China - A sign of the times...

As much as we were glad to get moving down to south east asia we will definitely miss China - the spitting, the pointing, the constant laughing when we replied to their shouts of "hello" and perhaps most of all their sketchy command of the english language. Here are a few highlights of some of the more ridiculous, offensive and comical signs which we've passed on our travels...

Hong Kong

After yet another sleeper bus (a massive contradiction in terms..it is impossible to sleep on these rust buckets without the aid of prescription medication or John Toshack's mono-tone commentary on a meaningless UEFA cup qualifier) we made it to Hong Kong on Monday morning. As the cost of living in Honk Hong is a fair bit higher than anywhere else we'd been before we were forced to go in search of some more downmarket accomodation...we plumped for a cramped twin room in the imaginatively-titled "Chunking Mansions"...sounds great but these were mansions in the same way that Dublin's "Fatima Mansions" were mansions, in other words it was a dive but when you're supposed to be on a budget you need to conserve your cash for the important things (beer, food, more beer).

Our apartment was on the mainland part of Hong Kong (Kowloon) so we usually got a cool old ferry across to Hong Kong island when we wanted to do a bit of exploring. The skyline and views are pretty amazing. We took a tram up to the highest mountain peak to get a great view on the majority of Hong Kong, great 360 degree view with an urban jungle on one side and a deserted mountain rang on the other.

Oh yeah, we also get pretty drunk and felt up Bruce Lee but we're not proud of that one (ok maybe a little).

Guilin & Yangshuo - Guangxi Province

The aftermath of the boozefest that was Shanghai took a heavy toll on the two of us...we pretty much spent the two days afterwards in Guilin in (seperate!!) hotel beds catching up on some much needed sleep. After a bit of reading up on the lonely planet guide to China (cheers for that Millzy - we would no doubt be lost or dead without it...no joke) we decided to head down to Yangshou, a really picturesque town in southern China (close to Hong Kong) which is very popular with Chinese tourists and whose scenery is the inspiration for much of China's art work.

Yangshuo is situated next to the beautiful Li River (not a patch on the lovely Lee River of course but you have to make do I guess) in the centre of the most stunning Karsk Limestone mountain area in China. It's a great spot for outdoor activities and we managed to pack in mountain climbing, bamboo rafting, cycling and a river cruise during our time in Yanhgshou. There are a fair few young people from Australia, America & Europe who have come here to spend the summer teaching English to Chinese kids and working as rock climbing instructors..not a bad old way to spend a summer.

Next stop - a 10hr night train to Hong Kong (where we'll probably blow our budget for the week in one night on the tear)

Latest Pool Score

D. Walsh - 5

P. Walsh - 3

I threw away a couple of guilt-edged chances to close the gap but have been encouraged by Dave's erratic play...he has been observed playing with his left hand in recent games - is he left handed or is he taunting me? I'm not sure.

Just to counter some nasty rumours that Kingston has been spreading...I have NOT (yet) sold Dave into slavery in return for a few nights of free accomodation & here's the proof below (although his new haircut makes him look 17 years old I can confirm that this is a recent photo)

"Moon Hill"

Shanghai - A break from culture (but not for the liver)

I'd like to say that we made good use of our week in Shanghai and hit a load of sights and overdosed on culture. It'd be an out & out lie though. Shanghai is a bit light on culture but heavy on places to get very drunk and act like the eijits that we are (..and by god we did).


Our local host/tour guide/barman/fellow drunk Paddy Linehan hooked us up with a training session in searing 35°C heat (er...cheers for that Paddy) with the Shanghai GAA Team which nearly put a premature end to our trip (and lives) but redeemed himself by ensuring that we drank enough to kill a horse on the BBQ and stag party which followed...we were a sorry sight getting up for our flight to Guilin on Sunday morning (...no pictures available as they would scare small children)

Somewhere in the haze of rampant alcohol abuse we did manage to explore Shanghai's Old Town which is quite traditional and also the newer areas of The Bund & The Putong which are swamped with skyscrapers...Shanghai is definitely a city of contrasts & one which is constantly changing. To find out that one fifth of the world's construction cranes are currently in Shanghai came as no surprise..the rate of change in Shanghai is such that even locals occassionally get lost as buildings are being put up and torn down overnight.

Terracotta Warriors & The Home of Shaolin Kung Fu

Due to a spot of dodgy weather, the power hour and a plethora of quality clubs we didn't quite manage to do a whole lot on the sightseeing front in Xi'an but we did manage to make it to the Terracotta Warriors...an underground army of terracotta warriors discovered in 1974 by peasants digging a well.

Several hundred thousand workers spent 36 years building the tomb, which the Emperor, at the age of 13, ordered to be built shortly after he ascended the throne. It is said that workers and supervisors involved in its design and construction were buried alive within the tomb.

While there we were greeted by a far more fearsome army...hoards of old-age american pensioners whose hearing aids seemed to be defective and insisted on screaming to eachother non-stop..cheers for that.

The next in an unending series of sleeper trains brought us to Louyang. Despite having a population of over 6 million there wasn't a whole lot to do..we did manage to grab a few games of pool with the locals though (in between getting some serious stares...either my fly was open or we looked kinda outta place..not sure which)

Latest Pool Score:
D. Walsh - 3

P. Walsh - 1

Poor start from the pre-tournament favourite as the pressue of the Laoyang invitational tournament seemed to get to him...don't write him off yet though..there's a lot of games left to play .

An early start on Saturday morning brought us on a bus full of ancient chinese couples to Shaolin Si, the spiritial home of Zen Buddhism & Shaolin Kung Fu (...a bit of a contradiction if you ask me but I wasn't going to argue with any of them especially after I saw one of them break a metal bar in half using his face).

The history bit - In 495AD a Buddhist monk called Bodhidharma from India came to China to teach Yogic concentration (aka "Zen" Buddhism) but was refused admission at the Shaolin Temple. Because he had a bit of time on his hands he climbed high into the mountains to a cave where he meditated for nine years, aking to waiting to get on a Northern Line tube at 9am on a Friday...(It is believed <> that he sat, facing the cave wall for much of these nine years so that his shadow became permanently outlined on the cave wall).

After nine years, the abbot Fang Chang finally granted Bodhidharma entrance to Shaolin where he became the First Patriarch of Zen Buddhism. Supposedly Bodhidharma exercised in the cave to keep fit and when he entered Shaolin Temple, found that the monks there were not very fit. He developed a set of exercises that later became the foundation for the specialized interpretation of martial arts at Shaolin.

Ever eager to cash in on the tourist $ the Chinese government recently spend close to to $150m renovating the Shaolin Temple site and while it's a lot more tourist-friendly it definitely looks to have lost some of its soul and history in the process (I found fake "monks" selling buddha replicas in the temple itself a bit tacky)...the half-hour kung fu show really did make the trip worthwhile. Aspiring monks as young as 8 and 9 years old flying through the air like something from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon..I'm not sure if the picture below captures it but these lads were pulling off some crazy moves

Here's me checking out a statue of Confucius, founder of a religion (Confucinism) and reverred in China pretty much on the strength of being a sound lad and encouraging everyone to love one another...sound familiar eh?