Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya,

Seagulls mate!
Scabby little mongrels of the bird family!

Yesterdays flight went well even though halfway through I was thrown to the way side. I was listening to my MP3 player and didn’t even notice that we had descended enough to actually land and then bang bang bang, I obviously thought we were going to crash and tore off my headphones to realise that we were landing and not crashing. That was Part A of the 'thrown to the wayside, Part B was when the stewardess welcomed me to Chongqing and I kind of stopped and asked where we were and she repeated Chongqing.

Um, why are we in Chongqing?
I could have sworn I actually got on the right plane.

She started laughing told me not to follow the crowd of people but to go to the left and wait in the lounge until I was told to re-board….whew catastrophe diverted because it was only a stopover but hey, why didn’t I know there was a stopover? This happens when someone else books your ticket and neglects to give all of the information. After half an hour I re-boarded and up, up and away I went to then down, down, down and I arrive in Kunming city (Yunnan Province) around 10pm.

After a shuttle bus ride into the city followed by a rather hairy Moto ride I finally arrived at my hotel. For the first time in the past nine or so years (out of eleven in China) the 2015 Winter Beers N Noodles will be spent travelling with someone other than myself or a girlfriend. I don’t travel well with other people (besides Aussie Judy) and I don’t do waiting, structuring a plan or evening considering the question of;

How many nights should we stay here?
Oh, if we do this tomorrow and that the next day then we can leave the following day.

No, this I cannot do, I just don’t do this, this makes me very uncomfortable and confused because I always want to shout, what about all of the other stuff. You know, the bits and pieces between A and B, the ones you find when you zig zag through villages or back alleys. Anyhow, I haven’t seen Canadian Emmanuelle and his Chinese Sweet for quite a few years, actually the last time I think was four years ago when I had to spend an entire five weeks in Yangshuo waiting or my new Residency Permit.

Thankfully my girlfriend of the time JiangNi surprised me and came to visit.

Me: 8am and sleeping off a Beer Pong hangover.
She: Ring Ring, Ring Ring.
Me: What the? Who the?
She: Hi baby it’s me, I’m hungry, maybe you should get up and take me out for breakfast.
Me: Um…sweetie you have to understand the demographics of this (says I scanning the room in search of anything watery to wet my dry mouth and throat) because you are in Shenzhen and I’m in Yangshuo.
She: No I’m not, I’m at the Yangshuo bus station..Surprise!
Me: Well, ain’t that a geographical oddity!

Anyhow, Tina (Emmanuelle’s girlfriend) and JiangNi later found out that they were from the same city in Hunan and all went well from there. Since then Emmanuelle and I have been having Friday night Movie Bar nights…when he downloads a B Grade Zombie/Monster film, sends it to me, we stock up on beer etc and then press play at the same time and chat over QQ (Chinese MSN) for the next few hours about the movie, past movies, future movies, zombies, vampires etc.

Needless to say last night we caught up over some awesome BBQ and cold beer.

Today we let Tina choose a destination that none of us had visited in our many separate visits to Kunming over the past decade and she chose Tianchi Lake (Dianchi Lake) and it was a surprisingly great place to spend the day even though after the first twenty minutes we re-named it Seagull Lake due to the thousands of seagulls hovering above us on land and lake during our boat cruise all the while screeching for free food.

In China the little back street markets always seem to have slingshots for sale.
Now I think I have found out the reason why!

Tianchi Lake (Dianchi Lake

Here is some Chinese English for you.

Perched in Anning City of Yunnan Province, the Tianchi Lake is nestled on the foot of West Hill, with Daguan Park in north and Jining County in south. It is 5 kilometers far from Kunming City and is the sixth largest inland freshwater lake in China, which is reputed as "pearl on plateau" and has been a favorable scenic spot since ancient times.

Dianchi Lake, also referred as Kunming Lake, is created due to long-time crustal movement, and it is 1886 meters above the sea level. Embraced by tens of peaks and luring waters, Dianchi Lake is just like a sparkling pearl embedded on Kunming. The lake is crescent-shaped, stretching 39 kilometers from north to south and 13.5 kilometers from west to east. Occupying an area of 300 square kilometers, Dianchi Lake is the 6^th largest lake in China and more than 20 rivers converge into Dianchi Lake.

Dianchi Scenic Area is quite mesmerizing, where natural scenery and human landscape blend to each other perfectly. It could be divided into two districts, namely west district and east district. What makes Dianchi Lake distinctive is that the color of its water changes with clouds and sunshine of the day. Around Dianchi Lake also lie many places of interest, such as West Hill, Daguan Park, Yunnan Ethnic Village and so on. These featured attractions are all ideal getaway for visitors to get close to nature to relax themselves.

Beers N Noodles toya…..shane
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The soundtrack to this entry was by The 3rd And The Mortal
The album was ‘Tears Laid In Earth’
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