Well what a contrast from cycling and boating around the stunning West Lake of Hangzhou! We have just spent 6 days in the crazy, neon lit, hugely populated city of Hong Kong...and LOVED it (what else would you expect!) We flew from Hangzhou to Shenzen and then crossed the Hong Kong border by foot. Or should I say we tried to cross the border but infact this was not as simple as it sounds because literally thousands of other people were trying to cross it at the s...

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR! (Its my year you know...year of the dog-why does that make Liz laugh so much?!) We have been having some dilemas. Most involving transport=lack of, and language=none. As you can see from our ever changing itinery we are not in Vietnam or anywhere close for that matter! Instead we are 2 hours from Shanghai! After a farewell night on the town with Will and his bad influence...having had 1 1/2 hours sleep we dragged ourselves and our backback...

Nihao everybody! As you can see our Chinese is coming on a treat! Since our last postcard we have done rather a lot. Hence the lack of postcards! We caught the sleeper train with 2 canadian guys from our hostel (hello Neil and Ron) on Thursday night where we were cooped up for 10 hours with only a squatty potty on board - the smell of which made us want to vomit. We arrived in Qingdao at 5am (minus Ron who ditched us for his girlfriend at 2am in the middle of chi...

So..we have been busy bees..after being bombarded by a million hustlers we eventually embarked on a tour. 1st stop a crazy tourist trap (very confusing) got back on the bus and settled down for another journey only to be driven to the other end of the car park...The Ming Tombs. Eventually we got to the Great Wall, which we climbed with two new friends who we met on the bus...our only sanctuary from the shouty chinese tour-guide lady who went on for an entire hour...

Hey! We made it! well done us! We have navigated our way to a small, obscure, hidden hostel negotiating planes, busses and subway, with we add NOBODY speaking english! You can see from our photo album we are happy, yet do not be fooled that smile actually hides the excruciating pain caused by having everything but the kitchen sink in our backpacks!! Liz has lost 5inch in height (she cannot afford to shrink anymore!) and I feel as though I sweated out 6lbs just wa...