Frank never was any good at strip poker.

Dragon boat bracelet

Last weekend was dragon boat festival, my friend gave me a bracelet which you must wear until the first rain, it's supposed to bring you good luck, although it was less than 24hours before the first rain came.

North Korean border, Dandong and the great wall.

Last weekend me and John went up to Dandong. The city isn’t anything special but it’s right next to the North Korean border, I’ve been meaning to go up there for a while. We were there for about 28 hours, in that time we saw another piece of the great wall, spied on North Korea using binoculars and took a ferry right up to the border, here’s some pictures.

Soft-top convertible!

The great wall.

You’ve got China on the left and North Korea on the right.

North Korean village as seen from the great wall. They had huge binoculars that put you right in the village, it was amazing, I could have people watched all day.

The picture on the left is what you see of China from North Korea and the one on the right is what you see of North Korea from China.

As we went along the shore there were lots of women and girls cleaning clothes, vegetables and themselves. The sad truth is that these people living next to the river have it pretty good, they’re used as a front, conditions are much worse in the interior. This is a shame as all the North Koreans I’ve met in China (which is not many) have all been really nice people.

The China-North Korea trade bridge in front and the halfway bridge which was destroyed by the Americans in the Korean war behind.

The bathroom on our ferry.

Three girls on a bike. My 'shooting from the hip' is getting better

I've been practicing shooting from the hip, its getting better but still get a lot of feet, chopped off heads and sky.

Dalian Music Festival

This past weekend Dalian had a small music festival near the harbor, I had a lot on but managed to go for a few hours and I was glad I did. It was really small, in fact it was in a car park but quite a large crowd turned up and the music was good. As it was small with no security I could go everywhere and snap some pictures. The photos below are of two bands Doc Talk Shock and Spiral Cow, both bands were really good. I wish Dalian had more live music going on.

The weather is definitely getting better, we've had spells of 'not cold' for a couple of weeks but today the air was warm.

Atlas

We were dog-sitting John's dog a couple of weeks ago, got this pic of him, you can just about see my reflection in his eyes

Trees are always the first place I look for a potential girlfriend.

Parents of unmarried twenty somethings advertise their children by sticking personal ads on to trees. Who needs match.com?

...because you can't wear your shoes in the house!

I was staying with a friend in Shenyang, and like a lot of Chinese people didn't allow shoes inside her apartment, so I was given these fetching rabbit slippers to wear instead. Thanks Heavory.

These bumper cars are missing their waiguo ren.

I love Chinese food... I really do... but theres always this itch that only tea and toast can scratch.

Thanks to Mum and Dad for sending me tea bags. Also toaster was a great investment.

It's gonna be a long night of weak beer, Baijiu and singing.

Before RC there was string!

Halfpipe at Xinghai square

Bought a new camera a few weeks ago, still getting used to it but I'll stick some of the better photos on here.

Chengdu.

Here’s some photos from Chengdu the city I went to after Xi’an, it’s Sichuan province in the west of China. I spent a few days in Chengdu which was nice because I could just wander around the city and not just visit touristy areas. Chengdu is a lot different to Dalian, there’s more of a Tibetan and Buddhist influence here, I particularly liked the architecture around the temples even if some of it is a recent mock-up. Sichuan is famous for it’s food which is very spicy, I eat Sichuan food a lot in Dalian but it is nothing compared to what I ate here. The people here are more laid back, there’s a few parks just like Dalian but Chengdu has a tea house culture. The street I stayed on had at least 10, and they’re filled with locals drinking tea and chatting or playing mah-jong. Many of the outdoor tea shops were closed for the winter which was a shame, I imagine Chengdu is more of a summer place. Although Chengdu is not as cold as Dalian there is no central heating in the buildings which means it was always cold inside, my hostel also had an outdoor shower block which was freezing cold. I also got to see my first pandas in China, I went to the Chengdu panda breeding place which was really good and the pandas had nice enclosures even by western standards.

This is a Buddhist Wenshu Temple

Wenshu Temple

Shoes at the Wenshu Temple

Lots of shoes at the Wenshu Temple

This man is outside the temple burning fake money for his ancestors, you can buy the fake money at lots of places, some of the money I’ve seen has Bank of Heaven written on it and some has Hell money written on it but apparently both are good.

Bridge

The streets can get very crowded, the red, white and yellow rabbits are for Chinese new year, 2011 is the year of the Rabbit, which to me doesn’t sound quite as cool as the year of the tiger.

Every night there are fountain shows with music at Tianfu square.

This was my first panda in China, she’s apparently quite famous as she has had many cubs and sits at the top of the family tree at the breeding base… or so our driver told me.

Baby pandas

You have no idea how happy I was when this panda climbed on to his rocking horse and started rocking, the highlight of my trip… 2011 is off to a good start!

Xi’an

Hi, I’ve been doing a bit more travelling recently, I’ve crossed Chengdu and Xi’an off my list. Xi’an was a really nice city, many people I had spoken to were not impressed with it and said it was quite dirty but I quite liked it. The hostel I was staying in was a Tibetan style one which means it was open plan and had a lot of table cloths everywhere. I’m sure the open plan areas are nicer in the summer because showering in outdoor shower blocks was cold. I also went to see the terracotta warriors which was impressive.

This is the Bell tower which sits in the centre of town

This is the muslin district which is a few streets that have restaurants, street food, stalls and lots of people.

This is one of the pits at the terracotta warriors site, they’re pretty amazing, they’re all two metres tall and no two are the same.

This one of five that you can get close to, there's four different kinds of warrior, archers, horsemen, officers and generals, this is an archer.

Handsome bloke eh?

Me with the tour guide, who was really good.