We had a slow start to the new year, not a lot was done at all. Helen had quite a hangover for the first part of the morning but after a while and a re-hydration sachet she soon perked up. As the day went on we cuddled in the cafe and worked on editing and the blog. We had some good comfort food and went out for a little walk before heading into town to meet Emma and Doug for some local food. We ended up at a great cheap little clay pot restaurant away from West Street where you’ll find most backpackers eating away, you can eat a good meal for around £1. So having recovered from hangovers we swapped notes on our plans for South-East Asia and ended the night with a nice cup of chai.

We started the following day early with an hour or so of horse-riding accompanied by a local guide. The session was supposed to be an hour but Dave’s horse was a little slow so we ended up being on the horses for an hour and a half. Our guide couldn’t speak very good English so it was more about signaling and the odd whip to get the horses up to his pace. This was Dave’s first time on a horse, but they were pretty tame and we think the slow pace probably helped for the first-timers. Helen’s horse was well-behaved and just got on with it, trotting when instructed to and just followed his lead. The guide came along with 3 horses and met us at Trippers, he took the white horse which was the smallest and the most feisty so we were relieved that he was riding that one. It would have been nice to find out the names of the horses but we still managed to have a small bond! Our trip concluded by a little stop on a sandy beach where our guide proceeded to take a few photos of us with our new travel companions. It was a nice experience, perhaps a little pricey at £12 each, but we enjoyed it all the same.

We had planned to do some rock-climbing later on, but the weather came in and the temperature had dropped quite significantly so we decided to hire some bikes for the afternoon and make our way to Fuli. Tripper had given us some good advice on a route to Fuli away from the busy roads, the first part of the route took us back to where we’d been with the horses earlier on and we made out way to a little taxi ferry so we could cross the river to get to the start of the path. There was a man cooking his lunch and he was ready to eat signaling to his stomach, we tried to communicate that we didn’t mind waiting for him to eat but he left it cooking and took us over the river with our bikes. When we got to the other side we found the path straight away and set off on another biking adventure. Our target was Fuli and we had a map showing various paths and villages for us to go through. It definitely helped us to get warm and it was great riding along the bumpy trials. We’ve really enjoyed hiring bikes in China as it has always given us the best platform through which to explore in our own time. Most of the villages are very tranquil and it’s always great to see the culture of each place, seeing how people live with so little in contrast to the western world.

After some time we passed through orangeries and ended up on the road to Fuli. When we arrived there wasn’t really that much to see but we did stop for some lunch and meandered through the town’s streets until we came to the Li River. We were told we could pretty much cycle the length of the river back to Yangshou without going back onto the main road, this was the case for most of the journey and it was really good biking along the paths and through more villages, past more farmland and so on. After a while though our path led us back onto the main road and so we stuck with this until we got back into Yangshou.

We hadn’t much planned for the evening other than more work on Notworkrelated and some more good Trippers food. We’d already sampled the apple crumble which was delicious so we were looking forward to another relaxing evening. Most of the south of China comes without heating so it’s always good when we have the sun during the day, here though the weather was getting colder but we didn’t mind so much as Yangshou is a really pretty place and we were enjoying staying at Trippers so we decided to stay for a few more nights. That night we stayed in the cafe until quite late and as we were the only ones there asked if we could set up the laptop to watch another episode of Misfits. Addicted some might say!! We still made it to bed by 10.30pm though so we didn’t keep the staff up too late!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We arranged to meet Jen who we’d met on the hike at the weekend at midday outside the ticket office area of the Aquatics centre in the Olympic park. It was a really foggy/polluted day so we didn’t have great weather for photographing the Birds Nest and the Water cube, but it’s still a worth while thing to do if you have time in the city. The Birds Nest is an amazing structure and certainly draws in the sightseers for a spot of photo time. We spent around half an hour or so walking around the site before making our way to the ticket area for the Water Cube. We had planned to do a swim with Jen in the Olympic pool but when you start enquiring about tickets it goes a little like this: Entrance only: 50 RMB. Swim in training pool: 70 RMB. Water park: 200 RMB.

So if you want to swim it’s for 2.5 hours only, and it’s not the Olympic pool itself it is the warm up pool. The water park is unlimited in one entry so you can spend the whole day there but you can’t use the same ticket if you want to swim. So our dilemma was should we swim…in a cold pool, buy goggles (which takes it up to around 200RMB) and only have two hours or so? Or should we have a really good laugh, go on the slides, wavepool, yes it’s over our budget but we thought we would have loads of fun! So what did we do? Well of course we wanted to have fun, and we managed to persuade Jen to do the same. It’s an interesting experience being in the water park area, it’s not quite warm enough for you to feel fully comfortable in your swim suit and many of the locals don’t really like swimming, so you tend to see people in lifejackets a lot. The slides weren’t being used so we soon started getting ourselves onto the slides and Dave went for the scariest looking one first. A slide that both Helen and Jen thought they wouldn’t end up doing!

It has a vertical drop of around 40 foot, loops around and then splashes you out at the bottom. A capsule at the top of the slide holds you in place and a countdown begins. “3, 2, 1″ and the trap door opens and away you go. Pretty scary stuff but a real thrill. Helen and Jen were unsure and took some gentle persuading but eventually they climbed the stairs and took the plunge. Both loving it, Jen even went twice! Another favourite was The Tornado which places you in a large rubber ring two persons at a time and sends you thundering into a big bowl, lots and lots of screams and laughs by everyone.

After spending a good few hours inside the water park we headed off for some food before our Tai-Chi beginners class. We stopped by at Grandma’s Kitchen and to our dismay we realised that it was Western/American food, ooops, although Jen felt very at home and we enjoyed some American grub. After a meander through the local Hutong we headed to “The Hutong” cultural centre and began our lesson in the art of Tai-Chi. This was with Eric who was very keen to educate us about the history and tradition of Tai-Chi and what benefits it can bring to your life. We only practised for around 30 minutes out of the whole hour dedicated to the class so we left feeling a little disappointed and cold. We did go away with a better understanding of the martial art though and all of us are keen to explore it further.

It was time to say goodbye to Jen but we did have plans to meet again for some bargain shopping the following week. We’d had a really fun day and would like to thank Jen for hanging out with us, I think we all felt a little younger and satisfied with our brave efforts of going down the deadly red slide!

The following day we were leaving on an overnight train to Xian so we had planned to catch up on washing, buying some food for our trip and packing.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Posting a blog post everyday which involves writing a mini diary and editing through copious amounts of photos takes up lots of time. Therefore we have decided that as we are a few weeks behind we are going to try and condense the posts into multiple days. Also here in China we have access to most websites that we need for general use, however there is no Twitter or Facebook, so we will be very quiet on these social networks until we leave China in early 2011.

So here we go…on our second day in Beijing we were on a mission to find out about trips and local sights aside from the more obvious ones. We obtained a street map from Templeside that gave us pretty good bearings on where we were located plus Frank had informed us of the nearest tube stops, bus stops and the like. What we didn’t really think about was the distance it takes to get from one block to another on foot. We had intended to go to the China Cultural Centre (CCC) to find out about trips and cooking classes on offer but several tube stops later, one taxi journey and a walk 20 minutes in the wrong direction we redirected to 798. We had intended to visit the 798 Art district early on in our visit here anyway so it wasn’t too much of a change of plan.

Although we feel that the many art critics and cynics out there would refer to 798 as art tourism, it still offers an eclectic mix of contemporary art and culture that isn’t so apparent anywhere else in the city. 798 is an old factory complex that has been renovated into around 70 or so art spaces, galleries, studios, cafes, quirky gift shops and restaurants. We thought it was pretty cool, although perhaps not all of the art on show is to our taste and perhaps some is trend for trends sake it does take you away from more traditional aspects of Chinese art and culture and perhaps brings it more inline with the graffiti lined walls of Berlin city. We do love Berlin though so that one is always going to be tough to beat!! But in our minds it did the trick and we quickly forgot about the directionless walk around the city. We picked up a mandarin phrase book which we think will come in very handy indeed whilst we are in China and we photographed buildings, spaces and art on show. (Copyright isn’t really an issue here as you can pretty much photograph any piece of art on show). The photography gallery showcased some interesting compilation work and we liked the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, although it seemed much of the space was closed off for an event. We did manage to find our way back to our new home that evening and cooked ourselves our first meal in the Hutong.

The next day we decided to stay a little more local and our first port of call was to visit the Peking International Youth Hostel. Helen was determined to pick up some information from a hostel and we also wanted to print out some information and directions to show taxi drivers. As a general rule they wont stop to listen to where you want to go but will look at the map or if you have where you want to go in Chinese written down bingo you’re in luck! Sometimes even if you speak Chinese but look western they wont listen!! So with that in mind we had some printing to do and our reason for going to the hostel was that we feel by being in the apartment, yes it’s great because we are in with a local community but you don’t really get to meet other travelers or get the best kind of advice. So if you can find out where the nearest YHA is often they will have the info and the passing travelers to meet!! We went away with our print outs, some info on tours and enjoyed an amazing ginger honey tea!!

Within walking distance of the YHA is Beihai Park. It costs around £2.5 to get in and there are a few temples and pagodas in the park. It was a really sunny day and the sky was pretty blue so the white pagoda on the top of the hill really did shine. It was a really enjoyable walk up through the temples and to the top where you have views across the Forbidden City, Beihai lake and beyond. We spent the best part of the day here and also came across the Chrysanthemum exhibition. Something of an anticlimax but it did offer some great photographic opportunities and the low afternoon light was perfect for this.

On our third morning at the penthouse apartment (he he) we ventured to the very local farmers market to pick up some fruit and veg and to generally take in the atmosphere that contains the place. The market sells not only fruit and veg supplies but household cleaning products, gas cookers, bikes, meat, fish, tea and clothes, alongside which was street vendors selling food to eat there and then or noodles to cook, meat off the bone and so on. It’s a very local place and it was loads of fun buying our grocery shopping. We were amazed at how cheap the fresh fruit and veg is to buy. for less than 20 pence we bought a bulb of garlic, one green pepper and two chili peppers…they have money that looks more like monopoly money for values under 1 yuan. We were moaned at for only buying 1 or 2 of any item. Still we went away filling our fridge with good quality fresh food. We explored the local hutong further before heading back for more catch up time on editing.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Happy Birthday to you….Happy birthday to you….Happy birthday dear Dave….Happy birthday to you!!! Today is my birthday! As you might have guessed. Who would have thought last year that I would be spending my 27th birthday in Japan! So, what to do to on my special day?

We decided to get out of Kanazawa and head to more remote parts of the country. Up early, porridge and toast for breakfast we head out to catch the train, using the Japan Rail Pass to the max. Our destination is north towards the coast, Nanao, Ishikawa to be precise. Tiredness was a slight issue on the train but we fought through and photographed other sleepy passengers. One women was even receiving some Reiki next to us from an elderly woman which also kept us entertained.

I felt the need to be “harbor bound” so we headed to the waters edge. It was a bit windy and there was handily no-one around, so we had a look out to sea and did a little jig of our own to celebrate my birthday. Helen was also in the mood for singing random songs and melodies which was a nice birthday present.

We wandered around at the sea front and then headed inland to the center of Nanao to see if there was some action taking place. There was plenty to photograph in the backstreets which was great fun and we captured some nice images. We were on the look out for some human ingenuity (a brief from a flickr group) and we found some plastic bottles that had been re-purposed into windmills. A few photos and we felt our submission is possibly complete.

Having to wait an hour for the next train up the coast, we headed for some food. Neither Helen or I eat donuts but we thought we would give Mister Donut a go as a special treat. It was an experience. Very light dough and subtle flavors, kind of baked rather than fried. Also it seemed that this was the local hangout for the OAP’s of the town. More exploration, some purchase of snacks for later and then off to the next town, Wakura Onsen.

This place felt a little strange to begin with. In the summer time / heyday this town must have been the equivalent to Skegness in the UK. It felt quite backwards and had an air of a horror film about it (the Wicker Man and a little of The Shining spring to mind). We carried on regardless, past the Karaoke drive through, and towards the sea front. We found a nice little park and also an amazing view out towards the sea from a foot onsen. This was bliss. Soak your feet and legs in some very warm water and look out to sea. Now this most definitely feels like a Birthday to remember.

After lots of photographs and some lunch at a picnic bench in the park we headed onwards to explore more of this tired town. We headed back on the fast train to Kanazawa and went out for some food at an Indonesian restaurant. Very nice. We cleared all the plates with ease. On for a few more drinks and some pudding, no less than grape (they love there grape flavors over in japan) ice-cream sundae. A lovely day was had by all. Thanks to the lovely Helen for singing to me with her dulcet tones and making my day special. Here’s to 28 next year!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)