HOUSE FOR RENT

Gav: 'Hi People, The tennant who is currently living in my house will be moving out in January. It will be available for rent from then.

Its a two bedroom 'stone cottage'-or terraced if you like, in Whitworth, which is just north of Rochdale. It's really cosy and cool and was fully refurbished just before I left. It's got an open plan lounge, dining room and fully fitted kitchen with oven and hob. its also got a basement/cellar for storage.

If you are interested in renting, or know anyone that would, please feel free to email me and I'll send some more details. Please spread the word!'

my email is gavmunro@hotmail.com

Black Hawk Down

Hey Hey hey Reader, just a quick note to thank everyone for the Christmas emails . There's gone and been a big earthquake near Taiwan (I swear I had nothing to do with it), but it has apparantly took out a load of communications link and left China without access to much of the internet. I'm managing to do this from a mobile link, but the cables will take a week or so to fix (come on Gardiners lot, get your toolboxes and an air ticket). It was a bit strange at first, cos you don't get a lot of information off the media over here, so some people were thinking something had happened with the North Koreans.......but you wouldn't want to start on China would you?
Anyway, Hope you all had a good old Christmas and all the best for the New Year. I'll get round to replying to all the emails when theTaiwanese find some choc blocks.
Cheers People
All the very best!
Gav

Merry Christmas Bloggers!

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Hope you have a great time, we miss you loads

Will be thinking of you on Christmas Day! Ho Ho Ho!

Love Sue & Gav xxx

SuenGav The Movie

Ok folks, It's finally finished, the story so far in pictures and movies etc. The top one is part one, the bottom part two.If you haven't used youtube before, press the play symbol on the screen then depending on your connection you might need to just pause it for a few minutes, watch the red line thatshows you how much has loaded, then press play again.......Enjoy it people.

...it's all broken biscuits really......

Above: Tea Plantations nearby
Left:Wulin Square






Well Dear Reader,

A bit of a progress report on my experiences in China so far!!! I'm in a city called Hangzhou, in Zhejing province. The province itself is pretty small compared to others in China but has got a population of 44,000,000. Hangzhou itself houses about 6,000,000 of the buggers! It’s huge and really picturesque, it’s supposed to be where the Chinese come on their holidays. I was here 5 years ago but the place has gone and got itself a make-over Llewellyn Bowen style. All the old stalls have gone and everywhere's scrubbed up well.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of cycling since I’ve been here and I’m kinda sussing the place out slowly. I’m out everyday, with my thermals and wooly, for a few hours. Me and Don went around ‘Xi Hu’ which us westerners know as ‘The West Lake’ which is MASSIVE. Took us 3 hours to cycle around, it’s about 2 miles wide and it’s really popular over here. But however cycling around the city really does open your eyes. They’re mad drivers over here, far worse than Thailand. My technique for riding on the city streets is pretty simple, look ahead, put your foot down and don’t let anyone in………..and try not to let anyone run you over. Driving or riding around is a bit like a cross between Grand-theft auto and ‘Chicken’, you know where you try and hold your nerve when cars are coming towards you? Well it’s like that, my first technique was just to follow the packs of cyclists around and copy what they do, but the other day whilst practicing this the guy on the bike in front of me got his foot run over by a car. So the traffic is mad but not really fast so it’s not as dangerous as it looks…it’s like organized chaos I think, cos no-one seems to get road-rage by getting cut up. There are bike lanes everywhere but its quite common for a car to just come down. Anyway it keeps you on your crushed toes.

You’ve got to understand that because Hangzhou has only a few westerners then the place isn’t geared up for us foreigners. Hardly any of the Chinese people in the shops speak any English and there are very few signs written using the western alphabet and 99% are in Chinese symbolic characters. My Chinese name is Ma Ming which translated means ‘Bright Horse’!!! How about that then? So I’m learning a little bit of the spoken language, which is great but is quite aggressive and loud. Ask someone for directions and they shout them at you as though you’ve just invited yourself around to theirs for Christmas dinner. And it's all broken biscuits really. A lot of the spoken word has around 5 different meanings depending on how you pronounce them so ‘ma’ for example means ‘mother, hemp, horse, swear, scold’ ‘Huo Shi’ can mean different things too including ‘nurse’ and ‘beard’, so for example if you had a friend whose mother had a nurse that you fancied (bare with me), depending on how you said ‘Wo xihuani ni da ma huo shi’ you could either mean ‘I like your mothers nurse’ or ‘I like your horses nurse’ or if you get it really wrong you could be complimenting your friend on his mums facial hair without knowing. So as you can see the language is a bit of a nightmare but it’s a good laugh to try it.

Walking around a bit you see all sorts of stuff, there’s a shop near Dons that sell live chickens, ‘Happy’ shops all over (email for explanation), in Thailand if you saw the word ‘Happy’ on a shop it meant you were able to get phone credit there, here it’s…..errrrmmm………. a bit different.
But the place is really pretty and there’s loads going on.

The western folk over here are a great laugh, they’re from all over world and many of them are studying, teaching or have proper jobs. Because there are so few of them they all stick together so you’re guaranteed a good night when you go out.

Went to Jer Jang University the other day with a mate of Dons, Dave who teaches there, and it was the size of Rochdale. 28,000 students. There was this massive tower-block the size of The Civic Centre in Oldham and that was the admin building. What’s all that about? The students must live on campus, go to their classes from 10am til 10pm including weekends, there was no uni bar, no grafitti, no traffic cones, no hung-over people…… and get this, at 11pm every night the power is switched off to the dorms and the doors automatically lock! From the second hand experience that I’ve got of uni life, I didn’t recognize it. Here is the weirdest thing…..the students loved the place, Dave was telling me that they go to lectures that they don’t need to go to…they buzz off education….I’ll tell you this country will take over the world.

But it is cold at the mo, ‘Baltic’ is to come in January. We’re having a Christmas party at Dons this year, it’ll be the first time that he’s been here for Christmas so we’re trying to organize it so it’s as western as possible, so we got the turkey sorted out, the guests, the games, all we need now are elderly relatives to fall asleep and break wind after dinner. And the bonus is…..no Queens speech!!!!!!! Halelleujah! I’ve been put in charge of entertainment so we’re having a pub quiz and sing-a-long no matter what.


Anyway I’ll stick a Happy Christmas blog on before Monday and let us know what y’all have been up to.

Cao Ni, Pi Yan (Chinese for peace and love to all…honestly)

Ma Ming

Welcome to Auckland, some photos for you!

SkyTower....skyline from a distance away on Devonport Marina
Front view of my hotel!
Fancy Dress - The 3 Degrees......!

Sue: Hi everyone, well I have been busy sightseeing in the city and enclose a few photos.

Im am now working too which is a complete shock to the system!!!! Im totally knackered after a days work!! I am doing some waitressing work in a nearby cafe/bar and so far managed not to throw food everywhere or fall over!!! I guess there is still time for all that!

The weather has been warm but had a few rainy days...but definately no white christmas for me this year!! We have been invited to friends houses for Xmas Eve and Xmas Day!!

BBQ's this year..........no turkey!!

We are going up north to the Bay of Islands with a 90 mile beach! Its a very scenic area with lots of watersports and the weather is much nicer up there, so will be away from New Years Eve for a week!

Hope you all have a fantastic Christmas, will raise a toast to absent friends, speak soon Love Sue

Hangzhou Fire Dept Were Not Happy

'Don....me guitar's caught in the lights fitting'

'His Latest Flame' by The Everlate Brothers


'You are having a Gee Raaff aint ya?'
'Happy Birth.......... Can somebody hear Sirens?'
Notice we all had to wear T-shirts with Dons mug on.....

Well Dons birthday bash was a triumph! It was a surprise for him at this swanky club here in Hangzhou, organized by 'The missus'�1�7 And she can organize a party, I went over on Monday afternoon whilst Don was working to help set up stuff.

It was in a club called 'The In Club'�1�7a few miles out of the city. It was a bit strange at first cos the downstairs kinda reception/restaurant was like a the 'Moloko Bar'�1�7out of Clockwork Orange?????�1�7A lounge with big white double beds instead of chairs and little tables built into them......�1�7yep I was thinking the same....Is it one of those kind of clubs????�1�7 but there were no towels to be seen and apparently it was designed by a hot shot interior designer from Japan, so it was that kind of style!!!! It was pretty cool though, way above my station as I illustrated by failing to take my shoes off and spilling my grub over it!�1�7.you take the boy out of Oldham....�1�7et.....�1�7., so anyhow, we spent all afternoon there messing about upstairs at the club part of this place, Jenny doing most of the bossing and me and some other guys doing the lifting�1�7at one point she wanted the marble tables (which weighed a hundred weight Phil!) placed into the shape of the St Andrews Cross for Don. Good attention to detail though. Then we discovered the booze supply....��1�7��1�7��1�7�1�7ops.......�1�7.right, bearing in mind there were 80 or so people expected, the girl had ordered 200 bottles of red wine, 38 bottles of whisky and crates of guinness and lager.....that was at that moment that I realized it was going to be a long night.

Anyway the night-time came and I was in charge of trying to keep the  1�7lt;span style="color:#ff0000;">cat in the bag 1�7lt;/em> and keeping Dons mates from  1�7lt;span style="color:#ff0000;">spillin 1�7the beans 1�7lt;/span> on the fact they knew it was his birthday!!! So he came into the reception room downstairs (the clockwork orange place, remember?) and all his mates were there, and he was asked to go downstairs by Jenny, as a distration tactic, and we all went up to get the surprise ready. So he came up the stairs and we were in darkness and silence, I was poised with the guitar onstage, and he came in , a big paper fire-work set off, lights went on and I played ‘Happy Birthday 1�7lt;/span> accompanied by everyone.

Anyhow Don was genuinely surprised, even though on the way up the stairs he passed through a corridor of balloons, a sign saying private function and a video camera…�1�7��1�7�1�7ow I’d like to put that down to the fact that me, Jenny and his mates did sterling work by keeping it from him 1�7but at Dons ripe old age I'm afraid it's impossible to totally rule out alzheimers. But hey, he enjoyed it, he got his plate from the buffet, sat down in the corner with his tartan rug on and complained that he couldn't hear himself think'�1�7. 1�7only kidding he had a few beers, sang a few songs (me insisting on playing Oasis etc) and got a few kisses from ladies of the lovely variety. The downside was that the Hangzhou Fire Dept turned up and told us that the number of candles, in fact constituted a fire risk.

Twas a great night with all bladdered by the end, I went to the local bar with some cockney mates of Dons, Triffic Geezas knowatoymean?! And that was that.

footnote; So this club was top, the locks were still on the toilets, the taps needed you to turn them off, your glass was filled for you when it looked thirsty, the DJ actually let you get onstage drunk, the bar tenders did cocktail and fire tricks, everyone was happy, taxis were waiting outside at the end, no one was fighting…�1�7��1�7��1�7��1�7��1�7�1�7But to be honest it wasn't the Two of Clubs�1�7in Limeside, you know I do kinda miss that urine smelling, sticky carpeted, fat 'barmaided, nobbo chavish atmosphere............�1�7�1�7not.

CIAo4Now

Gav

P.S. I have picture to post of Dons new pets 1�7.coming very soon.

P.P.S. There is a youtube�1�7movie on the way.

P.P.S.S. State of Confusion�1�7are at The Colliers this weekend so try and get to see them, please heckle Tony that he is now a Sweaty Lover!!! 1�7lt;/span>

PPSSS. Keep posting people!!!!

Tracey & Steve & their new puppies!!!

Jack & Holly....11 weeks old!

Arrived in New Zealand and staying with Tracey & Steve in Auckland! As you can see they have two new cute puppies!

Their home is a Treehouse high up on the mountains overlooking the beach, with the most amazing views!

I have been catching a lift into the city of Auckland with Steve which means getting up at 6am!! Bit of a shock to my system! So I have visited the famous Skytower which apparently is the tallest man-made observation platform in the southern hemisphere!

I have also visited Auckland Museum that tells the stories of the maori culture and about the history of New Zealand which was interesting as musuems go!

For this weekend there is lots planned, parties on friday & saturday, so its all good fun!!

A bit of fun!! Prize for the winner!

Thought it was time for another competition!

Which are the only two animals in the world that cant walk backwards??

Clue is they are both in Australia!


Where did the name of the Kangaroo come from?

Sea World

We all had a fantastic day at Seaworld, it had something for everyone, of course there was the sea animals, a water park with big slides, lots of shows to watch and a theme park with rides too!

As you can see we saw these cute big polar bears, they looked like they were training for the olympics or something, as this bear continously swam up to us, did a back flip and then floated in the above position, then he rubbed his eyes to get rid of the water and then he started all over again! People were saying who had been before, they had never seem them so active! They seemed to be having so much fun.....hard to believe how dangerous they are!

We watched a dolphin show which was amazing, I love these creatures! The setting was much nicer than Thailand although it was a lot more expensive to swim them etc as we had done.

We also saw penguins, sharks, stingrays, angel fish and lots of other types of fish, dugongs, rockpools with blue starfish with lots of colourful coral, sea cucumbers and a waterski show!

The photo is of us all on the log flume before we got very WET!! The park was really quiet so could have gone on all the rides as many times as you wanted....there were no queues at all! But once was enough for us!

The rest of our time on the Gold Coast was going up and down the highway looking at the different resorts, also had a day in Brisbane City where we spent most of our day on a ferry, jumping off at many stops to look around.

A huge big thanks to my Mum & Dad who completely spoilt me whilst I was there, had a fantastic time and it was good to see you both and catch up. They are now in Melbourne for 4 days and then onto Dubai.......have fun folks!!

WOOOOOOOAAAAHHHHH!!!! Who's turned the heating down?????!!!!!!!

left 'Freedom....well sort of'
below left:'...the hat was is made of genuine polyester skin...very rare.'
Right: 'I can see the moon from here....amazing???!!'

below: hAiRof thE DoG is nEVeR a gOoD cUre foR a haNgover.

below: The karma sutra for exhibitionist freezoephiles is traditional on The Great Wall

Below:Me and me Bruvver overlooking the Great Wall

'Well I'm here in Hangzhou, it was difficult to leave Thailand and missing my travel buddy, but it's amazing to be here! I flew out of Bangkok and straight into Hangzhou and was greeted at the airport by Dons driver, who speaks only a little English with a big smile on his face, brandishing a sign saying:

'HANGZHOU LADYBOY SOCIETY welcomes MR GAVIN MUNRO TO CHINA'

mmmmmm, my brother the joker.....???!!!!!!! It was five years ago when I was hear last and this city has changed a lot....it's good to see that my brothers sense of humour hasn't. It's been amazing so far and I've only, just now got the chance to blog. I met his girlfriend for the first time who is soooo sweet and funny I wonder what the hell she is doing with Don????!!!Only kidding mate, you are The Don. Jenny had arranged for her English teacher to give me some lessons in Chinese, I learnt very little but managed to teach Jenny some English swearwords which sh's already using on Don!!!! Jennifer's got an apartment up in Beijing, which is about a 16 hour drive north and a two hour flight, so we flew up on Friday night and stayed up till the early hours catching up. next day we went to Badaling to visit a section of 'The Great Wall', which is exactly what it is. It was built over hundreds of years and bits were added to it by the different emporers and dynasties, apparantly to keep the pesky Mongolians out. it stretches East to West and is about 30,000 miles long!!!!!

The Great Wall was a brilliant defence but I thought as I stood there, 'Why didn't the Mongolians build 'The Great Ladder of Mongolia'????? That should be one of the wonders of the world as well. Any way it was minus four degrees at the wall so my plans of pitching a tent and staying over night have changed.

It was brilliant though, if you see the picture above, where I'm leaning diagnolly.......is taken with the camera at an angle so if you tilt your head you'll see how steep it was at some points (by the way, those aren't my sunglasses!) That was cool though, then we went back to Jennys apartment, which was class....proper luxury, to prepare for the night out, then fell asleep and woke up at eleven, thinking 'Oh we won't be going out now' but .....we were!!!! I'm full of a cold at the moment so I was being miserable when we went to a night club, which was something like you see on Nip/Tuck, ...out of this world really, it's where all the Beijing rich go and there were Ferraris and allsorts outside, anyway i was being boring and wanted a quiet drink, so we went to Suzie Wongs Bar, which apparantly is pretty famous.....Maybe it's like The World Famous Embassy Club. It was great though and we played 'Chinese Dice' into the early hours and back at the flat Me and our kid put the world to rights until 6am.

Next day we went to Tianamen Square, which is hugeeeeeeeee, really massive, the largest public square in the world and into the forbidden city, which was built by some Emporer dude to keep out the underclass. It was really good, we got a guide who showed us around. It's really weird because a western face in China is still a real novelty to some people, so you get asked to have your picture taken with random strangers, and they all laugh and stare at you|!!!!! Anyway the guide was telling us that the Emporers used to have concubines of about 20-30 mistresses and showed us the building he used to do the business, he would summon one of his Eunochs (who had to be castrated so they couldn't get up to anything) and ask him to 'Bring me a wench' (In Chinese though I think) and the eunoch would toddle off and bring back one of his concubines over his shoulder!!!!!!The weird thing was that the Empresses' building was right next to The Emporers knocking shop!!!!! The forbidden city is huge and I mean, would it have been too much to ask for the emporer to maybe do his doings further away from his missus?????? I suppose no one had the gonads to tell him....quite literally.

Anyway that was fun and we then got a quick piccie by the frozen moat and a slow rickshaw back to the taxi rank. Absolutely top day out though. We flew back last night and went straight to bed. Am contemplating another trip to Beijing after I earn some sheckles. Don and Jenny are the best hostesses and it's good to be pampered!!! Anyway amigos, Adios and keep posting your post things!!!!'
FIONA: HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIDDO!!!!
(2 FOR 1 AT GALA ON A WEDNESDAY-TAKE DORIS AS WELL SHE DON'T GET OUT MUCH!!!LOTS OF LOVE-HAROLD!)

Wildlife Sanctuary Photos! How cute!!