9am left for the Shaolin temple after the worlds biggest breakfast.

Saw a super cool kung fu show. One guy broke a piece of metal on his head. Another threw a pin through a pane of glass and popped a balloon the other side. At the end they asked three randoms to go up on stage and try and copy them. Hilarious.

Major hike up to the Dharma cave where Bodhi Dharma, a monk, stayed for nine years in meditation and created Zen Buddhism.

Up some more steps to a giant statue of the guy. Why am I so unfit.

Back down and along to Pagoda Forest. Basically monk graves. Different levels of pagoda depending on their importance.

Final stop, Shaolin temple. The main temple at the back had holes in the floor from where they used to do kung fu in there and the stamping of the feet over the years made dips in the stones 😳

Back to the guesthouse for late lunch, pack and get a two hour coach to the train station.

10pm overnight train to Beijing. Used to this shindig by now.

6:30am left the hostel for a 7 hour coach journey to Shaolin.

Arrived at the next guesthouse. Find a fat spider in my bathroom. Have to get the manager to remove it.

Chow mein for luncheon. Then walk to a nearby kung fu school for a kung fu lesson and show.

Jumping around with weapons and throwing a 16kg piece of iron around 😲

Can’t wait to have a fight with my new skills 😏

After din we had a mandarin lesson. Now I both look and sound Chinese.

Coach to the terracotta warriors. When the emperor died he was buried 69m deep under ground surrounded by an army made of clay to protect him in his afterlife. His servants and slaves were also killed and buried with him. The tomb was 56 square kilometres in total with 20 different pits of warriors to protect from all around. He started building it when he was 13 years old. 700,000 slaves and prisoners were building the tomb until he died at age 49.

2,000 years later farmers were digging for water and accidentally dug up some of the statues. 20,000 of them in total, 7,000 have been found so far.

After exploring we got the coach back and got some lunch. More lazy Susan action.

Tried to speak to Irish dick again and she told me she doesn’t like me as a person, I’m racist, I tried my best to belittle her and I don’t know her so why do I think I could try and joke with her. Ok m8, suit yourself.

Back to the market to get ole micks a Fred pez polo.

Went to the police station for Julia to report her phone as being stolen (even though she actually left it on the train).

Back to the hostel for dumpling party! Got to make our own dumplings and got free dinner. My dumpling came second place so won an OJ 😏

Packing time once again.

Woke up in a bed full of skin. The peeling has begun.

Waited for other people to wake up before I showered so as not to wake anybody. Then as soon as Abbie woke up she snaked me to the shower. Also could have had a proper towel if I’d kept my private room, now I have to use my crappy microfibre. Mistakes made.

Got some brek, played pool and table tennis and chilled until 2pm when we me the guide for today’s fun.

Irish woman is still vexed and sulked in bed all morning. Pretended to be on the phone when I went to try and talk to her. What a dick.

LeiLei walked us to a fake goods market. Overwhelmed. Not actually that many fake brands tho.

Got some noods on the way back to the hostel.

4pm off for a bike ride round the city walls. Me and Zack got a tandem, hilarious. 14km and some sick views later we make it round the wall.

On the bus to Muslim quarter. Saw the drum tower which was cool. Went to another market and got myself a FjallRaven Kanken for £6. Barg.

Din at a proper Chinese restaurant with a giant lazy Susan. Food was amaze. Got a cherry blossom and peach flavour ice cream from Maccys on the way back.

Chillin in the dorm and then Irish dick says ‘it’s midnight guys, I’m going to sleep so keep the noise down’. Well you’ve clearly never stayed in a hostel before. Get back to Ireland innit.

placeholder://

7am ‘hi, good morning’ yeah alright Wang I’m coming.

Stopped for handmade noods on the way to Chengdu. They had to run next door to find me a fork. Wang started peeling a whole bulb of garlic and offered me some!? Noods were crazy spicy.

9am arrive in Chengdu. Park somewhere that is not Mrs Panda hostel. What is going on. He ran off and disappeared for ages, pretty sure he went for a poo.

Walked down ‘Zhaixiangzi Alley’ and he made me pose with loads of stuff to take pictures.

Back in the car to Mrs Panda Hostel where I met the tour group. 8 peeps who’ve already been together a week. Outsider.

Got on the metro to go to a Monastery. Saw some more Buds. Rubbed a gate and now I will be brought fortune.

Bus to the Tibetan Quarter where there was a cool market type thing. Got some noods and a Starbucks 😏 and pineapple sticky rice. Not as good as mango. Managed to eat the whole bowl of noods with chopsticks. Pro.

Bus back to the hostel before leaving for the bullet train.

9:30pm arrive in Xi’an where our new tour guide picks us up.

Get the metro to our hostel. Apparently I paid more for a private room but would rather be in with the others so I swapped with another gal. Got free drinks out of it.

Made an enemy in half a day by impersonating her Irish accent. Oops.

Come out at 8:30am for brek, no sign of Wang. 8:40 some other dude shows up and starts cooking my brek. Need to leave and the food is not here. Guess ima be late again then 😒

Whole day is same same but different to the last two. Clean out an enclosure, free time, feed, lunch, free time, documentary, feed, panda cake making.

Saw some red pandas out of their tree today, want one as a super cool dog.

Asked if I could take a selfie when I was up close to the pand to feed him and they said no 😠

Said my goodbyes to the QTs 😢 got given a certificate and ‘souvenir’ (a polo shirt I’ll never wear)

Back to the guesthouse where Wang says he’ll ‘take me to play’.

Drove, v slowly, to the famous gate of the Qingcheng Mountain where he basically abandoned me. Said he’ll be busy for an hour so I can stroll around here and he’ll come back and pick me up. Right after he’d made me stand in the middle of the road and jump for a picture with the gate. Gr8.

Picked me up (10 mins late) and came back to pack before din.

Took me out to play again after din. Went to Dujiangyan city, v cool river thing and super cool Chinese buildings. He bought me a lil panda toy, what a cutie 🙊 although he did then charge me £72 for the four dinners I’ve had no say in.

Drove me back. Probs my last night in a double bed for a while 💔

Wang brought my brek out late, giving me 10 mins to eat the biggest bowl of noods you’ve ever seen. Obvs wasn’t happening, and obvs wasn’t leaving it so made me late for work.

Got there and all the other volunteers had already left the office. Don’t think the worker peeps were impressed they had to walk me to join them.

Got to clean out the baby’s enclosure. Unfortunately he was asleep in the tree and didn’t wake up 🙁 appaz he’s climbed down and grabbed onto people’s legs before 😩😩

Free time whilst everyone else takes pics again 😒 so much walking.

Fed a pandy, had lunch (including some bamboo, basically a panda now with that and my eyes), more walking.

Time to watch the same documentary as yesterday.

Changed the bamboo in an enclosure and had another feeding sesh.

Better attempt at making a panda shaped panda cake.

Went for another cheeky look at the lil beauty’s before heading home for the day.

Wang said he’d take me to some water conservancy in the afternoon so I sat outside for like an hour and he was nowhere to be seen. Tried to watch Mad Men instead but apparently Netflix is blocked too and even VPN doesn’t work 😒 only option I’m left with is a nap.

Woken up to tell me din was ready. Five plates this evening. One of some pink pickle things which were so not me. He told me they were a local kimchi (?) and kept tryna make me eat them. No no.

Turns out he meant he’d take me to the water thing in the evening. Then he says ‘bad night, the car is limited, we will go tomorrow night’. Back to my nap then I guess. placeholder://placeholder://placeholder://placeholder://

Brek was noodles with egg and Tom.

9am walked to the panda base for ma first day. Got changed into overalls and went to clean a pands enclosure. Different country, different animals poo to scoop.

The other volunteers were on a different programme and they got to have pictures with the pandys. I asked if I could and they said I’d have to pay £200 😭😭😭

While they had a photo shoot I had half an hour to wander round the park by myself.

After was feeding time, got to give him two pieces of carrot. Then feeding time for ourselves.

More wandering round the park, saw some red pandas too. Super cute.

Watched a documentary on pandys then smashed up some bamboo for them and fed them again.

Last task was making panda cakes. Made of rice flour, corn flour, soy flour and egg.

Went back to ma room for a bit and then went to meet the gal that showed me round town yesterday. Got the bus to her university and she showed me around the campus. Had some v nice potato things.

Bus back to get din. Missed the bus stop so had to walk a mile back, with blisters.

In bed by 9:30pm. Wild.

9am made it to Chengdu. Already don’t like the people. They seem to have no idea what a queue is and they’re v rude.

Also not the weather I’m used to these days. It’s like being back in England 🙁

Have to use a VPN to access anything, including WhatsApp and iMessage. Bloody Chinese.

Met Mr Wang who doesn’t speak a word of English. Much like everyone else here.

He drives me two and a half hours to the guesthouse near the pandys.

Uses his translation app whilst driving along to ask me if he can smoke in the car. Can’t really say no, so he offers me one as well. No Wang, you’re gross.

Then he started playing some crazy party music v loudly. M8 it’s 10am and I haven’t slept in 24 hours. Pls.

Played the same song on repeat for a good 10 minutes before the next banger.

11am he decides he wants breakfast. All I want is bed right now so he leaves me in the car while he goes to get food 😂

11:30am arrive at the guesthouse.

Had some lunch, told her at least five times I don’t eat meat. She brought out some egg and tomato thing, grated fried potato, a plate of egg fried rice… and a plate of traditional Szechuan meat 😒 take it away fren.

Got the bus into the ‘ancient town’ and had a wander round. Loads of classic Chinese looking buildings and cool stuff.

Back to being a celebrity again. One woman actually videoed herself saying hello to me 🙄

Came back at had din before finally being able to sleep for the first time in a year.

Last day in Phi Phi 💔

Had to check out at 11am so went to Agneta and Jordy’s and they weren’t awake so had to sit in the cafe below nursing an Oreo milkshake for an hour.

Finally woke up and we went for brek/lunch.

One last tan sesh. Tried to go in the pool in a hotel but soon got kicked out as we weren’t staying there. lol.

Got a pineapple shake on the way to the pier. Said my goodbyes to Jordy and Agneta 😪

Back to Phuket I go. Got on a minibus straight to the airport, arrive at 7pm. Only 9 hours to wait 😩

Only place to eat in international departures is Burger King. Not quite the Thai experience I’d hoped for as my last meal.

Came over to domestic departures to see if it’s any better. Marginally, but I did manage to get a green curry even if it was crazy spicy.

Watched some Mad Men, did some FaceTime and got my last Mango sticky rice.

Finally check in time. Turns out the Chinese don’t know how to queue.

4am the wait is over. Let’s fly.