六月十八日 - 羅馬

英航的座位不窄,但距前排的空間卻十分有限，坐得挺不舒服。我把腿伸直睡覺，前排的座位是bulkhead seat，那乘客把看完的報紙往椅下塞，我便把它們踢開。不久他站起來(原來是個矮胖子)，對我說：You have really long legs. 我沒有急智，不懂反應，只好瞪着他。他又再說了一遍，我仍然無語，他便只好走開。後來我想我應該對他說：對啊，你腿那麼短，是不是想跟我換位啊。不過像我這種貪生怕死之徒，看來是說不出這種話的了。

好不容易拿到行李、出到市區、買到全程所須火車票、找到酒店，因為天氣相當和暖，嘩已經汗流浹背。

在酒店洗了澡，出發到Borghese Gallery。實在是太久沒有自己一個人旅遊，竟然看錯地圖，去錯地方。Lonely Planet 也沒有詳細說明該怎麼去。(我以前是懂得怎麼去的，記不起是不是Let's Go裏有提過，其實在Spanish Steps可乘電梯到達那附近。) 最後終於去到了，可也一如所料的已經額滿，沒能進去。其實我以前已經去過兩次，只是不能再看看Bernini的大偉像，有點可惜。我很喜歡那個像的堅毅表情，覺得它比米開蘭基羅的還好。

參觀不成，無所事事逛到Hardrock Cafe，吃了點東西，喝了滿滿250cc的紅酒，酒醉飯飽地回酒店休息。

四月三十日 - 京都

這事其實有點不雅。

我從京都乘火車到天橋立，車程兩小時。途中實在不適，跑到洗手間要吐。(我一受風寒就會嘔吐。)正如日本絕大部分公用洗手間一樣，車上的這個也十分乾淨。我一關上門，便就着洗手盆吐起來，心想吐完以後一沖水不就都乾淨了嗎。可是水是沖了，卻沖不去穢物，水反而越積越多。唉，我以前都不曉得，原來在真實世界是不能像電影電視那般吐在洗手盆裏的，因為固體廢物會堵住去水口。(這我晚上在酒店又試了一次，情況一樣。)弄髒了地方，我又不能就這樣一走了之，只好……至於如何處理，大家儘可以想像想像。總之我離開時，那洗手間和我進去時一樣乾淨……

Silk Road

Dear friend,

The snowfall you mentioned - as far as I've learnt from our guides, it has turned into a flood and damaged the road between Urumqi and Turfan. Some of the HK tour groups with an itinerary between these two places have been affected, but not us.

It has been another very tiring day on the coach today. We left our hotel very early in the morning and then took a boat ride at Lake Bositang. At about 10 AM we began our ride from Kurle to Turfan. We did not reach Turfan until 9:40 PM. Besides a few toilet stops, we had to stop for two hours for lunch at a road side shabby (smelly, dirty too) eatery and the kitchen was slow. The road was not good. Then we had to stop for about 30 min because there was blasting nearby. Then one of the tires had to be repaired. Everyone lost patience and started complaining. We remember nothing but waking up early, very long coach journeys, eating and then going to horrible toilets. And with all these horrible experiences the guides were still unable to deliver us to our sights. We missed the sights after taking long journeys to get there. We have just missed a Uygur entertainment show tonight after what.. 11 hours on the road to get to Turfan. ALAS. And our Uygur guide was not responsive to our sentiments (never said sorry etc). I guess he thinks that it is not his fault that the roads are poor, and that the coach requires repairs again and again. ALASSSSS.

Tomorrow we are going to see the "Flame Hill" etc. and then we are going to travel to Hami. I only hope that we can finish the planned itinerary. This has become a kind of a hope it seems.

Will write later if I have the chance.

Xinjiang

Hello everyone. I am now in a city called Kurle in Xinjiang. This is a Mongolian self-governing county. Since it produces oil, the city is and looks very prosperous.

I have been to Xi'an, Urumqi, Kashi, Aksu, Kuqa so far. None of these places was particularly memorable. If the city was very well developed, it did not have a "silk-road" feel. If it was not well developed, then we worried about the hotel, the toilet all the time, and yet there was still not much "silk-road" feel. What is most impressive is the time we have to spend on the coach, 8 hours a day, 6 hours a day and 5.5 hours for today, because Xinjiang is such a vast place and the cities are really far apart. Our guide has brought a whole set of "Kangxi Diguo" (50 hours) for the coach journeys. But since there were some problems with the electricity of the coach, we endured two very quiet yet very long coach journeys.

The people in the tour group are very nice and we get along well. I eat three full meals every day and am growing fat. Xinjiang is getting colder (is already quite cold), but, alas, half of the clothes that I have brought is short-sleeve tees. So I have a problem here. I hope it will get warmer after we get to Turfan.

Will write to you if I have the chance. Will be back on 7.10.03

Paris

My hotel provides free internet access, but with only one PC and all the wrong coding, it is very difficult to use it.

Just bought myself a very expensive LV handbag [640 euro, plain crazy]. Not really one that I had originally planned for but was recommended by the shop staff [friendly japanese]. Couldn't decide so took some time and when I returned to the shop the one and only one there was just sold!! Had to go all the way to Au Bon Marche to buy the only one left in Paris. The LV branch on Av Champs-Elysees seemed quite empty. I can think of a number of reasons. But I didn't buy or intend to buy there cos I have always hated the attitude of the staff there.

The Chagall exhibition was very expensive [9 euro] and I didn't really like it. I had thought that I would like it because his paintings look very nice, dreamy and colourful from a distance and I liked the church windows he designed. But on closer look the paintings are filled with flying people, flying goats and flying bulls. Felt dizzy and a headache. Julia Roberts says in Notting Hill, Love is not love without a violin playing goat. I probably liked Chagall because of this.

Hope my flight back home [tomorrow night] will be all right. It is not Air France staff who are having a strike, but the public sector workers, i.e. Air Traffic Controllers. Checked with AF personally today [met with very cold staff], and have been told that the flight would be all right. But I think something might be outside the airline's control. The metro in Paris is running quite allright though.

Paris

Hello. I am killing my time in a cybercafe in Paris. This is the cheapest one [called easyinternetcafe, always the cheapest]. The arrangement of the keys of the keyboard is very weird, making it very difficult to type.

I dont really have any plan today. Probably will go to see a temp exhibition on Chagall in the Grand Palace. Spent half day in Louvre yesterday [again!]. My legs almost came off after I had strolled through the museum from 1600 to 2000 [4 hours!]. I used to focus on the most famous works but recently I chose to stroll through the place and always met something less famous but just as stunning. There is a Da Vinci exposition going on there. I never fancy much about him but saw it anyways [extra charge! should have spent it on the Armani exhibition in Berlin!]. Not impressed as always. As expected, many of the works [cartoons, sketches] came from the QEIIs collection. I really don't understand why people think he was so special. Most of his works are left unfinished. I like Michelangelo way way better.

Paris is VERY expensive. Berlins prices are very reasonable when compared to Paris. And Paris is dirty. And the people as unwelcoming as ever. I don't know if I would buy anything now that Euro is so expensive.

But the museums in Paris are usually works of art in themselves. Berlin is no comprison in this. Pergamon was such a lousy place that I had to leave in 2 hours. But Berlin itself was quite lovely.

Please tell me something about the SARS situation in HK.

1st message

Dear friend,

I am sending my first message during this trip. Hard to believe.

The packaged tour was all right. I had little to complain. My own trip in Berlin so far has not been bad either. The only down side has been the weather. It is too hot. Most of the time it is about or above 30 degrees and it is really hard if outdoor. I spent most of my day time in museums (10 museums in 3 days, done almost all the home work you gave me) to hide from the sun, so it has been allright until today. I took a very expensive train ride to Leipzig, walked and then I could not bear the sun. Plus I was not able to call Air France (flying tomorrow, must call to confirm in case of strike). Feeling physically and emotionally unwell, I returned in about three hours, again taking the very expensive ICE train.

This is the worst day of my trip. But then I will be in Paris tomorrow, so who cares.

Eating very little when on my own. Feeling very unwell the first day when I was on my own, only to discover later than I was in fact very hungry, to the point of stomach ache. My best record was to spend less than 8 euros a day. Will tell you how and why later.

Bye now.

Gyeongju / Busan

Dear friend,

Don't bother to reply this message if you have no time.

It is quite difficult to get on line here (Busan Gimhae Airport) despite the free service. There is a coding problem so I can't really read anything containing any Chinese. And I can't log on to the office webmail either.

Gyeongju (Hing Chow in Cantonese) was quite good, but not as good as I had expected. Gyeongju is one hour from Busan so I use the Busan airport. Gyeongju is in fact one big cemetary with earth-moulded graves everywhere. People live around those graves, and walk upon them. The moon was very bright and the sky very clear the last two nights. It was kind of odd to appreciate the moon in the open with all those graves around. And there were few people on the streets after 7pm, and the streets were not as brightly lit as in HK.

Yesterday I got chat up with a man in Busan who offered to take me to a remote park close to his home on his scoopter. Such things do happen when they see you are alone. He did warn me that the place that I'm going to now had been damaged by the typhoon a couple of weeks ago (the guy on the lonely planet site also said this) and the recovery was still underway. I will not change my itinerary as everything has been booked. But I will see just what there are to see.

I've made a smart choice to skip Busan. The place seems to be very busy preparing for the Asian Games but is not very interesting to me.

Bye now.

Jeju

Dear friends,

Hello, I am now using the free internet service at Jeju airport. Seems that every airport in Korea offers such service, which is great. CLK should follow suit.

I joined a full-day tour yesterday to tour around the east side of Jeju island. It was quite a great outing, with fine weather and nice companions. Most of the other people in the group were American-Koreans. Since there was a US-born kid (28-year), they tend to translate everything for him, so I also benefitted.

We visited the place where old sea-women still dive to pick up shellfish, and these people, out of sympathy for their poor business, ordered to eat the very fresh seafruits raw, and invited me to join them. I didn't eat any but was quite happy.

Korea food was great. Each time I got into a restaurant randomly, and ordered quite randomly (what else could I do), I was served great food. And they are cheap.

Got to catch my flight to Busan now. I wonder if you all would get my message.

Seoul

Dear friend,

A quick hello from Seoul. I'm now at Gimpo Airport waiting for my flight to Jeju, which will depart very soon.

The trip so far has been uneventful. The biggest problem remains the language. And because I didn't know how to order my food, I was starved to half-dead on my first day here (the other reason was that there were simply no places to eat around the place I visited). Everything is very cheap here. Plus there is nothing to buy anyways.

Bye now.