final post

hello everyone ive just arrived home and started to unpack all of my stuff, im afraid that there will be no final post of all of my photos from my final adventure, its just gonna take too long. so this is my farewell, ive had the most amazing time in china and im so glad i have this to look back on. and thanks to everyone who actually read it and made my time in writing it well spent. i hope you have enjoyed the adventure however vicariously.

failed first night in HK

tried to find a club my friend recommended, found the building but couldnt find where the club was. tried to go to another area and the monsoon rain returned so i decided it wasnt meant to be tonight. plus its kinda wierd to be going out by myself to a bar/club. i need some friends.

anywho i think im gonna get an early start and just explore the city tomorrow and maybe have some better luck

see you all in a few days

fucking hong kong

finally made it! i think im carrying well over my own body wieght but i made it and got my new visa all handled for my flights to beijing. so relieved to finally have that handled.

this place is overwhelming after being in the countryside for so long. gonna go enjoy it!

ill be home in 4 days woooo

due to my lack of time/ energy....

... you will once again be getting an abridged version of my travels until i have the time to better explain them

lets see from where my last post left off some of the better moments have been:
-talking to a white guy from zimbawe about teaching music
-hiking in the stone forest
-meeting another spencer in kunming
-meeting matt and merrybelle in lijiang
-breakfast with pass and her family ( i met up with them for at least a little while)
-dinner at mama naxi's
-shots/drinks in lijiang
-flaming dr.pepper
-rocky mountain bear fucker
-prarie fire
-sexy tractor
-snickers kgb
-ice cream and beer after lunch with my 3 canadian friends for the day
-sneaking into the black dragon pool (forget paying 80 kuai!)
-epicness of tiger leaping gorge
-the "summer camp" group (a group that randomly assembled at the beginning of the tiger leaping gorge hike and stuck together through baishui tai, zhongdian, and all the way to deqin and back to lijiang with its remaining 3 members)
-matt from austin, tx
-merrybelle from north carolina
-joe and eric, brothers from santa barbara
-christian from germany
-jonathan from sweden
-getting to travel with these amazing people for almost a week
-banana pancakes at mama naxi's, there were bananas all over, sooooo good but too much for one man to eat
-making it all the way to the halfway house in the gorge
-drinking game with the spinning thing in the middle of the table at halfway house
-the videos of the aforementioned game
-my fortress of beer bottles
-drama at harmony guest house
-learning shaolin kungfu poses from christian
-cheap dali beers
-playing cut throat (my new favorite pool game)
-altitude making me a lightwieght
-seeing a glacier!
-epic poses with said glacier
-chinese people who need air cans to breathe above 6000 feet
-making our own hot spring
-pigs/cows living outside of hostel at the hot springs
-matt dominating the 3000 foot ascent listening to daft punk
-breathtaking views on the himalayas!
-ice shelf breaking with me and matt still on it (no harm occured)
-matt drunk off one beer due to the altitude chasing cows with a stick with his ass hanging out
-biking around er hai
-teaching kings cup to a bunch of frechies

pretty much to sum it up this last few weeks has been everything you need for a good time:
good people
good food
good conversation
and ad a little bit of amazing scenery

currently in dali waiting for a bus back to kunming to hop onto another bus to the yuanyang rice terraces, google it . im so stoked to go.

im so sorry to give you guys such an abridged version of my travels. there has been soooo much going on and so little time.

ill return on the 11th of august and cant wait to see everyone!

my travels so far

so this is actually a post i had been working on as a draft but i never finished it so i thought id post it anyway, its almost 2 weeks old now but whatevs

my trip has been going quite well as so far. i am currently in a hostel in guilin awaiting my train to kunming for a few days and from there i dont know.

lets see where to start. i arrived in guilin on sunday morning and got lost when i got off at the wrong bus stop, i went one more and then i found it easily. i was too early to check in so i attempted to buy some breakfast and instead wound up with 10 bread sticks, stupid american. i spent my day just walking actually around the edges of the touristy scenic areas and found some interesting markets and made a few paintings during my wanderings. the night was uneventful and i just hit the hay for my early morning boat ride to yangshuo with some swedes i met in the lobby.

got up early in the morning and hoped on this little janky motor boat barely big enough for the five of us to fit. we had a nice cruise down the river with some amazing scenery. we parted ways once in yangshuo and i went to find my first hostel in yangshuo as the one i wanted was booked up for the first night. i was met at the boat station by the owner whose distinguishing mark was the half a finger missing on his right hand, just as the website had stated. i got settled in and grabbed a bike and headed for the countryside. i made my way first toward the famous moon hill which like a mountain with a half moon shape cut out appropriately. it made a nice hike up to the top minus the old ladies following you up to the top trying to sell water. they will follow you all the way to top just so you might buy on bottle of water. so as mean as it sounds im a total asshole to them in hope that they will save their energy and not follow me cause i wont buy water from them almost entirely on principle. so i got the top with out my shadow only to have another one attach to me and then i had to get her to leave me alone and then she tried to guilt trip me and then finally gave up. finally i had a peaceful view of yangshuo with no, "hallo, you buy water!" "just buy one, you buy later". i continued my bike adventures and got quite muddly going through the "bike path" that wasnt marked at all and consisted of riding through random village streets. meetup with two guys from chicago and an english couple who were equally lost and we eventually found our way back via a super muddy road. oh and on the way i took a quick swim with a water buffalo which was rather refreshing. i made it back in time for the family style dinner and had a great talk with a father from Belgium on topics ranging from politics to hip hop. wandered around the city to quell my boredom for the evening and ran into a nice guy who ran a rock climbing gym and offered to take me out climbing in a few days.

so here is where my life got a littel complicated as i had to transfer to a little known hostel on the outskirts of town. i hitched a moto taxi and got half only to realize he was trying to rip me off. i got off and stuffed a 20 in his pocket and walked the rest of the way which wasnt actually that far. arrived at my new hostel, the giggling tree, a wonderful converted barnyard run by a very pleasant dutch family. i dropped my stuff and made my way to the "real water cave". this adventure actually wound up being quite fun for two reasons, swimming underground in a cave and no crazy multicolor lights like in every other chinese cave. i actually just kind of hung back and made the tour myself. there was a really cool mudbath pond that was a first time for me. and at the end there was a huge underground waterfall that you could stand under, just like in those herbal essence commercials =). i spent the remainder of my afternoon relaxing on the terrace overlooking the farming valley and amazing hills.

for my last day in yangshou i made arrangements with the friend i met the evening prior to go out rock climbing. i got up bright and early and cycled into town to met up. we grabbed some gear and a ton of bananas and headed for wine bottle hill. i hadnt climbed in about a year so i was pretty out of shape, i still managed to make it up a 5.9 and about halfway on a 5.10. after a few climbs i was tired and we headed back. the owner of the gym offered me some free noodles at his restraunt which were quite delicious, a really nice and genuine guy. i could really see myself staying in yangshuo for a few weeks and just climbing and hanging out. maybe someday, at the moment i have the travel bug and i need to be moving on. just after that the most random moment of my travels so far occured, i spotted on the side of the road the couple who we were marooned with in guangzhou airport and once again ran into on a private beach in sanya. it still amazes me how small the world is even here in china .i crashed for sometime back at hostel and waited for the midday heat to die down. around 4 the light was such a beautiful shade of yellow that i couldnt resist one more bike ride around the valley. on my way home i ran into my belgian friend once again for the second random encounter of the day.

craziness

so the last week or so has been so hectic hence the lack of posts, so im going to try and spell this whole situation out so it makes sense

things you need to know:
- lost my wallet (debit card and bank of china card)
-supposed to go to yunnan with pass and her family
-expecting a wire of money and a new debit card before i left for sanya
- i owe 1000 for my dorm

so i got back from sanya at midnight on tuesday night. i woke up the following morning with the hope of my fed ex package arriving with my new debit card so i could pay for my dorm. 9 hours later and 6 calls to the idiots at fedex my package arrives after the third attempt to deliver it. i got to every atm i can find to try and pull out money but i get locked out at 350 instead of the usual 700. so now im up shit creak cause i owe mike 400 for the sanya trip and then 1000 for the dorm. so now my luck banks on the money coming via wire to come in the morning, so i can leave for yunnan the following day.

thursday morning pass and i go to the bank of china at 9:30 right when it opens to find a 30 person line. ugghghghgh. so we wait for almost an hour to be helped to find out that the wire has not come yet. fuck. so now i scram frantically for some kind of idea of what to do about the money so i can leave at 12:30 with pass. after a little while i pretty much give up and have to tell pass ill have to come the following day. so i see her off to the bus station and say goodbye. after that i go to the place to buy tickets and ask about a train to yunnan only to find it is booked completely for the next 7 days. fuck. so it is then i decided to just go on my own and go the reverse of my initial plan. so i decide to go to guilin and maybe meetup with pass later in the month if possible. so things are looking up now, i was kinda hoping to travel alone for awhile.

so friday morning i go and wait at the bank for 2 hours! to get my number called finally and the money has arrived!!! i get my money and mikes money and i pay for my dorm and get everything inline. though i find out that the train to guilin only has seats and no sleepers. fuck. i just say whatever and buy the ticket, i just wanted to get out of guangzhou and start traveling.
and from then on it went pretty smoothe

im currently at my hostel in guilin and heading to yangshuo tomorrow via river boat. today i just kinda chilled about and made a painting or two. i also tried something new, instead of going into the tourist areas i just walked around the outskirts for awhile which turned out rather interesting. i found a really cool backstreet mart and accidently bought ten of these bread things when i only meant to ask if it costed 10 yuan. stupid americans. all of the chinese had to stop and get ridiculously close and look over my shoulder as i painted which got a little old but thats nothing new. im sure im pretty random, a white kid chinese painting. seriously what am i thinking.

anywho im gonna go grab some grub

keep posted

<3 田予川

weekend in paradise

our weekend was off to a slow start as out hour long flight became delayed for an unknown amount of time.  we got put up in a shitty hotel 30 minutes away which was ok.  our view out the window was the rusty air conditioner on the roof and the my personal favorite bad translation as of late, "wham poo" in the bathroom.

4 hours later we got going and this guys hat made my day!

tsing tao and bbq it doesnt get much better

calamari, stingray(yeah stingray), and eggplant soo goood.  
gotta love the village style, just trying to fit in with the chinese

one of the best moments of the weekend not documented between this photo and that one. sneaking onto the local 5 star resorts' private beaches.  perfect white sand and crystal clear blue water.

oh and we went scuba diving for about half an hour two, which was really awesome. so weird to get used to breathing underwater, but it was awesome to see the coral and all the fish.  gotta love china, no need for certification.

chilling on the beach after scuba diving, attempted to surf but failed. im a shitty californian
mike going to conquer the 2 foot waves
2 months without direct sunlight means i got owned by the sanya sun
our friends at the hostel; elyse from minnesota (which i had no idea where it even was, but now it seems like a cool place), Filipa a teacher from NY originally from the Carribean, Jessy the wonderfully helpful intern and mike and I.
the restraunt across the street had a legit western menu! steak, burritos, sandwiches, quesadillas, everything and it was all spot on and amazing!
just look at that burger, sooooo legit

view of sanya from deer hill
more of those relationship thingies
my awesome getup, all of this awesomeness for 30 rmb, taken by my friend rico (see below)
ridiculously amazing hand made ice cream, 100% fruit, take that jamba!
This is Rico, a police officer from Changqing who i met on deer hill. we started talking and he offered to take me to lunch, gotta love the chinese hospitality.
the magician behind the amazing ice cream, such a cute old lady.

just another great moment from the weekend, our rommates came in while we were out and found my pink phone charging and immediately though they had a couple living with them and were like, "oh shit".  later when they saw us they just assumed i was gay, i love the reactions my phone gets.

ive been sitting around all day waiting for my replacement visa to arrive so i can have some money, ive been here since 9 am and its now 6pm and no sign of the package.  gah i this is getting ridiculous.  

i was supposed to leave for yunnan tomorrow but i think i am going to have to cancel it to deal with this stupid money situation.  

gahhhhhhhh