hk top 10 presented by jimmy carr most probably

hey all. just came back from our cancelled boat tour. no footballs on either tonight. so i might as well make use of the free internet here. heres my review of hong kong. ill try and keep it interesting.

HK was really good. probably more so cos all my relatives live there. so dame and i hardly spent anything as all meals and accomodation was taken care off. which was, nice. i learnt all about my family history and met with relatives id never seen before. as there is so much i could ramble about ill just create a list of standout memories, in no particular order, here goes:

1) having a bbq with my aunt, uncle, cousins and thier many friends on the beach front in the pouring rain
2) watching peter 'chopstick legs' crouch score a goal in world footballs premier competition
3) dame and i having our photo taken with mr and mrs. mouse
4) trying to stay awake, then suddenly watching joe cole score goal of the tournament in a karoke booth with my cousin who was alseep most of the game
5) visiting the history and science museums - the 2 best museums we've seen on our travels so far
6) going to ocean park (an aquarium themepark). dolphins can jump well high! pandas are well lazy!
7) expericing living in the infamous chungking mansion on our first 2 nights before my relatives put us up. its just full of gangsters, downbeats and people who belong to mental asylums. no wonder its so cheap.
8) watching 'big' thus taking our tally of tom hanks films watched on our travels to 4 (then i watched that 'thing thing you do' when i was with my mum = 5)
9) meeting my cousins jason and sonny who use to live in england and who i hadnt seen since i was bout 8
10) shopping for vests. dame and i decided we would lay our vest debate to rest by letting you, the audience, decide whether i look cool or not. leave a 'yes, garlen does look cool as fuck' or a 'no, garlen looks like like a dick with no sleeves' in the comments box.

right, thats that. off to shower now. i cant believe how much ive been sweating since we got to vietnam. i almost smell as bed as dame. plus! he wouldnt even let me use his roll on deodrant after i had a shower! he said he didnt want to share my armpit fungus disease! if only those chinese pirate bandits hadnt let him escape so easily.

oi oi hanoi! garl xox

Don't look if you're scared easily!

1. Garlen trying to catch flies on a cancelled tour we went on.

2.I knew I shouldn't have eaten at that dodgy looking resturant.

3.Chilling on a bamboo boat thingy

Badgers

Mange tout,

Hope your all okay. We're back together, and we've made it to vietnam, Yay. 5 countries in 5 months, not bad really.

So, since I left Hong Kong I've stayed in 2 places; Guilin, which was'nt really that exciting, it did have quite pretty hills, described by Garlen as nipples, just surging up from nowhere. But, on the train journey I ate what can be only described as the most putrid food the world has ever produced. I thought it was meant to be chicken as there was a massive cartoon chicken dancing on the plastic wrapper, but it tasted more like rotten fishy catfood. The two people in the cabin left to sit in the hall when I opened it and I kept waking during the night with the taste of fish in my mouth or a fishy didget drifting dangerously close to my nose.

The next place I stayed was called Yangshou. It was nice, I was a bit bored at first as I was on my own still, but I hired a bike and cycled around paddy fields, I didn't see any Irish people though, and went on a bamboo raft. But, after a few days I met an English guy staying in my room (he looked like one of the Kings of Leon, complete with a handlebar tash, but sounded like Johny Vegas) and we got drunk with two American girls and ended up at a bathroom party. It all got a bit too much like uni. The next day we all went to a cave where we were shown stalagmites (or were they stalagtites?) that were supposed to look like various things. As we went round the caves the things got more an more obsure and more difficult to recognise (as hard as I tried I couldn't see 'monkeys climbing a tree' or 'the pigs ear') But the cave was great because it had a mud pool and slide and also we had to enter it on a boat.

We got drunk again that night, but I had the excuse that England were playing. And the next day me and my hangover made our way to meet Garlen and go to Vietnam. Haven't done much so far apart from having a near death experience on a motor bike - three people on one bike speeding through the streets of Hanoi just isn't good. And, suprise suprise, we went to a museum, but this one was supposed to be really good according to our guide book. It wasn't, when oh when will we learn.

anyway laterz,
Damo xx

dont panic damo - im back!!!

hello. at this moment in time i am sitting in the cheapest internet cafe ive found on my travels so far - bout 15 pence an hour. anyway. a few hours ago i arrived in nanning - the town im supposed to meet damian at. i went into the hotel we arranged to meet in and looked through the hotels guest sign in forms, but his wasnt there! oh no! so now im just gonna doss around till he turns up. using my colombo detective skills i have deduced that a) he has chosen to stay at a cheaper place and will look me up tomoz morning, b) i didnt look at the sign in forms properly, or c) hes been kidnapped by chinese pirate bandits who will fatten damo up by feeding him packets of 'hot flavour' monster munch so that ultimately they can chop him into tiny little pieces to feed thier poor starving children and their dogs. of course one of these deducements is ridiculous: b).

so, the past 5 days my mum and i went on a package tour around the towns of guilin, yangshuo and lanzhou. i have been living it up in 4 star hotels, using the hotel pool, playing tennis, eating buffets, getting driven everywhere, having a tour guide explain stuff etc (though that was of no use as i only understood about 5% of what she was saying - my cantonese is really not very good). its been much fun and and a good break from backpacking. funnily though, my mum thought it was boring (she hates history), tiring (she hates walking), and hot (she hates, well, the sun). she especially loathes walking in heat whilst listening to history.

thats been about it. will publish this first befoe writing bout hong kong otherwise i just know the comps gonna crash and i will get angry at the world again. I LOVE U DAMO. resisting chinese pirate bandits will only make them more evil when dissecting your mucle bound body.

all my loving, garlen xox

Couldn't think of a witty title.

1. The world's smallest toilet
2. Awwwwwww Garlen and Garlot
3. Scary eh!

Taking the mickey

1 + 2. Us at disney world. I think Minne fancied me, who can blame her.
3. Loadsa Garlen's family after a rainy BBQ - just like being in England. And yes I have taken up piracy.
4.Note the panda being fat in the background. Apparantly they spend over 90% of their life either asleep or eating. Genius.

Hong Kong

1. Garlen and Sonjia (either it's meant to be sonja or it's a Russian version of the name. They get to pick their own English names in H.K - Brilliant! I'd be called Andy Micheals) his cousin at an ocean themed theme park.
2. Where I am at the moment. Note the lack of anyone in the photo, it's poignant (SP?) reflects the lonliness of solo travelling. Cue tears and violins.
3. Memories, water colour memories, something else la la... (almost got it right this time Garlen, eh)

We're alive... just

Hi all,

Just a quickie to let you know we're not dead despite the lack of an update. Also, I've got some bad news. Me and Garlen have split up. I know it's terrible, but don't cry it's just for a while! Garlen's mum flew out to Hong Kong, so they're spending a bit of mother son time... awwww and I'm bumming about in a place called Yangzhou (I think) I'll write a longer update on what I've been up to and if Garlen doesn't get a chance a bit on Hong Kong, mainly because I'm V bored, on Friday. For now just pictures.

Damo xxx

macau

1) me sitting on a big cannon. dame pretending to be a japanese tourist. we've started doing that V sign thing quite a lot now ive noticed 2) 'iceberg! right ahead.' 3) us in a wine musuem (there was free a glass of port - its the only reason we went) .

chan and us larking around in the science museum

1. damian on the alley of stars with jackie chan's handprint. i had mine photo taken with sammo hungs. much better than chan i think.
2. us in a 3D cinema at the science museum
3. me back in london, sort of
4. dame having fun with green screen

We can read your comments again!

Hey all,

A few things to update you on: Garlen lost his white sun glasses, so he’s got another pair – some very cool, Elton John circa 75 white ones that’s pair number 5 (Alana probably a good idea he doesn’t start up a sunglasses collection as he’d probably loose ‘em all). We had our first argument (not bad for 4 months) I won’t go into details as it’s hard to remain objective, but it had more to do with a lack of sleep than the Russian flag (I was right though), I smell quite bad as it’s soooo humid and sticky, I wake up every morning feeling like some-ones covered me in prit stick and there was something else, but I can’t remember – aarrrrgggghhh I hate it when that happens, and I bet I remember what it was in the middle of the night just to annoy me further (or is it father). I think I may be losing my memory, I keep forgetting stuff and I’m getting old; almost 24… scary stuff.

So, we’re in Hong Kong. It’s really good here; lots of sky scrappers, shops and fashionable people, but it is really expensive – A mcdonald’s medium meal will set you back 2 pounds, shocking I know! So far, we’ve been to three museums! We went to three in Macau as well, so I don’t think I can take anymore, but Garlen seems to be lapping it up! By the forth one I was just wandering around pressing random buttons to see what would happen. We went to a light show where all the skyscrapers lit up in time to music and we nearly managed to blag our way into an opera. We just walked in – looking a mess in t-shirts and shorts- and just sat down, unfortunately in somebody else’s seat so we got kicked out.

We’re staying at a really dodgy hotel, I think it may actually be a lunatic asylum. One guy has been here four years! You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave (name that song). So, luckily for us some of Garlen’s kindly relatives have offered to put us up for a few days and Garlen’s mum’s boyfriend (I must ask his name because it’s a challenge saying ‘Garlen’s mum’s boyfriend’ everytime – try it) has said we can stay at his place for a while as well.. thank you!

Errrr that’s about it, take care.

just a quickie

just finished 2 nights in macau. we got to hong kong a few hours ago. i have 6 minutes left of internet time. it is very humid. not sunny. humid. dame sweats like a bitch. i have grease coming out of every pour. an hour ago i bought some face cleanser. dame bought some hair gel. deoderant would have been more appropiate. what else... i have 3 mins left... er... this is the first time we have been able to check our blog since pakistan 3 weeks ago. its been good reading ur comments. especially your one alana. all i hear about since ive been away is you beating people up. will contact my relatives in HK now and see if they will treat me and damo to an expensive dinner, hahahaha. only jokin if your reading this! a bowl of noodles will do (yeah right - i didnt come all this way for a pot noodle - only joking again - i'll stop typing now!).

lots of clay, tall skyscrapers, big lake

howdy all - quite tired so gonna whizz through this.

in xian we saw terracotta warriors - which was a bit of a let down as both dame and i were expecting somthing fantastic. we did meet a nice canadian guy called brody and a nice israeli girl called tehila - and we had lunch with them, which was... nice. we completed our tom hanks trilogy (after forrest gump and da vinci code) by watching the terminal in our youth hostel. too much hanks. in shanghai we walked alot and saw magnnificant views of the harbour with all the skycrapers in the backdrop - it was like something from a utopian sci-fi film. also watched the first 3 episodes of Lost season 2 back at the youth hostel. its awesome! next place was where we are now, hangzhou. we cycled round its famous lake. tomorrow we leave for guangzhou, then after hong kong. ok, im going to bed now.

garlen.

1: Us with the most Canadian person we've ever met, Brody, at the terracotta warriors, eh?
(Canadians say ''eh'' a lot apparantly, eh?)
2. My and Garlen (or Garlen and I if your being annoying) with the Shanghi skyline in the distance.
3. Garlen chilaxing or should that be posing at the legendry West Lake.