great Wall,we headed off at 5.30 in the morning and i think i was still asleep.Was gutted when i realised the opportunity id missed,so i tried to reinact it with the tour guide on the night train but she didnt get what i was trying to do,dont think she'd seen Father Ted!,id had bout 6 huge bottles of beer too so that didnt help!

Anyway, we were up at 8.30 to leave at 9 for my first birthday treat,which i thought would be my only birthday treat which was the Terracotta Warriors. We were collected by a private bus and had an hour long journey to the site. When we got there,the usual hoards of Chinese people were waiting to see if they could sell us anything.So we got our tour guide and off we went. Suppose better put in some technical details for people you dont know what the Terracotta Warriors are.There are 3 sites where the warriors are located in total,and there are around 7000 of them in total. They are basically life sized (Roisin says there bigger than lifesized) terracotta figures of warriors and horses arranged in battle formations which were discovered by a local farmer in 1974, the farmer now signs copies of a book in the souvenir shop.You can buy lifesize warriors now and have them shipped home. Originally they had colour however when they were excavated the paint reacted with the air and the colour faded away, this is the reason why they have left some areas un- excavated. When they have the technology to stop this happeneing they will uncover the remaining areas. Even though the warriors are very impressive we started to think of the reason they were built. They were basically the idea of a 13 year old emperor called Qin Shi Huang. Chinese history says they were built to protect the emperor/region against enemies but we reckon the kid was just having a laugh!And there we are all in awe of this kids toys. Anyway thats the end of that. (got attacked by more Chinese trying to sell stuff on the way out the gate by the way,Roisin didnt like it but i thought it was great,felt like a celebrity,sure i was only laughing at them anyway)

This is probably gonna be a long blog as i havent got a fuckin clue when to stop but sure ill just carry on,the fun bit of my bday is too come.

So we got back to the hotel,and Roisin told me to go out with the group to the Muslim Quarter (big market). I knew she was up to something as why would she not want to go shopping!So i headed off but only after having my Birthday Chicken on a stick (basically KFC chicken on a stick).Then myself Nick and Jamie went for a pancake with eggs and ham,nice one lads,could really go for one of them right now actually. The Muslim Quarter was great fun as even though i wasnt buying anything i went around with everyone else and got involved in all the price bargaining that was going on. They had all these stalls with scrolls of Chinese writing with English meanings on them, me and Kate were passing one when she noticed that one of them said You'll Never Walk Alone, she said i should buy it but i was getting tired and couldnt be bothered bargaining so i said i may get it later.

Got back to hotel and had a bday beer with Jamie,then Roisin arrived back round 6.All group arrived back to the hotel one after the other and everytime someone wanted a drink Roisin made me go up to the bar,noticed her whispering to them.I knew i had to be downstairs for 7. Got changed and the ten of us headed off,i knew we were goin for something to eat.Everytime i was walking in front, they all made me go to the back. We eventually arrived in this really swanky Japanese Restaurant, went inside and they had a whole room covered in balloons for me. So we all sat down and ordered cocktails and then the food started to arrive out,Roisin had ordered all the dishes earlier. All sorts came out, different salads, clams, rices, fish and meat dishes. The weirdest thing we had was squid which i cant believe i ate as it was cold and red! The meal was fantastic and it was a great birthday dinner so thanks Baby.

Just when i thought all the excitement was over they closed all the doors to the room we were in and turned off all the lights and the staff brought in a huge birthday cake and everyone sang happy birthday,the staff also put a hat on me and they had happy birthday playing on cd over the whole restuarant. It was great,Roisin then handed me a scroll, i knew what it was straight away, so lads i now know what Youll never walk alone is in Chinese so if we wanna start a new chant we can! After the meal,we were all a bit tipsy after beers and cocktails so took all the ballons off the wall and everyone took some,we all started running and jumping around the underground on the way back to the hotel,the chinese didnt know what to think. A few of us also tryed to sell the balloons to the locals to get our own back. Kate even managed to get a price off someone!They'll fuckin buy and sell anything here. We got back to the hotel and the whiskey and vodka came out,which between me, Roisin and Kate we somehow managed to finish. The night finished round 3 in the morning.

I had a great birthday, thanks everyone, especially Roisin.

Hopefully Liverpool can give me another birthday present and kick Chelsea's ass.