Hello from HK - the best place we've been to so far by miles!
We arrived in Hong Kong last week - it was such a culture shock!! It's soo busy with neon lights flashing everywhere, but it's so vibrant and colourful. I absolutely love it here. Accomodation's quite expensive here so we're staying in a big complex called "Chungking Mansions" - it's like something from an American Gangster movie. The complex is full of hostels, cheap Indian Restaurants, and immigrant accomodation... lovely. Not the most glamorous of locations: we have a TINY room with 2 beds crammed into it, but it has a shower with hot water and air-con. And, it's only 5 pounds a night each which is half what you'd pay anywhere else.
It's been quite cool cos we've been meeting up with some of Jake's old work mates. Matt works as a english teacher out here and he's been taking us round all the sights - we went up 'The Peak' on Saturday and saw the view by night across the whole of HK. One word - amazing. The most beautiful city I've ever seen. He's also taken us out to sample the night life which is also brillant: I've never seen so many bars in one place! The best one we've been to is a Russian bar which has an ice room inside, where you drink vodka shots!
Two more of Jake's work colleagues, Cat and Pete, are also on holiday in HK this week so we've been meeting up with them loads too. Last night a huge group of us went to the races and it's the most fun we've had in ages. I spent about $100 in bets (about 7 pounds) but I won about $190!! So overall I came away with 8 quid! How brilliant is that?! Everyone else either lost money or broke even so I did really well :-)
Over the weekend we went to Macau which is the gambling capital of Asia and it's also home to the biggest casino in the world: "The Venetian". It was so big it even had a canal inside it!
Today me, Jake and Si are gonna look around a few museums and then we're meeting up with Cat, Pete and Matt for dinner. Then we're going to see a laser show which lights up the whole of HK harbour. Cant wait!
It's such a hard life... every day feels like a Saturday and I dont want it to end!
Miss you all as ever though. We're off to Tokyo on Saturday so I'll try and write from there to let you all know what it's like.
Love Emma xxxxxxxxx
Thursday, 19 June 2008
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
The Three Gorges and Shanghai
Hello
Sorry it's been so long since I last wrote - some internet cafes block this website so I'm unable to keep up to date with my blog.
We're now just over half way into our tour of China. The last time I wrote, we were just about to visit the Terracotta army. It was really interesting to see - thousands of them were built by Emperor Qin Shi Huang to guard over his tomb - apparently he was a bit mental. We also saw the man who discovered the first Terracotta warrior - he's a big celebrity in China!
Our next stop after Xi'an was a 2 night cruise down the Yangtze River to see the Three Gorges which we started on Monday 1st June. Ironically, two girls we bumped into on the trip went to Jake's school in Halifax! - we ended up getting on really well with them and spent most of the trip with them.
The Little Three Gorges was one of the highlights. We travelled down a tributary of the Yangtze river to see them in a hydrofoil. The gorges were much more narrow than on the main part of the river, but the cliffs shot up from the water just as far, 40o metres or so. We had a cabin on the boat so we slept on it. The next day, we got up quite early to have a dragon boat race! Slightly random. Then we walked along a sort of floating pontoon along the cliff edge with turned into steps which went into the gorge. The views from up there were amazing. We then made our way back down and watched a rather bizarre Chinese play. We were just about to get back on our boat when we noticed a really long wire stretching between the two sides of the gorge... with a man on a unicycle riding along it! To make it even more strange, someone was hanging off the bottom! To top off the trip, we visited the Three Gorges Dam - soon the gorges will be no more as they will be flooded with water. We're quite lucky that we've seen them as they'll be gone forever - quite sad really.
Next on the list was the bright lights of Shanghai - a slight contrast from the calm and serenity of the Yangtze River. We spent 4 days here in total and managed to cram quite a bit in. My birthday on Saturday was good fun - we visited the tallest building in China, the Jin Mao tower and went up to the top! In the evening, we went out for a Thai and then some cocktails :-) The next day was great fun because we went up another one of the towers, the Oriental Pearl. The views were even better from here as it was night time.
We are now in Hangzhou which is an hour from Shanghai and we're spending one night here. It seems like a beautiful plac - really green and it boasts one of the most famous lakes in China. Only problem is is bucketing it down with rain so we cant really go anywhere :-( Hope it clears up by tomorrow. Tomorrow night we're heading back to Shanghai so we can catch a plane to Hong Kong the next day! Can't wait.
Miss you and will try and write soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sorry it's been so long since I last wrote - some internet cafes block this website so I'm unable to keep up to date with my blog.
We're now just over half way into our tour of China. The last time I wrote, we were just about to visit the Terracotta army. It was really interesting to see - thousands of them were built by Emperor Qin Shi Huang to guard over his tomb - apparently he was a bit mental. We also saw the man who discovered the first Terracotta warrior - he's a big celebrity in China!
Our next stop after Xi'an was a 2 night cruise down the Yangtze River to see the Three Gorges which we started on Monday 1st June. Ironically, two girls we bumped into on the trip went to Jake's school in Halifax! - we ended up getting on really well with them and spent most of the trip with them.
The Little Three Gorges was one of the highlights. We travelled down a tributary of the Yangtze river to see them in a hydrofoil. The gorges were much more narrow than on the main part of the river, but the cliffs shot up from the water just as far, 40o metres or so. We had a cabin on the boat so we slept on it. The next day, we got up quite early to have a dragon boat race! Slightly random. Then we walked along a sort of floating pontoon along the cliff edge with turned into steps which went into the gorge. The views from up there were amazing. We then made our way back down and watched a rather bizarre Chinese play. We were just about to get back on our boat when we noticed a really long wire stretching between the two sides of the gorge... with a man on a unicycle riding along it! To make it even more strange, someone was hanging off the bottom! To top off the trip, we visited the Three Gorges Dam - soon the gorges will be no more as they will be flooded with water. We're quite lucky that we've seen them as they'll be gone forever - quite sad really.
Next on the list was the bright lights of Shanghai - a slight contrast from the calm and serenity of the Yangtze River. We spent 4 days here in total and managed to cram quite a bit in. My birthday on Saturday was good fun - we visited the tallest building in China, the Jin Mao tower and went up to the top! In the evening, we went out for a Thai and then some cocktails :-) The next day was great fun because we went up another one of the towers, the Oriental Pearl. The views were even better from here as it was night time.
We are now in Hangzhou which is an hour from Shanghai and we're spending one night here. It seems like a beautiful plac - really green and it boasts one of the most famous lakes in China. Only problem is is bucketing it down with rain so we cant really go anywhere :-( Hope it clears up by tomorrow. Tomorrow night we're heading back to Shanghai so we can catch a plane to Hong Kong the next day! Can't wait.
Miss you and will try and write soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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