dear world,

oh jeez. I don't have time so this will be very quick.

there was no opera that night...our hotel was apparently oblivious...so we got a nice dinner by the lake instead.

the next day we left for a two day boat trip on a traditional Vietnamese Junk Boat. think Asian pirate ship. it was awesome. we had a great group, kayaked between the beautiful jutting limestone cliffs, ate traditional food, saw floating villages, explored caves in the islands, had a great dinner, did some swimming and got to jump off the top of the boat, played hours of drinking games which led to climbing the mast of the ship (I have NO CLUE who started that one...hehe. =P) and eventually some more...uh...swimming. haha. it was a very memorable night. =D

the next day we visited some more islands and then got lunch and headed back to Hanoi. Marissa and I explored for a bit, got dinner, and then I commandeered a dvd player that was left out in the hallway and we watched a few more episodes of Sex And The City while packing to fly out the next morning. I carefully returned the DVD player before going to bed and got off clean. =D

we flew back to Bangkok, Thailand the next morning and spent the day doing traditional Thai things like getting massages, facials, masks, PadThai, bananna pancakes and wandering the markets. Marissa said her goodbyes around 10pm and left for the airport. so now...for the first time...I'm international. alone. what a neat feeling.
I spent the rest of the night trying to kill the last of my cell phone/international minutes and got to bed pretty late.

The next day was mellow. not much to report. I had booked a tour but cancelled it because I can't shell out $40 for a day on the beach. I'm getting pretty poor pretty fast. eeek.

The next afternoon I flew out of BKK and into Hong Kong. it was quite hectic getting in...but eventually I found a bus, found the main area of the city, found an affordable guesthouse with dorms, figured out the currency, got some shopping in, met my dorm-mates (three cool guys studying in China...two from Australia, one from England) who were on a weekend holiday away. we wandered a bit around downtown Hong Kong and eventually ended up in a pretty cool bar...and we stayed out pretty late. maybe 5:30am? yeah. it was a good night.

fyi: I've sworn off fast food forever. watching them eat McDonalds at 5am reminded me of how gross the fast food culture is. two months and going strong! =D

the next day I explored a bit, saw the sights, got some odd food...no clue what it was, but it was pretty good....met up with my group, we all went out for dinner and then I headed off on my own to see the view of the city at night from 'the peak'. it was amazing and I have lots of great pictures. I got back around midnight and went to bed.

my new roommate and I wandered around looking for breakfast in the morning...it's really odd to have to find a store for food. I'm so used to it being on the sidewalk! I tried some break, but it made me feel a bit sick so I found a bananna and a pineapple shake and ate that. yum. we people watched for a while....or really watched people stare openly at us...and then met back up with the group and took a seried of trains across the border and into China. we caught an overnight train into somewhere and then grabbed a bus to our hotel in Yangshuo. which...lucky me...is an international rock climbing hotspot. thank god for natural limestone cliffs. =D

so...it's 9am and I'm going to take a shower and go climbing. later!