Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya, 
Just a quick 'Hey I'm still alive and well' blog.  

I've joined the 'Mobile MSN/Email' group so I have bothered with a Net Bar at all as I've been using my phone to check my email until today when I walked passed this place and had some facebook people I needed to reply too.    I'm still here in Canton City (Guangzhou) BUT I received my new E-Passport today. Now I have to carry two passports...I need my old one as it has my Chinese Visa but the passport has been cancelled so I need my new passport for ID etc.  

I've had such a wonderful time so far this break.  

I'm not used to staying in the one place for so long when I travel but Guangzhou has so much to see and its so big. So for someone like me who loves to walk then I could spend a month here easily. The weather has been so warm and I mean like shorts and t-shirt warm. Poor Luo Wei had snow at her uni (not far from my school, as the crow flies anyhow). She is now in Kaifeng with her mother and they have no heating so they spend much of their time keeping themselvs busy and then sleeping to keep warm. 

Now I have my new passport I can take off elsewhere....if I can get a ticket!  

I think I might head into the mountains for a few days of peace and quiet and slow walks. Maybe then head to a village or two to see a heap of old european style watch towers. There is also a place I want to visit where I can take a raft for half a day to visit some 1500 year old temples...now that would be cool but it may be costly.

Or depending on the weather I might just hang out here.  

It turned very grey and windy today and Guangzhou has an awesomely huge metro system that stretches way out into the burbs so if it rains tomorrow, I think I'll continue on here and use the metro to get here and there to see more things. The food here is awesome. It has everything I've ever eaten in China but all in the one city.  Being here has made me home sick for the south of China again.  

The food, the colours, the smells, the people and the the tiny southern girls...hahaha.
There really is that much of a difference between the north and the south!

We have two days until Spring Festival and everywhere in China is becoming so colourful. They have been putting up colourful lanterns all over the place for the past week or so and I can't wait to see the city when they have all their lights on. Over here it is totally about family and as good as it sounds it really can be an absolute pain in the butt to travel. They give everyone in the country the same holidays so you have millions upon million upon millions of people all travelling for days to get back to their families. Then all goes silent as the beers and noodles flow and then everyone travels back to their place of work.  

So accommodations is really hard to find, it is also expensive and bus and train tickets are also nearly impossible. 

I've been very lucky(in a way anyhow). When I arrived here I chose my hotel from the You Stay You Stay guys at the train station and after a few days the Military dropped in and wanted two entire floors and what the military wants, THEY GET! So I, along with a heap of other people were downgraded and I argued and argued until I got what I wanted. Sometimes you can use the 'Chinese Face' thing to your advantage especially when they have caused the problem and simply expect you to go along with it all. So I not only have a room at half of what I normally pay but I have 24 hour Military guards on my floor so I am safe when I am home and all my stuff is safe when I'm not.  

But all that comes at a price and that is NOISE!

The soldiers come home and are woken up at all different and strange times of the morning...never night! Anywhere between 1am to 6am. So what you have is hundreds of soldiers chanting their military changes as they stamp up six and seven flights of concrete stairs. It really is an amazing thing to hear. They then have to shower and relax and being Chinese they do this YELLING at each other. For them its talking but for us its yelling. Those of you that have been here should be on the floor laughing by now!  

So these holidays I've been using my mornings to sleep and using the afternoons and evenings to walk.
BUT, putting that aside there really isn't anything like a real Chinese New Year.  

The firecrackers have started and the closer it gets to new year the more of them there are. Seriously they go ALL NIGHT so sleep is also hard to come by. I would hate to come home too drunk one night and with the military stamping and chanting and the firecrackers I would probably run around screaming that there is a war on. Kind of like what I did in Japan when I was staying in a hostel not far from an active volcano and I woke up very hung over and the Japanese news came on over ALL the speakers in the town.  

Hahaha, I thought it was the volcano going off and grabbed all my stuff and began running down the hallway.

Ohhhh memories...gawd I love travelling!
And lastly, this will be my sixth Chinese New Year in China...how yeah is that!

OK, time for me to head out and try to figure out where I am. I stepped on my USB dvd player last night so after collecting my new passort I then had to find the 2nd hand computer market place...if that isn't enough I now have to find my way back to somewhere I actually know. I am near the Pearl River so I will take the little back alleyways and head in a western direction and I should hit somewhere I've been before.  

Beers N Noodles toya....shane
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The soundtrack to this entry was by a hundred or so Chinese.
The album was...ALL of them yelling into their net microphones....oh so loud!
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