TheLaw's blog: "Travel"

Ahh last night in beijing, past couple of days have been pretty cool though. weather wasnt too good so did some random junk like going to the zoo (big concrete mess but had an amazing aquarium!) saw the panda....it was a panda..... (smaller than i thought they were) and wandering the old streets of beijing. Might go up the TV broadcats tower 480 meters above beijing to check out the view today and a couple of temples i have missed. Went to another club called rock and roll in the hope that would not be a regular dance club, but was worng. although they did wave the entrabce fee and take us to VIP booth, so was bearable i suppose the last two evenings we saw the beijing opera (very odd, lots of women played by men very overactively but it was too sum it up; very bling mime with lots of screeching and cool acrobatics) and saw the best kung fu show in china, which pretty much makes it the best one in the world as far as im concerened and it was very very good, well worth seeing. I was in awe of their leet skills. sneaked some video footage so i can give you guys a little taste. errr what else to note down, i got a video of me eating scorpian which was odd and one of me eating a raw squid thing. both just tasted of burning due to the horrendous amount of chilli the street vendors put on them, the scorpian was crunchy wussed out and didnt eat the sting cause i saw it inject a load of black liquid death on the stick they were stuck too. been hanging with some random guys down at the hostel, kinda odd as people just come and go, there an old irish guy who has a million stories to tell whilst at the bar, you have to distract him and flee! Have been trying to upload some choice photos but not much luck as of yet will keep trying though. but ironically i have more memeory space on my camera than i do to upload too :S decided we are gong to try and watch a famous sunrise on top of tai-shan so will climb the mountain during the day then stay at a guest house overnight, hopefully it will be amazing buts its 50/50 as too weather its really visable or not so you guys have to keep your fingers crossed! Aww was sad about missing my saturday night out with you guys, been having decent music withdrawel syndromes and im might break out in fits of moshing or skanking when no ones looking! oh well time to leave ya now, next place i should be able to message from will be xi'an so i will let you know how things go. and i will try and get some photos up ASAP. Law is now leaving beijing!

8th Apr 2006 1:39 AM Spotted a tour (well a bus) going frm the youth hostel that takes us down the wall and then picks us up 10km down it. Was up at 5:30 for the 4 hour coach journey (they decided suspension on coaches was for the weak in china) but the part of the wall we got too was very non-touristy which was great. was the best day weather wise not a cloud in the sky and met some other Brit guys who walked with us. Well i say walk, some parts are so crumbly and steep feels more like rock climbing! thank god for decent boots. Was truly awe inspiiring and got loads of good photos (as usual ) the steps were the real killers of the journey, but had a great day! Has established half the taxi drivers in beijing must have been emplyed for about 30mins, i wanted to go to this famous duck restaurant. olsdest one in beijing and 2 out of 3 drivers didnt know where the damn thing was! and when we got their about 8:30 they said we couldnt come in cause they close at 9....9??? a restaurant! luckily the manager sent a steward to direct us to the bacstreets local brach which gets the same duck but is much cheaper casue its for locals. and the food was amazing! will have to go back again before we leave. In the evening i wanted to find a well known metal bar i had read about, but after wlaking round the location for about an hour i found it had been demolished! much annoyance so ended up going with some the walking buddies to an insanely packed dance place which annoyed the hell out of me! every time i saw a chinese guy trying to be "gangster" i died a little inside.... Have got our train tickets to Ti'an for tuesday which is about 7 hours away to climb mount Tai Shan, a big holy mountian or something ?? Tonight some more bars with a bunch of random dutch girls i beleive and have got tickets for the beijing opera and a kung fu show. err not too much more to report but this will be first saturday without you guys, have fun and thanks for all the comments and messages. wll try to reply to as many as poss but am all teh busy! right im heading to behei park now, look out for another update soon! Law

6th Apr 2006 1:35 AM Greetings from a youth hostel in central beijing mother fuckers! ARGGHHHH been a bit of a pain last couple of days, our "hotel" was in an old ruyn down residential area with barely anyhting useful nearby! so with orange cocking up and our phones not working was at least 2 days before i could even let parents know our plane hadn't exploded! Well flight ws okay, saw some amazing sights of a sandstorm over iraq and the himalyas, and the great wall from the air. but by the time wwe arriveds we had been travelling for untold hours due to delays, so pretty slept all the first night. exept to wake for dinner, ended up eating a large soup you added stuff to as you went, the hosts pretty much did veerything for us as we had no idea, they suggested stuff which looked like snake skin, thought we would give it a go and ended being a mild hallucengenic with very very odd other effects, so didnt have too many of those! woke up at 5 th next day, trying to find something edible, wondering around with the suprising amount of people that were up and trying to figure ouit how the hell to get some food (ended up eating fried bread stuff, with black and white slime....with bits) headed for tianenman square, my god the vastness! and went round the forbidden city. Managed to find a old man called charlie who was a guide and spoke good english. he was great and told us loads as we were going around. was midway through restoring the whole place for the games. which was annoying due to scaffolding but the buildings they had already done looked amazing! got loads of photos! Then randomlly was talked at by a chginese girl with very good english and her friend, they took us to the old beijing streets wqhcih were pretty cool, saw a bit of root worth 38,000 pounds!!! (couldnt take a picture, was yelled at by security gaurds) its alittle overcast today so will not do too much as it is already quite late in day, might just go do some shopping! will try and get to the great wall tomorrow for a 2 day walk. hope the weather is good and my feet are up to it, thats about it for now guys, will let you know how things are going! Bye from china! Law