A quick hello to those of you kind enough to take an interest in our big journey overseas. Were sorry that this blog page was not updated, you might be forgiven for assuming that in all the excitement of traveling we lost interest in blogging and forgot about all our friends and family. Perhaps there is a little truth in that but for those that would like an explaination here’s the official “state approved” reason….

This blog page was set up with the good intention to keep everyone who cared about us updated with stories and photos but after a brief honeymoon period it failed miserably when we arrived to China. It appears the “Great Firewall of China” blocks anyone from accessing or publishing WordPress Blog accounts. This is due to the overly paranoid and oppressive Chinese government who censor anyone not ‘state approved’ from publishing anything. It was a minor inconvenience for us but what a shame for the lovely people of China, who deserve the freedom of expression that we all take for granted in the West.

As a result of this firewall, by the time we had left China (2 months down the line) so much had happened that we lost the will to update this blog. Now we are back and its almost impossible to tell our stories in person without boring you to tears I’m now beginning to think that a permanent record of our experiences might be something to treasure so perhaps this blog will see some action after all.

In the meantime, for those of you that might be interested, at present we are both busy freelancing and finding our foot in this mad mad mad world. For more info on what Dave is upto check his new blog http://dvdomalley.wordpress.com Anyhow, as the failed Popstar Mr Glitter and Mancunian Rocker Mr Gallagher put it…

“Hello, hello! Its good to be back, its good to be back!!”

Cheers,
Dave & Jenny

This is a brief post because we are sooo busy and camera is soo slow uploading to this internet pc. (things work slower here in Mongolia)

Moscow- Ulaan Baator- Staying with Nomad families in Gers!

There is still quite a bit of sorting out to do before our departure date. We are suffering occassional last minute panics and mild stress bordering on trauma because were moving out of our current house share just before we go. Its a good job too since the house is literally falling apart.

I handed in my notice just after Christmas, Jenny has been stuck at home sorting out things and trying to get on with some painting when she gets chance. Everyone at my work is jealous but very supportive and excited for us, most of them have either done this sort of thing before or are planning to in the near future. I feel very lucky to be doing this. Everyone keeps saying that now is the best time and we are going to really enjoy it.

We cannot contain our excitement, we seem to be thinking about this project every minute. I think we must be boring people talking about the arrangements. Today we heard back from some of our generous hosts (found with www.globalfreeloaders.com) who have kindly offered to put us up along the way so I’m feeling a bit more confident we can pull this off with a little help from locals who know the language who are so kind enough to welcome us into their homes for a few days.

We also officially booked the tickets for our trains on the Trans-Mongolian route to Beijing! Very exciting times. There is so much to explain so I’ll leave it here for now.

(for those who are as geeky as me I will be posting some kind of map and route plab very shortly -Dave)