Why does not my site load?

I think i figured out why i my site doesn't appear to be working. to me at least. I must be behind the great firewall of china and getting blocked off. i don't see why though. theres nothing political here is there?

Travel Diary

12/07/06
i don't know why but my writing style seems to randomly change quite often... erm, you'll see.

Today we got up early(8am) to our visa then went to Hung Hom station to get the train to Shanghai at 3 o'clock, we ate at maxims while we waited. The train journey is 26 hours! 26! the train is cool, theres compartments on the side for 2 people 4 people or 6 people depending on the class. People with snacks walk up and down the corridors and there's a food carriage.

Anyway we got on the train and found our compartment, coach 8 compartment 8. There being three of us we knew we were going to be sharing with someone. We opened the door wondering if there was going to be anyone inside. there wasn't. A nice small undisturbed middle class carriage prresented itself infront of us. We settled in quickly, Me on the bottom right and Yan and Pang on the top two bunks. Shortly afterward the compartment door opened and in came an old man with a smile on his face as he looked at us. He put his bags down next to remaining empty bed and after some chit chat, the old man, we found out, was born in Shanghai but had lived in Hong Kong for the last 40 years. This was one of his visits he made to Shanghai occasionally. It was only half three in the afternoon but i decided to go to bed. Yan and Pang went off exploring the train. I woke up at half 7ish and me, Yan and Pang went to have dinner in the dinner carriage. After dinner we came back and went to bed.

13/07/06
I got up at 11 today, we went to eat and sat in the dinner carriage looking out the window admiring the views, seeing the world pass by, until about half one when they asked us to leave. We went back to our carriage where i played on my laptop for a while sorting photos, writing, etc. before i knew it the train arrived in Shanghai, well it did arrive 80 mins early. so i hurried to pack up my stuff and leave. As i walked a few paces away from the train i realised i had forgotten my contact lenses and quickly dashed back onto the train to get them. We made our way to Captain Hostel which the guide book recommended, we didn't manage to make a reservation a few days earlier because of problems with the website. When we got there we found out we couldn't get a room without a reservation. We also knew that all reservations were cancelled after 6. it was 5:30. and there were about 20 unclaimed reservations. There were 6 of us in the lobby waiting for a room. We sat anxiously waiting to see if anyone would show up. Nobody did and we got the room. yay! The room was a 10 person dormitory and we were sharing with 3 others. We put our stuff in the room in the lockers and left to explore with Jouri, who we met whilst waiting for the room. We walked towards the river and saw the skyline across the river. The Oriental Pearl radio tower makes the place look like a space station. There were so many beggers, very persistant beggers, they come up right infront of you and put their cupped hand infront of your chest almost touching and they do this following you for almost a whole block. We went to eat somewhere. We found out Jouri was a web designer from the Netherlands and had been travelling for 2 weeks prior, he had been to all the places we were going to go to. After dinner we walked along the river then back again and sat down on a wall. After several beggers came and went, someone came up to us selling postcards, $10 for 10, thats 7p each. Yan intending to say '$10?' accidentally said "$4", so the guy thinking shes haggling offers $5 and Yan realising what she had done said in a firm voice $3, and the guy broke quite quickly and said ok ok $4(3p each). Amusing and entertaining haggling I thought but I thought she could have gotten a much better deal. We sat gazing at the view across the river and discussing what to do tomorrow. Then headed back for the hotel north along the river. I couldn't sleep that night so i went to the sit in the lobby. It was quite busy for 3 in the morning, i chatted with some americans for a while the went on the internet then went to bed. at about 4:30

Travel Diary

09/07/06
After finishing packing that morning, we left at about 10, which was abit later than planned, if there was a plan :/ anyway, we got to birmingham international airport, checked in, had some food, said good bye to the parents and went to board to plane, fairly standard, same with the flight, got to frankfurt waited boarded, got on another plane for the long part of the flight, 10 and a half hours :/. flight was fairly regular nothing spectacular. We decided to take(steal)some of the small pillows from the plane...so we stuffed 3 of them in our bags for our travels around China just before we got off. We landed went to our flat in Fan Ling, then went to get our visas in Wan Chai and had lunch on the way at Maxims in Mong Kok. Afterwards we went to see a tree. The golden one which represents Hong Kong on the flag. twas boring. Then we went to Mong Kok to practice our haggling skills and buy some cheap tack. I got a bag(start price $135, bought for $70(grr Yan lost me $5), some sunglasses which are already broken ($89->$33), a hole punch which punches cows($10->$7.33). After that we went home. It was quite a long day, granted it was two days merged into one 40 hour long day. it is now 2am on the 11th. good night.

11/07/06
We woke up at 12 today. We had a very nice meal at the restaurant in the plaza next door. We went to buy our train tickets. We walked around Kowloon park, saw some birds. Ate somewhere in Tsim Sha Tsui, not great but oh well. Pang went home and me and Yan rushed to the avenue of stars to see the symphony of lights. We only just caught the end of it after getting lost with confusing signs. Then we went home. fun. Overall, a much shorter day.

Update since exams

Ok. so i haven't posted in a while, so heres whats been happening since my last update.

I finished my exams on Monday the 5th, on the thursday the 8th Helen finished her exams and we(Helen, Jonny, Fi and I) planned to watch all the videos and pictures that she took over the exam period at my place, we went shopping and bought an insane amount of food because Helen went crazy and kept thinking we didn't have enough after we had potato salad, colslaw, three burgers and buns, four sausages with bread finger, 2 large 150g bags of crisps, a packet of jelly babies and a tub of ice cream EACH.... Anyway, we got back to mine and had a barbeque on the roof while Helen sorted out all the videos and waited for Fiona. Fi arrived but Jonny had to leave at some point and we decide to watch it when Jonny got back, so we waited for a while and lounged around, then we decided to watch the sound of music, so we rented it at the movie bank and started to watch it, that movie is soooo long, and it was so late, and so warm that i couldn't keep myself awake and fell asleep half way through, i woke up the next morning and thought wha? what happened? helen and fi were asleep. I got up and so did helen, we barbequed some steaks on the roof for breakfast and helen played her guitar on the roof, it felt quite surreal and very nice. When fi got up, we watch the second half of the sound of music, but 5 mins before the end i have to leave for a doctors appointment at 11, i went and came back and watched the ending. That evening we left for the CU houseparty in Devon, twas quite an amusing jounrney since the coach broke down someone said it was a half an hour walk and so we all proceeded to walk, after a while walking someone offered us(me and fi) a lift and we discovered it was quite a bit more that a half an hour walk. Anyway, Devon was cool, i was in a small group with Jonny, I learnt some stuff, started kintting fi's scarf. The next week was quite busy, knitting and clearing out my room, my parents came to take the majority of my stuff away on monday. Tuesday Helen came round, i got wrapped in cling flim. Wednesday, more cleaning, packing for ledbury and france, also jonny, fi and helen came round to watch the videos that evening. Thursday...i can't remember... laundry? lots of knitting. Friday was Fi's birthday picnic which was fun, afterwards i managed to sprain my ankle and so was in agony that evening when we got to ledbury.

Ledbury was awesome. Awesome in many ways. Having just sprained my ankle(the doctor there said i did) i thought it was gonna be quite bad for a while and i was quite sad as i thought it would ruin my summer as i wouldn't be able to go travelling in china, wouldn't be able to skydive(because of the landings) and wouldn't be able to take part in the caligh the next day. It was excruciatingly painful on the first day, i prayed and prayed for forgiveness and for the pain to stop. At the end of the first day (still friday) i sat by the pool with my feet in the water, this helped ease the pain a little, fi came over and gave me an ibuprofen from jenny which i had been reluctant to take all day, drugs are bad, but i took it this time, it looked like a smartie to me, and tasted like one. Anyway, the next morning the pain had almost reduced to nothing and by the afternoon i could walk on it, and by evening i could dance in the caligh with no problems at all. I know when people read this they will immediately think that it wasn't that bad to start with and definately not sprained, my sister called me a hypochondriac and a wuss lol, but it was soo painful i couldn't move it at all, and even when it wasn't moving it hurt alot and i believed it was sprained and I believe God healed me that day. blah i don't care what you think. After the caligh i dragged Judith into the pool, she said she would jump in after the caligh so i made her keep her promise :) i don't think she was too happy about that haha. sunday was more chilled and relaxed i decided to leave at 5 to leave myself enough time to get to stansted. ledbury was great fun. i'm just sad i couldn't stay till the end.

i got back to bristol, did some stuff, packed for france and left at about 9, i was a bit cheeky on my journey to stansted and didn't buy a ticket, i evaded the ticket man on the train, and got to london for free, got on the tube to liverpool street for £3, i missed the last train to stansted that evening and so waited around for the next replacement bus at 2:30, somehow i managed to get on the bus without paying and so got to stanstead at about 4am costing me a grand total of £3. ^_^

After a flight and a looooong car ride, we got to Gap where we were staying it was a very slow first few days for me and i only did a few jumps, it was nice and relaxed. On the third day out there (the 21st) i did a jump with Lizzy and Horny Mark. We did a hybrid jump with Mark hanging. The jump went great. We broke off and deployed. While i was under canopy i saw someone had had an accident a serious accident and there were people rushing towards them. i suspected was Mark and when i got down that was comfirmed. he was rushed to hospital where he later died. We went to Marks funeral on the 6th july.

The rest of the holiday in france was quite relaxed for me, i had decided to spend less than 500euros on jumps and managed to stick to that. Afterwards I came back to Bristol and stayed with Helen for a few days before the funeral. After the funeral i went back to Bristol, stayed the night and went back home to mansfield, which is where i'm at now.

At home its really easy to feel very relaxed and slip into old habits again. Though i don't want to, i've only been here a day. it's now 9pm and i'm leaving for Hong Kong early tomorrow morning and i haven't packed a thing. So i'm gonna go pack now. Cyas.

-K