dannyxhutch: Harrooooo -

Hello ladies and germs!

Welcome to another entry of the blog in which I'll try my best to get a few chuckles out of you loyal readers/friends. To start I'll fill you guys and gals in on where I've been the past few months. I realize I just posted that Nepal update a couple weeks ago but figure I should let you all know that we weren't actually there a couple weeks ago...Nepal is long gone since then we have spent about 5 weeks traveling through China and another 5 weeks making our way through Northern Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, which is where we are now. Since I don't have lots of time to keep this thing updated and the internet in most of the places doesn't allow me to upload pictures it is taking me a lot longer than I would like to stay on top of this little bloggeroo. I am tryin my best though and today I'm gonna keep pluggin away at it and fill you in on our excursion through China!

Since China is such a big country and we covered lots of ground we ended up seeing and doing tons of stuff. I went through the pictures tonight looking for ones I wanted to throw on here and realized we had like 1500 pics of China alone...so to keep this entry somewhat short and not have to write a novel and upload tons of photos I'm just gonna write about the first half of our China adventure and leave the second part till next time. Also, I think I should let you all know that our computer is broken and the keyboard won't type certain letters. I tried in vain to fix it but I'm no computer whiz so there wasn't much I could do. As a result I have to rely on internet cafes to update this now. That's right I am actually paying money right now to write this on a public computer. I'm just that committed to you guys <3. I also feel I should let you guys know that Connor has brought it to my attention that my entries are too long and he has trouble making it through them cause it's apparently like reading a novel. So in order to spite him for slandering my blog I’m going to make this update longer than the previous ones and spare no details. For those of you with mushy minds like Con's who have trouble reading a simple blog entry with some easy writing you should head on over to his blog at www.crabcat420.blogspot.com where you can view silly pictures of cats being funny and other stuff along those lines. Sorry for crushing your feeble mind with the awesome writing in this blog Con :(

So now onto the good stuff! We bailed outta Nepal gladly after it crippled us with sickness and spent a few hours on the flight to Beijing. It was cold as witches’ tits there and neither me nor Brit were quite ready for it. The weather was about -5 during the day and -10 or so at night. We packed very appropriately for the weather with our T-shirts and sandals...Our saving grace was the clothes we had bought for trekking in Nepal (which we barely used there) and had yet to send home. So we pretty much wore the exact same outfits the entire time in China due to the cold weather so in my pics you'll see me being a dirtball in the same kit every day. Beijing was really good and China was nothing like I expected. I was picturing something along the lines of India and Nepal but was completely wrong when we got to Beijing and saw how clean, modern and huge it was. It seemed to be much more advanced than big cities in Canada and there were huge sky scrapers everywhere that were lit up with neon. Huge billboards for Nike were everywhere with Kobe's face all over em and I think the only shops Chinese people shop at are Armani, Gucci, Tiffany's, and other designer stores like that. Brit and I went into a few and just felt so poor and outta place. There are also insane shopping malls everywhere that make Metro Town in Vancouver look like the current state of Polson Mall...aside from Parnell's that is.

So yea Beijing was crazy and the rest of the larger Chinese cities were also like this. Beijing had lots to offer and we had to spend a few days there to fit it all in. We hit the night market which was selling all types of odd food from scorpions, sea horse, sheep dick and snake to strawberries covered in honey. I originally wanted to try some wild stuff but when I saw it all my stomach wasn't fully on board. I ended up trying some large silkworms though cause some Russian guys bought some and asked if I wanted to share. I couldn't convince Brit to try though. They were horrid and tasted like sweat mixed with paper mache stuffed inside a leathery boot. We also tried some Peking duck which is a specialty there (wasn't impressed with it), we went to a Shaolin Kung Fu show which was amazing...dudes doing one finger handstands while gettin swords broken over their heads, checked out the Forbidden city which was cool but super packed with tourists and FREEZING cold, went to Tianimen Square, checked out the Hutong (small neighborhoods in alleyways, saw the Olympic stadium and of course went to the Great Wall. The Great Wall was good cause there was barely anyone there so we could take nice pics and the spot we went too had a rad bobsled thing on the way down which was fun.

We met a guy in Nepal who lived in the city and got a hold of him. He took us out on the town and bought us dinner at a local restaurant which was real nice. I have neglected to mention how difficult it is in China to get yourself around...No one speaks English and they are all very unhelpful to tourists. We got lost several times and no one wanted to help when we asked even if we had a map and were pointing to the Chinese symbols of where we wanted to go. Cabs refused to take us where we wanted to go or to even pick us up and we didn't know why, all signs are in Chinese and same with menus at restaurants. We pretty much never knew what we were going to be eating cause you just gotta choose and hope it’s good or point at something someone else is having (even doing that usually resulted in us getting something different).

Despite all this though I enjoyed China right from the start and Beijing was a good start to the journey, just having a nice bed and hot shower was enough to make me happy. As a quick side note...when hanging in our hostel I was talking to a guy and outta the corner of my eye I spied a pic stuck on the wall of my two friends Clayton and Brian holding flowers with a Chinese lady. Pretty funny and surprising to see pics of people you know on the other side of the world.

After Beijing we headed in Xian. The trip there was super nice on an overnight train. The trains here are 10x better than the ones in India which was a pleasant surprise. Xian was a rad city and had the best hostel we stayed in on our whole trip (still my favorite to this day). Xian is famous for the Terracotta Warriors which are thousands of life sized statues that were unearthed near the city. So that was out main mission in the place. We headed out on a tour with a guy we met named Harish who we originally thought was Indian until he spoke to us in an English accent but then later Brit was like "man why did we think he was Indian the dude looks exactly like Steve Urkel!" Which I think you'll agree with if you look at the pics. Sorry Harish if you are reading this...which I doubt you are since the only ones probably reading this are Ramsay and Connor, if his mind has made it this far that is. Harish’s family was from Mauritius by the way.

So yea, we went to the Terracotta Warriors and that was awesome. Probably one of my top 5 sites I've seen on the whole trip. There were tons of them and they are huge, each one is different looking from the last too which is crazy considering how many there are. Also in Xian we did some shopping in huge markets and huge modern shopping malls, had a romantic Valentines where we exchanged not so romantic gifts we bought at the market. I got a new deck of Plants Vs Zombies cards. Then we spent our last night at the hostel and hung out with lots of people who were staying there which was really fun, we had a trivia night and my team won free beer. A perfect prize for someone who doesn’t drink! We also got crazy lost in the city one day and ended up in some weird fair/amusement park area where hundreds of people were doing Zumba type classes in the middle of the park and little kids kept getting psyched on Brit trying to run up and high five her but then would get scared and run away. It was pretty strange.

From Xian we caught another long train to Chengdu which is the main place in China for tourists to see Giant Pandas! It is pretty tough to see these things in the wild cause they are so rare and hide high up in the mountains so due to this the Panda breeding/research center in Chengdu is the best bet for seeing them. We got there and checked into another rad hostel. For some reason the hostels in China are always really good and the people are super nice. Strange considering the people on the street were generally rude to us tourists. We met up with a couple we had gotten to know in Xian and planned a trip to the Panda center with them for the following day. So Brit and I had our first day to kill in the city. We ended up wandering around a lot and finding ourselves in a crazy shopping center that was like 6 floors high full of knock-off designer clothes. The place was like a night-club cause the music was so loud and the lights were flashing all over the place. Brit seemed to be lovin it but I had to get the fuck outta there.

That night we went out for a "Hot-pot" which is food that the Sichuan province of China is famous for. Spicy food is the name of the game and there seems to be competition between cities to have to hottest stuff. Apparently if your anus doesn't light on fire when you take a shit then your food isn't hot enough. So we went to a Hot-pot place not really knowing what it was and found that the "pot" is actually a hole in the table with a big boiling pot filled with chilli's and peppercorns. You're supposed to order the types of meat and veggies you want and then cook it yourself like Fondue in the pot. Only problem was there was no English to be found...the waitresses were super confused as to what we wanted so they ended up just getting frustrated with trying to communicate and led us into the kitchen of the restaurant. All the cooks stopped what they were doing and just stared at us and kinda started laughing when they realized what was going on. They went around opening every drawer and cupboard letting us choose all the food we wanted. We ended up with a pretty big stack of stuff. The meal turned out to be pretty difficult...I kept losing my food in the pot and then would try to cook another one and lose that. It was tough to hold onto a piece of meat in a boiling pot with a couple slippery chopsticks. Then I'd find one later that had been boiling for like an hour and was pretty much just a gnarled sliver of meat that burned my mouth off due to being submerged in the chilli's that long. Overall though it was a fun night.

Next day was the panda adventure! This was probably my highlight of all of China. We got the bus there super early to beat the crowds and got there right as the doors opened. We were the only ones there for a bit and got to check out the tiny baby pandas cruising around by ourselves. They were hilarious cause they aren't very steady on their feet and were trying to climb trees. Every time they went to a higher branch they almost fell to their doom and it legitimately scared me watching them get so dangerous. It wasn't even that they were trying to do tough stuff and go to crazy branches they were just super uncoordinated and slipped all the time only grabbing on to save themselves at the last second. It didn't look like they knew what they were doing at all. The next stop was some adult female pandas that were pretty much just lazing around eatin bamboo. Which is a funny sight in itself; they sit on their butts with their bellies hangin out and just munch away. Kinda reminds me of Connor when he is watching TV. We saw one of them walking around and it just randomly stopped and started shaking from side to side in a weird dance move for a few minutes then just carried on walking. It was super weird/strange. We also got to check out some small Red Pandas that look like a cross between a cat and a raccoon. They were super cute and kept chasing each other around through the trees.

Finally we made it to see the "teenage" pandas and they were by far the coolest. They were in an enclosure with their mom's and just wrestled the entire time. I always expected a bear fight to be insanely intense and gnarly but this one more resembled a couple of fluffy pillows rolling around in slow motion. They were pulling each other out of trees, falling off of stuff and dragging each other around the ground. At one point they tried to all gang up on their mom so it was a 3 on 1 battle. They attacked her from behind while she was eating bamboo and jumped on her from above. She barely even flinched and held them all off with one goddam hand and didn't even dropping her fucking bamboo! She just kept snacking while 3 other bears were trying to attack her. It was awesome and hilarious to watch. We headed back to our hostel and had a dumpling making class with the people who worked there. It was pretty crazy to see how much work goes into making those things. I had to knead the dough which was a workout and these skinny little Chinese girls made me look like a pussy. The dumplings were pretty decent although I was scared to eat the ones I made cause after I kneaded the dough I played with some cats and forgot to wash my hands before making the rest of the dumplings...

Next on the itinerary for us was Shanghai, which if you look at a map, is a looooooong ways away from Chengdu. So we had to catch a flight across the country. The flight was pretty good and I met a guy on board who wanted to go to the NBA. He loved fillin me in on how good Tracy McGrady is. During the flight we got an inflight meal of some rice, chicken, veggies, bread and a delicious looking chocolate dessert. After I finished my meal I dove into the dessert excitedly only to find that it wasn't chocolate at all and even though I never found out what it was I'm pretty sure it was a 300000000 year old dinosaur egg that had been left to marinate in vomit. I had already eaten like half of it in one bite and nearly threw up and should have stopped there but after Brit refused to try even a little bite I got curious to see if it really was thaaaat bad and tried another bite. It was just as horrible and I barely got it down.

About 30 minutes later we started our descent into Shanghai and the flight attendants made it clear we weren't allowed to get out of our seats till we landed and made it to the terminal. This was about when my stomach started to feel a little silly. When we were heading in for landing my stomach really turned on me and I knew I had to go to the bathroom (if you've read the previous entries you'll probably know I have had lots of experience learning to know when I HAVE to get to a shitter). I jumped up and had the stewardess yell at me to sit down so I fastened my seat belt and squeezed tight hoping for the best. I started sweating as usual and the panic set in...this wasn't like before when I felt sick cause then I was always in a semi-outdoor environment and if worse came to worse I could run behind a tree and go but now I was trapped on a plane and in my goddam seat. I started freakin out and looking to Brit to save me but there was nothing she could do. So I sat in agony till we landed when I started to get up again but the flight attendant again freaked out and made me sit down till we taxied to the terminal. I tried again to wait but I swear to god we were just circling the fucking airport for what seemed like 3 hours and finally just had to make a mad dash for the bathroom. I'm pretty sure everyone on the plane was like "oh man that kid's gonna do some terrible things in there" and the flight attendant saw the panic in my eyes and instead of making me sit down hurried to open the bathroom door for me. I barely made it. I had to take care of business in there for a while and when I got out Brit was the only one left on the plane. What a doll for waiting for me, even if it was only to laugh at me again for getting the shits. I was super pissed cause I was doing so good in China and for our last bit in Nepal and that goddam satan egg had to ruin it for me.

Anyways, we got into Shanghai and checked into yet another groovy hostel. Shanghai was an insane place cause the buildings are all so huge and at night get lit up like Ramsay during a Mighty Dave's game. We checked out the Bund area (area by the river) and went into the huge stores and malls which again made us feel like poor dirtballs. The next day we caught an insane underground tram car through this psychadelic lights and laser show which made me feel like I was in high school again ;) It brought us to the other side of the river where all the tallest skyscrapers are. We wandered around there for a while and at night went into the 3rd tallest building in the world and went to a bar up on top of it. The place was way too fancy for us and I'm pretty sure the only people who could go there and actually feel like they belonged are Bill Gates and Donald Trump. Sean Cromie would probably fit in too. So we got a couple cheaper drinks there (for me a virgin Pina Colada cause I like that real macho shit) and enjoyed the view of the entire city all night. Next day we cruised into old town and did some shopping in the cheaper market type stores there. It was a cool place cause it looked like the old traditional Chinese style buildings you would imagine when you think of China (guess that's why they call it Old Town! heheh). I got some badass DBZ figures that I plan on distributing to my friends when I get home. I looked really cool buying those things, don't judge my nerdyness. That night we hung out at the hostel bar drinking soda and playin pool so we could get ready for our next journey which was to Suzhou!

I'm gonna end this here cause it is already much longer than I anticipated and I'm probably spending a fortune on internet time...Sorry to the weak minds out there who couldn't handle all the reading, but the plus is that they probably aren't reading this now cause they couldn't make it. So I can say whatever I want about them without them knowing! Fuck you Connor you lazy bastard to lame to read your own brothers blog when ya don't see him for nearly a year! Go log more hours into Skyrim or put some cat pictures on your blog. I'm giving all your presents that I bought for you on this trip to Ramsay! Ha...just kidding bud you know I love ya and I know despite you complaining about how long these blogs are that you actually do read them. You'll still get cool presents don't worry, but for real you have to put up more funny cat pictures.

So yea that's it for now thanks for reading everyone I appreciate it lots and it makes me smile when I hear you guys are checking it out :). Again I'll throw this out there...if anyone wants a cool present from around the world let me know and I'll make sure to get ya something cool. No one messaged me about it since my last update about it so I take it no one wants an awesome gift!? We're gonna be home August so you guys and gals around running out of time to get cool shit! Take care friends, love ya all.

Livin Wrong,

- Dan