Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya,

The Missing Link Ride?
I missed it by 'thiiiiiiis much’.

It was the correct tower, therefore it was the correct village and the only thing stopping me from connecting the two rides is the fact that there is no longer a useable ferry to cross the river. In fact I got a lot closer than what I thought I would and sadly from what I can gather, if I was to ride in the opposite direction there isn’t a bridge for some time.

But hey, it will worth trying if it ever stops raining. For those wondering what I’m talking about, you’ll need to read my last entry and for those that do, it was such a beautiful ride that I ended up riding it several times just in case I missed a small track that may have taken me closer to the tower and village but no such luck...for now!

For most of the past two weeks the weather has been absolutely dreadful with storms lasting days and once they decide to move on another drops in to take its place. I’ve had far too many early nights due to continuous flickering lights caused by the crazy lightening. Don’t get me wrong, I love storms but I wish they’d set themselves some sort of schedule such as only storming at night because lately they really have disrupted everything in life. Trying to teach during huge thunder and lightning storms is almost impossible because most of the students end up hiding under their desks and the rest race around trying to catch the lightening.

Storms also disrupt my eating adventures by making me have to eat both lunch and dinner at the school canteen which really sucks as it is the same food both meals for almost the entire week and its all rice based and not a noodle in sight. Thankfully though the latter problem ended this weekend when I finally grabbed my small pack and for the first time in almost seven months boarded a bus and headed several hours south east back to Shangrao city and spent a wonderful weekend catching up with Travis, Zoe and Alice over pool, arcade games, delicious Japanese food, sake, Bacardi rum and Travis’s hash browns and eggs. I also caught up on a heap of movies that I have missed which were played on Travis’s monster projected wall screen.

And I must say, I really do have to get myself one, a bit smaller though.

The Photo's & Food

The last two 'distant' photos are Dexing city and the other 'high' city shot is actually Shangrao city taken from Travis's apartment. The last noodle photo is a hearty steaming bowl of 'stomach lining and intestine' noodles...and yes, MMMmmm, Yummy Yum Yum! The dumplings come from a local DongBei Dumpling Eatery (Northeast China or as we know it, Manchuria) where there is a delicious selection of fifteen varieties of dumplings to choose from. I've only just found it so I'm only beginning to make my way through the menu. The other bowl of noodles is from a local Jiangxi hole in the wall eatery that comes complete with both beef and pork, cabbage, bokchoy, a duck egg and a mouth watering spicy thick broth. The noodles Alice is holding are fried Japanese Udon noodles from the Japanese Restaurant in Shangrao city.

They were almost as good as the guts and intestine noodles!
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The soundtrack to this entry was by Infected Mushroom
The album was ‘Converting Vegetarians’
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