For those that may not know, WE ATE OFF TO CHINA TODAY YA!!!!!!! There is no googl and no FB so if I don't up date the blog in the next two weeks you will know why. I will catch up as soon as I can, until then my excitement is seeing such a different way of life, the culture, the food, the people!! My concerns are, getting from A to B as always but mainly the toilets!! I believe they are the ones with the two foot prints!! So need to get practising!!! Will talk again ASAP. Cheers!!!

We love Hong Kong. Tommorow we set off for China. I am really looking forward to this leg of our trip because every thing has be booked and organised for us, something that we are use too, and will give me 2 weeks off from planning and researching. For those that have never been to HK but planing too, 5-6 days are enough. Although we love it, each road is now blending into one, and when you can walk from one end of Nathan Road the the other, you know you'v covered just about most of what there is to see. As I said we have loved it here. The food is multi cultal from Chinese to Australian. From Turkish to KFC and I think we tried them all!! Last night, across the road from the hotel was our choice of resturant to eat in, a large family run place where it was so busy they drafted in the nans and grandads to help out, reminds me of valentine day in my flower shop!! It was fathers day so every table was packed with family's. All talking as they do fast and furiouse! The menu was in Chinese so we sat and watched what everyone else had, stemmed fish was the order of the day. We have got use to the fact that no meal comes complete with every dish at the same time, so the fish arrived on a large platter all hot and steaming with spring onions and lemon grass sprinkled on the top, umm it was lovely, once we started the rice arrived. If any one wants to know how to pick up rice with chopsticks, it's because the rice here is stickier than we eat at home.(we are so intent on rinseing out the starch, so that the rice is loose. After this week I realise that our rice is very bland and I think this is why!!) we striped the fish down to the bone, not speaking much, just enjoying the white flesh as we pull it away from its frame. When we had finished the steamed veg arrived! I craved for good old steamed greens, and what I think was "pac Chou" didn't disappoint, soft and crunchy at the same time, what a feast! Happy fathers day!!! Also today having left Bev in the hotel I took myself off to the Jade market, just down the end of our road. Wow the colours, the variety! I bet that most of you thought jade was just green, weeeeeell it is, but this market was an array of colours from the other semi precious stones also on sale, pink, gold, blue, white, red and it goes on. I don't suppose this market is of the top quality "jade" but definatly more expensive than the local markets. I had a field day. I ran my hand through the hundreds of strands of beads, all cold and shinny to touch. I picked up statues that were so heavy I couldnt even think of buying to post home. I tried on bracelet and necklaces, I was in my 7th heaven! Unfortunately for Bev I love to barter, so sometimes when I start, I get myself in a corner, and i have to buy, (fay would say that my house is full of tat that i have bought this way, but to me they are good memories) I have haggled so hard that I don't have the heart to say I don't really want it. So when they start of at 6-700hkd and they agree to sell it to me for 200hkd, I think I've got a deal! (just keeping in practice for when I get back to work, David would be proud of me!!!) I think it's one of the "qualities" that Bev likes in me, he trys bless him!! On my way back to the hotel I stopped to look in the Jade shops, not the shinny, don't touch shops, but the ones more like work shops. Huge chunks of Jade piled in the corner with counters full of pieces being strung together. In the corner of most, was a little old cutting machine where they produce thier magic, being Sunday and fathers day the machines were resting for the day, hopefully today I will wounder in to see a fellow craftsman at work. Today will be photo day.

I thought that I would not have much to say since the last blog, because everything seemed to be going so well. However according to Bev, if HE had planned the whole trip nothing would go wrong!!! He forgets that I ran everything by him first, before we booked. (he is still breathing -- just!!!!) I don't want to have a moan but really that's how I feel! My day started ok. I found a hair dressers that could cut my hair and someone to do my nails! (the nails are ok but never as good as Jeanetts!) it was pissing down with rain when I got out, so much for the hairdo!! Went to pick up the dress I had made, no time to try it on as we had to check out by 12, got back to the hotel and then tried it on!!!! Disaster, I hate it not one part fitted correct, in fact the only good thing is they never trimmed the seams so I should be able to take it apart and start again!! Guess I will have to find something else for the Christmas do!!!! Bev was quite agitated when I got back (haveing an moment!!) he had got a print out of the hotel bill to make sure we had enough cash as at this stage we only had 2 days left and we didn't want to get left with to many HKD. Out of the mini bar we had 1 beer and 2 bottles of water. NOW to buy a bottle of water in the shop cost 8HKD, about 65p, we drank gallons of the stuff!! The hotel charged us 38hkd per bottle, about £3.50 each!!!. Of course he sent me down to argue the case as we had bought water to replace what was in the fridge!! They were taking the piss just like the weather. Well couldn't be bothered to argued, paid the bill and never left a tip!! Jumped in a cab to take up to the next hotel where we start the china trip on Monnnnnn- Tuesday!! There is now a tunnel linking the 2 islands together, which cost $20 toll. The taxi asked for $40 to pay for the return trip, he didn't get a tip either. Now we are here and yes they are expecting us, for 3 nights not 2!! It seems that the china trip starts on Tuesday. Oh well Bev will have to put up with one more day surrounded by shops an the Jade market at the end of the road, muuum might do some Christmas shopping!!!!

All services back to normal!! Today we took a day trip out on the local bus, to see the other side of the main island. What a difference! Very pretty and very green. As we climed one side and left the city, the view over hong kong was awesome, but nothing to compleat with the decent. Blue seas and a long clear beach, (however don't get too carried away because a few 100 yards out from the beach, in the water was a long row of yellow boys bobbing away, holding the SHARK NET in place!! No I didn't go swimming!)we continued down into the village which is famouse for its market. It is a very western place, spotless and plenty of public spaces and loos. We sat for coffee and croissants before attempting the market, in fact it wasn't busy at all, the rain had kept most away. We wandered, for a few hours then sat and had lunch, very civilised. We then went home, where for me it all went wrong!!! Bev went back to the hotel so that I could continue to browse the market and shops on our street. Picture the Scene, a self confessed shop aholic, alone at the shops, with money to spend!! I browsed, lifting this lifting that, wondering in and out of the shops, not in a rush to buy but willing if I saw something that I really want. AND THEN IT HAPPENED!!!! I went into a shop with lots of colour.I started moving things on the rail, browsing peacefully, when a dragon woman came from behind the counter and said in broken English "nothing in big size, nothing fit" and rudely pionted at my boobs!!! I kept my dignitie, said thank you and left the shop. Devastated, not because she was right, but because she ruined my browsing. If i had bought nothing, it wouldnt have mattered, i was enjoying my "space" after spending every hour with Bev for the last 3 weeks, it was my breathing space!! I went back to the hotel and Bev couldn't believe that I hadn't spent a penny! I will save my money for else where!! Mostly we have found the local people very polit and always wanting to help when they see us looking at the map, or when Bev is having an "episode" they take him by the arm and help throught a door, (which can be a pain) or off the bus, or just standing back an letting us get on with it! They really are lovely people.

Trying so hard to sort out the problems with the blog on the iPad. I visited the apple shop in the city, oh my god! Must have been over a 100young "genius" as they call them, all sat at their stations waiting to solve every problem, guess what this is one that they couldn't solve. She kept trying to reset everything but the system would not except my pass word. It may be that I might have to open blog two, will let you know. Cheers

Way hay we are back on line!!! You would have thought with a place like Hong Kong we would have no problems with wifi at all oh well we are back!! I love Hong Kong. It is so diverse. The hotel we are in is good with a lot more room so don't mind spending time in it. The street we are on is "interesting". If you go out the door and turn right the street becomes quite formal with offices and restaurants, if you turn left its "local" restaurants, bars with british football louts singing till the early morning after the football and clubs where ladies of the night sell their wares. I prefer them to the footy crowd!! Most of the streets are spotless which surprise us as there are not many bins around. The buildings are awesome. You can walk for mile through centres leading from one to another, Hugh marble halls and walk ways. Out side you walk looking up all the time, at Hugh buildings of coloured glass. Money is every where, Harvy nicks, Prada, Gucci,again large marble shops with more staff than customers, also not just one shop but one in every mall! These malls are so large, with so many floors that you could get lost for DAYS! We don't go into these shops, if we did I would spend a small fortune and when Bev is in a state of involuntary movements he would knock down stands and displays, I would have to work for the rest of my life to pay for repairs!!! LOL!!! We traveled up the walking stairs to the top of the Island yesterday. We lost count of how many escalator we went on. It was interesting because it went between th blocks of flats, if they didn't keep the curtains closed we could see what they have for dinner, it was that close! I am not sure if we were suffering from "altitude" but we got horribly lost so jumpy on a bus to get down again. We then road the tram to get back to the hotel. Took us 2-3 hours to walk there and 30 minuets to get back!!! Like the tram it's cheap!!!! In the evening we went across to Kowloom to watch the lazier light show, which having seen it before we were a bit disappointed. However it's one of those things you have to do!! Bev is on my case to get dressed to go out, even though we agreed we would spend the day around the pool, so must go. (the pool is surrounded by high rise so that will be interesting! Will take pics for FB ).

Has anyone noticed that blogs don't have paragraphs? Sorry I do put them in when writing!!

Oh my goodness the front page has all the instructions in chinese, can't under stand a thing so hope that its only while we are here, it didn't have Indian words the last few weeks! Oh well we will see. Let me know on FB if you are receiving all this in Chinese, that would be funny!!!! Before I tell you about our last few days I must say that in the last hotel there was no wifi in the rooms, only in the restaurant, they closed that at 5 pm!!!!! I felt suddenly completely out of control, no contact with home and no way to research our next hotel. I was like a bear with a sore head, then Bev had an "episode " as we now call it, couldn't walk so took him out "to walk the streets" in his wheel chair. this was the better option to sitting in the box they called a room!! We were both hot and tired. As most of you know, I am half deaf, Bev was mumbling so every time he tried to talk to me he had to turn around, which made pushing the chair hard work!!! If you hear about the mad woman shouting "for god sake keep still" in the streets in hong kong, that was probably me, gave up in the end and went back to our box!!! The days have stared to all blend into one. Thursday we traveled all day back from Sigeru, got to the airport for 10.30, took off at 2.20 am. Food an hour later, slept an hour then landed in Bangkock. Stayed on the plane for 1 hour, (while the cleaners cleaned around us!!!) (which felt odd,) took off had breakfast (are you keeping up with me,what time/day is it?) slept again, except Bev kept waking me so that I didn't miss the food or to help him to the loo! Landed in Hong Kong with no hotel booked. !! Keep up! We have been having wheelchair help at the airport, which has proved invaluable but quite funny. With traveling Bev gets a bit stressed, so I sit him in the chair and load him up with the hand luggage, well it saves me carrying it and it makes him feel "helpfully"!! Of course we ask for the help at the other end as well. 9 out of 10 times we don't kneed it getting off, however, as I explained to Bev, some chap is banking on our tip to feed his kids today so having booked it we must use it,(but the real reason is that we get taken through passport control much quicker! Express lane no waiting!) with this also in mind, if Bevs legs are fine, I tell him to limp, (well there has been a few times where have needed it!) there is also a reason why Bev is not on the stage, he's not very good at "putting it on" hence it being funny him trying it limp!!! Now, on getting to Hong Kong a rather large lady was waiting for us to get off, she almost ran us from one end of the airport to the other, finally leaving us to sit and catch our breath with a cup of coffee , (what day is it?) over the coffe the iPad came out to book a hotel. HK is such a busy place, the cost of a Saaturday almost doubles the rate, even so most of the places we looked at were fully booked. We decided to go back to the reservation desk and book there, we booked for one night in a hotel Called Silva Seaview (you could only see the sea if you hung out of the window ,19 floors up and strech your neck around a few sky scrapers!!!!) and ended up in a room the size of a shoe box!!!! Couldn't unpack, not enough room to open the suite case!! If it had been cheep then ok but it was £77.00 and no breakfast, I hated it. So today we paid for breakfast and sat there for best part of two hours searching the net for a decent hotel, this was the only place the wifi was free!! Finally found somewhere with a room available for 7 nights and not at £77! Oh god I though what is it going to be like, anyway We booked in after lunch and felt at home immediately, I am definatly a 5* lady. The drive to the hotel is another story for another day, we are now going out to eat. Have you worked out which day it is yet!!

We spent a few days not doing much, swimming, eating and sleeping mostly, but can't do that for much longer so we headed up country agian (with a different guide!) to take in a bit of culture!!! We attempted to clime the lion rock yesterday, all the pictures of Sri Lanka show this rock as their ancient history, where they have frescos paintings inside. Well it really is huge, and steps that are so steep and so narrow that even my little feet didn't fit on them. The must have been lovingly laid one at a time, and over the years they have been rubbed smooth with all the feet walking on them. It is said that the king lived on top of the rock and from the sky you can still see his swimming pool. I can just imagin all the slaves carrying a pot of water to the top, one at a time!! The rock was surrounded by a natural mote alive with crocodiles, so they probably lost a few slave to the crocs as well as from being totally knackerd!! Bev made it up about half way. There was quite a strong wind and he is so dating now that he was worried about been blown over the side if he went further! I wanted to see the paintings so went on. The wat to get into the cave was up a mettle spiral staircase bolted to the size of the rock!! Well call me stupid if you like but I made it up about 20 steps then turned around and came back down again, I don't like heights and although there was a "cage" around the steps I still didn't feel safe!! ( besides the way this holiday has been going, anything could have happened!!!!!). Still I continued around the rock to the lions feet. The view was breath taking but enough was enough, my poor old knees would not have made it any further! This time it would have been up another metal stair case at least 200 steps high, zig zagging but this time with no cage. Time for me to decend I am afraid! Now my legs did start to wobble, you don't realise that you have to use different muscles when you come down that was almost as hard as going up, but at least I could see the ground coming towards me and not going away!!!! It was amazing (and surely I must have lost a few pounds!!!)

So it's jubilee day with street party's everywhere. Partly I am missing all the celebrations, however this trip couldn't be put off any longer. We have had a complete role reverse. In the past I just turned up for the plane and although I knew where we were going I never really new the details. I would have my own " pocket money" and Bev would do the rest. This time I have done everything. ( I hope Sri Lanka is not a sign of what is to come!!) Of course we talk all the time about what things cost and where we are going, and then I have my own way!!!! I feel quite "empowered" and in control, I should have burnt my bra years ago!!!! However the boobs really would be hitting the floor by now. We are "resting" at the moment in an "ok" guest house. With our own patio, lounge and kitchenette. However this morning we woke and Bev paddled through to the sink to make tea, yes paddled. The tap connection had been leaking all night and flooded a river across the living room floor. (dangerous on marble tiles) no he didn't fall again but so easily could have. I was not impressed that at6.30 we were using every towel in the place to mop up the tsunami! With that sorted we sat out on the patio with our cups of tea, 2 union jacks stuck in a bottle and toasted the queen on her 60 years, do you think she will log into face book to look at the picture? So having had to do a days work all ready we felt we had earned a good breakfast. we left Our "ok" hotel walked across the road to the 5 star hotel and ate a full breakfast, tea, fruit, cereal, omelet, French toast, spring rolls (whe in sl do as the sl!) sausages, fruit juice and more tea all for £4.50 each. I was born to go 5 star!!!!

Yahhhhh it has worked!! Just wanted to update you all on our evening out! Ladies don't ever complain about a quick drink in the pub, that would be a preference to my evening. We decided not to be lazy and sit around all night, we would go into the town about 5 miles away!! Went to the lady on reception to ask what the best way to go was. "the bus at the end of the lane , just wave and he will stop" ok we thought and wandered down the lane. True enough we waved to the bus and he stopped and we jump on. Only one seat so Bev took that as his legs were about to "go"! Have you ever seen the old American movies where black was segregated from white? Well it felt just like that and we had jump onto the wrong bus. We were feeling very obviouse and the bus was very Dark, dirty, cheap and very nasty!!! We didnt really know where we were going so we sat tight until at the bus terminal we were all told to get off. Now this is just the sort of thing Bev and I will do, but just the sort of thing Fay would be worried about if she knew we were doing it!!!! Still the ride was only 10p, and we are watching our penny's!!!! It is a four day holiday here because of the full moon, so not all the shops/markets were open. Thank goodness as even I, a hardend shopper would have found it too much!!!! Tut tuts every few minuets, beggars with thier hands out and I seemed to attract a bit of attention.(I thought it was the red hair but bev said it was the boobs!!) Bev has always had a good sence of direction, he insisted that the shops were at one end of the street and I was positive it was the other, after we had had our usual domestic I gave in and went Bevs way! After the bus terminal became a blur behind us, and wilderness in front,he agreed that we might be heading in the wrong direction, about turn, another domestic and a route march back into the town, we found a few shops but all were about to close!!!!!! BUT all was not lost because I found a haven of beads and ribbons!!! Bev sat outside in discuse. The town had had a heavy down pour an hour before, and you can imagine, no drains and no foot paths, and mostly mud for roads. We had both had enough by now so headed back to the bus stop. Domestic no 3, Bev said the bus would turn right so we had to stand on that side, no I said when we came in we turned right, so we have to stand on this side. Now remember I said Bev used to have a good sence of direction. So for the second time tonight he was wrong! This will now go down in history as a first, and I will bring it up as often as I can! Wet + muddy feet we managed some how to get the correct bus back, not sure we will ever return.!!!!!!!

Evening all. Not sure if this will show on the same page as goggle seems to want me to reset"???????? Not sure what's it all about but hopefully this will just follow on. I will test first as don't want to waffle on and not have it published on the Sam page!!!!!

Friday drove to Kandy, really not sure why, second largest town in Sri Lanka is all its got going for it. Roads and streets really busy,hot and dirty! Hassle from guys trying to sell you stuff etc etc. The drive was good we stopped of at a tea plantation, sampled the tea and have become a convert to black tea!! Saw all the ladies in the fields again, plucking away, took some awesome photos, but you will have to go to face book to seem them. Not sure how/if you can put photos on a blog!! We poped into a spice garden, some chap explained all the different spices and what they are used for, had a massage and the the guy proceeded to try to sell us pads of their products, would have I suppose if we were coming straight home, but $80 is a lot to spend on ageing cream when it already too late. mind you they Did have something that would make you loose weight, I was tempted but don't want to spend the next 6 months running to the loo!! We then washed the elephants in the river, awesome is all I can say. Wanted to bring the big boy home. Booked into a posh hotel for the night, on the beach in Negombo. Expensive for here nearly 8000 rp which is about £40. However to pool was not in use and the room not very posh! This morning we wandered along the road and found a nice hotel, clean, with a little kitchen area, toilet clean but not posh and a fabulouse pool in full working order. We checked out of the posh place and moved in here for just 4000 a night, about £20.00 a night!! Think we will stay here about four nights to relax and get the washing done. Then the plan is to head up north again (without Cedric!). Will do a bit of cultural sight seeing. Ps if the spellings are bad in this blog, the reason is that I can't spell ant the iPod changes the spelling to suit it!!!!