"ham & cheese & hong kong fun" -john

ok that title's a little misleading since a) john made it up and it doesn't actually make sense and b) we haven't actually done anything in hong kong yet. this post is mostly about shanghai. it's our second day in hong kong and we're just lounging in the morning so i figured it's time for a new post. by the way, i've been uploading a whole shitload of videos sporadically in the post right under this one so check that out. they're pretty fucked up from being uploaded through youtube but i'll learn to live with it. i'm enjoying our little break from living developing nation-style. i'm also enjoying the fact that i finally have my own bed. in beijing we picked up a little stray brit by the name of alex and we took him home with us to hangzhou. like a little puppy. in effect, that meant that i got to sleep squished between him and john in one bed since only john's bedroom is heated. they seem to think i should have felt like the envy of women everywhere. i did not.

we took a day trip to shanghai and unfortunately it was a little disappointing. it's just a whole lotta tall buildings, shopping (generally i'd be all over that shit but since we're ghetto backpackers, i cannot afford it) and smog. however at the bund, which is where you see the famous shanghai skyline, we did see the most phallic building of all time, the oriental pearl tower. it's pink too just to top it off.


we took the wierdest tram ride under the water in the bund and it was just like a series of lasers, smoke machines and neon lights with spooky voices saying stuff like "METEOR SHOWER!!!", "EARTH'S CORE!!!" apparently you're supposed to feel like you're going through the earth as you can see in the description of the ride. i can safely say that that is exactly how we felt.


for some reason or another, the 'package' ticket we got for the tram included visits to an attached marine exhibit and the "china sex culture & sex health exhibition". seemed a little random to us but what the hell. i believe john thoroughly enjoyed the sex exhibit and he even bought a miniature version of this:


aaaanyway, the real highlight of our shanghai trip was.....


ok yeah that was totally silly and anti-climatic especially since you all could totally see the picture right off the bat. we ate copious amounts of swedish meatballs and it was heaven.

on our last day in hangzhou, we went to a SPA. i think the name of it was love story. yeah that's right, love story. and it was some wierd shit. we both got decked out in super sexy purple floral print capri outfits and proceeded to be ultimately lazy for a few hours. they massage you not just with their hands but knees, elbows, feet. they even kick at your inner thighs, it's interesting. and we had the whole deal where they hold onto poles attached to the ceiling and step all over you. anyway it was nothing like i'd ever experienced and i felt pretty damn good afterwards. oh and we both got pedicures.

and so we arrived in hong kong yesterday and didn't really do anything at all cause we had our massive backpacks on us so we ended up sitting outdoors at a cafe in the harbour for a couple hours. then we made ourselves a temporary little home in the mall foodcourt near my cousin's apartment, which is where we're staying, till he got off work. basically we looked like dirty hobos. but now we're nestled comfortably in the apartment and john has a new life partner, a little fluffy dog named little piggy. and now we're gonna head on out and explore the city finally so look forward to more posts from hong kong...

oh yeah! and i tried giving my men's camo jacket away since it's not freezing here, and it got rejected by a begger. he took it, went off and tried it on, and then came back to give it back to us. is that not insulting? i felt very hurt, deep within my very soul. i left the jacket out on a bench.

videos, for real this time

so i'm in hong kong now and i'm too tired to write a good post so i just figured i'd put up some videos finally. the videos work but they're a little wonky; for some reason youtube fucked them up a bit and so the sound and quality's shit but it's better than nothing! you get the general idea of what we've been up to. i'll put up a post soon...

me & my mao watch lounging in tian'anmen square:


takin' our mini gondolas up closer to the great wall:


at the highest point we're allowed to go on the simatai great wall. and i'm in disbelief that my lungs are still intact and that my legs are still attached to the rest of my body:

livin' it up on a watchtower roof on the simatai great wall (and when you hear me say gross, it's cause john farted on purpose. so lovely):

john as a graceful swan on kunming lake, summer palace:

checkin' out the scene at the bund, shanghai:

super fun beijing videos

hey ok videos simply will not load properly which is really unfortunate cause we've got some good ones. i've got videos uploading on both youtube and google video and they've been 'uploading' for about 6 hours....i'm just gonna go ahead and blame it on chinese censorship because it sounds more dramatic that way... i'll try again in hong kong!

"beijing is the new mojito"

we just got back from beijing today so get ready for the mother of all massive super fantastic posts! so get comfortable cause this is gonna be a long one (but i guarantee it won't take you as long to read this as it did for me to put it all together. fuck.) ok and as for the title, it doesn't really make sense but just go with it... (sarah came up with it!) i'm feeling pretty tired but i'm happy cause we're finally doing laundry. as in i'll be washing my hoodie and fleece that i've been wearing every single day and my 2 pairs of pants for the first time since arriving in china. yum! well i think i'll have to use some organizational skills here and have sub-sections for this post just cause we did so much there that really, posting about so much all at one time is quite the feat. aren't i fancy shmancy!? so here we go:

:: day 1

so we took the uber long overnite train ride into beijing and well i guess i have to get over my claustraphobia cause it sure wasn't roomy. also, going on that train, i looked the absolute hottest i have ever looked. i wore john's alpine sweatpants and i think it really pulled together my whole new look. don't i look just sooo warm and cheerful all bundled up and cozy in my bunk?



we arrived in the afternoon and proceeded to wander on over to the forbidden city. me and mao mao:

side note, the entire time in beijing i would absolutely have to go into every single official olympics store i passed by to squeal and awwwww because i am madly in love with the olympics friendlies. AWWWWWW:

:: day 2

we went to the forbidden city but unfortunately what my audio guide told me was "the most magnificent building" was closed for renovations. (they did drape the entire building with a tarp that had a fucking life size PICTURE of the building though. i guess they figured that would be almost as good as seeing the building itself.) i ain't gonna let that get me down though!




this is the concubines' residence. it's nothing too special but you know i love me some wenches.

after that, we crossed the street over to the famous tian'anmen square where i proceeded to sprawl myself out in the middle of it and revel in its history and bloodshed. also where i bought my super fantastic arm-waving mao watch.

then that nite we wandered around in some of the outdoor markets. they sell some crazy shit there ranging from little terra cotta warrior statues to....saddam hussein playing cards. yay communism? actually i kinda wanted to buy the cards just cause that's so fucked up.


there was one street just lined with little food stands. apparently food includes scorpions and grasshoppers:

:: day 3

this was the big day: the great wall! so apparently like 90% of tourists go to the badaling great wall but we went to simatai which is about 3 hours from where we were staying. we took a bus into a town outside of beijing where we then had a private driver take us there and wait around for us to drive us back as well. he looked totally country and rocked long hair and a mean moustache, he was so gansta.
i think simatai's supposed to be the most authentic and challenging so clearly it wasn't my choice to go there but i'm glad we did. we saw hardly anybody else up there cause i guess only the hardcore travellers go there and at some parts you have to get in there with both hands to climb it. even climbing up to get to the wall i thought i was going to literally die. as you may recall, i thought walking up to the pagoda in hangzhou was going to be the end of me so imagine this ordeal! however, i did not die and after a little while it wasn't so bad. the air was super cold and crip, the sights were absolutely amazing and i felt very accomplished. anyway, we took like a kajillion pictures so here's just a selection of some of them:

we took these dinky little gondolas up to near the great wall. how romantic.




this is taken at the highest point we could climb to because any further was illegal to go on. so we parked our asses, took out our tube of chips and took it all in.




this is me frolicking around with my lovely little old great wall lady friend (more like she's helping me navigate the terrain cause im a pussy and she's like a super strong wonderwoman). she followed us around and chatted us up basically so that we would fall in love with her and buy souvenirs from her. she's super awesome at her job cause she's so adorable that i totally made john buy overpriced shit from her. i love her forever and always.







:: day 4

so the nite before we go to an all you can drink club with some people from our hostel and an old high school classmate and her foreigner posse. it was great times and resulted in me giggling and sitting in some danish boys' room at 5 am helping cut some dude's hair with mini scissors. however, this proved to not be such a great idea the following day. basically this day was a total write-off and i spent the day in pain from both the great wall (i am in horrid, horrid shape) and the club. we went to the china national museum and ended up falling asleep on a bench. at nite we went out for the famous peking duck. ours came with the duck's head under all the meat; a nice little surprise! his name is mr. quackers and he was pretty tasty.


:: day 5

so apparently cause i'm overeager and desperately want to make up for the previous day, i drag john outta bed super early and we go to the mao memorial hall. it was pretty fucked up. they sell flowers right outside and people just buy them up and lay them down in front of a giant statue of mao. basically they herd you in through the hall like cattle and you file past mao's dead body. this may seem kinda sick but the entire time i was just thinking of snow white (there's just always a disney connection with me) cause he was just lying there chilling in a glass coffin. so like snow white, cept not a hot babe and with soldiers and tons of security. plus his head seemed all lit up so he had kind of a creepy orange glow about him. anyway.....

then we went to the summer palace and its got a merchant street, a bunch of temples, a giant lake, an island...basically a massive playground for the royals.


in the middle of the palace is kunming lake and it was all frozen over so despite the "do not step on ice" signs plastered all over the place, we just had to join all the other punk-ass rebels out in the middle of the lake
.

there's a famous 'boat' on the shore of the lake and john decided to get up on it and do the titanic.







ok, ive been doing this post for literally hours, my ass hurts from sitting on the ground and i've had enough so that's it for now. i think we're going to pizza hut for dinner (they have tons of them out here and they're all super posh and popular) so we're off!

my t-shirt says "i climbed the great wall"

greetings from beijing! this is gonna be a half-assed post cause the internet here at the hostel is majorly slow plus im dead tired. when we get back into hangzhou i'll put up a fat ass photo post but for now you'll have to be satisfied with just my brain dead rambling...

so after a lovely 14 hour train ride, we are now in beijing. we're staying in a little hostel in a hutong (alley) that's filled with cute little restaurants and stores. i'm in a 6 person dorm with a bunch of dudes but it's not so bad. one thing that has become very evident to me is that all bread they have here is sweet. as in you eat a ham and cheese sandwich, and it's sweet. pizza is sweet too. i find that kinda narsty and i'm not so sure that it'll grow on me but we shall see.

yesterday we went to the forbidden city which is pretty massive but now that we're champion walkers it was good times. i got one of those lame-o audio tour guides so i felt extra special. then we went to tian'anmen square (i'm unsure of the spelling right now which is minorly embarassing since well, i'm in china plus i took chinese poli sci but i'm just too damn lazy to look it up). i lounged around on the ground for a while and got the sweetest thing ever: a watch with mao on it and his arm waves according to the seconds passing. ok it's not the sweetest thing ever and by last nite it's no longer working but whatever. it's still some kinda awesome.

today we busted our asses over to the great wall. we didn't go to the super touristy section but rather the most bad-ass section. according to the lonely planet it's 'not for the faint of heart' or some such thing. we made a friend, the cutest little lady ever, and i love her forever. more like she followed us around and talked to us because she wanted us to buy shit from her but she was so adorable how could one resist!? so now me and johnny have matching "i climbed the great wall" t-shirts. we're just too cool. well i'll write a better post soon but now my time is running out so i'm off!

i lied. another post from hangzhou.

ok so i'm not in beijing yet. i'm still in hangzhou and im lazy today and john's intensely hungover so other than going out for an hour to buy pretz and, since it's gonna be freezing in beijing, a $20 big ol man's camoflauge jacket for myself (camo cause it reminds me slightly of my beloved TNA jacket and men's cause well apparently my silly limbs are too long for china clothing. even in size XL), we're just sitting in the apartment till we have to make the trek over to the train station. so i thought, fuck i'll just post some pictures! i mean, why not. it's like being productive!

the national silk museum:

the big touristy area:


awww. i heart communists.

there was tons and tons of street food there:
but what did us cool kids eat for lunch? that's right. hello warm, inviting golden arches.

and right next to the tourist area: extreme poverty. i felt like a bit of an asshole for taking this picture.

and here's who i've been hanging with in china. chinese people in china? psssh dont be silly. john and his euro crew:


that last one's a keeper for sure.

'cos i'm leaving, on my first train...

so tonite we're going on an overnite train to beijing which should be interesting. i've never been on a train before let alone a super long one where i get to sleep on the very top bunk and piss in a hole or whatever. anyway, yesterday we went to a super touristy street which suited me just fine but my highlight of the day was fully bailing off a sidewalk into the road and spraining my hand. yay me! apparently i can run around in high heels drunk just fine but walk down a sidewalk wearing running shoes and stone cold sober? forget about it! so there you have it. i can finally move my hand again today but it's still kinda sore so wait for an update from beijing!

street food & temples & pagodas, oh my!

ok before we get started here's the picture of me trying on quilted pjs that i promised you:
note how a size XL is still too fucking small. and also note how i appear to have a giant crotch bulge, hotness! alright, i don't wanna really think about that whole scene anymore so let's move on...
it's 10 am here and once again, i am comfortably huddled next to the heater so i think i'll take some time and post another whole slew of pictures while i still have unlimited internet access. so yesterday we walked around a whole bunch again. we stumbled into a street/alley that had a bunch of cooked on the spot food stalls and a big ass market:IMG_0169.JPG">aw lookit, it's a giant hanging dead....animal. (i ask john what it is. first he says rabbit. well that'd be one giant fucking rabbit! so he settles on "ummm...mystery meat").

on our continuous roaming of the city which, by the way, is supremely massive (6.4 million population!!!) i found there are a lot of 'hot dog carts' which greatly reminds me of vancouver. mmmm....street meat...except the hot dogs look like chinese sausages and they serve hot bubble tea.
and that last picture was just for kicks. john posing with a superb shoe ad. they just love them some white people over here.

after lunch we walked the other half of west lake and went to a couple of tourist traps but it was a lot of fun. we went to the temple of king qian and well this doesn't actually have anything to do with the site itself but i found it amusing how the girl who took our tickets excitedly said "welcome to hangzhou!" or something along those lines only after we had given her our tickets, gone in, wandered around and were now leaving. it was special.


while we were walking around the lake i ceasely was fascinated by this big ol' pagoda called lei feng pagoda on the horizon and we finally trekked our asses over there and it was fabulous. we had a right old laugh over how there was actually a fucking escalator that you can take up to it. and just for shock value, i opted to take the stairs. that's right people. diana + stairs by choice = the most unlikely combination. by the way, by the time we actually reached the pagoda and then took the stairs inside it to the very top as well i thought my lungs might explode and i'd fall over dead. i think i need to get in shape or something...


on one of the floors they had a bunch of really awesome intricate sculptures depicting various scenes associated with the pagoda:


in the pagoda itself you get the best view of the whole lake and the city:

apparently neither of us is particularly skilled at taking pictures of the both of us together. this is pretty much the best of the bunch. what can ya do!

anyway, i met a bunch of john's friends for dinner and well i suppose i shouldn't be surprised that the only people i've met in china are dutch, swiss and german. we then went to a foreigner's bar where i got to eat nachos and then immediately got to feel supremely bloated, yay! alright well today's a new day and i'll leave you all with a super adorable picture of me perched atop a lion. alright im not adorable but whatever! here's the picture: