Tai? Aye!

It was a smooth overnight ride going from Xiamen across to Taiwan, with a boat that was fairly accessible and a bar on board the 12 hour ride flew by.

Teipai is ace. I've only been here for a couple of days but I could see myself needing an extension on my 90 day visa under different circumstances. It's easy to get about this place with the MRT (rail service) in the city centre where every stop is accessible. The food is different to everything I'm used to but I like the fact that I can just stop at the side of the road and pick something from a street seller that looks tasty.

My wrist has been aching more than usual over the last few days and I know that it’s down to last summer’s scaphoid fracture. I thought it had started healing after the x-rays that I had done at the CRP but I was warned when I did it that it could lead to arthritis. I hope it’s not.

I applied to do a flying scholarship before I headed to Dhaka last year and to qualify I had to return to the UK to face the selection committee in April. I sent them an email to see if it was possible to sort it over the phone or by skype but I got a negative reply. I guess there's always next year, unless something else comes up of course.

Time to leave China

I've spent a couple of weeks in China but it's finally time to leave, later on today I'll be heading down to ferry terminal where I'll be going overnight to Keelung, Taiwan and then on to visit my friend, Florence, in Taipei from there.

China has been fun, accessibility has been hardly any problem at all which is one of the benefits of staying in a big city especially one that had an expo last year and did so much development work.

The ex-pat crowd is huge in the places I've been around so far, not a tourist bunch but mainly people working in Shanghai and students here in Xiamen. The fact that I am staying so close to a uni made finding a bar really easy last night and had a couple of drinks with some guys studying Chinese, I don't envy them learning a 5000 character language.

Shanging Loft fundraising

Even though I've only been in Shanghai for a couple of days, with the help of my amazing host Sujata and her friends here I managed to organise a fundraising event at a local bar, Shanging Loft. There was some music played by Michael of a local theatre group, a quiz and a raffle. We managed to raise £325 which was a decent effort considering how long there was to put an event together. I never would have managed to do anything like this without the help of people here so there is massive thanks to them.

As well as doing a bit of a presentation as these fundraising events I thought it would be good to make a promo video. Yes, its cheesy. But it seemed to go down quite well and if it gets the message across then I'm happy with it, if it makes people smile then all the better!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cSwCX3LvqE

Blocked in China

I knew that I was going to be off facebook in China but had no idea that there woiuld be a problem with twitter and blogger as well, that's why I've been away for a while. But now thanks to a friend, Tony, giving me access to a VPN (virtual private network) I can get around the firewall that they have set up over here.

Tibet was a good fun, accessibility wasn't fantastic but luckily I ended up with a really decent group of people who helped me out with getting into the monasteries that we went to in each place we stopped. Got to stop and take a look at Mount Everest as we were driving through the Himalayas which was an awesome sight, not as big as I expected though.

As we were driving through the Himalayas I was reading Paulo Coelho 'The Alchemist' thinking 'Was this book written for me to read right now?', amazing book that I think everyone should read before they do a journey like this.

Also got convinced to go and find work in Australia, it sounds like it would be a good way to spend a year or so. When I say convinced, it was little more than a suggestion that I needed to hear and is something that I'll look into a bit more when I get back home.

The train journey to Shanghai was relatively accessible with the only time I needed to get out of my chair was getting into my room to break it down for the night, 2 days of relatively easy travel.

Since getting to Shanghai things have been going well. The weather isn't as warm as I'd like it to be (about 6 deg C) but it's a lot warmer than parts of Asia right now. I'm hoping that by the time it takes me to get to Beijing it will have warmed up considerably.

My host Sujata (a friend of Valerie from the CRP) has been so helpful since I got here, helping me make contacts and organise a fund raiser on Saturday at the Shanging Loft. All welcome.

I picked up my new footplate from the British High Commission yesterday after it was posted there, so just as this one looks as if it's about to fall off it gets replaced. Almost fate-like.

Elephant safari

Since I've got to this hotel they've dissuaded from doing pretty much all of the activities due to inaccessibility and today was no different with the elephant safari on the cards, I was determined to do this one though as it was something that sounded like a lot of fun.

I got told that there were a set of ladders that I had to get up in order to reach the elephant. In reality, there were just set of stairs leading to a platform where you boarded the elephant. I've gone up 2 flights of stairs before just to get some fries so I wasn't going to question one flight for an elephant safari!

Don't lose it!

I thought that I'd messed up big time today. I went for a jeep safari this afternoon and as I got into the car the driver from the hotel told me there was no need for me to take my chair as we wouldn't get out. I didn't have a massive problem with that, he could take it back to the hotel and bring it back later.

The safari was really good. Going on a track through some dense jungle I got to see a couple of crocodiles and even a rhino, I missed out on seeing a tiger that apparently ran past when I was looking in the opposite direction.

I was sat in the canoe on the riverbank waiting for the driver to bring my chair back. When he brought it back it came without the cushion. I told him to go and get it, he disappeared to the jeep and came back without it. "Are you sure there was a cushion on there?". I flipped at the guy, "YES, there was a f*&king cushion on there. Now go and FIND IT!". There was a bit of messing about but to cut it short it had fell off the back of the jeep and we found it 20 minutes later.

I honestly thought leaving it with someone from the hotel would be a safe option but I was taught a lesson instead, at a relatively cheap price. I won't make that same mistake again, although it wouldn't mean the end of my trip it would make me work a lot more than I need to in order to get a suitable replacement. From now on the chair stays with me!