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Hey Zeus! I have been a bad blogger. Too much having fun and doing shit. I am actually now in Australia with the simple people, and since I last posted, much has occurred including the hectic Japan (coming soon!). This bastard internet is costing me an arm and a leg so gotta be quick. Up-and-at-them.

The great thing about China is that you can pretty much just buy shit. Take our one day trip through Qing'Dao for example. We were walking about this beautiful German colonial town when we reached a pier where some old man was selling tortoises. 1pound! Fucking bargain. And that included a plastic home for him. We walked around with him all day and he seemed somewhat unimpressed by everything we showed him. I nicknamed him Orlando (in fact i nickname most the animal friends we have encountered Orlando) because they often share traits. Orlando was similar to Orlando the Human due to the fact that he was a little slow, constantly chewing on something, liked the colour green and was not a great swimmer. After a day of sight seeing, we had to release him cos we had a boat to Japan to catch and Orlando said that he didn't like the Japanese and their fishermen were evil cunts. Oh, that reminds me; just as we were standing on the beach ready to release Orlando back to the wild, a man who was fishing started waving frantically at us. It turns out that Orlando was a land tortoise, and dropping him into the sea would have meant certain death! eeek.

Shanghai was a little disappointing- vaguely futuristic, massive, spread out, lacking culture, somewhat ugly etc. I'll sum it up with snippets. Bartered so hard with a lady that she accused me of being Korean. Crazy street stalls selling all manners of sex toys and sex-related drugs. An under-the-river Willy Wonker-alike flashing "tourist tunnel" which was Balls with a capital B. Crippling ourselves for a day and a half after drinking too much. A sex museum. Having a hard time reading Dickens' Hard Times. What I did like however was the spontaneous dancing that would occur in the streets. You'd find some old dude dressed up in his finest and he'd be dancing on his own. If he was lucky, an old woman may start dancing with him. Sweet.

We hadn't yet encountered pandas and thought that we couldn't leave China without. After a grueling 2hr local bus ride through Shanghai traffic, we arrived to find out we were too late and the zoo was already closed. I was all ready to hulk-out until we realised a way to bypass the security and pretty much enjoy a private night tour of the zoo. We woke up numerous exotic animals by flashing our cameras at them and making mooo/eeeee oooorrrr/squaarrrkk etc noises. When we arrived at the panda enclosure they were sleeping so we did extra flashes and banged on the glass. The lazy bastards wouldn't awaken so we took a picture of its arse and left. When we eventually found legitimate Pandas in Beijing, they were like drunk, fat, lazy, clumsy, drugged bears and spent the whole time sitting down back to camera stuffing their faces with bamboo. They were sweet though :)

Beijing was brillyeent! Big shout out to the big dog pitbull Rebecca McAndrew and her China-loving crew who took good care of us. They live like kings with maids and a plate drying machine. I celebrated my 23rd Birthday (fuck I'm getting old) with Trip (that's a human name) at a Japanese restaurant (in China) followed by shenanigans at other drinking establishments. MyBDay present was one of the best massages I've ever had. Watching TV, eating food while some woman does stuff to my feet- thanks Rubes. Went to the classics such as Tiananmen Square and the Mausoleum of Chairman Mao. We didn't get to see uncle Ho in Vietnam cos he was being touched up in Russia so I was very excited to get a dose of dead, communist leaders. Rumours have it that the Mao-soleum actually holds a wax-work cos the pickler didn't know what he was doing and left the original Mao mangled. What we saw was what looked like Mao with jaundice and my skeptical self was slightly underwhelmed.

The Great Wall of China... absolutely incredible (and I'm not easily impressed). Moreover, so many people had spoken so highly of it that I was dead certain it was going to be tripe. Not the case. We pretty much had the wall to ourselves- walked for 5hrs and encountered two Aussies and one hawker (who sold us some cool postcards). The wall winds over hills right into the horizon, is derelict and run down with beautiful watchtowers dotted every 100 metres or so. I leave you with an image of one of the most impressive things I have seen on this great expedition. Brrrrrrrraaaapp!
Posted by Will Ryan under the categories Travel and China
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