Well I’ve now finished transferring all of the travel-related content from my old site, and I’ve taken it offline. There are a few pictures which didn’t really have categories and I haven’t brought across, but apart from that it’s all there!
After a burst of energy over the weekend I’ve added all of the old content up until the last entry for Turkey plus a few miscellaneous bits! Still to come is my China trip and various other smaller entries.
THEN I can start thinking about adding new content!
The content has all been added based on the actual date when the trips occured, so it’s not immediately obvious what is new and what is not, unfortunately. I still prefer it this way, though.
It’s time! After a long hiatus, and a fresh move to London, it’s a great time to start up my site again. With a new site design, I can add content much more quickly and easily than before. Plus it looks better!
Expect to see my old content slowly migrated across over the coming weeks and months, but for now…
Welcome back 
I had a week skiing in February 2005 in Les Contamines in the French Alps. I was part of a Danish tour group, which was cool and interesting. Not many photos; I have some video but can’t put them up due to lack of space.
A short weekend trip in January 2005 to Denmark with my (Danish) friend Leon. We stayed with his parents, went out to Odense (nearby city) on Saturday night and spent Sunday sightseeing.
After arriving in Guilin at 9am on the bus from Guangzhou I did some exporing but it was pretty low key. That evening we all went to a karake bar with a Chinese guy that I met earlier. It was interesting, but there was no way that we were getting up to sing.
The next day a visit to the Seven Star Park was in order. It’s a large park area containing some limestone peaks for which the area is famous, some caves, a zoo and various other attractions.
The park was rather nice, but the zoo was amazingly terrible. If you could ignore the bear caged standing with its back against the bars, being prodded by people outside the cage, you still had to deal with the overfed tiger on which people were encouraged to sit and have their photo taken! A horrible concrete monstrosity, it the only way to describe that place.
After five days in Hong Kong I crossed back in to China proper with a freshly stamped visa.
One day in Guangzhou convinced me that it wasn’t my sort of place, although I did meet an Israeli couple (Adam and Morit) who I would spend a fair bit of time with.
We were all staying on the “island” of Shamian Dao, which seemed to be the centre for buying Chinese babies. There were a LOT of pram-toting westerners, mostly American, pushing around small Chinese babies. I believe that it’s a legitimate operation, dealing with the adoption of orphans, but it’s rather strange when you first notice it.
I headed off the next night by sleeper bus with Adam and Morit.
The remainder of my time in Hong Kong was mostly spent exploring randomly. I stocked up on English (Paul Theroux) books for the next leg of my trip, got some new glasses as my old prescription wasn’t the best, and went and saw a movie.
I had a plan to visit Central – the original island of Hong Kong – today. On the way to the ferry I saw a poster advertising a Vietnam War art exhibition at the Art Museum, so I wandered in to have a look. Lots of sketches made by Vietnamese during the war, and propoganda posters. Very interesting indeed.
I finally made it to the ferry and as soon as I landed I jumped on a bus up to the peak – the highest point on the island. I was surprised by how much green is visible on the island from the top, although you could hardly call Hong Kong undeveloped as everything else is covered in high-rise buildings!
Even in the midst of Hong Kong proper, there’s a surprising number of parks – large and small – and lines of trees along the roads and paths. It’s actually quite a pleasant place to walk if you pick the right routes.
Checked out the Zoological and Botanical Garden – I wanted to see the monkeys – and was happy to see people exercising and practising their Tai Chi. In that regard it still feels very Chinese.
Before heading back to Kowloon I visited the Fringe Club which was hosting a small pin-hole photography exhibition.
I was interested to see “anti-SARS” advertising on TV that evening, advising householders to clean their homes every day with a bleach solution, and wash their hands often to prevent the spread of SARS and other diseases.
Slightly more bizarre was a public health ad advising “Prevent mosquitoes breeding: Maintain clean cemeteries”
I knew it was Sunday morning when I awoke, but after so long on the mainland the last thing I was expecting to see on TV was a bible program! That made me laugh and put me into a good mood for the rest of the day. Such a change of scene!
I was in an exploring mood so I checked out the excellent History Museum, then spent the rest of the day wandering the streets, just poking around. Down at the harbour that evening I saw a film at the Omnimax theatre – enjoying the fruits of modern civilisation!