Wednesday, June 27, 2007

New Places and more imporantly New People

The People I met were all fantastic!


The No.42 Crew – as we liked to be called were awesome. As Dave says in his blog there were times when we fell out and didn’t get on, but this was always going to be the case when forced to socialize with exactly the same people day in day out in such an extreme new culture. There were times when we all went out of our ways to avoid seeing one another and at other times we all made the extra special effort to try and make things work as well – and they are the times I will choose to remember. Brock, Becky and Meredith are all people I will always consider to be great friends of mine.

But I must not forget the people from outside of the No.42 Clique. Hilary cooked me many a fine meal, Zach held some of the best apartment parties I have ever had the pleasure to attend, Anthony often saved me from the title of “most drunk” on a night out and introduced me to many a beautiful Chinese lady and Kavitha often put up with my drunken rambling and gave me rides on her bike! Then there was Mike and Gaz who we met in Beijing in October and then came to stay with us in December for one of the most booze filled weeks we had in China – superb fun with two superb lads.

The Chinese friends I made also had a great impact on my experience. If it hadn’t have been for Nancy I never would have been able to travel anywhere during my month off. She really helped me get to grips with the ludicrous Chinese travel systems and organised everything so well for me. But more than that she was a tremendous friend to me and one I still keep in touch with now. I met Zoë during a drunken night in the net bar and became good friends. She helped me learn some Chinese and also “forced” me to buy the ridiculous orange glasses that I still sport to this day. Of course there were so many others that helped throughout the time I was there but this post will be hideously long as it is so I’ll just say a big Thanks to everyone.

Dave and I were good friends from College before hand and when we made the decision to go to China independently of each I think it made us even closer. When I first got home it wasn’t so much China I missed, it was his company and I must say a massive thank you to him for helping me through so much whilst I was out there.

Meeting people is all part of the “travelling” experience I guess and for so many I expect it’s a case of here today, gone tomorrow. I feel lucky that so many of the people I met are, I hope, friends for life.

1 comment:

David Stokes said...

Great posts there Charlie. Doesn't it feel much better to have it all finished off!

Now its time to get it printed into a book I think!

Dave