I was looking forward to leaving Beijing, but to be honest, I wasn't too enthralled about going to Xi'an. With Xi'an having a pretty central location in China I was originally going to use it as a base to visit the rainbow mountains of Zhangye in the north-west, and Chengdu to the south-east. However, once again the Chinese National Holidays and fully booked trains put an end to those ideas. Actually, I tell a lie.. the train to Chengdu wasn't 100% fully booked,...

It was Sunday 1st October when I was leaving Shanghai for my flight to Beijing.. the start of "Golden Week", also known as the Chinese National Holidays. I couldn't have been travelling at a worse time! Thankfully my flight was early morning, yet the airport was still choca with holidaymakers. The flight was sound, the Chinese breakfast they gave me was not! I can only describe it as tasteless slop.. not for me, thanks. Again, I thought navigating my way to the...

Nî hâo! Let's do this China!! After a few hours layover in Taiwan and my first experience of a squat toilet I arrived in Shanghai. I expected navigating my way to the hostel I had booked in the heart of the city to be quite a challenge, however, I arrived without a hiccup, and by mid-afternoon I had settled into The Blue Mountain Bund Youth Hostel. One thing that was immediately noticeable was there was very few "western" people knocking around in a ram-pa...

So back to Sydney.. where my first stint of travelling began 6 years ago. However, this time around it was all about reunions with friends I've met on my travels rather than checking out the sights of the city. My first of four reunions came in the Leichhardt area, where I'd be staying for the next 4 days with the lovely Italian girls I'd met on Bounty Island in Fiji. Stella, Flavia and Rossella were kind enough to offer me a place to stay which was an amazingl...

I said goodbye to the girls in Melbourne and left for my flight to Brisbane, excited to be spending the next 2 weeks with Ria. Arriving around 6.30pm on Friday evening, I was greeted by Ria in the arrival hall at Brisbane Airport :) She then drove us back to her house in Kedron, on the outskirts of the city, which she shares with her friend Charlotte. On Saturday we took a trip to Dreamworld, a nearby theme park an hours drive from Brisbane, and one which I'd ...