You'll find me about 11,000 miles away.

Breakfast on the Bridge festival Kris My aunt, cousins and I Sydney Opera House

I sometimes view other cultures with a cynical Nationialistic pride (every other country is retarded apart from the English....). Often quite incorrectly, but i still do it. It's a habit. One such occasion was this morning, while i was watching TV. I have to admit that the TV adverts that i've seen so far in Australia haven't been as unremittingly painful as the ones in the UK. There are a few amusing ones and most of the ads are simple, to the point and make sense. This advert came on for the new Panasonic Lumix TZ10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H_MXLWbbdE The tagline of the advert; "don't get your holidays mixed up". At the end there is selection of photos - Cancun, Mexico; Munich, Germany and Tokyo, Japan. This sort of makes sense as the setting is most likely Japanese, the couple are being serenaded by a Mecixican Mariachi band, while being served food by a lady wearing a Bavarian-stlyed clothes (the German part) and a group of coassack dancers are dan

A few days ago I was in a shopping centre near to Syndey Aquarium. I walked into a clothes shop there and started to look at the sunglasses they had on sale. A female member of sales staff walked past me, smiled and said the obligatory "hi, how are you. Want to try any sunnies on?". Standard reply of "oh,...no,...no thanks, I'm just looking thanks". Nothing unusual. I looked at the sunglasses a bit longer then slowly started to wander round the shop looking at other things. About 5 minutes had elapsed since I had entered the shop and spoken to the girl. I was now looking through their extensive collection of board shorts. Admiring the price, fabric, etc. This girl walked over and started folding clothes or doing something with clothes and hangers. I didn't pay any attention. Suddenly she exclaimed in an overfriendly way "what are you up to tonight?". I almost jumped with surprise, looked up at her, looked around to see if the question was directed

It's near to the end of my 2nd week in Australia. Unlike other countries I have visited recently, I had no problems entering Syndey at all. It was a bit strange at the airport to have my bags examined by a sniffer dog, on the way out, (every passenger leaving the terminal had to fill out a card of contact information and then leave their bags on the floor while a dog walks past them). I am currently in Sydney. I've been doing lots of tourist things recently; visiting museums and shopping, reading maps in the street, walking really slowly in the street, annoying people by counting change and deciphering currency denominations at the cash register, eating a range of vastly different food each day, drinking beer at any time of the day, paying for things with a UK credit card - it not working - then saying "but my bank told me this card would work anywhere in the world" (to be fair, this has only happend once in 3 months), walking against the crowd flow in packed train st

In a restaurant in Hong Kong.

Greetings everyone! You join me in Hong Kong for a few days. I haven't written for a while, but my updates should next week be more prevalent - I will be in Australia and hopefully have a more reliable Internet connection. The one I have now is in a hotel, so they're charging quite a lot + it's nearly 2am now and pretty tired + rushing to go to sleep + so I have only paid for 1 hour (of which I have 11 minutes left) I'm pretty sad to be leaving China and leaving Rain. I have had a really great time here, in spite of all the drawbacks. China is still a pretty awesome, beautifully-crazy country. It feels so annoymous being in China with hundreds of millions of other people. I have taken a few photos. Not that many, but I have now got my camera fixed. Friends who I went to the USA with know what fate befell my camera screen. It wasn't pretty. But I now have it fixed. 1 more photo of Hong Kong harbour from Hong Kong Island near to our hotel. Night night.

A KGB building in Moscow. Communism v Capitalism. This is Dima from a city called Yekaterinburg. He was on his way to Guangzhou in China for business. He sells clothes back in Russia. Mainly designer stuff he imports from China. He makes quite a lot of money. When I boarded the train from Irkutsk to Beijing, Dima was my roommate. He joked with me that I am a stereotypical Russian, as I drink and smoke. He doesn't. He hasn't for 15 years he said. He has quite a good sense of humour and isn't too afraid to speak English incorrectly. He has a a girlfriend of 21, and was also married (I found out in Guangzhou to a Russian girl who was 37. She didn't look 37 at all), but is now separated he says. He also has a daughter who is 21 in Guangzhou. He seems to work late at night. He chats on numerous phone calls and at the same time typing figures into his calculator and writing them down. We also joked about being Zabaikalsk mafia. He taught me to s