Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya,
 
Travelling, travelblogs, photos and memories!
 
It has been constantly on my mind both each time I travel and after I return that there must be an easier way to do this! Serious, each time I travel I take over one hundred photo's most days and then sit and then spend a few hours writing about the day in the evening.
 
Let's not even go into those evenings I spend after many days of not writing!
 
I gave up years ago thinking that here in China I can easily find a net bar each evening that will allow me to keep up to date on such things as a travelblog. Most have a Net Nazi on them that won't allow you into the sites you need to do such things.
 
So what is the easier way?
 
After discussing such things with my Singapore buddy Simon he informed me of the latest little nifty travelers companions. I was thinking along the lines of Blueberry's or even a foldaway keyboard for my Nokia N95 phone/camera. He on the other hand was thinking more along the lines of the latest generation in notebooks that are small enough to be safely kept in your tiny day pack or jacket pocket.
 
All of which use your choice of running software such as Windows XP!
 
Around mid day we met one of Luo Wei's friends near the Youth Hostel and we headed off for a delicious breakfast of Por Mor Noodles and Vegetables. We then grabbed a taxi and headed to Xian's Cyber Zone. Here we found ourselves amongst many huge mega marts full of everything computer, phone, MP3 etc related.
 
Floor upon floor of anything and everything cyber could be found.
It reminded me so much of being in Japan nearly nine years ago!
If you want it and it has been made it could be found right here!
 
So why were we here?
 
So like I said above, I thought it was about time to find something I could travel with that was small and compact yet used XP/Vista and that allowed me to both write and take care of each day's photos.
 
What I wanted was the cheapest and smallest with the most memory.
 
Luckily for me Luo Wei's buddy had once owned a computer store and was still very up to date on all things cyberish. He took us around and bargained for me and I ended up with an awesome little Mini-PC made by Kohjinsha. All parts are from trustworthy Japan yet the entire machine is assembled here in China.
 
It has a swivel seven inch screen, several USB ports and made for traveling gamers!
I chose to spend low and to purchase an external Combo USB DVD reader/writer.
If I had purchased a mini-pc with it inside it would have cost me almost double.
 
So I now have 80 Gigs of memory, a music player and a fast machine that will allow me to upload and download the day's memories as well as not only connect to the internet in any hotel that allows me a port but to also find any internet wireless hotspot on the planet!
 
All for a pittance mate!
 
Not only that, there are no moving parts so it is silent and much safer than your normal notebooks (laptops for people my age!) as it uses flash memory!
 
The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent with the store owners as they searched for and loaded an English copy of XP for me. Hey, they promised it was possible prior to my purchasing it so they had to hand it over with English XP. We headed back to their other store and chatted until XP was fully installed.
 
They not only found English XP but also English Office XP and asked if I wanted English XP Office installed and me being me, didn't want to bother them anymore said not to worry about it as I had a copy of it on my back up hard drive back at the hotel.
 
Well, that's what I thought!
 
We all then went to Lui Lui's favourite eatery for dinner and Lui Wei and I then headed out for a nice walk around town. When we got back to the hotel I happily went to install XP Office and found that I had packed the wrong tiny hard drive prior to leaving Shaowu!
 
The one I had now was the one I didn't bother putting any software backups onto.
This was the other bloody hard drive I wasn't going to take on my summer adventure.
So how did it end up in Xian city plugged into the USB port of my new Mini-PC?
If you ever find out make sure you tell me and then we will both know.
 
One thing I do know is that words can not thank my buddy Simon enough for the information he gives me. I met him through my blog not long after arriving in Tianyang Town in Guangxi Province. Many years prior and I mean many years prior, he had returned to the mainland to work. Sometime during his working time here he had met a man who was from Tianyang Town and had spent some time with him and his family in Tianyang. In 2005 he was searching the internet for information in Tianyang Town and found my blog. Thankfully for me he contacted me and we have remained in contact ever since. Whenever it is time for me to move schools/provinces he is the first one to search for and send me city maps complete with English translations.
 
Sadly for me the only thing I can do to return for his endless help is to find and photograph such things as the ancient mosques in Shaowu and Quanzhou in Fujian Province. I never found out where the third ancient mosque was in Fujian, so for me I let him down in a big way.
 
If I had the money we would have met long ago!
Sadly we both are not rich men so MSN will have to suffice until life finds a way.
 
Beers N Noodles toya.....shane
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The soundtrack to this entry was Buffalo Tom
The album was 'Sleepy Eyed'.
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