So let's get onto the good bit, the cool parts of my Portugal experience.

Porto
My first Portugese stop was Porto the home of the Australian drunks beverage of choice, Port Wine. One day of my days in Porto I hopped on the train and headed to a beach called Espinho for a little bit of relaxation. Turns out the Atlantic was a bit too rough and real cold to swim in, but at least there was a bar on the beach serving the northern Portugese brew with undoubtedly the greatest name for a beer on earth, "Super Bock".

When I was wondering around one day I came across this young lady sitting on her balcony overlooking the street. She was just taking it easy in the warm afternoon sun, aspiring for that "all over" tan.

Whoa easy there, before you all email calling me a pervert, that's just a mannequin. I don't really know what she's doing there, it just looked funny that's all

One final picture of the historic port area of Porto

Lisbon
Lisbon is the pumping capital of Portugal and was a really awesome place. Lots of little streets and a cool bar sort of suburb where everybody just stands out on the streets with their drinks and has a good time. The next picture is the view down a street with a classic Lisbon tram.

Here we have the view of the bay from a hill

Here we have a badass Lisbon guard in front of some government building. Please note the sword, huge boots and tights pants

Lagos
The southern coast of Portugal is called the Algarve. I visited a town called Lagos and stayed at a hostel where the ratio of Australians was higher than any other place I had ever stayed. The entire town itself was completely overrun with english tourists. I don't think there were any Portugese people living there at all.

I went to the beach here as well but rather than swim I just jumped off this huge rock. It was only about 12-15 metres high. I only hit the bottom the second time I jumped off, but don't worry it was really deep.

That really is me about to plunge to the depths, I am such a badass.

Well that kind of wraps up some of the highlights and stuff. Here is one more item for you all. When I was in Seville I checked out this building that had all these small tiled monuments for each of the provinces in Spain. This one had a map on it, I'm pretty sure that I know some people from this town.

Oh and one more quick item. The man asleep in chair is back! This version is entitled "Portugese man asleep on park bench". This old fellas head kept falling back and nearly snapping off.

Picturesque Portugal remains copyright of the author hengel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Late Update!!
- The Netherlands are home to possibly the world's largest collection of salt based confectionary. When looking for lollies be warned: try one first because when you get that bag of goodies back home, no doubt they will be salty and disgusting. As usual the dutchies love them

- There are tonnes of people in the Netherlands that are huge and by huge I mean massive. On the right is Gijs and on the left is Ben. Ben lives in the house behind us, luckily only the door is really low

- People really do wear clogs and not just for ceremonial purposes, but for everyday life. Milking the cows, going to tractor pulls (more on this later on) and going to the shops, just knocking about, anything

For the record this old dude is the bloke who now owns the farm where Dad was born (and his Opa Hengel and his Opa Opa Hengel built it... you get the picture)

- People ride bikes everywhere. They go on special cycling holidays where they drive somewhere just to ride their bike around. They love bikes so much they even have them in their coal mines

- There are tonnes of cows. Apparently the Dutch eat about 16kg of cheese per person per year and that milk has gotta come from somewhere. They love milk so much that you can buy this stuff called "Karne Milk" which is basically a carton of sour milk, not the best tasting stuff but they love it.

Secondly, some lesser know facts about the Netherlands:

- They have their own fair share of LARGE attractions. For example near Achterveld there is the egg:

Please note that I had to ride a bike to get there

There is also the giant cigar:

Please note that is not just a turd with a cigar label in a plastic tube.

- There are lots of funny signs and street names

Literal translation, "Middle Arse Way"

Literal translation, "Ass Chatter Way"

I completely understand why the dog on the sign has a big smile, he just took a dump on someones neat, freshly cut grass.

Other Highlights:

- Driving down a street in Kerkrade where one side of the street is the Netherlands and the other is Germany. Street signs on side were Dutch and the other German

- Going to a tractor pull. Not the kind where two tractors battle it out but one where a suped up tractor pulls a massive sled in the dirt. This bad boy had 4 jet engines on it

The winners of each division we driven around on the dias in front of all the spectators.

- Visiting the Dutch "Alps" and the highest point in the Netherlands, a staggering 322.5 metres above sea level.

Holland's Highlights remains copyright of the author hengel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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After Slovenia we headed for the clear warm waters of the Adriatic along the Croatian coastline. The first stop was Split, there was not a lot here except for the old town which was formerly an ancient Roman summer palace.

From Split we took a day trip to Hvar, a smallish island off the coast and about an hours ferry ride.

Here we spent the entire day swimming and finding better swimming spots and places to jump into the water. In this next picture we spent a good hour and a half jumping off the wall on the right.

After Hvar we got back in the Parter and headed to Dubrovnik deep at the southern end of Croatia, we had to drive through 15 km of Bosnia & Herzegovnia to get there. But this town is absolutely amazing and totally full of tourists. But the beaches were spectacular and we had a great time.

We said goodbye to Dubrovnik on the overnight ferry to Italy and in particular Bari, where the ferry arrived. Upon arrival we headed straight for Naples. The Lonely Planet strongly advises against driving in Naples but we were lucky to have no problems with accidents, break-ins or having the entire car stolen. Apart from the food (the home of the pizza) I would say that Naples was a fair shit-hole.

One night in Naples was enough before we headed to the glory of Rome. Some might say Rome is a fair dump too with all the ruined buildings everywhere but the tourists keep coming. I reckon they could just bulldoze some of those ruins and put up some nice apartment blocks... kidding. Rome was amazing and I got to see some of my favourite landmarks like the Colosseum and the Vatican.

We saw this bloke in a place called Piazza Navona, he had these little hand puppets and did the same routine each day or so. He even had a little Michael Jackson there with smoke machine and lights.

This is me at the Victory Monument. They went all out on this one, pretty spectacular

Me again at the Vatican

Swiss guards are funny

So that wraps up the last few weeks, there are plenty more stories to tell but that can be done later. Over and out

Very Late Photo Update Part 2 remains copyright of the author hengel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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It has been a while and I have skipped over some places that I will go over next time I upload some pictures. This collection is from the first time we went to Austria (after the Australia versus Japan match) until now but some things have been skipped and others have not.

Innsbruck, Austria. Our first stop outside Germany during the World Cup. Amazing place nestled between the alps. We went white water rafting here which was awesome. We flipped the boat on the first bit of white water we got to. The bloke running it said that river was really high so that kind of made us feel better for flipping straight away...

Vaduz, Liechtenstein. Yes I have been to Liechtenstein

Stuttgart Fan Fest, Germany. After finally scoring a bed to sleep in whilst in Germany we went to the Fan Fest for the Australia versus Croatia match. As you can see we were kind of out-numbered.

Prague, Czech Republic. Huge town nice and old too. This is the view from the old castle here. The town square was real big and impressive but overrun with tourists and horse drawn carts.

Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic. A small town in the south of the country. Nice and quiet and very beautiful, the river looked great but we didnt go in, bummer.

A hearty meal in Cesky Krumlov

Krakow, Poland. Great place, except for Auschwitz which is just up the road. Pretty intense place but something that must be seen.

Budapest, Hungary. Nice place, apparently has the oldest subway system in the world. It certainly seemed to be pretty old and rickety. This is the view from the Citadel on the top of a hill near town over looking the Danube.

Vienna, Austria. Nice place like everywhere else. Plenty of old people around and lots of shopping to be done. Coffee is very expensive here but apparently it is a thing to be done here. Some were about 3-4 euro a cup

Bled, Slovenia. Beautiful place, there is a crystal clear lake here with amazing blue water. We went swimming beneath the Castle on top of a cliff overlooking the lake. Great place

Very Late Photo Update Part 1 remains copyright of the author hengel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Here are some highlights of our trip through the baltics and some pictures

- Arriving in Helsinki from Beijing. A pleasant experience after the hustle and bustle of China, getting some fresh air and not walking through crowds constantly was a bonus!

- Watching Finnish monster rock band "Lordi" win Eurovision while in Tallinn, Estonia. "Hard Rock Hallelujah" was sung by many a person that night. We were lucky enough to watch the coverage with some Finns, a Swede and other random travellers.

- The city of Tallinn was quite nice itself, tight streets in the old town were winding around plenty of churches and old buildings. The old town was also surrounded by walls and had a beautiful square.

- You have probably heard already but when we were in Riga we fired AK-47's in an ex-soviet bunker. One of the most heart racing experiences of the trip. The noise the gun made was incredible. We weren't supposed to take photos but Liam squeezed this one in when the bloke was putting up the targets.

- Riga was also a great city, the old town was bigger than in Tallinn and was not just full of restaurants and touristy stuff. This is the view from a church steeple

- Bobsled track at Sigulda. As you can see there is no snow or ice. In winter you can go down this track in a bobsled with the Latvian bobsled team. In May the only option was to walk down the track.

- Hill of Crosses, Lithuania. Hundreds of thousands of crosses spread over a couple of hills to commemorate Lithuanians killed or deported to Siberia over the last century. The occupation museum in Latvia was also really interesting showing the influence of the Germans and Soviets and the terrible things that happened.

Some more random photos......

On the boat to the Swedish sea fort in Helsinki, as you can see it was about 10 degrees on the windy top deck of the ferry.

Free bikes that take a coin deposit in Helsinki, kind of like a trolley that you can leave anywhere. Pity they were bright yellow...

Liam in Riga.

The former KGB prison. Scary stuff. The Soviets were not very nice.

There is a small area of Vilnius which has declared itself a seperate republic to Lithuania and has it's own constitution. Some great lines in there.

At Trakai Castle near Vilnius. Liam in the stocks.

Here is the castle from outside.

It also seemed that everywhere we went in the Baltics was raining, but that didn't put a damper on seeing the sights

There we go, the Baltics are done. I will be back in a few days to fill you in on Paris, Rotterdam and Amsterdam.

The Freezing Baltics remains copyright of the author hengel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Later that afternoon we headed back to the Square to see what all the fuss was about. Truth be told, it was an awesome sight. Tiananmen Square was enormous and surrounded by 6 lanes heading south on the west of the square, 3 in both directions south of the square, 6 heading north on the east of the square and north of the square was 6 in both directions. So getting to the square sounds pretty hard, but subways under the road alloy you access, but these shut at 8pm and no one is allowed through, except for the guards patrolling.

Right in the centre is a giant building housing Mao Zedong's pickled body, his very own Mao-soleum (only open between 9.30 and 12 and 2 to 4). But the line is always huge and you can't take bags, bottled water, cameras or other "dangerous items" in the building.

At the very northern end is the Forbidden City, a monster "city" surrounded by moats and giant walls on all sides. It was used by Ming and Qing dynasty emperors to live in and no one was allowed to enter for 500 years, plenty of old buildings and halls to see and visit.

On the Thursday we headed out to the great wall to see if it really was that great. It was really great, we went to the long distance bus station in Beijing in search of the bus to the wall called Simatai. As we walked to the station a group of touts began to follow us with offers to take us to the wall. One managed to get through and Mr. Pei took us to the great wall at Simatai for 100 yuan each.

The drive took about 2.5 hours through some rough terrain, the roads were good but Mr. Pei's car was a shitbox with a maximum speed of 140km/hr although we probably only managed to get up to about 80.

The wall was great, see below for some good pictures!

This is Michael in the Forbidden City

Liam in front of the Great Hall of the People, next to Tiananmen Square

The three of us on top of the Great Wall!

Liam and Michael sitting on the wall

Me standing on top of a part of the wall

The great wall snaking away into the distance

See you later... In Helsinki

Tiananmen Square, the "Mao"soleum and the Forbidden City remains copyright of the author hengel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Pudong City Skyline

Jinmao Tower

View of Shanghai from Jinmao

Maglev Train Top Speed

Nanjing Road

More Nanjing Road

Shanghai Photos remains copyright of the author hengel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The main sightseeing areas and rampant tourist traps are the Bund, Nanjing rd and the new Pudong area. The first night we went for a walk along the Bund only to be put off by the squillions of people, the thousands selling crap and the stench of urine eminating from the public toilets. The view of Pudong from the Bund was quite spectacular though, amazing new buildings in an area that was only open for development since 1990. It now contains the 4th highest building in the world (see highlights) and the Oriental Pearl Tower. In contrast the Bund is all older european buildings built while trade was rampant in Shanghai.

From here we ventured to Nanjing Road, one of the biggest shopping malls in the world. This also was teeming with people and people selling crap, but much worse than Hong Kong. I could have DVD's, fake shoes, fake bags and rolex's up each arm. As you walk up the street the touts come and ask if you want any of these, we just walk and shake our heads, which mostly leads to them asking if you want a "sexy massage? lady spa?" Funny stuff.

Higlights:
Jinmao Tower
4th tallest building in the world, in the new Pudong area. Great view of sprawling Shanghai and the Oriental Pearl Tower

Bund Sightseeing Tunnel
Actually probably not a highlight, this 100m tunnel under the river from the Bund to Pudong contains crazy flashing lights and weird inflated statues

Maglev Train
We hopped on the Magnetic Leviation train to the Shanghai International Airport at a top speed of 430km/hr! Sweet ride and mighty quick.

Shanghai remains copyright of the author hengel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Jet Li Takeaway restaurant chain, Ningbo

Personal Hot Pot Dinner, Ningbo

Drinking tea in China, Hangzhou

Riding bikes around West Lake, Hangzhou

The 3 wheeled car that gave us a lift, Quzhou

They really don't want you to walk on the grass here, Shenzhen

Liam and I before the Temple St. Market begins, Hong Kong

In class at Quzhou. This is where we went to a "Business English" class with Lovonne (one of Liam's teacher friends). We kind of let them as a few questions at the start of the class while we talked about Australia. Then we split up and let them ask more questions. Boy was my throat was dry after that!

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Whilst in Jingdezhen we were looking for an internet cafe down a street not to dissimilar to this one. Upon finding it we were treated to plenty of stares from some of the local kids. After about 30 minutes one of them mustered up the courage to ask us to come and have dinner with them. So we went down some lane with these guys, who turned out to be from the local high school. There were about 12 of these guys crammed around a table, only one or two could speak very little english. Between their little english and Liam's mild chinese we managed to talk to them and answer their questions.

After the meal, which had plates of diced pigs heart and another of sea snails. They asked if we would play basketball with them, mainly because Liam told them I could dunk. I had to prove myself. They then lead us to their school and the basketball court. It was about 8pm at this stage and pretty dark. Someone went and got a ball and I had to dunk it for them. Thankfully it was pretty low because otherwise, my full belly and jeans would not have let my reach the ring.

Once they got their fill of my dunks we played a small game and then went and cleaned up, got a photo and left for our Hotel. That was one of the most interesting nights we have had yet!

The next stop was Quzhou. We divided most of our time there between eating hot pots, getting massages and driving on the wrong side of the road into on-coming traffic. In a taxi we heard about the legendary taxi 0437, the taxi driver pointed him out as the fastest in town. We were desperate to get the chance to ride with him and amazingly, one morning while in need of a taxi we saw #0437 screeching around the corner on two wheels and managed to get him to pull the handbrake and let us in. We fulfilled our dream and sat in with the master.

After Quzhou we made our way to the site of the famous West Lake in Hangzhou, or as the Chinese refer to it "heaven". I'd be surprised if heaven consisted of thousands of Chinese wearing the same baseball cap, piling out of coaches and following someone with a flag and a megaphone, but the lake is actually quite spectacular.

Given that there are Chinese restaurants scattered around the lake and that you can hire bicycles for a small fee, I would not be at all displeased if I died and had to live in Hangzhou.

We're currently in Ningbo feeling a little marooned. We had planned to be on an island called Puotoshan today but our attempts to get there yesterday did not come to fruition. We have found ourselves attempting to travel through one of China's busiest holiday periods which began yesterday, and the bus to the ferry terminal came to a shuddering one hour halt in some really sticky traffic jam on the way. After waiting the first hour out, bailing on the Puotoshan trip went from being "not the worst idea ever", to "a taxi to Ningbo please". Things could certainly be worse though. We're staying with one of Liam's students brothers and we have plenty of fake DVD's to get through, as well as mini lobsters (just red river yabbies I assume) to get through down at the local restaurant.

We have been here for about 4 days and had this little beauties every day. Here is a picture of Liam tucking into one...

Once again tomorrow we will brave the holiday traffic and attempt to head to Shanghai. A few days there and then it's on to Beijing!

Jingdezhen and Baby Lobbies remains copyright of the author hengel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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At the counter, no one could speak english so it came down to Liam's chinese skills and somehow we got our room. The rooms weren't flash but still really cheap, probably cheaper than most hostels in Shanghai or Beijing will be. We got our own TV and bathroom and three beds, which were still as hard as a rock.

Later that afternoon we headed to Lushan, a nearby mountain that had a bit of a park and a few old temples and the like. The bus was very cheap but the price paid for the insanity of the driver. We were driving up this windy hill in a minibus, overtaking other buses on blind corners into oncoming buses. It was still amazing how crazy the drivers here were.

But we finally made it safe to the top of the mountain. Until we found it was going to be 135 yuan just to enter the park ($22 AUD)! So we paid the fee and discovered that you still had to get to any of the attractions, the only way, by taxi! So we walked for a bit then got a taxi to something that sounded good, Dragons Head Rock.

When we got there, we couldn't find the rock but we did find some other buildings and some amazing views, the mountain was surrounded in cloud but was still great and covered in a range of different trees.

When we finally got to the end of the trail after many stops at various temples and lookouts we were rewarded with an beautiful view of the valley. We could actually watch the cloud moving over the mountain.

So the day ended with us trying to find a way to get back to Jiujiang. We go to the visitors centre to find the last bus left at 6pm, it was about 6.10pm. But inside the visitors centre we somehow ran into the tourism manager who helped us out by saying that some taxis should take us back to Jiujiang for about 12 yuan each. He gave us his card to show the driver in case they tried to rip us off.

We went in search of a taxi, found a few but some didn't want to go back to Jiujiang because they were Lushan taxis. But we finally found one who would do it, for 60 yuan (not a bad deal, considering the trip took about 1 hour).

So we couldn't use our card on anyone but we did get to see Lushan.

The next stop, Jingdezhen

Jiujiang remains copyright of the author hengel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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In Shenzhen we met up with "Smiler" one of Liams friends (smiler is her english name, but she changed it to "bowie" and now it is "bobo").

She lived with her sister in Shenzhen in a sweet apartment. This, unfortunately was our introduction to car travel in China, which to put it frankly is insane. So far we have been in countless froms of transportation: Ferry, Funicular, Train, Bus, Mini Bus, Three Wheeled Green Mini, Taxi

Here are a few interesting things i have found out about the roads in china:

1. Lines seem to be merely for show
2. It is ok to pass a bus whilst driving into oncoming traffic
3. It is ok to pass another car, who is passing a bus into oncoming traffic (i.e. the car passing is in the first lane going the wrong way and we were in the second lane going the wrong way)
4. Police are merely for show and are often oncoming when passing a bus
5. on busy mountain roads (Mt. Lushan, below) it is ok pass a bus on a single lane round on a blind corner as fast as you can
6. Speed Signs seem to indicate the speed which is half the speed you can travel at

The same night we arrived in Shenzhen we left on the overnight train bound for Nanchang. We were in a sleeper carriage, three high. The lights went out at 10.20 so we had to stop playing cards and hit they hay.

We woke the next morning and helped out by a fellow traveller who spoke english, decided to not get off at Nanchang but to continue to Jiujiang. This involved moving to another sleeper carriage, mainly to move the bags and sit in another carriage. We could have moved to cattle class but the people there were really cramped and our gargantuan baggage would not suit the environment.

We finally arrived at 10 am in Jiujiang... more to come later

Oh a final note, the traditional dress of most chinese men is a casual slip on dress shoe and semi-pleated slacks. This uniform is worn but almost 80% of all men, the other 20% seem to prefer a laced dress shoe. This uniform is worn on every single occasion, even construction workers on the street.

Shenzhen to Central China remains copyright of the author hengel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The first real day took us in search of a geniune Hong Kong dim sum/yum cha into the heart of Hong Kong central. We didn't find a reasonalby priced place (aka dirt cheap) so we went to Kowloon in search of "Sneaker Street" and the Temple Street market for some bargains/trash.

We got off the ferry at Tsim Sha Tsui, greeted to the chorus of "You want Rolex?", "You want suit?". Within the first 30 minutes in Kowloon we got 8 dudes asking if we wanted Rolex's and 5 guys asking if we wanted a suit. To be honest after about 5 guys, I really wanted a Rolex, bad. But that is what we wanted to find at the Temple Street market, cheap shit.

After finding "Ned Kelly's Last Stand, Restaurant and Jazz Bar" our stomachs were truly rumbling. We finally found what we were in search of YUM CHA! This place was great, the manager a legend, the food cheap and the beer cold. This feast set us up well for a hard night making rounds of the Temple Street market.

It took a while for the market to get going, but once it did the stalls were great. Some sections contained "Erotica", the nastiest, rudest toys you have ever seen. Other sections were watches (CK and Swiss) and crap shirts, leather goods and bracelets.

We loved this market so much we came back the next day (today, we are in a net cafe above the market as I type this). But only after we found the elusive "Sneaker Street". Our trusty hostel manager showed us where this street was, in lonely planet "Fa Yeun St." but in his local Hong Kong map "Sporting Goods St.". This street contained non-stop shoe shops. Every single shop, except for a few were shoe shops. And not different shops selling different shoes. There were about 5 of the same shop and every shop was selling the same shit, all about 50% of the AUD price. But alas, my cursed feet, I asked a local shopkeep if he had a size 12 in stock (probably the smallest I could squeeze into), the guy nearly laughed in my face and said no. I asked if I could get them anywhere, to which he replied "In Hong Kong, No", shattering. Morto managed to find some shoes after about 2 laps of the street.

On our way home we stopped by the Temple street market, again. Where morton needed to by another discount shirt after the first one he bought turned out to be too small, but at $10 AUD ($60 HKD) they were a steal (but also a rip off considering we got Swiss watches, fitted, for $20 HKD, about $3.50 AUD).

I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little homesick. The first night especially, getting to Hong Kong and realising that I was in a strange country and I wasn't totally sure what was going on. I miss everybody already. Hope to hear from you

Hong Kong remains copyright of the author hengel, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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