Ain't no rest for the wicked

Hello hello. Since I've got back from China I have not rested properly at all, thanks to the fact I am moving house and have to be done by tomorrow. This would all be fine if it not for the fact that I had seriously bad jet lag, I was awake for over twenty four hours with about four hours sleep from the combined nights before, and back to work on the Tuesday. The point is I will not have the internet for a few days and unless I manage to have all my stuff out of here with time to spare, there will not be another post for a little while. Which is annoying as I'm enjoying blogging again. Changing all the layout and spending too long making banners has been really fun and giving me a lot more ideas about what I want this blog to focus on. Sure it's a bit jumbled of stuff, but these are things that are important to me and I'm trying to make it flow nicely. Anyways, I'm tired and rambling and my hair is also now green.

I am very unphotogenic.

LB

Yangshuo

In Hong Kong I met up with the group from Dragon Trip, who I would be travelling around with. Our first stop was Yangshuo, in the the south of China, in the Guangxi province, we travelled by night bus, which was an experience in itself. Yangshuo is quite popular with backpackers but did not seem to be over touristy and more karst parks than I could count where everywhere. It was the most beautiful place I have ever seen and the atmosphere was so laid back it was paradise.

We stayed for three nights in Monkey Jane's Hostel which was one of the places to be thanks to it's own rooftop bar and beer pong tournaments. On the first day we went bamboo rafting down the Yulong River and in the evening went and saw Cormorant fishing. The rafting was really cool and I had never seen such scenery before. In the evening we headed up for drinks and I met some more English people and we ended up watching the sunrise while swimming in the Li River.

On the second day we went bike riding and then hiking to Moon Hill and then on to mud baths and hot springs. The mud baths were so gross and cold. Which at first was very refreshing from the heat in China, until the novelty wore off and it was just cold, thin mud. The driving there was like something out of a video game. No one pays attention to traffic lights, pedestrians or even the police. So bike riding around the city was amazing.

Later on in the evening we went to a chinese massage place where the majority of us got something called 'cupping', in which they light a fire, put it in some wooden cup and then stick it on your back. It's meant to draw out all the toxins in your body but who knows if this is even true. We had food at a local restaurant, it was the most amazing fish I have ever eaten. We also met up with another Dragon Trip group, which meant some preliminary beer pong rounds were played while we all got to know more people. 

       

On the last day, after another late night/alcohol, we all got up early to go Soloing, which is basically rock climbing over a river with no ropes and some of these rocks were seriously high. I surprised myself with my athleticism and bravery when it came from jumping off into the river, which enormously helped all of us get over our hangovers. Me and Pascal decided to hire a scooter in the afternoon after a well deserved nap, while others went for a hike to a small village. I loved it and it was definitely a highlight for me, weaving in and out of traffic.

As it was our last night, the guys from the other group decided they would eat a beating heart snake, which also included a lovely shot of snake blood. When in China! As you can see they literally cut the snake head off in front of us and drained the blood there and then. Monkey Jane's mum then left the room to prepare the hearts and afterwards the snake gets cooked. I tried some and it tasted like chicken. Pretty good I must say. A huge beer pong tournament was had and pijiu (beer) was all around. Everything is so cheap in China it is unreal, coming back to England prices makes me really think about what I'm spending my money on now. You can get a beer for like 50p in some places. Some of us stayed up until dawn as we had a twenty three our night train to look forward to the next day. I did not want to leave Yangshuo and when I go back to China that is going to be my first stop. 

LB

Second Year

When I last wrote about Uni I was at the frantic end to my second year, which is why I found it difficult to update about anything at the time. Now it's all over I felt the need to provide some closure on my modules.

Literature

My last assignment for this course was based on the book The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon. It's a post colonial text from the view of migrant workers from the Caribbean living in London after the war. It was probably my favourite book of the whole course because of a combination of things. Firstly the language is brilliant. Selvon uses a Caribbean/English throughout the story, narrator included, which really makes the characters and the story come alive. In an interview Selvon wrote that he tried to write in standard English but it just would not flow.

The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon

I also had an exam for this module which went really well. I managed to write sixteen or so pages in three hours and got a 2:1 for the entire module. (:

Creative Writing

Towards the end of this module I loathed creative writing with a passion. I felt that all my creativity had been drained from me, as I felt the module either needed to be extremely tight on guidelines, prompts or genres or completely free. Because of this, my main priority was my Lit module, so when it came down to my final assessment (instead of an exam) I spent a rushed three nights completing it. I chose to do 100 lines of poetry and wrote about three cities, personifying a woman s the city. It's hard to explain but I will post them on here. Overall I graded a 2:2 for this module which isn't what I wanted but I didn't put enough work in to get a higher mark.

The all nighter

That's all there is to say really. In September I'm doing 20th Century Literature and Children's Literature which I'm looking forward to, aside from the fact I have about forty books to read before then.

LB

Absence

Hong Kong

L - Cable Car on Lantau Island. TR - Incense holder on Stanley Island. BR - Cranes over Kowloon

I first started my travels in Hong Kong, after a gruelling fourteen hour flight, and the first thing that hit me was the wave of heat radiating from the air around me. To say I was unprepared for this kind of humidity would be an understatement, it was somewhere between seventy and eighty percent. There was such a stark contrast between the city skyscrapers and the green mountains, it was like being in two different countries.

T - View of Hong Kong Island. BL - Woman praying on Big Buddha steps. BR - Tai O fishing village

For the first time in my life I felt claustrophobic in the city so spent the majority of my time away from it. My favourite place here was Lantau Island. It's about an hour by metro and you take a cable car over the mountains to get to the Big Buddha. The views from the car are indescribable, just as a picture never does it any justice. 

L - View from Victoria Peak. R - Big Buddha

LB

Yangshuo.

I wish I could find the words to encapsulate how this place made me feel. But I don't think I ever I could. I finally felt, what it means to be. Well and truly alive.

I'm back (:

So I guess I didn't update for a really long time. I was really busy with all my uni work at the end of May and then pretty much worked like a slave to save for China and then obviously went. I got back on Friday evening and I'm still royally screwed with my sleep and what time I think it is. I've had about 12 hours sleep since Wednesday or something stupid like that. Anyways. I have some sense of renewed motivation to keep this up again. By the end of last years creative writing module I found that I just wanted a break from it and haven't really written anything since, maybe a poem or two but nothing properly. I'm moving house next weekend so I have no time to just chill out.

Aside from all this, we shall just ignore my absence and continue as normal.

L
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