Yangshuo, Gianxi Province 2007-06-27

What a beautiful place! This is the old China that we were looking for!! Swimming against currents in rivers, bicyclehiking, bamboo-boat rafting and Tai-Shi-ing up in the mountains. This is the therapy we needed after two weeks in crazy modern cities like Hongkong, Shanghai and Beij. Took the bus to high altitude Longjii Terraces where local minority people with pink vests and 2 m long hair guided us through the rice paddies. China style.. We like!!

Beijing - June 23d 2007

Extremely sprawled and covered by a pollution cloud 4 out of 7 days, we still had a really good time here, mostly thanks to our Spanish / Chinese friends who arranged our schedule. Thanks to Tao who wrote down all the site-names with signs, we managed to actually get to the right place some of the times! Experiencing must-sees like the Great Wall, we hiked 4 hours with ricehats of course, prayed to an 18 m tall Buddha at the Lama Temple, got lost in the Forbidden City and went to numerous spanish parties (who could have thought!)... Leaving modern Beijing for the countryside of Guilin, craving for fresh air and old style China...

Shanghai 070612

19 hours on a train was like a dream. And guess what, we woke up in Shanghai! Overwhelmed by Chinese chaos, unreadable signs, undefined food (veggies have a hard time here), and rainy weather. But still we appreciate the adventure, fine art, superior architecture and fascinating culture. Shanghai is despite all treating us well and we're looking forward to spend a couple of days here!

Hongkong 070610

It only takes 3 days to get lost in escalators, buy 10 pashmina scarves, get into a fight with a crazy hotel manager and get claustrophobic. But we love it!

Time to go.. Manila 070608

Mission completed - we're leaving the country. After 7 terrific weeks the time has come and we're now packing our backpacks for new feeds in Hong Kong and China. We're spending our last Fili-days with Martin and Ethel in Manila. Yesterday we had our final presentation of the resort which was a success (we're still invited to come back).

The Philippines has been fantastic and we recommend anyone who get the chance to go here to do it. So, we'll be back shortly to crave some more mango, san miguel light, seafood, karaoke, dives, surf, tagalog and beautiful landscapes.

Why can't every day in the rest of our lives be like this...?

Siargao, finally we found surf during our travel in Philippines. Surf's up and nature is gorgeous! Working hard to have time to finish our final plans for the weekend, and staying in the water during hightide.. Life is good. Don't be surprised if we won't come home in a while...:)

Puerto - Manila 07-05-26

Now, once again, back in Manila after beautiful Palawan. Lobster is really cheap in Puerto Princesa (compared to Sweden) so we brought 3 kg and had a terrific cocktail party last night in Martin and Ethel's apartment. Good thing for us that we stay with a fashionable Filipina that lets us use her clothes! In Puerto we also had the opportunity to work hard. So after many weeks of thinking our thoughts have now finally given fruit in forms of sketchplans and drawings. We got lots of positive response and feedback last night. So now we're very happy and celebrated with four hours at a beauty salon this Saturday. We never smelled nor looked this good before!

(By the way we have also experienced a couple of rats, stinging insects, sick dogs, extremely slow q:s, shabby hostels and no showers...)

Days of our lives....

We are now, on request changing the official language of this site...
Our happiness is fulfilled after spending 2 days with Captain Yuri and the forest ranger mr King. (Yep, we're hanging out with the elite here..:) Riding a motorbike to Bintuan was an experience. We had episodes of tropical showers and driving through rivers in the djungle, soaking wet when we finally arrived were the boat would take us out to Lusong again. But drying up quickly we could still get a lot of work done! It was so beautiful, water cristal clear.. And such service, with our own assistant provided by Coron. (Life is hard in a developing country..:) Now we have GPS:ed the area and we have a quite clear idea about the design. We're back in Seadives after one (sleepless) night on wood. We'll spend our last night here tonight, and tmrw morning we're taking the boat down to El Nido.

Don't hesitate to write comments... (please!!!!)

Seadive, Coron 070515

Har anlänt i vårt arbetsområde i Coron. Studerar vår ö och skissarbetet pågår för fulla muggar. Allt är bra förutom grannarnas 24/7 karaokemedleys..

Manila - Coron 07-05-11

Hej!

Idag tar vi båten från Manila för att cruza till vårt projekt område i norra Palawan. Vi ser mycket fram emot att få se "vår ö" Lusong, där vi ska designa resorten. Vi kommer att bo i en liten by som heter Coron och det finns tyvärr inga garantier för att där finns internet, så ni får njuta av de här bilderna så länge..

Hej gott folk!
Efter ett par härliga och lärorika veckor i Filippinerna har vi äntligen skapat en blogg! Vi utlovar mycket bilder och lite text..

Kramar Martina och Elin!!