Freak Winter and Chinese Dumplings

This week there has been freak whether all over China. Hong Kong is apparently much colder than normal. It's like the climate's changing. There's been massive problems with transport, as powerlines going down has made trains from beijing -hong kong just stop in the middle of nowhere. I read in a paper that on one such train, they didn't give the passengers any food or water, and the train staff threatened to lock up any disruptful passengers. Hours later they sold the passengers instant noodles, without any hot water facilities.

Because of the delays, combined with hundreds of thousands of people travelling to the mainland for Chinese new year next week, there are currently around 200,000 people waiting at GuangZhou train station, just the next province from Hong Kong. Some exchange students didn't hear about the stranded people waiting there and suggested catching a train in a few days. ha - I hope they go and get eaten by the increasingly angry mob.

Anyway, as Chairman Mao once said *, when the natural disasters are wreaking havoc around the coutry, one should make dumplings!

*Chairman Mao never said this.

Photo Tour of My Room

This is Jessica, who lives in MY room. She is from Paris. She studies business.

Jessica would like to say something;

Salut a tous,

je vous ecrit car je trouve que les australiens sont des porcs incultes qui ne se lavent pas... a part ma super colloc Fiona qui est trop bien et tres facile a vivre!!

These are Jessica's shoes she brought from France. There are 15 pairs (16 if you include the pink slippers.)

This is my strategy for getting into the Cantonese mentality. If only there weren't 9 tones. Who invented that!?

My bed.

Jessica's bed.

My guitar.

My roast pig.

(Not really. Actually this isn't in our room at all, it was downstairs at a beggining of semester party.)

My side of the room. Am prepared to abseil from the 18th floor if there is any need.

My tea shelf with my AWESOME teapot!

A Photo Tour of my Locality

I live in Hong Hum in Kowloon. It's a residential, normal people's kind of area.

This is the local temple

Some Chinese medicine

The national countdown to Beijing olympics. I don't like sport, but the sign is shiny.

Dumplings!

And dessert

My local medical centre

The usual view

But Before Hong Kong I Was in Laos For a Month

Henry

This is Henry, my lovely travelling companion. He enjoys eating my food before i'm finished, and seducing local cats with his hair.

Linda and Dave

Who we went to visit, (thus fulfilling our maternal unit's worst nightmare of having all her litter overseas in the same place, flying on the same planes at the same time...) occupy their couch a little bit, and watch their 'My Name is Earl' dvds alot. Thankyou!

The Gibbon Experience

This is an eco-tourism activty, as an offshoot to a broader project of conserving the beautiful jungle in Bokeo province, northern Laos.

You get to fulfill all your childhood fantasies of zipping through the jungle on flying foxes, and living in treehouses for two nights.

We didn't see any gibbons (except for a seppo in the distance) but we did see a snake and lots of birds. What a mad three days!

Food

What we tasted of Laos food was great. I suspended my vegetarianism and ate some frog, and various other once-alive things. I'm sorry little frog - i won't do it again!

Climbing

We managed to do some climbing in Chiang Mai and Veng Vien. Our Lao climbing guide Pohn was a buff axe. He says his hands have the same physical structure as a gecko's.