HOLY CRAP - We just had a freaking earthquake!

TOKYO (Reuters) - A 3-foot-high tsunami was headed for the eastern coast of the
Philippines on Tuesday after an earthquake struck off the coast of Taiwan. The
quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.2, Japan's Meteorological Agency
reported.

Mixie, despite being balanced precariously on the edge of the shelf, managed to hold on as the room shook and the windows rattled here on the 15th floor.

We're both off out for a stiff drink now. We need it!

x

The perfect Christmas

Everyone that knows me knows I cant stand Christmas. Whether you're talking about it from either a religious or commercial perspective as far as I'm concerned its one big farce.
What I do love about Christmas however is that its a great opportunity to get together with a group of friends and do something you'd not normally get up to. Last year was a prime example.

On Christmas eve when everyone was swarming to the stores I went to Musée d'Orsay with Doug & Steven. Usually you'd have to queue for an hour to get in an then jostle with others in order to see the art, but last year we strolled through the doors and had the place practically to ourselves for a couple of hours.
Christmas day was spent with a group of us at the cinema watching a marathon 3 films back to back with only a short pause for beers and burgers at lunchtime.

This year was a little bit different what with being stuck in HK. The benefit of being here is that rather than cold damp Parisian weather Christmas is bathed in blue skies and bright sunshine, although there is none of that horrid humidity or mist that usually dogs the island. Therefore Christmas was the perfect opportunity to get outside and get back to those hills.

On Sunday I met up with Ellen, a friend of a friend in Berlin, and we walked back over the route I did last week, tacking on to the tail of it the next leg of the HK Island trail which took us up to Jardine's Lookout (great views over the city) and then on to the summit of Mount Parker. Getting there was a good strenuous hike but it was the 589 steps down that killed me. Having hiked for a full 7 hours we ended the day in style, seeing in Christmas with big plates of sushi followed by swanky cocktails in the bar at the Mandarin Oriental.

Wanting to make the most of the day off on Christmas Day I met up with Emma and her girlfriend and we hiked the Dragon's Back trail out to Shek-O, ending up on the beach with just enough time for a quick paddle before the sunset. And to finish the day off, Thai green curry in a little roadside restaurant. That is my idea of a perfect Christmas.

For New Year's we're going to hike the New Territories and I cant wait!

x

Head for the hills!

Sorry about that incredibly rude interruption. I've wrestled my blog back from Mixie and have shut her away in her box so that normal service can now continue.

It was such a beautiful morning this morning that I couldn't stand to be stuck in the concrete jungle for a second longer so grabbed my pack and set off to discover the other side of the island. HK is a small place with the developed area being squashed between the coastline and the sharp green hills that make up the spine of the island. From my place in Wan Chai I headed directly South, straight up practically and in 30 minutes had gone from sea level to 500m with amazing views over the city.


In the bright sunshine it was still fresh because of the cold Northern wind however once i'd made it over the crest of the spine there was not a breath of breeze and the temperature went up by a clear 10c. Often either mist or haze obscures the views here but today the views from the top over Aberdeen and out towards Lamma island were stunning (you could even see the power station!)



I stayed on the Southern side of the hills and trekked on for another couple of hours enjoying the fresh(er) air, calm and green, which is interrupted every so often by enormous power lines or the tops of skyscrapers from the other side of the island.




I'm not naturally a claustrophobic kind of person but living in one of the world's most densly populated cities is tough, but at least now I know there are little pockets of wild just an hours walk from my door that I can escape to.

x

Mixie from Macao

Hi there, Mixie here! Kristen's been working too much recently which doesn't make for interesting blogging so i've decided to take over this part of the show.

As my friend Emma needed to leave HK in order to get her visa stamped I suggested we take a trip to Macao to see the sights, and also catch up with my older sister, Sixie who i've not seen in a couple of years. Sixie, and I aren't really very close, shes all religious and 'pure' so we dont share many common interests but still, its good to see her from time to time.

Macao being an old Portugese enclave its got a bit of a Catholic groove going on and has some famous old ruins. We'd arranged to meet Sixie at the steps of the Ruinas se Sao Paulo and there she was, with about 500 other people taking in the sight.





With the obligatory touristy photos out of the way we snuck down the alleys and side streets and found some great little places.

The architecture definitly has a European feel, and as there aren't many high rises and the population is less dense than HK it has a much slower feel to it. Macao also has something that HK doesn't.... sky! Yep, having been hemmed in by buildings i'd forgotten what an expanse of sky looked like!


Down one of the alleys Sixie showed us a temple she goes to an insisted that we meet her spiritual leader.
I don't really understand what his role is. I think hes her Yoda or something, either way he has a cool little house and seemed like a pretty laid back kinda guy.



After the religious dose I needed something a little more lively so we headed down towards the water and the islands famous casinos. As the sun was setting the town turned into Vegas with coloured neon flashing and blinking on every building. Sixie absolutely refused to come into a casino hall with me, refering to them as dens of crime and vice (yeah right) so we went our seperate ways outside - She no doubt had some important Hail Mary's to say or something...

They wont let you take photos inside the casino but the place was packed with people playing roulette, black jack and poker, some of whom looked like they'd been sat at the tables for hours on end.


I came home a couple of dollars up and Emma got her work permit stamped so all in all a very successful days trip. We'll no doubt be heading back there again soon!

Wanderlust

Back in HK after my little Beijing jaunt and I find myself more restless than ever, itching to get out, do more travelling, have less of a routine and a lot more adventure.

HK is an incredibly materialistic place. Everything here is either about making money or spending it, neither of which interests me greatly and i'm in no doubt that this environment is fueling my desire to escape. However with my current volume of work leaving little or no time for recreational travel my only option is to escape digitally, which is why I find i'm spending a fair amount of my available time online researching potential next trips.

Of course if I was really saavy i'd be reasearching ways in which to become freelance and lead a subsistance lifestyle working only when necessary, or working from wherever I find myself. Unfortunately i'm not incredibly commercially minded and as such selling myself doesn't come naturally. I do still hope that one day someone somewhere will offer me good money for reviewing literature; new fiction, history, biography... I figured i'd just need an address to which they could mail the books, a small notebook and pencil to jot down comments and the odd remote beach or mountain hideaway with an internet connection on my route from which to submit my work. My level of freedom would be infinitly higher, whereas my stress levels and overheads considerably lower, enabling me to either work, or earn less. If theres anyone out there that can open up channels for me to get me moving in this direction i'm ready to pay for their services.

In the meantime I sit and plan, and for the first time ever I made a list of journeys yet to be made; Alaska, Peru, Uganda, Mongolia, Ethopia... Treks and train rides feature heavily, but I found that the more research I did the longer the list became. It was starting to look like my next job title would be 'World Traveller / Hobo' (interesting fact: there is a National Hobo Convention in the US each year), but I have decided instead to pick 1 country and aim for there (to start with).

And so I've targetted Argentina as my next stop.
Sandwiched between the Andes and the Atlantic with Beunos Aires as its captial in the North and the wilds of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego to the South and offering mountains, beachs, great hiking and dodgy train services it seems like a suitable place to make a start on South America.

All I have to do now is stay focused enough on this project in HK to see it to completion, pick up a visa and book a ticket. In the meantime those of you with Argentinian friends, families and experiences, or literally world contacts please post your comments below and we'll get this show on the road.

x

Down and out in Beijing

So having been sick for most of last week with the help of Mixie-san I dragged myself on to a plane Thursday afternoon and jetted off to Beijing. I really could have done with some R&R however theres just so much to see and do that I felt obliged to cram in as much as possible, and besides, with the sub-zero temperatures and biting cold winds I had to keep moving in order to keep warm!

Friday was spent exploring the Forbidden City in the centre of Beijing. Home to the Ming & Qing dynasty at a mere 720,000 sq metres is makes my Parisian pad look pokey and the wealth and beauty in which the Emporers and Dowagers lived is stunning. The architecture of the buildings (all 800 of them) is stunning, with the attention to detail really making the difference.






On leaving the Forbidden City and heading South you enter Tiananmen Square, the largest public square in the world and one that its impossible to mention without conjuring images of tanks rolling towards students back in 1989. An extract from the Thirty-Eighth Group Army 'Accomplish the mission, conscientiously complete the Martial Law task' report to the Central Military Commission in June 1989 states:

'Before they cleared the square the various movements of the group army's 10,800 officers and soliders and 45 armoured vehicles crushed the blazing arrogance of the riot elements, smashed their lines of defense on the west and struck fear into the hearts of the diehards who were entrenched in the square'

Today the square is calm although still a mass of people although now they're taking photos, flying sites, waiting for friends or queuing to see the body of Chairman Mao and whose photo overlooks the space. Personally I didn't want to be photographed with the man but Mixie saw this as a perfect opportunity and insisted...




Friday, much to Mixie's disgust, I dragged her out of bed at 6am and we bundled ourselves into a mini-bus headed NE out of the city. The Great Wall of China is only 110km away from the city however with the bad traffic conditions it takes over 4 hours to reach it but its definitly worth the trip. I was expecting the place to be pretty crowded with tourists however upon arriving there was practically no one there, in fact I was luck that there were an Italian and an American on the bus planning on walking the same section of the wall as me otherwise i'd have been all alone (Mixie can be distant at times).





The Wall truely is awesome. Its big, strong and very long and yes, can be seen from space. Try it, look on Google Earth! For me the thing that made the wall impressive was the surrounding scenery. The area is tree-less with hundreds of small hills and peaks, that like the wall go for as far as the eye can see. Along with the Italian and American we followed the wall on foot for about 20km, at times having to scramble and climb un steep steps or carefully tread over broken sections of lose stones. Building it truely was an enormous project and i'd question the logic behind it ('a wall is only as strong as the people that guard it' remarked Ghengis Khan...) however it is remarkable and even though parts of it are tumbledown the fact that so much is still standing demonstrates its brute force.