Happy New Year! / Somehow we've been in Asia for 2 months!

Omgs, it's so hard to keep up with this blog thing! Every time we have a lengthy internet session, it seems like ages since our last update. But let's see, we last left off in in Yangshuo, we had such a great time biking around the amazing coutryside. We had a great little hostel too, where we met a friendly assortment of swedish and finnish, and other fun-loving Europeans. From there, we hopped on a bus towards Nanning. Nanning, was a pretty unremarkable city filled with millions of people, shopping malls, and KFCs. We were pretty much just waiting for our Vietnamese visas to be processed. Luckily our hostel helped us pass the time and recover from the wear and tear of the road with a big screen tv, a wii and hundreds of dvds.

Once we had our Vietnam visas (and since our one- month Chinese visas were about to expire), we caught the Hanoi-bound bus. The Chinese-Vietnam border crossing is a place called "Friendship Pass." Sounds quite lovely. But we were mostly just shuttled around in mini buses to different checkpoints, multiple passport checks, and then put onto a Vietnamese bus.

Despite stern warnings from our guidebook of the savagery and dangers of vietnam (you'll be robbed! People honk incessantly all night! You'll be blown up by a landmine!). Vietnam has so far been a great deal easier than China, English is widely spoken (and Kat's french fills in the gaps where it isn't) and the backpacker trail is well worn, if a little touristy.

Hanoi is so far our favorite large city. The Old Quarter is an interesting mix of Asian and Parisian architecture. The baguettes sold on every street corner are divine. (Vietnamese food trumps Chinese by a wide margin, for anyone keeping track) and the sights are numerous and interesting. The best of the city is the Ho Chi Minh Museum, which takes visitors on the personal events and broader historical context of the life of Ho Chi Minh. This is done through old newspaper clippings and, interestingly, interperative sculpture and film pieces meant to summarize the different historical eras spanned by the narritive. Best museum we've seen yet by far. (Dear Sanghai museum: you were a disapointment.)


After Hanoi it was on to Cat Ba Islands, where we spent Christmas eve at a hilariously tacky Vietnamese Christmas party, complete with christmas song/karaoke classic medleys and a vaguely hawaiian looking santa clause. Cat Ba's national park proved a bit more stimulating, as we hiked through the jungle on a six hour tour, wild monkeys and giant spiders abound(s)ed.

After Catba we transited back through Hanoi en route to Hue, a town just below the old North/South border. We had grand plans for Hue, including a visit to the primate rescue center, but it rained Noah-and-the-flood style for our entire stay, so we spent most of the time in our room watching the discovery channel and animal planet.

We got out of Hue as soon as we could. Our next stop was the charming small town of Hoi An, which I believe has more tailors per capita than any other city in the world. Kat got several dresses made, while Tom contented himself with a rather snappy looking suit (dark grey with pinstripes, its real classy). We also took a cooking course while we were there, so you all are going to be assaulted with our renditions of vegetable spring rolls and grilled lemon fish in banana leaf (we'll spare you the squid salad).

Hoi An eventually gave way to Nha Trang, a town far to the south with tropical weather and 6km of beaches. So its not hard to imagine what we did with our time. Highlights included snorkeling through a coral reef, and mineral mud baths at a hot springs.

Dalat, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, is our current port of call. Natural splendor is the sight to see around here, so we've been biking around for the past two days trying to take it all in. The day after tomorrow we leave for Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), which we're both pretty excited for, Saigon has a hell of a reputation among travelers.

We'll try to keep the next few updates a little more frequent, if we wait this long again we'll likely be home before the next post.

Cheers,
Kat and Tom.

And now for something a little different: (pictures!)



The amazing karst hills in Yangshuo




Tom illuminated.




Tom having a rest in a tree. Notice the new short hair!




Obligatory sunset shot




A meandering path outside the village of Small Likeng, leads past farmer's plts and into the hills. Amazingly idyllic place.




The light show on the lake in Yangshuo. It was really incredible in person.




Kittens on Tom's McGill bag. Altogether too cute. We wanted to keep them.




Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum in Hanoi. It's quite imposing.




Hiking through Cat Ba National Park. Jungle!




Kat + horse chillaxing.




Our guide pumping some water for Tom in a tiny farming village. He seems delighted to be helping Tom clean up.




On a boat in Halong Bay just off Cat Ba island.




Fishy! In an aquarium shaped like a pirate ship on an island near Nha Trang.




Tom on a beach around Nha Trang, having a good time.




Oh man, these guys are soo cool.




Biking in villages around Dalat.




Bia=beer, in Vietnamese. The one Vietnamese word wẻ know! Mmmm..




Water Buffalo, momma and baby. We find these bovines just delightful.




Unicorn! (This is for you, David!)

Hiking, Biking, and Motorcycling.

Well its been nearly two weeks since our last post, so maybe its time to do another one. Our last update found us just out of Shanghai, since then we've been criss crossing China in an effort to work our way south and west, in time to spend christmas in the warmer parts of the world. Our first stop from Shanghai was Hangzhou, a town that features massive park lands surrounding a large lake bisected by a causway. Our Hostel there was a real treat, with such a great common room that we were tempted to stay in on most nights. We also ran into Jonathan and Dafna, an Israeli couple we had already met twice previously. First on the boat ride from Osaka, and then again at the Shanghai Muesuem, where they were taken in by scammers which we had just sent packing (haha). Our primary activity on Hangzhou was bike-riding, there are beautiful paths around and across the lake which kept us occupied for the better part of a day (at least when we weren't trying to figure out the Byzantine public bike rental system). The crowning point of our stay in Hangzhou was definitely the hike up a mountain path which overlooks the lake. Near the top we encountered what can only be described as a boulder playground. A series of large rocks split by deep chasms that people of all ages scrambled all over for fun. At the very peak was a simple wooden pagoda and a cluster of Chinese people playing badminton, doing pushups, yodeling, skip-roping, and doing tree-chin-ups. We paused here to watch the sunset over the lake, and then reluctantly followed the other patrons back down the cliff.

Hangzhou was one of our favorite cities, its combonation of urban landscape and natural beauty, as well as a general cosmpolitan feel, reminded us both of Vancouver. However, we did have to press on, and so, with a bit of reluctance, we hopped aboard the creakiest, loudest, and bumpiest bus in all of industrial history, bound for the villages of Wuyuan. The village of Wuyuan itself was nothing special, although we found it interesting to catch a glimpse of small town Chinese life, and refreshing to not be bowled over by cars and bikes every time we stepped off the curb. Still, we had no trouble packing up the next morning bound for the near countryside, where the real village life was waiting. To make the trip out, we hired a pair of quite aggressive, but ultimately helpful motorcycle drivers. (Tom's side note: yes mum, I rode on a motorcycle, don't worry, I didn't drive and still have all limbs intact). The bikes didn't move to fast, but the ride out into the Chinese countryside was exhilirating, despite our guides efforts to steer us to destinations where they would get a kickback for delivering us. We ended up seeing three small villages, and decided to say the night at the one which was by far the prettiest, Small Likeng. Our experience here was probably the highlight of the trip so far. The village was impossibly beautiful, and our 'hotel' (the second floor of the home of an extended family) was well situated, with a porch that looked out over the villages sleepy mainstreet, running alongside a bustling stream where the locals washed their clothes and washed the produce harvested that day. One of the women who lived below brought us a home cooked chinese meal. Which was delicious, if entirely too much food for two people to eat. That night we were quite excited to be staying where we were, the sleepy little village seemed a perfect slice of chinese rural life. It was, although maybe a little too perfect, as we settled down for the night we realized that our room was more or less open to the outside, and that we had no heater and just a few meagre blankets. These last allowed us to avoid freezing to death in the cold, cold night, but comfort enough to actually sleep was a bit beyond there reach. Sunrise was a happy sight.

The nexxt day we pushed on for Nanchang, leaving from a bus station which resembled an old communist bloc prison camp. We would stay only one night in Nanchang before catching our overnight train to Xiamen.

all there really is to say about Nanchang is that there are more cell phone stores on its main street than there are in the rest of the world combined.

The train to Xiamen, via the 'hard sleeper' ticket was an interesting cultural experience. We've had occasion to notice that the Chinese in general have very different attitudes towards noise pollution than do Canadians. Through the course of our trip we were subjected to a tv blaring loud chinese comedies which, despite being right beside Tom's bunk, could not be turned down or off, even when no one was watching it. Another community minded soul decided to entertain his fellow passengers by allowing his cell phone to play various ringtones at high volume. Others yelled from on compartment to another, not because of any arguement, but simply in the course of a normal conversation, the distance presumably being to great to walk over and have a talk. We actually did enjoy the trip a lot, despite the unfamiliar conduct of our bunkmates.

Xiamen was just a great town to relax in. Our hostel was, fittingly, Mediterranean themed, as it was situated on the edge of a beautiful beach. The palm-lined streets and neon skyline put Tom in mind of Surfer's Paradise in Australia. Both Tom and Kat were surprised at the general North American feel of the town. In much of China, imitations of Western culture and archtecture can come off a bit tone-deaf, but in Xiamen they were pitch perfect. We spent half our time on the mainland at Xiamen, and then crossed over to spend two more days on the island of Gulang Yu, which resembled nothing more than a small village in the South of France, which wasn't to surprising, as Europeans had owned the island for much of its existence.
generally we looked at Xiamen as a bit of a vacation from our trip, and that's exactly what we got. Great restraunts like The Sundance Kid, which featured live music, stacks of New Yorker magazines, and a lot of mid-sixties folk music, brought to mind Montreal at its hippest. The beach, sun and surf weren't so bad either.

Too soon, however, we figured we better get back to that whole backpacking and sightseeing thing, so we started our long train voyage out to Yangshuo, far in the west. The trip included two sleeper train rides and an eight hour stop in Guangzhou (nice town to spend an afternoon in, if you're in the neighbourhood). Finally, after nearly three days of travel, we made it to Guilin, and, after some extensive haggling which tom was particularly proud of, bought a 10 Yuan bus ticket to Yangshuo. Yangshuo is where this is being written from, but for that update, which so far includes a 600 cast musical performed from the middle of a river, and a rooftop bar surrounded by looming cliffs lit by spotlights, you'll have to tune in next week.

hope everyone's doing well,

Tom and Kat

Shanghai: The Mouth of the Dragon!

A new Post! it always seems like so much time passes between these things, I guess it has been about a week. Well when we last left you we were huddled in an internet cafe in shanghai, hiding from the rain. At that particular moment, our outlook on Shanghai as a city and China as a nation was probably at its nadir. Shanghai is no Tokyo. It is, as an architect we met in Japan put it, a "megacity that doesn't work". This is apparent the moment you first try to cross a street. Traffic laws are non-existent, and motorcycles frequently rip down the sidewalks, laying on the horn, rather than braking, when encountering pedestrians. This, needless to say, took some getting used to. I think that to a couple of kids raised in Western Canada, where cars stop if you look like you might be considering crossing the street, Shanghai is a little unnerving. It really does seem as if the drivers are trying to kill you. I'm happy to say, however, that we really did get used to it after a while, and with time learned to negotiate the traffic, panhandlers, scammers (more on them later) and more honest street peddlers, which allowed us to take in a few of the impressive sights Shanghai had to offer.




Shanghai's 'Old Town' Or the part which remained largely Chinese during the years of European occupation. We found this while walking around in a daze on our first night in town, we were sufficiently impressed.









The Bund: former center of the European occupation, now sight of Dolce and Gabbanna outlets and chic restraunts, also, fairly pretty.






This is Pudong area, across the Huangpu River from the Bund. Notable things, the bizarre 'pearl' tower on the left, (there are more spheres obscured on the top), the fact that all the tops of the buildings are obscured by ever present smog, and the fact that in 1990, that entire area was nothing but a broad marsh with a couple of farms scattered sporadically on the outskirts.

The amount that has been built in Shanghai in the last twenty years is truly incredible, its no wonder nothing works properly, the city's primary concern is constant expansion. An impressive endeavour, but leads to some hit-or-miss concepts. For example, the 'Bund sightseeing tunnel' which visitors can take in lieu of a subway ride between the Bund and Pudong.




It was actually kind of fun, but really not much of a tourist attraction. The locals in the tram with us seemed unimpressed, we think they were just using it as an uncrowded alternative to the regular subway. Not that anyone could blame them for avoiding the Subway. Despite the fact that the Shanghai Metro really is the best way to get around the city (no one trying to run you down!) The crowds can get a little intense, and North American mores for proper subway etiquette don't seem to have jumped overseas, as soon as the doors open at a stop, the crowd at the platform pushes there way in to the train, which doesn't help the equally large crowd trying to leave the train simultaneously. This often creates a 'three stooges' effect wherein people are jammed in the doorway for a few minutes until the shoving resolves.


SHanghai offered some historic sights as well, from the summer palace gardens of a song dynasty emperor, to a buddhist monastery chock full of jade sculptures.







So Shanghai turned out to have some very interesting sights to offer. We also stopped at the Shanghai museum, which has been hailed as a revolution in Chinese Museums, we both found it a bit drab to be honest. There was very little exposition of any of the items on display, and we found it hard to appreciate much of it without context. The Museum sits in Renmin Square, which is supposed to be sort of the beating heart of Shanghai. Sure enough, there certainly seemed to be a lot of Chinese tourists there. We were approached three seperate times by students 'from out of town' who, after a brief, friendly chat in broken english, offered to bring us to any number of special 'cultural events' from a tea festival to an acrobatics show. You may have gathered from my extensive use of quotation marks that these 'students' were not entirely on the level. We, being the distrusting, antisocial beings that we are, turned down all the offers and proceeded to a local vegetarian restaurant (more on that later.) We would later run into a couple of travelers who had taken an offer to head to a tea festival. Six cups of tea and 500 yuan later, they realized their mistake.

Our final day in Shanghai was intended to be a day long jaunt out into an old restored fishing town on the outskirts of the city, followed by a (parentally funded) drink at the exclusive M Bar on the Bund. These plans, however, were sent awry by our decision to eat at an amazing vegetarian restaurant the night before. The restaurant, 'Godly Vegetarian Restaurant' specializes in simulating meat dishes with all vege ingredients. The food was delicious and plentiful (and cheap!) and the decor was an elegant recreation of an outdoor buddhist garden made from marble and wooden pagodas. The restaurant was such a steal that they even included in the price a small additive that wasn't on the menu, a small virus that caused Tom to regularly vomit for the next 24 hours. That, dear readers, is Shanghai in a nutshell.

There is much more to tell, we could probably right another post on the people of Shanghai alone, and we've already been in beautiful Hangzhou for several days, but Kat is already asleep on the couch and Tom is fading fast, so that will be saved for tomorrow night.


Hope everyone is well,
Tom and Kat.

Oh man, we're in China!

Hmm, it's been a crazy few days since our last post. We're in a little Chinese internet cafe in Shaghai right now, without the proper equipment to post pictures, so here's a little text-only update.

Some of the memorable events since then have been going to a "Humongous Pot of Soup" (aprox. 10 m high and 3 m wide. A crane lifted the lid off, and the spoons they stirred it with were basically boat oars.) festival in the tiny town of Yamagata. I guess it's an annual thing, community festivals seem to be a big thing in more rural areas of Japan. Being the only non-locals there, we were honored guests and even got free bowls of the stuff, although what was in it was anybody's guess. Tom ate it, I opted for a candy apple.

After a few days as guests in the tiny house of Kat's sister Tina, and going to huge rec centers, where you can basically rent out a living room, and have free drinks and massage chairs, we were off again.

We took the overnight bus from Tokyo to Kyoto, which was where Tom celebrated his birthday. Woo, bus birthday! It was a double-decker, and we were on the top which was pretty cool, and thanks to a little rum, the ride wasn't too bad. It's a lot harder to sleep on a bus than you would expect though, so we arrived in Kyoto at about 6 am and exhausted. Since it was too early to check in to our hostel, we went to an internet cafe, it had little rooms with soft mat floors, so we slept there for a few hours until we were feeling better.

Our hostel in Kyoto (K's house) was really nice. Kyoto is beautiful, full of gardens and temples, so many little peaceful escapes that make you forget you're even in the city. We had a nice Japanese birthday dinner, and some drinks in the bar below the hostel. The next day, we rented bikes, and biked around to the imperial Gardens. I got a little too enthusiastic and jumped over the little moat to look at a monkey statue, and set off the palace alarm, so we ran away and tried to look innocent as a police car showed up. How was I to know that those huge things everywher were motion sensor alarms? haha. Then we kept biking, went to more gardens where Buddhist monks were running around everywhere, got pizza, got lost, went for drinks, and went to sleep.

Then we were off to Osaka, our final Japanese destination. We felt like Tokyo was the future people in the 6os saw (clean, high-tech, slick), while Osaka is the future people today see (much grittier, darker, and more crowded). That might just have been our neighborhood though, we didn't have long there. Our hostel could only be desrcibed as super sketchy, but at least it was cheap.

Then came the infamous boat "Su Zhou Hao". It was a pretty neat little ferry. We both had a bit of a cold, so it was nice to take it easy.The restaurant wasn't the greatest, but they had vending machines that sold noodle cups and beer, which was all we really needed. :) We befriended the few other english speakers on the boat, which included: us, 2 swedish girls, an israeli couple, an aussie girl, and a japanese dude. (The japanese guy had grown out his beard for 3 months, so he would look poor. Apparently the Chinese don't like Japanese people, but he was hoping he'd at least get some pity, haha). Anyways, the boat was quite relaxing. We even all hung out in the boat's hot tub. Quite nice.

So that leads us to now. We arrived in Shaghai around noon today. I've never seen anything like it, apparently there are huge buidings but you can barely see anything because there's so much smog, and the river looks insanely polluted. This city is just bigger than anything I could imagine. We got our cab driver to drop us off in from of our hostel we'd booked, but there was just a sign that said "Closed". Apparently it shut down? It looked like a dump anyway though, so we consulted our trusty guide book, and found a nautical themed hostel called "the captain" and got ourselves a couple of sailor bunks. It's now pouring rain, and we're hiding in this internet cafe. We're excited to see what the city has to offer tomorrow. Once we're more organized, we'll post some pictures.

Hugs to everyone from China!
Kat & Tom

Tokyo Surprise!

Hey,

Welcome to our first actual blogpost with real content. We're on day four-ish of our little trip, and have had a lot of write-home-about worthy experiences already. So without further ado, here is a words-and-pictures narrative of notable parts of the trip so far.
We started out in Vancouver BC, with Kat joining me a few days prior to our departure to take care of a few odds and ends. Like getting our Chinese money.



The Vancouver stint involved a bit of fun too, as we got to catch up with the Vancouver peeps, as well as the Cullen/Howard parents, but it wasn't too long before we were due to catch our plane.

The plane ride was surprisingly eventful, first, our tv's didn't work, leaving us much time for solemn introspection over the next ten hours. Then we discovered the location of Mount Doom. Unsurprisingly, its in Siberia.




We landed, exhausted, some months later, and began our long quest to find our hostel. Finally, after a long sojourn through the Tokyo subway system. We arrived a Khaosan Smile Hostel. Exhausted, we stepped through the door and proceeded to the check-in counter. There, the friendly, bilingual staffer kindly informed us that we were, in fact, at the Asakusa Smile Hostel, which now stood in the place of the Khaosan smile, which apparently had closed not long after we had booked our rooms. Needless to say, they did not have our reservation.

Luckily, the Khaosan Hostel company is a chain, and they had another hostel not far away, after a bit more exploring, we found ourselves checked in to the Khaosan annex hostel. Our introduction to this hostel was inauspicious, as, upon walking through the door, we were greeted with the sight of an overweight European man playing Guitar Hero, wearing nothing but a Sumo loincloth. Not a pleasant sight.

Anyway, we finally got settled in and crashed at about eight o'clock. We awoke early the next morning for our first of two days in Tokyo.

The next day brought us to the Imperial palace Garden, a small but picturesque portion of which is open to the public year round. How picturesque? well...




(the moat)


Quite pretty really.

Anyway, after that we bummed around central Tokyo for awhile, before we found ourselves in the 'Electric City' which is a large, brightly lit madhouse of streets overflowing with cheap electronics, anime, and seven floor video arcade palaces.

The camera really doesnt do the place justice but...





Anyway, that day involved about 10 hours of walking around. So after the Electric City we settled down in our hostel with some Supermarket Tempura (Delicious!) for the night.

Day two started at an amazing Buddhist temple just around the corner from our hostel. We were interviewed by Japanese schoolchildren, schooled in the art of proper fortune telling, and even given our fortunes.

Tom's: Best Fortune, everything goes your way.

Kat's: Bad Fortune, very bad to make a trip, all your plans will fail...




After that, and a bit of a tour through a really cool marketplace, We found our selves at the Ueno Zoo. Which was the first zoo Tom had ever been to. Lame, but we corrected his deficiencies. He even gasped when he saw his first hippo.



After the zoo we were a bit tired, so we decided to take in a movie, in lieu of heading back to our hostel. This quest led us all the way to the other side of town, a quiet little neighbourhood called Shibuya. (aka: times square on crack)




We spent the next seven hours in the same three block radius, and saw just about everything urban Japan has to offer. We even got a private karoake room and found a few english songs to belt out (Rasputin!). Again, the pictures don't quite capture the scale and sheer overstimulation of the place, especially after dark.

Anyway, our Shibuya experience came at the tale end of our brief Tokyo tour, so we said Saynorah to Asakusa Annex and hopped a train over to Mito, near where Kat's sister is teaching English. Highlights so far include a Buddhist temple graveyard in Tina's backyard, Sushi-go-round (same as in Vancouver, but still tasty), and one of Japan's top three best waterfalls.



and that more or less brings you up to date. Kyoto and Osaka are next on the itinerary, followed by the proverbial (and in our case, literal) slow boat to China.
Just a few more days to butcher the language and enjoy the sushi!

Hope everyone's well
Tom and Kat

Tom and Kat's Big Day(s)!!!!

hello people and welcome to the travel blog, within these confines you will find adventure tales to tickle your fancy and open your eyes to a wider world. Please, join us for a harrowing ride through the darkest ports and highest peaks of Kat's imagination. Also Asia.


Stay tuned for the first exciting chapter: Tom and Kat's Big Day: Adventures in the Rainy City.


holla,
Tom and Kat