I'm not sure that this kind of travelling is the right way of doing things. After a while it seems rather like a kind of occupation, a 24/7 job from which I'd like a break from time to time. However when you do throw in the towel and spend the whole day slothing around rarely if ever venturing outside you contend with both the puzzeled stares of hostel owners and employees wondering why you would venture so far around the globe then squander your time, and your own conscience reprimanding you for wasting opportunities to go out and see something in a place you may not visit again. Furthermore your limited financial resources are further drained by every day of accommodation and food.

Returning to my first sentence in which I said 'doing things', I also wonder what I am doing. The first month of travelling was spurred on my my aim to get back to China and revisit old friends and places. Having done that and using up the first 30 day entry of my double entry Chinese visa I suppose I am on holiday. I'm not very good at holidays. What am I supposed to be doing? I visit temples and climb hills and follow other guidebook recommendations. I meet interesting people and rack up entertaining travel stories but I'm not capable of really relaxing because at the end of this holiday there is a great looming void of nothing. No money (which is in itself what will implement the end of this holiday), worse still no jobs and rather pitiful job prospects. I spent two years in London acquiring what I already suspect to be an entirely useless masters degree while my connections and opportunities in China withered. In those frequent moments when my brain mulls over the not too distance future I seem presented with the choice between going back to my miserable cold home country or sticking with a profession I have little love for.

As it happens it seems like a lot of long-term travellers actually are 'doing something'. One of the benefits of travelling off peak means you get to meet a more interesting crowd than the normal uni students spending their load money on cheap local beer that you stumble across in summer. In Siberia I met a young Irish photographer taking pictures of a round the world journey for his first book. We spent over a month with him before parting in Ulaan Baatar. By now I gather he's in Australia. A little further along the road in Siberia I met a young Scottish woman who was winding her way on limited resources down to New Zealand to start a new life of farming or suchlike there. In Mongolia too I met an English man who was at the end of his journey which had involved driving a truck from the UK to Mongolia for charity, having enviable adventures along the way. On the boat from China to Japan we met a Canadian who had decided to spend 4 years travelling the world before returning and taking over the family business. Back in Ukraine there was a man from the US who was on his fourth year of travel. I would have life to have known what made him sell his house and hit the road but didn't feel it was my place to ask. He was a man who was good at travelling, who knew when and where to relax and when and where to get work. If a time machine is invented I'll us it to revisit my younger self and instruct her to get a useful skillset before spending her entire 20s as an aimless drifter. A few people we met were just on a few month of holiday, and I found often they invented some kind of task for themselves, e.g. do X or Y in each country. Go somewhere and do some ritual of some sort. Maybe people aren't so well adapted for a life of purposeless leisure.

I'm in South Korea now. It's been a few days and I'm still in the port town where I arrived. Pardon me for wavering between pronouns, I am actually travelling with somebody but permit me to be egotistical and talk about myself. This is the first time I've actually had a long term travel companion and it has proved a rather sharp double-edged sword. More on that will come at another time. Anyhow, S Korea is quite different from my expectations, and so far is a good antidote to Japan, which though was extremely interesting and memorable was also exhausting and involved rather acute sensory overload. I expected Korea to be much like Japan with everything clean, modern and shine. On the contrary it has the neon of Hongkong, the bemused stares of China along with exuberant hospitality rather than excruciatingly polite and modest warmth. Yesterday we walked along a rambling path by the ocean. I'd seen pictures of timber decking paths and so had rejoiced in not having to wear the scratched hiking boots I'm becoming so sick of, the slipped and scrambled on the 90% of the path that proved to be just a trail. The last 3 days have involved a lot of hiking and it's been a real joy just to make my way along any path I chose after finding the countryside to be rather difficult to access and negotiate in Japan. It's said that all roads lead to Rome, yet in the Japanese countryside they tend to lead to fences, walls and peoples' gates.

In the afternoon we went to supposedly the biggest bathouse in Asia. It was quite intense with the crowds and crowd of naked Korean women and I missed the smaller quieter spas of Japan with one boiling pool with pomelos bobbing around releasing a pleasant fragrance. Still I think these bathhouses should be introduced to England because over there most of the nudity you see in those of the same gender is on screen or in magazines thus giving the impression that toned perfectly proportioned bodies are the norm. Indeed from my vague and distant memories of gym changing rooms only those with no body fat and years of yoga would strut about without the protection of a vast towel. However going to these bathouses clearly shows that the female form comes in all shapes and proportions with many permutations of fat distribution, sagging and large moles. Even with a full range of ages present, from child to granny I've yet to see anyone with anything resembling a standard-issue Hollywood body, and as such I don't see why I should feel a lesser female for not having one either.

Yesterday ended with some raw fish. We decided to avoid the random selection that leads to inconsistent meal experiences and follow a suggestion in my most despised yet useful travel guide. We were definitely on the right floor of the right building but the restaurant we found there had a slightly different name and no English-speaking owner, which is about what you can expect from a recommendation in that brand of book. However the staff were extremely friendly and helped us through our incomprehension of the menu. As for the food, it seems that the melt-in-the-mouth quality of Japanese sushi is not sought after here and the fish was somewhat more chewy and less delicately flavoured, though the whole experience was worthwhile. The highlight was definitely manage to prise a still-thrashing small octopus tentacle off the plate and after popping it in my mouth having it promptly affix itself with its small suckers to the roof of my mouth. My shriek of surprise with probably be long remembered by the staff.

Anyhow, I should vacate this communal computer.

Pardon me for not writing anything for about a year.  Really there was nothing to say, nothing more than can be found in any predictable British soap opera.  Now finally my sentence has been served.  Masters degree finished, contracts ended.  This is the part where I settle down and get a job with good prospects, think about my pension, a mortgage, maybe a family, and of course feel terribly terribly anguished that I'm in the winter of my 20s.  Except I don't, and I'm not.  Much to the surprise of at least a handful of people, I haven't 'had my adventure' and got it out of my system, and am do not feel ready for the 'real world' of a nice full time job in England with 2 weeks holiday a year. 

 I'm sounding more cynical than I feel.  Actually I should be itching with anticipation because as soon as various embassies have finished processing my passport I'm going.  Of course back to China, but with it's going to take at least a month to get there.  This time I haven't arranged a job at my destination because I've no idea when and where that is.

Two years in England and I'm even more strongly convinced that you need to be a millionaire to get even a hint of the good life here.  I just need some good weather and good food.  Don't think I regret coming back though.  Perhaps it wasn't the best decision, but I've made some fine friends here, seen some new things, and had my eyes opened one or two times. 

 But why the lack of excitement?  Because I'm a terrible traveller.  I'm at least 50% dread.  I was just listening to old 7"s with my sister, and we danced around like a fools, and it was one of those moments that your brain especially captures and stores in order to bring back vividly when you're in that stranger's car in the middle of the desert or mere metres from crashing lightning on a barren mountain top, or hooked up to a drip in a dirty hospital, it's a memory just to remind you that you chose to be there, you put yourself in that situation.  You had the choice of staying in your nice cosy country in your nice centrally heated house yet you chose to put yourself in this place.  How many times can you make it out of such situations unscathed?  Will one be your last?

I'm going back to Paris, then to Germany to meet my travel companion, from there it's the very scenic route back to Asia.  No planes.  No more airports and queues and x-rays and waiting rooms. 

Was it really six years ago that I timidly boarded the plane towards rural China?  It all comes back to me as I get the same barrage of vaccinations, but this time China is the familiar, easy place.  Russia on the other hand... I don't think I'd go back there if it didn't stand between me and China.

Whatever happens, I'm sure there'll be something worth writing about.  I'll keep you posted.

Karma.  My dear friend, you always catch up on me.  No bad deed goes unpunished, nothing goes unnoted.  You bide your time; what was it, two, three years ago that I surreptitiously ejected the small highly-strung one from my palatial Chinese apartment? Did my crime accrue interest? Was that why my recent ejection from the palace of the little emperors was so spectacular?

There go my hopes of documenting the decline of the palace.  Along with my hopes or living in the cheapest and most commitment-free place in London.

Life was continuing as normal, filth accumulated, drains got blocked.  This time it was the one in the kitchen.  I plungered, I poured down drain unblocking chemicals, I prodded and probed with a chopstick.  Some drainage function was restored, before a couple of days of rice and oil being thrown into the sink well and truly stuffed it up.  It was on a Saturday morning that I noticed that the washing machine had filled up with oily sink water.  One of the boys ventured down to our room and said he thought the sink problem really needed dealing with, as yet again the dripping tap had filled it to the brim.  I informed him that he should take a look at what was inside the washing machine if he thought that was bad.  Intrigued, he returned upstairs, and his scream informed me that he’d just had a wave of oily water land on his feet.

A discussion of option ensued, the best of which was that we invite the real landlord round to have a look, as the roommate only then chose to say that she’s called once, offering to rent it directly rather than through the cash only, tell me there’s a problem and I’ll call someone for you and you’ll pay for it letting agent.  The only catch was that we\d win little sympathy with the current squalid state, so the first item on the agenda was a major clear up.

At that point I had to go to work.

Returning from the epic treck back from distant north London at 8pm or so, I found that nothing had changed in the flat.  The three ominously stinking full black bin liners continued to waft odeur cat-poo around.  The room mate, the terribly busy room mate who claimed to spend every minute studying was still in the same chair, the same bed clothes, and still chatting online.  Fire rose within me, but I held it in as I had been doing for the last week or more.  I can’t stand entering arguments with irrational people, and with her the simplest comment, even one meant in kindness will single-handedly get worked into a screaming/crying fit.  The more appealing option was to lock myself in the bathroom with my phone. 

Two hours later I finally felt ready to emerge.  What happened next was the start of the chain of events that landed me homeless.

Room mate saw I was stressed, and assumed it was because the boys hadn’t cleaned anything.  In her bizarre little world, everything I do is associated to her by proxy, thus as long as I’m scrubbing and vacuuming, calling plumbers and purchasing stuff for the flat, she believes she has done it, and is under the assumption that all share her view.  She was obviously trying to make an effort when she said that she wanted to cook for us tomorrow.  Life may have been very different now had I accepted graciously, yet the fire within drove me to reply in the way I’d learned from her in her response to my offers.

I gave an offhand, distracted ‘ok’.

I got ready for bed, hoping that unconscious could save me from the filth and internal secret fury.  But I was not the only one simmering.  She interjected that if I really hated the mess and begrudged the boys so much, then I should just move out.  Interesting change of tack from the person who tearfully told me some weeks previously that if I moved out, the financial burden of a full rent would force her back to the motherland.

Honesty is the best policy.  Famous last words.  ‘To be perfectly frank’ I informed her with a controlled calmness ‘I feel rather unhappy that you didn’t do any tidying while I was out at work’.  Then, as I was airing my grievances, I continued, gesturing an the overflowing shelves and the several handbags hung on the door handle, and interfering with its function ‘also, the room has become a little uncomfortable as your possessions are occupying quite a lot of space, so I was wondering if you would mind arranging them’.

Boom.  Scream scream rant rant.  You, you, you, this and that.  Poor little me so hard done by.  So much work, so much stress.  Nasty English girl never nice, so mean, never says thanks, and she should be thanking me because I’m so good, so kind, so considerate. 

The disillusion continued with various other fictions designed to make me repent for my atrocious and unfair attack.  I’d heard it all before, it was tiring, pointless, illogical.  I just turned my attention back to my text messages and waited for her to scream herself out.  When the volume decreased I went to sleep and she continued the familiar tap-tap-tap on the keyboard which had been the soundtrack of every night for the previous two months.

Two, maybe three hours had elapsed by the time I was woken by a cackle.  I didn’t move, but the bluish light slipping under my eye-mask informed me that the computer was still going.  I assumed she was chatting, or watching a comedy.  The again, a mock-Santa ‘ho-ho-ho’.  Then another, and another, each increasing in volume and pitch.  Through gritted teeth I muttered ‘I know that’s intentional.  Thanks a lot’.  No reply, the laughs continued, beginning to tail off into sobs.  I felt uneasy.

Within a minute, a banshee’s howl broke out.  ‘MUM! LET ME COME HOME! LET ME COME HOME’, repeated at volumes unexpected to one so petite.  She had called her mum through via the computer, and was subjecting the poor woman to the worst kind of postcard a mother could want from a child thousands of miles away, a live action breakdown.  I raced out of the room, heart pounding.  One of the boys was still up and I burst in on him.  The others followed as they had been woken by the unearthly howls which still crescendoed, and presently became screams.  Scream after scream.  Plale faces exchanged worried looks.  What’ll we do, what’ll we do?

I thought the neighbours would call the police, and half hoped they would as it would release me from the dilemma of whether I should call a doctor.  It may sound exaggerated, but it’s only when you hear the howling of the possessed that you can put yourself in my position then.  On two separate occasions we nominated one of us to go down and try to intervene, but they were greeted with complete obliviousness until physical contact got a push and a command to leave.

After about an hour had elapsed the volume descended to her normal angry shout.  I felt safe to go and retrieve my duvet, and was surprised to find she hadn’t smashed the room up.  She was articulating pent up resentment to her mum about how everyone makes her feel bad but they should appreciate her more.  Sigh.  She would have done a lot better making friends and gaining respect form people (myself included) had she not always bluntly demanded respect and appreciation.  She didn’t register my presence so I got my stuff and went upstairs.  One of the boys cleared a space on the part of the floor he treated as a bed and I slept there while he took the sofa.

The next day some benevolent part of my brain remembered the difficulties I had all those years ago when I moved to France, and I decided that whatever anger I felt now, I should remember that she was probably in a potentially grave psychological condition.  I wouldn’t wish a nervous breakdown on anyone.  I decided to lend her the money to return to China for the holiday. Hearing her in the kitchen, I went in.  I started to speak, trying to enquire how she felt.  I was replied with an almost comically accusatory look.  Neck crooked, brow furrowed, bottom lip in an exaggerated pout.  I continued speaking tentatively, but no reply.  Not a peep.  I iced over, and left the room.

You may think I’m a bitch, she certainly does, yet a few calls later and I had somewhere to stay and someone to assist me move.  I have some good friends.

The next two weeks were somewhat uncomfortably spent, not in the least because the house was occupied by environmentalists who feel 10 degrees C is appropriate for central heating.  Beggars can’t be choosers though, and it brought back fuzzy memories of freezing rural China.  As of last weekend I’m out of the cold place, out of London, and out of England.  Pure bliss in central Europe.  All my problems (minus the tax return which I have to do when I go home for Xmas) have been put aside until January, when I will begin my flat search with a vengeance.  The era of the little emperors is over, a new dynasty shall begin.

I suspect it is the sheer horror of my current situation that has prevented me from writing recently.  Back at university and facing another year of working so much to pay the rent that university flashes by in an unremembered blurry struggle, I had the opportunity to take the other route into keeping the old head above water in London: endurance.  Endurance of terrible living conditions to limit outgoings.

You may well not remember the time back in China when I had a friend stay who I found so unbearable and unmanageable that I had to subtly kick her out.  Well, fate brought her to England, in as much as a sorry state as I am in, and we are in a role reversal situation in which I find myself the imposing guest.  Except this time we have a tiny room, not a huge apartment, and this time the lodger (i.e. me) is expected to contribute towards the rent  Frankly speaking, this is like a never ending sleepover from hell.  Sure, I could move out, but I'd have to double my work hours, so for now I'm just biting the bit and pulling my duvet over my head for most of the night as my insomniac friend taps away on the computer, before finally embarking on her 4 hours of sleep a night.  I'm sure there will be many gripes to come about my dear roommate, so at this point I will return to the rest of the flat.

Like my room mate, the 3 boys who we live with are also the fall-out of the single child policy.  Unlike my room mate they aren't really highly strung and fairly easy going, but on the negative side they have never looked after or cleaned up after themselves in their lives, and consequently find it impossible to maintain even the lowest standard of hygiene.  Dishes are never washed, the cat litter tray for their pet overflows behind the kitchen door and fills the room with the odour of cat poo.  The presumably once-white bathmat by the toilet make one wonder whether they even had assistance in peeing back home.

The darkest period of my few weeks here occured several weeks ago when the drainage pipe in the bath (over which the shower hangs) became blocked.  The calls and visits to the letting agent were to no avail, but what can you expect from an aggressive man who screams down the phone for overdue rent and takes only cash.  I never would have signed a lease with a agency like that, and one of the benefits of this unsettled life is that I don't have to enter any kind of contract or hand over any deposit to the almost invariably corrupt landlords who seem to control every flat that is let out to the anything-less-than-stinking rich of London.

When the blockage cause the pipe to leak and pour water into the flat below a plumber from the estate came to inform us that should we use the shower again before the matter is dealt with, we would be responsible for the repair fee, and sorry no he couldn't do anything to help as this flat is a private rental, not a council flat.

Two weeks passed.  I hummed.  I grabbed a weekly shower at a friends house, and felt barely human.  The turning point came when I woke one morning to find that my flat mates had decided to use the shower despite the fact that all the water now ran directly onto wooden floorboards, and that the kitchen had reached shocking levels of chaos.  At first I had indulged my young friends, as I was once a rather grubby BA student, and had cleaned the kitchen.  Sometimes that inspired/shamed them into picking up some of the rubbish that carpets every floor and surface.  But that day was enough.  I cast the dirty plates, pans, shrivelled vegetables and wrappers into the hallway and then cornered one of the trembling boys in his room and demanded that they either make the landlord fix it or I will help them find a plumber and they can pay for it.

You know, sometimes it feels really good to fly of the handle.

That evening I got back to find the flat unprecedentedly clean (which was still pretty grubby nonetheless) and a couple of days later a sheepish message was relayed via my room mate  that they wanted me to find a plumber.  That was another big PITA as I had to sort it all out by phone during intervals between work and classes one day as the plumber informed me that my flat mates couldn't speak English, and he didn't know whether he was supposed to do the job or just give a quote.  But all is well that ends well.  We can wash. 

 So that is just one of the 'highlights' of the flat.  We also have gas and electricity on a pre-paid meter, which means it constantly stops at undesirable moments.

But I may live in squalor, but I am no longer time-poor.  Indeed I have time to study, and have even taken an extra class for recreational purposes.  And I no longer have to ration out my vegetables to save money.  I am truly the queen of the bog of eternal stench. 

I thought I was being so clever, I thought I had the ultimate patronizing put down when a guy I met on a bus twice* in China and then exchanged the odd (completely platonic) email with out of the blue decided to profess his love for me (while seeming forgetting that he was supposed to have a fiancee). Didn't really know what to reply initially, but the messages first of reconfirmation and then apology started mounting up in the inbox, so I had the wonderful brainwave of saying to him that maybe I was mistaken what with the language barrier, but whatever point he was trying to make he should always remember that he is like my little overseas brother. Incidentally I couldn't use an exact translation, as 'little brother' is also a slang term for a certain part of the male anatomy.

Still, I quite liked the nice little condescending put down, drawing his attention to his tender years (about 23) yet in a friendly sounding package, and skillfully avoiding the whole declaration of love thing.

And now I get an email going on about how he's going to address me now I'm his big sister, and what this all means to him. That one rather backfired on me. Thank god continents divide us. He also added something about 'whatever I come across later when I'm back in China*, he'll always understand me'. Eh?

*It was very bizarrely coincidental that it happened twice like that, which is unfortunate as it means there is now 'yuanfen' (缘分, it's similar to fate) binding our paths together, like er, ape poo (猿粪 )

**presumptuousness on his part

There's something both incredibly wonderful and incredibly tragic about having nothing more to do with your day than read books, stare at walls and out of windows.  After spending an hour or so online reading about the Chinese mafia and daydreaming about the thrill and danger of infiltrating it with my pasty white charm and shaky Chinese I threw in the towel and returned to CSI.  To be honest though, I imagine the Chinese mafia wouldn't be terrifically cinematic, all bulging bellies and cigarette blackened teeth, but idle minds are inclined towards conjuring up a bit of glamour.

Well I suppose I should return to that small window of excitement that my trip to Paris opened on my life.  Oh but please note that I am by no means complaining about my current state of vegetation.  God no, after the year I've just had.  So what came next in Paris?  I could just summarise the bulk of the remaining part of my visit by saying we walked a lot.  Walking serves many functions- gets you places, saves money, provides interesting things to look at, gives you an opportunity to chat and fills time.  And there is the exercise thing of course.  The first of the epic trawls was from the south of Paris to the far north to see an old friend who, since our last meeting, had got hitched and spawned.  How do people manage these huge life changing feats while I have been aimlessly sketching about and implementing no markable changes on my life in the last 10 years?  But he hadn't changed that much really.

Getting there had taken at least a couple of hours, taking in some of the familiar and notable features of Paris, such as those island things in the middle of the river, Republique, and Jardin des Plantes to name a few that I can recall offhand.  Our next amble was in the early hours of the morning after we took leave of my friend and his new family.  This little stroll took me into uncharted territory.  Following my friend's wishes to cross into the next arrondissment to stay at her friends' squat, we embarked on what turned out to be a long trip along one of the ring roads that bound Paris.  Some arrondissments are bigger than others. I heard that these ring roads completely encircle the city, and should you have ever walked along one you'll be familiar with the strange feeling of being in some kind of retro-futuristic no-mans land in which cars roar angrily past, and the only signs of life being exhaust grey vegetation.  They make Paris into an island, what lies beyond I have no idea, but I like to imagine it is either a luxuriant paradise or an uninhabitable manga-style wasteland. 

The northern part of the ring-road is rather more monotonous yet less bleak than the southern stretch.  We had already been walking for long enough for my head to be cleared when we ended up having a seat with an old guy who seemed to hold some status among the assorted homeless and shuffling.  For his appearance, I wouldn't have even thought him homeless until he sent someone off with his trolley of possessions.  My friend shared a beer with him and we listened to his life story, with him at times courteously checking it was within my comprehension range.  Even the tramps are bilingual now.  A thoroughly trashed young lady who knew our companion plonked herself in our company for a while before staggering off, and then a young shuffler got an earful from our host for his 'bad manners' for asking for a bit of cigarette.  Presently, after taking his contact details, or providing him with some- it is all a bit surreal to remember clearly- we took our leave and continued our long trudge.  Not long after, a young man in a shiny 'runaround' type vehicle pulled over to, oddly enough, invite us to a party, even more strangely this party was alleged to be in quite a good area.  We refused, and then he tried to engage us for a different party in a week or so.  Now please bear in mind that we certainly did not look like girls wanting a party, in fact we were dressed more appropriately for a library visit.  My friend suggested a lift might be more appealing, to which he consented. 

"Stranger danger", I hear you children of the 80s cry, as did my internal neurotic, yet sizing up the little guy, it was clear to both me and my friend  that if push came to shove we could pummel him easily with our combined forces.  Our token of gratitude for the lift, which did save us a hell of as long trek, was that my friend accepted his number.  He had actually seemed rather slimey and not to be trusted with contact details.

And so we ended our evening in a rather palatial French residence, I again taking a grey coverless mattress, this time on a home constructed mezzanine bunk which afforded me good views of the moulded ceiling and blacked strands of spiderweb.  Two storeys and a basement, one bathroom, one toilet, a small garden, nice area, and neigbours who appreciate an occupied house rather than having to live next to a crack-head filled derelict, all for zero rent.  Not bad at all.  And all because an old guy died and his relatives don't want the debts that would come with the house.

And thus ended day 2 of my trip to Paris.  What with all this skulking around the fringes of Paris, oiling ourselves with cheap beer and 4 euro wine, you may be suprised where we actually ended up as the week progressed.  Never a dull moment in Paris.