Back in late July Brian and I met up with our friends Barry and Nok in Chengdu China, and the four of us made the trek up to Tibet to visit the town of Yushu on the Tibetan Plateau.Most of you probably know that Yushu suffered a horrific earthquake in April this year and thousands of people died.The destruction was on a huge scale and it is said that 6000 to 8000 people lost their lives. Our friends Barry and Nok had previously spent 4 years teaching English in ...

Hello from Chengdu! We are here extending our Chinese visas which is taking no less than 7 days….!!We arrived here on Tuesday evening and got our application for extension in first thing Wednesday morning.We pick our passports up next Wednesday 21st and then fly to Xining on Thursday 22nd - our gateway to the Tibetan Plateau. We have been delighted to find a small Tibetan community living here in Chengdu and have been hanging out in their area and found a...

Hello from Yangshuo (again!) Can't seem to budge from this place because it has everything we need while we pass the time waiting for Barry and Nok to arrive in Chengdu next week. We've now officially left the rainy season behind and are in a heat wave that seems to be sweeping China right now.The whole country is sweltering in hotter than normal temperatures and the news reports say that in the southern city of Guangzhou the National Grid is at its limits - so...

Well China is never dull - just when we were feeling a little isolated and annoyed with the rain - sunshine appeared in the form of some awesome locals who ended up helping us celebrate Brian's Birthday and he even got interviewed for national TV! On the eve of Brian's Birthday we were heading out for dinner when a couple of Chinese students stopped us on the street to ask if we would come to their party and speak English with the students.Since we were hungry w...

Hello Well here we are in China once again and let me tell you its quite a contrast from the well organised pristine Japan and the ultra modern and fun Hong Kong.It's really hard to get used to China as it's a full assault on the senses.When we first arrived in Guangzhou it was really hot and muggy and the pollution was making my eyes sting and it was hard to breathe.The city just seemed huge and dirty and overwhelming. We then discovered the little back s...