China Part 2

rice terraces, yuanyang, southern china

chinese 'hani' baby (indigenous southern chinese)


ploughing paddy for new seasons rice

in front of military centre (sign says no photos..)

tiger leaping gorge

tiger leaping gorge track

lijiang waterways

blackdragon pool, with jade dragon mountain behind

5 arch bridge in black dragon pool

water buffalo, jangshou

farmers bike, jangshou

lijing river (i think), jangshou

elephant rock, guilin

farmers house/guesthouse dragonbone rice terraces, near guilin

me and my ecstatic new wife..

pagodas in guilin

revolutionary couple in fancy dress, fengyuang

chinese opera, fengyuang

5 star living, yichang

riverside houses, fengyuang

flattened pigs head, pheasant

chinese delicacies, a (small) whole bbq chicken

some new boat friends

'little' 3 gorges

woman bursting into some chinese folk singing, evidently impressed by nature

first bend into gorge, on chinese 20 yuan bill

hello everyone,

well im preparing for another long email, so get a cup of tea!
as usual sorry for gramatical errors and punctuation misshaps!
I think I left off in Datong, waiting for the train to Xi'an, if I didnt, well too bad..We arrived early in the morning, really sunny and considerably warmer than the north, where it seemed to be a little more like it was heading quickly into winter, and after 3 weeks of coldish weather, we were glad to be able to just wear t-shirts. We ended up just exploring the old town here, which has a really interesting muslim quarter, a maze of old street-vendors and restaurants, and had an amazing spicy noodle soup for lunch, which was of course dirt cheap, but tasted unbelievable! Because of the silk road back in the days, Xi'an was one of the first 'million cities', so there was plenty of old stuff to see, ancient pagoda's and mosques etc and although it's very developed and now a massive city of 4.5 million people, it seemed to hold on to the old -town charm never-the-less. The next day we took a local bus out to see the terracotta warriors. (one of my 'to-do' things, and leona bravely tagged along!) I guess if youre not into archealogical things, its not for you, but it was amazing. There were 3 large rooms/hangars, all part of a burial chamber for one of the first (very evil) chinese emperors, who wanted a massive army of warriors, archers, crossbowmen, horses and chariots to carry him into the afterlife, to protect him. There is also another site 2km away, where he has his actual burial place which is also a few square kms filled with more day to day life articles, household 'appliances' etc. he even buried live horses, and the people who helped design and make the pits, to keep the site a secret from vandals and robbers. pretty harsh. but the pits themsleves were pretty huge, i think the main one is about 6000 square metres, filled with ceramic soldiers, many destroyed, but still hundreds in tact. each soldier has different facial features, so that not one single warrior is alike. all are equipped with the matching headware, clothes and even the tread on the shoes are different according to rank and file. evidently the emperor had planned the grave sites since he was 7 years old, and took almost 30 years to make, and was discovered in the 70's by some farmers drilling a well. pretty lucky find id say..anyway i was blown away, and even leona whos not normally impressed by ruins etc, seemed to be suitably wide-eyed.
The same evening we took the bus back to town, as we were catching another train down to chongqing, the starting point of river cruises up the yangtze. We arrived at the station and took a cab into the city. I tell you ive never seen so many housing estate, high rises- unbelivable. The area has about 35 million people living here, so space seems to be limited, so theyve just built and built, higher and higher. somehow it was impressive, even more so because the weather was shit, drisling and grey as concrete, as far as the eye could see everything was surrounded by low lying pollution/fog/rain. Its also quite hilly there, so some roads and the high rises on them dissapeared into the fog. I think its quite often grey and cloudy here, and also quite humid.
Chongqing is also famous for its fiery 'hot-pots', a sort of incredibly spicy bowl, a mix of boiling water, oil and spices, were you dunk all sorts of veggies and meats into this inferno, pausing only to cool it all off with beer. unfortunately the place we found didnt seem to excell at hot-pots, and we had already tried one in datong which was considerably better. but the experience was great anyway, and as everything was in chinese, i got out the phrase book to choose stufff, and in the end i went back into the kitchen and pointed out what i wanted to have. maybe not such a good thing to have done, as the kitchen had of course seen better days, and i reckon in china its best only to see you food after its cooked, not before! anyway, we didnt have a problem with our stomachs afterwards, so all was well.we were to take a boat up the yantze to the 3 gorges, and also the 'mini' 3 gorges. originally we wanted only a 2 night trip because we thought the weather wouldnt allow us to see that much anyway. unfortunately the guy who organized it put us by 'accident' on the 3 night trip, which meant we spent a full day ploughing up stream in some decidedly unromantic and down right boring landscape, in the doom and gloom, passing under several massive bridges, and very large factories(until we got to some temple in the evening where we had some great food). that was pretty much the highlight of the first day. it seems the 3 gorges area and river, and the development of it is a engineers dream, and an ecologists nightmare. the amount of buliding (infrastructure, dams, factories) on this rocky, steep terrain is staggering, and it must be very challenging to build there, especially on the scale that theyre building. as we had left chongqing harbour the previous evening in the gloom, there was nothing to do but have a few beers on board, and admire the lights and humongous new theatre on the way out of the harbour, amid 100's of very excited chinese tourists rushing around like mad. i thought to myself, this could be a long trip..thank god but the 2nd day, the day we went through the first gorge, the weather had cleared up enough for us to be able to see relatively clearly. we could tell something was going to happen, as after slinging down breakfast all the other tourists clammered to the front deck of the boat and set up shop in anticipation. well, as we now couldnt see anything, we joined the hordes, and after half an hour or so, the massive bluff came into sight. that bluff was worth the trip alone, it was a massive gorge rising maybe 500 metres on one side (that maybe a wrong estimate, i cant remember), the river was maye 70 metres wide, and the other side another bluff of about the same height. as we passed through we felt rather small. it was quite funny, as on the chinese 10 yuan note, there's a drawing of this gorge. so pretty much all the chinese were holding up their 10 yuan bills beside their faces and smiling away while husbands dilligently took photos, with of course the gorge behind them. the scenery was much better through here, very mountainous, all plunging into the water, small villages or lonely houses dotted around the shoreline. Having past through there, we were then sheparded hectically off the boat (hectic seems the only word to use when amonst a chinese tour group), to smaller boats to take us up the 'mini' 3 gorges. Although not so high as the first gorge, the river here was much narrower, and we both thought more beautiful, as one mountain range was lost into another. The villages were cuter and we could get closer views of them, until we reached another point, where we were bussled once more off the middle sized boat, onto smaller boats, to go further up the river. It was really nice, with ancient rock formations, huge bamboo forests, and we also saw a few monkeys hopping around. The scenery here was amazing, the only problem being, (which made it overall a little dissapointing), was the number of other tourists. In such a place of natural beauty, you really want to be alone with your thoughts, as it was, we had from start to finish a running commentary at about 3000 decibels, describing this and that. of course in chinese, so i dont know what was so exciting to be talking the whole time, at the end of the day its just rocks!
The last day was rather forced upon us to go to the dam, and visit 'the magnificent and spendorous 3 gorges dam' (as it was described at the entrance). well, it was big. very big. a 5 story boat lock, to transport the boats up and down from one part to the other, and something like 2.5 km long. grey, concrete and rocks, with shit loads of water behind it, something like over a billion cubic tonnes of water (exageration maybe..)..if youre into engineering, quite an accomplishment, which took over 10 years to make, and still not quite finished. we were shoved from one bus to another, one security check to another, (with constant commentary), so it was quite exhausting. only until the memorial park opposite, (where old equipment and 'stuff' like cranes and other 'fascinating' features used during the dams making are on display), did we have some respite from the chaotic tour.from there we took another bus to yichang, a rather ugly town where we had a day to wander around in before catching a night train, so we checked into a cheap hotel first to relax a bit. yichang, famous only for its 5000 or more brothels, is also right in the firing line of the dam, should it burst or collapse, the whole town of over a million would be wiped out within half an hour. so it was quite nice to get out of there, quickly!
the next stop was fenghuang, a small river town in hunan province, if you look at a map right in the middle of the south of the country. It was really cute here, red hanging lanterns on old houses (old-looking, most of them were probably renovated), all stuffed along the shoreline, an old town wall with 3 towers, small wooden bridges to cross the river by foot, and cute higgledy-piggeldy backstreets, bussling with food and local treats. a little touristy as always, but by now we were used to the throngs of people, and the trinkets on offer, but the atmosphere here was much more relaxed and chilled. we stayed right on the river, a cheap local place with a balcony over-looking the river, where we sat and watched nightfall close in. Night-time here was exactly the paradox of calm and chilled. every little corner throbbed with really bad, loud techno and kareoke (chinese are massive fans), and the music blasted out from the whole river front, a little like mallorca, chinese style! but it started early and finished early so it wasnt too bad. The other interesting thing about this town was the food. well, nothing for animal lovers and vegetarians here. pretty gross, and inhumane for the many different types of fish, crabs, (all swiming live around in dirty buckets) chickens, roosters, hornet nests, snakes, turtles, geese, frogs, grubs, squashed, dried and hammered flat pigs faces (they looked very weird), a disgusting beaver-like bamboo rat, with massive front teeth, which whenever you came close it'd hiss and jump around in its tiny cage. well, it was a literal zoo of disgusting animals, all to eat and all looking miserable and neglected. we ate pizza that night.
we left fenguang and took another shorter train to sanjiang, which was just a pass-through town for us. Unfortunatley, the train arrived in the pitch black and rainy north train-station at 2 in the morning, at a station, (little did we know) about 10kms away from anything. so after having to get off the train, in the middle of the train tracks (the platform being 20 metres long, our train 200), we had to think what to do. there was nothing there, the rain was getting heavier, and our torch didnt lead us to anywhere of great hope. no street lights, no station hotels or anything. The idea was to catch a short bus through to Guilin, (another, larger and more intersting city 4 hours away), but the buses didnt start to leave until 7 in the morning, from the bus station, where-ever that was. so the only option would be wait in the tiny waiting room until day light, and see if we could get someone to take us to the bus station. Luckily, some other chinese tourists had had the same idea as us, and had also got off the train here, and wanted to head into town and get a little sleep before heading on their way. with a little sign language that we wanted to do the same, they started knocking on doors, and managed to arrange a mini bus into town, to a hotel, where we finally got some sleep. They were really nice and couldnt speak a word of english, but just took us under their wing, and led us to a comfortable, dirt cheap room (with shower! we needed it!), right next to the bus station. of course from all the excitement, it took a while to get to sleep! We arrived in Guilin, a largish town, famous for its karst limestone geological structures, mountains of rock that bascially thrust themsleves out of nothing 150 metres in the air, and look basically like large anthills.
But the whole of this province is covered in these 'stuctures', and they ghost into the distance for miles and miles, getting lost in clouds of haze and pollution. These mounds are dotted all around the city, and all have small temples and look-out points on them, so before the sun went down, we climbed up one to get a view of the landscape. it was pretty nice but the gloom hindered the distance you could see, but with the hills reaching far back into the distant gloom, it was still nice to look at. Guilin is also the base point for many other sights in the region, where we were going to go, and the next day we headed to the dragonbone rice terraces, about 2.5 hours away from the city. The fields, about 800 years old, perched on top of a mountain range, are an argricultural masterpiece, with only a road in 2002 being made through the steep hills to access the villages, so since then tourism has been booming.
The local indigenous people of the region, famous for the women and their long hair, benefit of course to some degree, but we were lured into a cheesy hair dance/singing ceremony in the village. A little like all 'cultural' performances, we couldve passed on that one, but the 'highlight' was of course when 4 male tourists were invited on stage to 'marry' a local girl. well, of course i couldnt resist! haha not really, it was highly embarassing, but was harrangued up there by a loud group of women sitting next to us, much to leona's amusement. the ritual included choosing the bride-to-be, dancing with her, singing a love song to her (which was a disaster), and various other fun and games..after that avoidable ordeal, it was up to the rice terraces. The fields had just been harvested, so the terraces were not as amazing as in the postcards (it never is), but breath-taking anyway. The air was clearer and the sun was finally out, and it involved a sticky 1.5 hour climb for the best views, looking down onto the snaking steps and levels, which seemed to stretch forever. Judging by the postcards id seen, the start of october is the best time to visit, when the terraces glow in a golden yellow colour. When we were there, it was more a 'golden' brown, with yellow and green bits..Amazing view anyway.We then left our bags in guilin, and took our backpack to the town of yangshou, about an hours bus ride from Guilin.
We stayed near the town, in the countryside, in an amazingly renovated farmhouse, run by some dutch people. they had only twenty rooms, and was situated in the middle of farmland, where rice, sugarcane, orangetrees, aubergines and where countless other produce was growing. situated right next to the yulong river, it was the perfect retreat away from the hustle and bustle of the previous towns and cities. the first afternoon we just wandered through the rice paddies and farmlands, over small bridges, where the limestone landscape jutted out everywhere, again like anthills, in the background. Here, the rice had not yet been harvested, so the views and surroundings were just amazing. Butterflies as well, all shapes and sizes, one different from the next were everywhere. It was amazingly calming and beautiful, and every once in awhile we came across farmers tending their waterbuffallos, and their crops and fields. The next day we hired bikes and just roamed the countryside, and soaked in the sun which appeared through the haze for some hours between 12 and 4, before sinking back into it. The last day we rafted idly down the river back to town on a bamboo raft, the perfect end to the few days there. The area was really romantic and stunning, and i think for both of us, combined with the place we were staying, a real highlight, we couldve spent a week there!We are now in Kunming, in transit to lijiang, which lies somewhere in the foothills of the himalayas, and just waiting around for our night bus to take us up there. The weather should be a little colder here, as its higher, but at the moment its mid 20's sunny and really nice. Weve looked at the forecast, and its more of the same where we're headed, so fingers crossed.Hopefully we can send some other photos soon, there was a little problem trying to send them from here, but we update the photos when we get out of china..until then youll have to do with my 'elequent prose' and your imagination! haha
so again, congratulations for getting this far (probably after a few days)!, leona will start working on the german translation, that comes out in 2015..
were still well, not a problem with the food and bugs and swine flu etc, so hope it stays that way..
lots of love to everyone, hope all are well
love joe and leona

China Part 1

traditional chinese pose

xian terracotta warriors

impromptu amateur chinese opera

water calligraphy, beijing

park kareoke

candied apples

past chairmen

forbidden city

jellied tomatoes

storm clouds over temple walls, mongolia

mongolian throat singing

our desert ger camp

ger fireplace

little genghis, about 3 years old, born on a horse

wedding photo in host-house

mongolian nature park

cobra-juice (in jar)

hello everyone!
well here in China I cant access our blogspot or any other photo sharing website which is a bit annoying, so ill have to wing it on email, and then somehow transfer it later..I think we were up to Irkutsk last time I wrote, so here goes..
(Now im in a Vietnam Internet place, so transferring away..)
So we made our way across by a relatively long minibus ride to Lake Baikal, where we were expecting the worst of weather, as it had been snowing relatively heavily in Irkutsk, and the small mountain range we had to pass was pretty deep under snow, at some parts, half a meter (which didnt stop our driver ploughing through at 80 km/h). We were heading to a small island in the middle of Lake Baikal, called Ohklan Island.
When we arrived it was quite windy but sunny and we had stunning views over the lake to the other side, where the sun was coming down and being filtered through the clouds quite spectactuarly. We stayed at 'Olga's', a quaint little homestay, with longdrop, and just a russian sauna (banya) to clean ourselves (which was really nice).The next day was sunny and fine, but pretty fresh and with a biteing wind, and we set off on a tour to the northern cape of the Island. The scenery there was really stunning with good visability over the lake to the other side, and while the rest of the countryside was relatively barren, the island had quite alot of trees, alot of which had yellow needles, quite autumnal. But the excursion involved driving through the forest and other wobbly, bumpy terrain, so we were driven around on an old russian 4x4, which was fun! I think Ive already talked about the Island on the blog, its annoying, I cant look at the bloody thing to see where I was up to, and not sure if youve read all this already, so moving swiftly along..
After arriving back at Irkutsk, we then took the 'Circum-Baikal Train', which is like a tourist train that runs along the Baikal coastline for about 70 kms, and where you trundle along the old train line, passing through tunnels and over bridges at a snails pace (evidently its the worlds slowest railroad, taking us something like 7 hrs to do the 70kms!). That wouldve been fine I guess had it not been grey as hell, and a little cold and miserable. But it was make all the better by a large group of boisterous Russians from Irkutsk, celebrating their 15 years anniversary with their company. Needless to say, there was alot of vodka going round, and by the end when we got off in Listvyanka, on the shore of Lake Baikal, more than one of them were worse for wear. So we stayed 2 nights in this little coastal town, where the weather had inproved considerably, and was about 15 degrees, and spectacularly sunny, and windless which was great. We basically strolled around the township, visited a Russian wooden-house museum which was really cute. On the way back we stopped off on small beach which was really warm, and I made the plunge into the water, naked of course! Well that set the heart racing, and putting your head under wasnt such a great idea- it was refreshing(ish) but more just icy, even-soI managed to go in twice! someone told me later that the water temperature was someting like 6 degrees- thank god there was no wind about as I only had a t-shirt to dry myself! After a couple of days we took a hydrofoil up the angara river (the only and massive river that flows out of the Baikal), back to Irkutsk, where we took the train on to Mongolia.
Ulaan Baator is a funny town, dusty and dry (like all of Mongolia really, it has something like 260 sunny days a year), and sort of trying to be international, but still a bit shabby around the edges. But the first thing we did was arrange a horse-trek into Terelj National Park, north-east of the capital. We shared the costs with 3 others, really nice people who we had alot of fun with, 2 really laid back Australians from Melbourne, and a really nice American girl from L.A. The whole trip would prove to be a real get your boots on, get down and dirty grubby adventure! With nowhere to wash the whole 4 days, and of course no running water and just long drops, it was nothing for city slickers! We stayed with Nomad families the whole time as well in their really cosy Ger's (teepee like tents), where they shared tangy mare's mild and butter with us. It had a kind of fermented sour flavour, and tasty still quite horsey! But the trip was to include about 6 hrs a day of riding, so after a quick practice run the first night, the next day we were off into the wilderness. The area was really beautiful, with massive rock formations, massive open fields, where goats, sheep, horses and yaks roamed about, nibbling everything they came across. Not much green grass around, more straw like barrenness (which also has it's charm..) So we were riding to a place called the Genghis Khaan Monument, and it was something like out of a Monty Python film. In the middle of nowhere, soft, rolling hills, someone (I dont think it was the Government), has built a humongous statue of Khaan that is shining bright silver, and stands about 40 metes high! Kind of a Trojan horse, but with Khaan on top of the horse.Its so mental to ride on horseback over a small hill-top, and there is this massive 'thing'- quite mind-blowing, and a real waste of money when you consider half of mongolia hasnt got proper roads or an infrastructure to talk about. One word, Strange.
Anyway it was about this time that I 'fell' off my horse, and he decided to panic and drag me around on the ground a bit. Kind of a blur, but what happened was he seemed like he was about to fall over, (he was stumbling the whole time due to overgrown toenails), and fell practically onto his front knees, a which time io thought it may be better to 'hop' off. Of course he didnt fall, and while half off, the horse decided to jump up and run, while one of my boots still in the stirrup. So I fell on the ground, and the horse freaked out and bolted, with me attatched! What wasnt so pleasant was that he was also bucking, and managed to get me once on the inner thigh, and twice on the nuts. nice..was a little painful, but as we still had to ride for 3 hours more, I had to bite the bullet. But after a while it wasnt so bad, I'd live! The next day something else happened, but thank god to not to me! Our companion Joel, went swimming, but not voluntarily! We were trying to ford a river, and one of our guides was testing the water to see how deep it was, unfortunately for Joel, his horse decided it wasnt, and plunged in- it was. He was up to the neck in freezing water in a mater of seconds, before the horse decided to swim back to shore. And on that day it was sunny, but the wind was also icy cold- luckily I had about 6 layers of clothes on, some others to, so we shared them with him and went on..Well there are more funny stories from this little adventure, but ill move on, needless to say we got back safe and sound (and really stinky) to Ulaan Baator, where we washed off a few days of horse smell. The Mongolians a much friendlier than Russians we found, with most people speaking a little English, and when not attempting to help however they can, which was not really the case in Russia, outside the Hostels.We stayed in UB a day, looking around the monastery there, and also going to a really interesting huge 'blackmarket', where one can buy almost anything under the sun, even a Ger! We arranged another tour with the Australians (since we had such fun), this time without horses, to the 'mini Gobi', the sandy desert like start of the Gobi desert. We only had 3 days for this trip, as our train was leaving for Beijing in a few days.
This trip proved a little less exhilirating, but beautiful nevertheless. The first night was spent also in a traditional Ger, where the had especially slaughtered a goat for our arrival, and were going to cook it for us, Mongolian style, with hot stones, vegies (well, a few potatoes and carrots). It was all very rudimentary, some parts of the goat were delicious, some tough as boots, and extremely fatty! We ended up eating this for the next 3 days in a variety of ways, in dumplings, with rice, with noodles, so by the end, I couldnt stomach any more, the smell the taste..Mongolia it seems is not so renowned for its cuisine, although we found a pretty good place in UB that did Mongolian Barbeque, and that was nice. The trip also included camel riding in the small dunes and a buddhist monastery visit, all in all very interesting, with no misshaps!So without further ado, it was off on the train to Beijing, which invloved a lengthy stop at the border, as the train gauge in China is different than in Mongolia. That meant our whole train carriage was lifted into the air, while new wheels were put on underneath, quite a pain for the workers, and I dont know what they do with all the freight trains that travel west from China.
Beijing was/is fantastic- massive, loud, hectic, but in an orderly and friendly way if that makes sense. Everything (almost) is super modern, pretty clean, and just people everwhere! I've now gotten used the amount of people, but still not the hawking and spitting that goes on constantly, even in the restaurants next to you. But the people are on the whole smiling and good natured and always willing to try and help. The language isnt realy a problem, im sure everything would be easier with an understanding of Mandarin, but its funny trying to communicate anyway.The first afternoon we arrived we were a little worse for wear, having a small bout of food sickness from something, so we slept that off. The next day we went to the Forbidden city and Tiannamen Square. Little did we know the first 10 days of october were part of celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Peoples Republic of China. The crowds the the Forbidden City were Ok, but when we got (eventually) into Tiannemen Square, the amount of people was unbelievable. It was packed, and very hard to get around as alot of the exits were closed, so we spent hours milling around there, admiring the communist propaganda, the lights, the 3 story high TV screens which were showing footage of the fireworks, singing and performance extravaganza that were part of the celebrations. There was also a 40 metre long screen that was showing (still) highlights of the 2008 Olympics, basically a tribute to everything Chinese and all that is great that makes China great. It was pretty awesome.
The Forbidden city is massive. Much bigger than I'd imagined, and it took us more than half a day to just wander around and admire, the statues, ornaments, carving, everything there is just spectacular, grandious and very old. The nexty day was spent simirally walking around the Summer Palace, another Emperors opulent gift for himself, which was added onto by subsequent Emperors. Not really a quiet sunday stroll in the park as I had imagined, again, I reckon half of Beijing was in their as well..But beautiful nevertheless, unfortunately rather grey and hazy, so not optimal photo weather.The next day was the Great Wall. I dont think Ive seen anything so amazing before, the amount of work toil and trouble the soldiers went to in building the wall is hard to describe. They dont call it the longest graveyard in the world for nothing, thats for sure..We took a bus for 4 hours, about 150 kms north of Beijing, to an especially beautiful section of the wall, where we had to hike for about 4 hours along some challenging, almost vertical sections of stairs, up as well as down- the old knees, hamstrings and calves really got a workout! But it was worth it as the views were stunning, and thank god, the day was clear, sunny, and even a little too warm! After sweating our way along to the pick up point, we took a cool flying-fox ride down through the valley, a scenic and exhilerating way to finish the day before heading back to Beijing. That night our Peking Duck tasted really good!
We are now in Datong, a small (well for Chinese standards, but still where more than 1 million people live).Here is alot of Buddhist sights to see, and yesterday we spent looking around the Yungnang caves, where more than 56,000 Buddhas are carved into the rockface, and in the caves themselves. The tallest was something like 25 metres tall, so pretty impressive, especially that they were all made by monks in 60 years between 460-520 AD. We also visited other temples in the city itself, and evidently the longest ceramic, glazed wall in China, 45 metres long, depicting 9 dragons, the ultimate good-luck symbol. Now were just waiting for our overnight train to take us to Xi'an, where the Terracotta Warriors await us!
Like I said at some stage I'll transfer this and photos to the blog when I get the chance, but I guess that wont be until a few weeks time when were in Vietnam. All picture sharing devices here seemed to be blocked, seems weird and a little over cautious from the Chinese.
well thats all from me congratulations on making it this far! you must be family!
haha we're are well and healthy, no major problems so far!
gotta runlots of love to everyonejoe and leona
ps not proof read, sorry about the mistakes!