Hey Hey and a Big G'Day to you

How goes it in Australia?
Hope you're all happy and healthy.
Are you gearing up for the Grand Final?

We are over here.

There are now 4 Australian teachers all within 4 hours of each other. Kylie in Baise, me in Tianyang, Judy in Tiandong and now Leeanne in Pingguo. We have organised to get together and party in Baise on the grand final weekend...should be a hoot.

I doubt we'll be able to watch it but we'll stream in live over the net on Triple J or MMM.

I was down to my last 20yuan (about 3.5 Aussie dollars) yesterday after spending all my money on phone calls to Australia when I got back from the summer hols in regards to the horrid hacker email and bank situation. So I have been living on 2yuan noodle soup and not much more really.

Strange for a foreign teacher living in China.
We are usually the richest people in town.

I guess people must have noticed and someone asked the other day why I hadn't been around the town much. I didn't think much of the question at the time and said I had no money as it was all spent on phone calls to back home. When I went to withdraw my last 20 Yuan I found I had ?000 in the bank. I asked the school today and they had received a phone call from Buckland's asking them to put my pay in early....this is how well I'm looked after.

Oh Shucks, the world really is full of beautiful people!

When I think about it, it's a bit scary really.....I have NO MONEY at all in my bank accounts in Australia (thanks to some horrid person), no belongings except clothes and an ipod and all I had was 20 Yuan to my name..about 3 Aussie bux..3 BUX...my life was worth 3 BUX! Don't you just love that. Once I would have worried and felt pretty much worthless Funnily enough, that's when I owned nearing 1000cd's, nearing $30,000 worth of hard back books, electronic games, gadgets, tools (didn't know how to use them though!) and a shed full of manly stuff, furniture, kitchen stuff (didn't really know how to use that either! tee hee), a car, an awesome car stereo, a couple of awesome home stereo's (plural) and many other THINGS I never used but kept around me...just incase!

Hey, you never know when your gonna need that....THING over there, or that 'whosamiwotsit' over there....you just never know! We'll, your never gonna need it.

That is the conclusion I came up with.
So get rid of it!

Not much more has been happening in Tianyang, just been spending heaps of my time putting photos on my travelogue site. I sat with some of the teachers today and they loved it. They loved all the photos and the fact they can go in anytime to look at parts of the world from a travellers view, not a television point of view. I showed them how they can go into anyone's travelogue and read their diary and basically travel with them mentally.

I guess alot of them can't afford even to go to the places I went over my summer break let alone all the other places.

So to read another's descriptions and thoughts of so many places around the world and to then visualise these places by looking at the photos, they were blown away and just loved it! Ofcourse there are a lot of photos on the net along with a heap of info, but a persons diary containing thoughts and feelings of the people and places there are currently at or have been, for some it was a new thing.

Not many of them could speak or read English but I found them on the Travelpod site between breaks anyhow.

I've got a big night planned tonight. Firstly I've planned a BIG MEAL WITH A COLD BEER! I will have meat and vegies and NO noodle soup. Then I will go to the market place and buy 'things' to eat for breakfast instead of 1 slice of bread and a pear. And I'll buy some deodorant which will make it easier to be around myself! Then around 9pm a heap of us are off to KTV (Karaoke TV) where we'll sing, eat fruit, drink tea and beer until the early hours. After that I'll head over to the market place until 5 or 6am.

The rest of the weekend I'll spend putting photos on my travelogue 'Asia in 2000' as the teachers want to see what Japan, Vietnam, Korea and other places were like on my travels and not on TV.

Before I go......I guess even when you DO earn a lot of money in what ever country you live in or are from, someone you don't know can take it away from you. The one thing I've found during my all my travels and my life, a hell of a lot more people will step in and give you a hand when you need it. You may not ask for it, but people do notice and care.

The hard thing is to not be too proud to accept it!

Anyhow, haven't really got much more to say except I'm very hungry and will head out for some tukker very soon.

Beers N Noodles toya...shane