Shanghai

The maglev

Locals trying to earn some cash



Ummm chicken feet

View from the bund at night



West Lake in Hangzou

The green tea village


One of the many insects at the insect market

Locals doing their early morning Tai Chi


Leaving the lovely weather in NZ to come to -5 in Shanghai was a little bit of a shock! But the idea of going 300km/h on the Maglev from the airport successfully took our attention else where!

Overall I think Shanghai was no where near as tacky Chinese as I had imagined. In fact, it was so authentic and original in so many ways. The old buildings, the beautiful Chinese food, the temples, the ceremony of drinking tea...

We started off feeling a bit apprehensive to all the attention the locals gave us, but after a few days we realised that they weren't trying to rip us off, but only wanting to be nice and practice their English. So cute! I was told "your boyfriend has big muscles. big muscles." by the local ladies. hehe and we were asked to be in a few photos...

I took Simon to Lu Lu's massage in the French Concession district. Traditionally in China, massage is carried out by blind people. So, we went the traditional way. An hour long foot massage by a blind man for £2. So nice after a long day of exploring the city!

Our first few days in Shanghai we were taking the metro around, but after meeting some Australians at breakfast they told us how cheap taxis were. We never looked back! You can travel from one side of Shanghai to the other for no more than £1.50. The only problem was communicating with them. We soon learnt that our Hotel could write notes in Chinese for our taxi drivers of where we want to go. All good!

I think we drank China out of green tea and jasmine tea. Oh so many lovely tea pots and teas to try. I was in heaven! If Air NZ didn't have a weight restriction on luggage I think I would have brought a lot more!

We were in Shanghai for the western new year, however no-one here was celebrating it. It's just like another day for them! We did know that the Chinese have their own new year, but I guess we still thought that there would be some sort of celebrations or fireworks... not a dicky bird!

Back to London now for the real world of work again... :-(

Nelson

The whiskey tastings
My darling sister Gen
The xmas bubbly season has started!
Christmas dinner at the Le Bas household
The boys playing cricket at the Aniseed River
Me and my sis Lydia at berry picking
Laina with her bubba Reuben
The boys on the deck. This was a regular scene!


One week was really not long enough in this town. Beautiful sunshine and lots of chilling out with local wines and beers. All good! After two years of not being back here, I really appreciated how beautiful it really is. Now I know why people live in Nelson all their lives! xo

Dunedin

The Elstons
The ladies shot
A lovely farm that Murray & Eunice took us to about an hour out of Dunedin
The family shot!

Me, 99 year old Nan and Simon
Phil and me


We went down to Dunedin for three days to visit Simon's parents and a few of my friends from when I was studying down there. Not sure it was really summer down here though.... felt like the same temperatures as London at times!

Wellington

My favorite boy in the world! Reuben!!!

Karlos, BT and Simon at Karaoke
blowing bubbles time...

Our first NZ fiddy chip for two years. Oh sooooo good!
Our lovely meal out with Mike & Jenny at The Whitehouse


Wellington which was once our home... so nice coming back here. Was a bit weird when we first arrived as things felt so small, but leaving was very hard. It felt just like home again pretty quickly :-)

Hong Kong

Goldfish for sale
Me at the bird market
Lots of local obviously don't care about these signs
Simon at the big buddha
Monk doing his thing at the buddha


Umm fresh veges at the teppanyaki restaurant
Looking down at Hong Kong from the top of the hill

Hotel hourly rate.... not nightly...
The 42nd floor of our hotel. Completely beautiful! Overlooked the whole of HK... there is no roof on it either!
The jade market

Leaving London at 9pm on Friday night after a full week at work, we both slept pretty well on the 12 hour flight to Hong Kong. Simon's best part of the trip he was looking forward to, was the aeroplane food, and oh yeah, he got right amongst that!

We arrived in Hong Kong on the Saturday night. After exploring our options on how to get into the city, we decided to take the "local way" and get a local bus. Forget the airport express train, or the shuttle bus we paid a 10th of the price and hung out with the locals. Arriving in the Mong Kok district we found our way to our hotel pretty easily.

We explored the markets of Hong Kong for the two days and I could have kept going I tell ya! They have so many markets selling all of that chinese stuff you see everywhere else in the world - only a quarter of the price. Ladies market, late night temple market, jade market, gold fish market, flower market, bird market... anything you can think of! The women selling were probably the most aggressive we have ever come across... once they see your English speaking, they think you are a millionaire and want your money!

On our last day in HK we followed our guide book on how to get to the "big buddha". It said to get a train to somewhere and then jump on a local bus. When we got on the bus, we were a bit confused because there were no foreigners and it was quite empty. Ummm... not sure what is going on here. We went up and down I don't know how many hills, the driver was going crazy and the lady next to us was "hoicking" in a plastic bag continuously - grose! When we arrived at the buddha there was hundreds of tourists around making there way to the top, so how did these guys get here? well our guide book isn't obviously up-to-date because there is a cable car from the city right to the top! We learnt our lesson and took this on the way home. Bottom line for you travellers, when something feels not quite right, it probably isn't :)