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Oh my Goddess, the death toll from the Sichuan quake yesterday has risen to 9000. That'll still be counting, there are 900 students buried under their school still. There's a horrific metaphor about Chinese students studying too hard in there somewhere. Somehow, for all their stupidity, I hope the pandas made it.

New conspiracy theory: the Three Gorges dam - as the largest man-made deposit of water on the planet - triggered a series of underground tremors across the tremors that magnified and killed peoplez!! Seriously though, can someone pls check if Nanjing and Chongqing are still there? If that dam goes, so do 100 million huan lives.

On brighter news, possibly too bright, here's the silly Hong Kong lights / audio show. More and more buildings have joined up, synchronising their neon signs to a 15 minute symphony, every night on the button at 8pm. It's the biggest longest neonest outdoorest continuous light show in the world:

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/lxU5UqJixek/

Happy Budda's Birthday everyone! I used to be mates with old Siddy and he would've love nothing more than for his birthdy to be commemorated with fat people stuffing themselves full of food and shopping. Oh yeah, and fake donations, and incense burning to bribe your way into heaven.

So I'm in Hong Kong now after my mates James and Vivian's wedding in Nantong. That was fun and phucked but more on that when I get the chance. Hong Kong is so mean man, I could see myself loving it here and buying way too much cool stuff all the way to bankruptcy. I resisted pretty well and only got a short-sleeved shirt. I know this will make me look Chinese but it's really hot, you try doing this.

I met my friends Jessica (L) and Cuicui aka. Crispy (R) who I used to study with at Nanjing University. It was really weird having them in my pronunciation class because they were Chinese and knew how to say everything but just couldn't say it without a munted HK accent. That must be as frustrating as an Irishman in Texas. Here we are in Mongkok:



It's a really welcome respite from Beijing (and Nanjing. Man I never realised how backwards that place was!) Sure it's hot and sticky and expensive but it's a completely different culture, peoples, language, world! The amount of foreigners here from all corners and religions of the world startles me and it takes me a while before I realise that I must be staring at foreigners like a Chinaman. It's so much more open, uncensored, liberated, civilised, laid-back - they have elephant-trunk novelty sex undies hanging on street stalls, and I saw a Free Tibet graffito near the ferry terminal. The transport here is nuts, I'd say like my experience of Japan but with the added options of ferry, double-decker bus, trams and helicopter. Yes, I arrived in my room this afternoon to the picturesque scene of a helicopter taking off in the harbour.

And don't even get me started on how awesome the buskers are, have you ever seen a 60 year old blind lady thrashing the banjo in the middle of the street?