le papillon se réveille

nimen hao!

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first, some apologies: my head detached from my shoulders at some stage last week and tumbled away, somehow defying the earth's gravitational field and assuming a geostationary orbit some 35,786km directly above the surface of the earth (at the equator). i'm doing well without it, but this entry might be a bit of a shambles.

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hong kong was something of a fairytale. has anyone heard the one about the butterfly who kissed the frog only to find that he was already a prince? or was that perhaps a queen? who knows. bottom line is: i'm returning to hong kong (with a smile on my face) at the end of the month to see what happens with this menagerie.

i spent a few hours in guangzhou where i was approached by a man who groped me aggressively in the street, claiming that china was 'open now'. he repulsed me, but he did illustrate a point: china isn't just opening its doors to new ideas, new ways and new people: it's blowing the fucking house down. let me take this opportunity to predict that china will be one of, if not the most, liberal countries in the world within the next decade or so in term of social, inter-personal acceptance. those who have been here recently will know exactly what i'm talking about: go china! the political situation i'm not qualified to comment on.

an overnight train later (a train that somehow boarded a ship and crossed a strait without my noticing it), i found myself in the bustling little city of haikou, capital of hainan island in the south china sea, where sibastian has been teaching aviation english for the last 6 months. highlights included a weekend away at a beachy resort type place to chew beetelnut and eat dogmeat, drinking lots of coconut milk straight out of the coconut, stuffing myself so full of baozi i almost died, and a watermelon crash diet that has left me spinning. the best thing about hainan, however, is bastion: rather than 42, hello_ondrej reports that being with people you love is the meaning of life. hello everyone i love.

i tomorrow sit flying machine go beijing. this is so that i can focus on my chinese for a few weeks in a place where they actually speak it. back to beejays - who would have thought? i love a life where plans change at the drop of a hat. if it were any other way i'd be reaching for my pistol.

life's just so damn big. peace.

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pics - 1 - watermelon of love, 2 - le beau grenouille se rase, 3 - get that betelnut india, 4 - bastion in paradise, 5 - sabine and i go CRAZY for dogmeat.