Quan Zhou - Fujian

Arriving in Xiamen we headed to Quan Zhou by bus.
Pu Er tasting
Arts show

Cha Dao (茶道) Class in Shanghai

Another Cha Class for a local overseas school in Shanghai. Based on feedback and the pre-class discussions Wan Ling incorporated a lot more practicals in this class. The attendees were able to practice using both Gai Wan's and Zi Sha (Yi Xing) tea pots, preparing Tie Guan Yin and Pu Er teas. As ever the 2 hours class ended up be more of 2 1/2 hour class! Hopefully everyone enjoyed and learnt a little more about Chinese tea and the pleasure it can bring.

Cha dao class - Shanghai

Return to school
Aussies,
Better layout.
More cha dao practicals.

Tiger Hill and Darjeeling

Early get up - 3.50am ouch. I am sure the guy at the hotel was just trying to make me suffer! Luckily while waiting for the jeep there was a chai stand so managed to get a caffine & sugar injection. About 4.30/4.45am grabbed a shared jeep with lots of foriegners. The drive was quite quick and when we arrived there were just a few other vechicles at the view point; though that changed rapidly until the car park was rammed and cars had to begin parking down the hill. Not really the most peaceful and romatic place to watch the sunrise + it was freeeeezing. After a quick walk round it was obvious that sunrise was still sometime off so a few of us hit in the jeep to keep the chill of and to avoid the waves of people selling tea & coffee, well hot, sweet, milky water with a hint of flavouring.

Chatted with an interesting lady from the UK that worked for an NGO in India and also Sri Lanka.

Chinese Female Footballers

http://www.viplily.com/se.asp?nowmenuid=500140
Could be worse things to look at in life.

Bacardi Bat

http://www.buenavistatownship.org/mojito.htm#Aliens%20invade%20Richland%20farm%20in%20search%20of%20mint%20Bacardi%20rum%20uses%20crop%20circle%20to%20generate%20mojito%20publicity%205/19/05
Check out the Bacardi Bat crop circle!

Bangalore

Well, well. It is incredible to believe that almost 2 months are over.

Just in the process of recovering from my night-out with Suraj & Anand. As ever we took advantage of the extended happy hour(s) at TGI's. Not bad Mojito's either, certaintly better than Oli's attempts or the one we had later. It was lovely to catch up with them both. After TGI's we were off to try and get into 1000 but 3 stags (blokes) trying to get in seemed to cause a problem and there was a definite shortage of ladies about, so we headed up the road to another place, the name of which escapes me but turned out to be spot on (except the crap mojito's); the old monk was much better.

Had a walk around the area where I am staying near the railway station. Completely different to around MG road! This is much more like the India I have been seeing on my travels. It much more hectic here and many more street stalls rather than modern malls.

Managed to pick up some of the South Indian tea (chai) cups that seem to be the norm here. Ideal for cooling the tea, if you don't burn your fingers!