Posted 5:12 AM by Gobbler
Thats Great
 
After the upset the other day when the computer decided to reset itself without a by or leave, I today, after receiving advice on the subject by a strange bearded american chap with hair even bigger than my own, decided to save a draft of what I had written.  While this seemed to be quite a cunning plan, it was in fact a total failure, as the computer promptly came back with a 'this page cannot be displayed' screen, which means i have no idea whether or not it has been saved, bnut probably not.  Worse than this I cannot actually access my drafted files for some reason best known to the powers that be.  Worse than this and even more peculiar i cannot now access blogger at all.  All this means that another half an hour has been wasted and all you people waiting for talkbacks probably wont get them.  to try and briefly recap:  Mum, i believe the phrase is 'take a chill pill man' Rach, ah so; cheesemonger: they ioght eat kebabs in manchester but they eat a fair few other things as well (though i ant see why)  whereas in kashgar they eat about 1000 kebabs for every 1 of something else, which you will apppreciate is a lot of kebabs.  Vince, speak to youm soon, send me your address and i'll send you a postcard, eveil uncle: there was a girl from beijing, with a most extraordinary thing.    Cantnthink of the rest.  any ideas?
 
Now it appears that i can post so i will before it changes its mind.

Posted 5:11 AM by Gobbler
Thats still Great
 
So theres this big wall.  They say you can see it from sapce, but ive not been there. (mayber next semester.  Incidentally and to deviate totally from the point, I did tell my class that i had been to the moon several times and in fact lived there on occassion, as my family was from there.  This was to my summer school students, mostly quiet as posts, in order to try and get some reaction from them.  They looked very confused and one asked "Is it really true?"  In order to  set your minds at rest I feel i must tell you that it is not really true, it was in fact a pile of nonsense.  But it kept me amused)  As i am in beijing and a good tourist, i felt that it would be appropriate to visit this Great Wall.  So I did.
 
Struggling out of bed at eight in the morning i eventually got on the bus and put my plastic straw hat with a red flower in it over my face and set about the task of going back to sleep, whichwas accomplished without problems.  About three hours later i was finally turfed opff the bus and they pointed me at this rather large hill which had a construction running along the top of it which looked suspiciously like the wall i had come to see.  It seems to me that it would have been fr esier to build the wall on a flat piece of land but perhaps i do not understand the complex subtleties of building walls in china, so i did not labour the point and set off on my way.  This section of the wall, which looks rather nice, features 70% gradients as it goes straight up the mountain (or perhaps just big hill but lets not go there again)  and plenty of hawkers to annoy you as you go.  Going back down to the waiting area can be wholly hawker free if you take the 'death slide' contraption where you hang on to a rope and the helpful assistant pushes you off the hill from where you slide to the bottom on a cable.  As i enjoy all such means of getting from a to b that do not involve any effort on my part, i gave it a bash, and i can tell you, especially YOU, Mr Tofer, if you are reading this, that its basically a top notch bit of death slide with not a hint of death anywhere.
 
After proceeding along the wall as fast as my legs permitted, I found that i had escaped all the other tourists and had the pleasure of walking along without seing anybody else except the people trying to sell me water etc.  "you want water?"  "I got water."  "You want postcard?"  "I got postcard."  "Ahh.  You want ice-cream?"  "I got ice-cream.  Naff off."  Eventually i got to a place where a sign said that it was dangerous to continue any further and it was time for  u-turn.  I decided that, as the two security guards were asleep, i would proceed along the still fairly well trod path to see where it went.  Obviously i knew that it went to more wall, but, being a nce wall i still wanted to see more of it.  As well as that the bus wasnt leaving for another three hours.  I walked on for about another five minutes but it quickly became clear that they had not put the sign there just for fun, and the path became hairy, decidedly hairy.  at this point you can walk along the top of the wall as its only  a few bricks thiuck with buttresses along the way for support, and you walk alongside on a path that is often less than two foot wide, with wall on one side and precipice on the other.  Im not fond of precipicies as they usually involve a large degree of pain and death, and i didnt wholly trust myself not to fall into it, so i stopped after a little way and sat to survey the scene. 
 
And that was my wall adventure.  After it I took the death slide as i mentioned and then a boat to the other shore where the hbus would wait.  cunningly the slide goes to the wrong side of the lake which means that you have to pay extra to get the boat or swim.  likewise with the cable car which takes you halfwy up the hill from where you still have to walk for ages or take the train up a little further.  vey cheeky.  AFter all that i went home and drank lots of bee until about 6:30 in the morning, which is just about what im going to do now except that i dont intend to stay up until 6:30 because tomorrow ive got to go back to the embassy to get my visa and get the train to haerbin from where i will go to russia.  not sure when i'll be able to post next.  ta taa.

Posted 3:23 AM by Gobbler
Thats Great
 
Vinny boy: 19/7:  Excellent, will pack a couple of extra pork pies just in case.  Back on the 21st so I'll give you a bell.  Whats your address in oxford?  post card will shortly be en-route.

Rach: 20/7: Ha so.

Mum: 21/7:  Oh no, it was because I had been smoking opium all day and therefore everything seemed wow-wee. We didnt fight two wars over the stuff for nothing you know.

Cheesemonger: 16/7:  the may get through a huge number of kebabs in manchester but they do eat other things as well.  As far as Ican make out, they dont eat anything in kashgar except kebabs.  oh, actually they do eat rotisseried chickens as well but its somewhere in the ratio of one chicken per thousand kebabs.  But now i have a question for you:  Why the hell do our american cousins call them kabobs? It is a silly name.  perhaps kat can answer that if shes still about, or tulsa hilton unless its been shut down.

Geordie Rich: 13/7: y-i-man.  still not conviced that steve wasnt taking the piss whe he sent that email.  but if its true that hes getting married (shite, is it supposed to be a secret?  Let me check the email...  no, apparently not) then no-one is safe my friend, no-one.  say hi to tom for me, tell him i want the photos from our road trip in the states last year.

Evil Uncle: 12/7:  There was a girl from Tipperary, with body uncommonly hairy.  She purchased some wax to take it to tax, now shes bright red and exceedingly scary.

Posted 4:39 AM by Gobbler
And so to ontinue...
 
After the Russian embassy (previous post) I went bak to plan the next phase of the operation. 
 
The next phase of the operation was to go and visit the forbidden city.  not so forbidden any more, you an not only visit it but you an visit it with ROGER MOORE doing the commentary on the audio tape.  entrane to the forbidden city 60 kwai, roger moore on tape, prieless. (that'll be 40 kwai then)   Good old Roger began "Ni hao.  Welcome.  I'm Roger Moore"  as you might expect him to, and things carried on in a similarly orthodox vein from there.  I was rather hoping that he would slip a few Bond quotes along the way but he didnt manage it, but still, his ability to say serious things and sound at the same time like he is atually being wholly sarcastic (after all he is called roger moore, which is quite humourous) or aboiut to burst out laughing.  So that has been today.
 
Last week or so ive been in yangzhou saying extended goodbyes to all punters here.  Certain elements at home, so the underground network of communiations tells me, were somewhat worried that i might come home tied to some sexbomb chinese fillie, but this has not ocured.  This is because during my time in china i have taken a leaf out of Mao Zedongs book and lived a life of diligence and frugality (thats a leaf from the little red book, as opposed to the other leaf out of Mao Zedongs book, the one where he was a dedicated paedophile and bedded countless virgins, somewhat in contrast of his one time national policy of letting '1000 flowers bloom', if you catch my drift.  One of my friends did come to the station with me and I briefly considered trying to get her to agree to me putting her in a box and taking her with me, but i thought better of it.  She might have agreed...
 
Ok, computers goiong to wipe me out in a minute, so im going to evacuate.  Ive read that theres a 'John Bull Pub' here somewhere, and i copuld do with a pint. 
 
I do hope all you punks are keeping well

Posted 4:04 AM by Gobbler
Some Things in Life
 
Some things in life are incredibly irritating, I feel.  Have you ever felt that?  One small example is that the 'c' button on this omputer does not work very well and therefore if there is an inexpicable word anywhere in this blog please try to see where and if a 'c' ould be inserted anywhere to make sense of it.  One far greater example of an irritation is this: I was labouring away, happy, as they say, as a sandboy, on a blog, as one does, when the omputer suddenly decided to reset itself.  This caused grief and misery that we an briefly describe as 'irritation'.  all the girls at the desk (and it must be a very omlicated desk because five girls are working, or rather satnding around, at it)  were able to tell me was that my hour was up.  True, I had only paid for an hour.  Not true, I expeted the computer to instantly and without ceremony switch itself off at the end of it.  So everything is lost.  But what ws the use in getting angry when none of the five girls ould explain the situation.  All they could do was offer me consoling meek looks and charge me for another hour. This is a frustrating beginning to:
 
THE GREAT TRAIN BLOGGERY
 
This Great Train Bloggery is all about a little train journey from Yangzhou in eastern China to Goring and Streatley International Train Hub in Berkshire, England, near to London.  Yesterday i left Yangzhou, City Of Dreams (COD) on the train.  think hinese trains and you might think of trains that are not the finest quality in the world.  Clapped out old monsters clawing their way along the uneven track at Milkfloat speed, overladen with a good chunk of the nations 1.3billion inhabitants, who cram and cling to every available nook and ranny both inside and outside the train.  Perhaps some of Chinas trains are like this, but the Yangzhou-Beijing 'x' express is a brand new tiger of a mahine.  I had been cunning enough to bag a top bunk in the hard sleeper section, where it is possible, if you hide their for the entire journey with your eyes losed and your hat over your face, to avoid being asked where you are from by friendly and inquisitive hinese, for the entire journey.  For the ten and a half or so hours to beijing, this is what i managed.
 
Shortly after arrival I was amazed to find a taxi driver offering me a fare of 80 kwai (ten bucks), 8 times the base rate for a taxi.  I laughed at him and walked off, eventually finding a pedicab who was all smiles for 10 kwai.
 
Getting myself a nice bed in a hostel it was time to nip to the russian embassy for a bit of visa procurement.  As you know, at least as you ought to know, travelling by train to london, or indeed Goring and Streatley International Train Hub, from hina involves a trip through russia, and for this little esapade a visa is neessary.  A russian visa is peculiarly difficult to get hold of as you need an official invitation to get one whih, though simple enough in england, is a right old mission in china.  Even though i had one i was half expeting a rejetion at the embassy, so i got there an hour before it opened to get to the front of the queue and make sure i had time to deal with any unforseen problems.  I even brought a full copy of my medical insurane which some websites said i needed (the irritating thing is that some websites say one thing, some another, and all are official or at least travel agencies) although i shouldnt have bothered because it slipped out of my poket in the taxi on the way there.  SO, less medical documents, less confidene that something bizarre would our or my documents would somehow not be valid, I went up to the prettily made up woman behind the window expecting problems.  And problems I got.  I had forgotten to photocopy my passport and resideny permit.
 
I had realised this schoolboy error as i filled in my application form at the embassy, but i had a plan.  I told the visa lady that i had been led to understand that it was possoble to get visas at the embassy.  She looked decidedly unimpressed and even slightly disgusted, as if i had just flashed her and replied "No, never.  We never do that."  So silly me had to leave and find a photoopying mahjine whih in due course i did, and return.  this time she was without a comlaint and so it seems that, come friday, i'll have that visa.  and then i shall  be happy as a sandboy again.  Thinking of which, Im just going to post this in ase anything strange and irritating happens again...