Happy End

Dear friends and readers of our blog,

Now we have settled into life in Bristol, and have no more adventures to report, we have decided to end this blog and get back into "regular" touch via email, telephone, visits...

Thanks for "following us" throughout China and on our way back from there. We appreciate your time and interest.

This last post is called "Happy End" since we feel fortunate of having found a tenant for our loft already and also hope to sell the motorbikes soon. Finally, everything has worked out well for us in Bristol, and we are looking forward to bringing a little one into this little safe world here. Hopefully the birth won't be too adventurous... we hope for some boredom in that and in the months to come!

Let's stay in touch,
and a very Happy New Year to all of you!

Best wishes,
Johanna and Lee

op zoek naar een nieuwe huurder voor onze loft/ looking for a new tenant of our loft AND sale of Ducati motorbikes

Dear friends,

while we started thinking that we had a subscription to "easy life", there have been some unpleasant news: The tenant of our loft is going to move out and the loft will be available for rent from February 1, 2008.

If any of you know a lovely person who might be interested, please let us know. This time, we would like to make sure that the people moving in at least intend to stay for more than six months.

Also, Lee has decided to sell his two Ducati motorbikes (red Ducati 916 and black Ducati Monster), which are not the youngest any more, yet in superb condition. Again, if you can think of a possible buyer who would love the bikes as much as Lee did, please let us know.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Greetings,
Lee and Johanna

Home sweet home

We have found a lovely little house to call home as from November 15th onwards! It has a lovely garden, is in great condition and most of all, is equipped with a large spare bedroom to accomodate YOU when you come to visit. Can't wait to show you around!

Lee's first day at work

is today. He's found a suitable position in the centre of Bristol, which is great news. As a reward he bought himself an iPod, which seems to make him much happier than his wife ever could.

Soon, we'll be looking for a little house, ideally with some greenery and a garage ( in other words: what nobody except us wants:)).

After having spent 24 hours together almost everyday for the last 4 months, it feels very strange being apart for a whole day. Saying that, that leaves more ice-cream for me after each meal (guess who is writing the post).

We would like to thank our friends in Belgium again, in particular Kristof (not only because I know you are going to read this first:)), who made us feel so welcome at his house for the last 10 days. Congratulations on your first two sales again ( we believe it is partly thanks to our positive karma:)).

As mentioned earlier, we'll be in touch via email as soon as we found a new little "nest" to call home.

In Belgium

It is excellent to see good friends again. We are grateful for all of you who made us feel so welcome, spoiled us with your company and lovely food/drinks/coffee and cake/ gossip/ computer games/ update on Belgian politics (how could you let it get so messy? We can't let you alone for even one year!).

Sorry to the people we couldn't meet this time, but we will be back in February/ March and catch up then.

We will send out an email with our new address and phone number soon.

For now, we'll go out and enjoy yet another sunny Sunday in Ghent.

So long,
Us

Last of our travelling photos are up

Dear friends,

we finally managed to upload the rest of our travel photos.

Surf to http://www.flickr.com/photos/leeandjohanna/collections.
T15 - Dunhuang is especially recommended. Thanks for your comments and hope you enjoy them!

See some of you soon when in Belgium.

Can't wait!

FFNC - Fabulous First Names Competition

Dear friends,

if you know of some nice first names which could go in front of Browman, please share them with us. Both boys and girls names are welcome.

Thanks for inspiring us!

In Bristol - England

We've finally arrived somewhere for more than 5 days in a row - that is in Bristol, Lee's hometown. Here, we're very fortunate in that we have a lovely apartment overlooking the waterfront in the city centre - and all that for free, since the flat belongs to Lee's parents.

We have had a very warm welcome by Lee's family and we frequently get spoilt by them - including lovely home cooked meals, goodies and attention.

So, this is the end of a life of leisure for us, and we are working on setting up a life here in England: Lee is looking for work, while Johanna is getting rounder:).

Although we're not travelling anymore, these are still exciting times, and we're curious to find out what life has got in stock for us next. Of course, we'll keep you posted.

New Photos on flickr

Please surf to
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leeandjohanna/collections/
for our latest photos.

Number 3 News

We would finally like to share some very good news - Johanna's belly is home to a little one - for the last five months!

Despite us knowing for some time, we wanted to surprise our families in person. We also wanted to prevent them from worrying about three of us travelling through the outback of China.

It was nice seeing the reactions on their faces (so far, mostly positive). We had a lot of jokes that if it comes out with narrow eyes and yellow skin, Lee should consider a DNA test. Made in China.

We believe that pregnancy is contagious, since many dear to us have or will become parents this year. Congratulations to Nadine and Michael, Irene and Johan and good luck to Gemma and Jason.

Germany - should be England...

5 minutes before leaving for the Airport in Turkey, we carefully read our "E-Ticket". We learned that they could not accept online purchase despite giving us a confirmation code. So we arrived at the airport with the exciting task of picking a new destination from the Departures list. Eindhoven won, and that was where we ended up flying to. Ironically it was considerably cheaper than our E-Ticket.

Despite the cool and overcast day, it was sooo nice being back in familiar territory. The grass was so green, the air so fresh, and the people so very Dutch!

We rented a car and drove to Germany to see Johanna´s family, and break the big "news" to them (see next blog)

Here we are enjoying German hospitality until Monday, then a flight to London (this time for real..).

Turkey - week by the pool

After a hectic week of travelling and in order to acclimatize back to the "normal life" we decided to spend a week by a pool. We ended up in Bitez (near Bodrum), which is very popular with the Dutch speakers. This was a much nicer little resort than the nearby Gumbet, which is a British enclave. Gumbet reminded Lee of how his fellow country citizens:
a) Like to drink so much
b) Like to fit into small clothes, especially the larger women

Turkey (or at least Tourist Turkey) was much more advanced and modern than we were expecting - but this was also reflected in prices that are more expensive than Europe for some important things, such as Red Wine. (Yes, Lee is writing this Blog). We had been spoilt by a year of Chinese prices...

One does not travel to Turkey for the international cuisine, but the food was always fresh with very tasty tomatoes and olives.

We made a stop in Istanbul - hard to believe that 13 million live here since it feels very much like a small town. The great mosque was a definite high light of our stop, and the photographs cannot give sense of scale that you experience there. It is also nice to be in a house of religion without lots of pictures or statues all over the place. (Catholic Church, take note!:))

Apart from sleeping, eating, resting we made a little excursion to Efes and the Cotton Castles. Efes is fascinating in that it was an important city before Greek, during Greek and also during Roman empires. It has given Lee a renewed interest in ancient history! The Cotton Castles are a great illustration of how earth is god's chemistry set!

Time went very quickly with us being busy doing very little, but Bitez can be recommended if a lazy and quiet vacation is needed.

Kazakhstan - the home of Borat

Entering this country by train was a bit of a slow process - 32 hours on the train, 7 of which spent on borders. Yet, it was a nice way to leave China smoothly, especially since we were travelling first class, making us feel like former Communist leaders.

To be honest with you, we were a bit disappointed it was nothing like the movie. Despite that, Lee made it his mission to track down Borat's sister and was inconsolable after not finding her.

We found Almaty to be a mixture of Moscow in a mountain desert landscape and a modern globalized city. The food was excellent quality, especially since it was so familiar to us.

The ethnic mixtures of Russians, Asians (mainly from North-Korea), Steppland- people and combinations of all the three made it a stark contrast to the purity of China. Thus, we spent a lot of time people-watching.

Also, we took a two day trip out into the mountains which border Kirghistan. The landscape was absolutely breathtaking and can only be described in pictures.

Overall, we hope to come back with a little more time on our hands to explore this country further.

New Photos are up (see Ivano, we listen to you)

During the afternoons in the desert heat, we selected photos for you. Digital photographs are a blessing and a curse... one takes too many, and has to invest a lot of time selecting them. Multiply that by two digital cameras and then square that sum by two opinions of the different specimens of the human race. Quite a fascinating and nerve-racking process. The results can be viewed on our flickr page http://www.flickr.com/photos/leeandjohanna/collections/

"Author's Choice sets" are Travel 08 and 09.

Hope you enjoy them.

Silk Road - Part 3 (still alive)

First of all, thanks for your comments, which make us chuckle. We were wondering why there weren't any male camels around (Lee spent a lot of time analyzing the sex of the beasts), but now we know: they are busy Westerners' bashing abroad:). Thanks for filling us in, B!

We were tempted to trade our jeans for some nuclear plant "seeds", but they didn't quite "blossom" in our harsh suitcase environment. They almost had us tricked. Thanks for the tip about the receipt, Ivano:)!

Dunhuang is a lovely place - sand dunes and Buddhist caves - both original and definitely recommended! Unfortunately, we didn't get to para-glide, and used our good old feet instead to watch a spectacular sunset.

Silk Route - Part 2

We are still in between deserts and Oasis towns, and it is a lovely yet surreal experience.

After having seen the very start of the Great Wall in Dangdong (North Korean border), we completed our personal "Great Wall circle" by also visiting the very last bit of it, the Last Fort - and thus the end of China - in Jiayuguan. There, we also stayed in a lovely, peaceful court-yard hotel. It really felt like the end of the world: quiet, surrounded by desert, and HOT. Still in hindsight one sympathizes with the people who were kicked out of China from here. Prospects of running into a camel - like you do as a tourist nowadays - probably didn't look so good then.

From there, we moved on to Dunhuang, famous for its Buddhist heritage. Also, the sand dunes around here are very appealing, and we're planning on paragliding over a lake today. Wish us luck. If this is our last blog, it's been nice knowing you.

The Silk Road - Part 1

We are writing this blog from Zhang Ye. That's about 5 hours from WuWei, which is 12 hours from YinChuan. YinChuan is another 12 hours from HotHot.

If you recognize any of these names, then you are more knowledgeable than both of us! We are in the lesser travelled part of China - which runs through Inner Mongolia, underneath Russia and to the East of Mongolia proper. It's the old (Northern) silk route.

You really don't see many white people here, and even KFC, McDonnald's and Star Bucks have not yet ventured this far. We are living on a mixture of veggie jiaozi's (like Chinese tortellinis), instant noddles, sweet bread, pizza with apple on it and other strange things. Despite the large cultural differences, the people here are some of the most friendly and genuine people that we have met to date (along with the other "Northerners"). They seem to be more lively and out-going than in other parts of China, and maybe because of the novelty factor, we feel like we get special treatment.

Today we made a day trip to Mati Si, which used to be a Tibetan Chinese Buddhist Monastery. They were crazy monks, in that they built a whole complex of temples 50 meters up into a solid rock cliff face (OK, it is sandstone...). The way in which the landscape changed was dramatic - one minute in desert, the next in corn fields and the next in mountain alpine. Lee spent the trip back playing "Spot the Pot" - a game of simple rules. When you see a pot plant, you shout "Spot the Pot". This has inspired Lee to write a book called "Pot in China - the definitive guide".

Yesterday we were driving along large stretches of the "Great Wall of China". Lee finds it hard to believe that this part is visible from space with a naked eye - it was more like a an Africa mud and straw sheep pen. But time is not always kind on beauty.

Apart from food being a little bit difficult here - we are really enjoying ourselves. There are less people everywhere - a nice change from the normal Chinese "Mega Cities". The skies are really blue, and the heat wave seems behind us.

More photos to follow... soonish...

Beijing - A very big city

Hello everybody,

Thanks for still reading, and those trusty friends who manage to add their comments! (You will be the lucky ones who are remembered for the Christmas Card List)

Due to trains being booked up to 10 days ahead of travel, we were forced to take our first airplane of our adventures - from Harbin to Beijing.

Although we left Beijing 5 days or so ago, we have been on an "Internet blackout" ever since. Either spending days on trains, or in hotels without the promised Internet connection.

We spent 6 days in Beijing, in a Hotel in one of the "Hutongs". This means "dirty slum" when translated to English. Lee is going against the current "let's preserve these cute little memories of the old days" folk, and thinks that the sky scrappers are a lot better place to live. He continues to think that we should photograph them, and then demolish them for things like Olympic Stadiums, language schools and shopping malls.

Beijing struck us both as a place that is very grand and rich with its massive architectural projects, but also very old and conservative. Of all of the cities that we have visited to date, Beijing is the most English unfriendly - no taxi driver spoke a word of the language, and even the sign posts were mainly in Chinese characters only. It's hard to believe that language will not be a problem for the 2008 Olympics.

Since we were 6 days there, in this massive city (can easily take 2 hours to get to the outskirts), the following is a list of the places, and some throw away comments along with each:

• Tianaman Square - Very large and uninteresting. No signs of student blood or tank tracks are left.
• Olympic Stadium (Birds nest) - We were both very impressed with this - a new wonder of the world, maybe?
• Olympic Stadium (Water Cube) - Looks very dirty and old. No sense of scale. Maybe after a wash and some light it will look ok.
• Gardens to north of Forbidden Palace - Really nice. This mountain was made from the mud left after digging the moat around the palace. Not too many people, and very calm.
• Kazakhstan Embassy - In a nice part of town, but the "service" was very "east block". Saying that the local security guards were nice, and we got a better visa than we had hoped for in a shorter time (no 'Borat jokes' helped, we believe)
• Forbidden City - If big is beautiful, then it's beautiful. We kept saying "But I have seen this before...", and "To big to be cosy". Still, its sheer scale is impressive.
• Summer Palace - See Forbidden City - took 100,000 men to make the lake bigger.
• Beijing Acrobatics - If you have no problems with very young actors, then this is a real gem - for one and a half hours we were stuck to our seat with admiration and "oh that will hurt if it goes wrong" sentiments.

We were there on 2007/08/08, which our more astute readers will recognize as exactly one year before the Olympics. We went with the big question "Will they be ready?" After living here for a year, and seeing what they can build overnight when they put their minds to it, then the infrastructure will be there. The only two problematic things are the pollution (which could really stick in your throat at times) and the language issues. If these are overcome, it could well be the most extravagant Olympics that we will probably ever witness.

Obviously we did other things, but this is enough for one blog!

Harbin - Russian China

We got here yesterday, and had a wonderful time strolling around, looking at beautiful Russian architecture and going on big wheels and the like.

The place was nothing more than a couple of tents before the Russians brought themselves over in 1898. In a few years they added train depots, Eastern Orthodox churches and the like. Probably some vodka bars too. Then the Japanese took it off them in the 1930's. Then something else happened, and the Chinese got it back eventually after the War part II. Bit of a shame really, since the old buildings are so beautiful, and a bit neglected now. The museum was funny, since it mentioned the "Liberation of the City" in 1946. Perhaps "Inheritance of a brand new City" would have been a more accurate phrase.

Today we have nothing but clear blue skies, fluffy clouds and a nice breeze. We went to a big Buddhist complex called "The Temple of Bliss", which was probably the calmest and most beautiful one that we have ever visited. Believe us when we can say that we have visited some temples here...

Harbin also boasts the "Most Drunk Chinese in China award" and wherever you go you cannot avoid seeing beer adverts. Last night we (well Lee) was lucky enough to see belly dancers on the street. They were promoting beer. Lee found his first dark beer in China. He describes it as: "The first mouthful tastes like the home-brew that I made when I was 15, but after a while it could pass for a bad Guinness with sugar added". But, so far, no "larger louts" have been seen on the streets.

So in conclusion - it is at the end of the Chinese world (above and not so far west of Vladivostok) but when the weather is good, a great place for a couple of days. The photos (that will be on Flickr) should show that Chinese - Russian fusion makes it a unique city.

Off the Lonely Planet Radar - Ever White Mountain and Heaven Lake

For the first time we trusted our Chinese enough to leave the (relatively) safe "Lonely Planet" territory. We ended up in Baishan, which is really close to China's biggest Nature Reserve "Chang Bai Shan-Ever White Mountain" including the "Heaven Lake" on top of a volcanic crater (2200 m high). Most of all, we're grateful for people's helpfulness, and many locals went out of their way to help us finding a place to stay, vegetarian food and a way to actually get to the Mountain Reserve.

The Mountain and the lake itself were magnificent. Although it was cold and misty, it surely is a very special place. The fact that it is bordering North Korea makes it even more mysterious.

Unfortunately, we aren't well equipped enough to go for longer hikes there. Also, one gets used to a life of luxury quite quickly, so we were glad to return to our room after a long day in the Nature Reserve.

Today we're in Tonghua, which seems to be a local coal town with all its characteristic "charms". Yet again, people prove to be kind and honest, which we really appreciate after sometimes being terrorized by touts in more touristy places.

From here, we'll be taking the night train to Harbin/ Haerbin, even further North with a strong Russian influence. We'll hopefully be seeing some nice Russian architecture and get hold of cheap vodka:).

Photos are on flickr

Thanks to Lee's great technical abilities (he's dictating this part to me), "we" managed to get around the Chinese blockade of Flickr.

If you get time and you would like to see what we've been up to click on this link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leeandjohanna/collections

Also, some (exclusively positive) feedback will keep us happy!

Dandong, North Korea and the Great Wall

We are in the very East of China, in Dandong. This is a border city, which has half a bridge to North Korea, which was "accidentally" bombed by America in the 1950s. Right next to that bridge, however, there is an intact railway bridge, where mysterious trains can be seen commuting between the very communist and rather capitalist communist country.

Today, we had a brilliant walk on the Eastern-most part of the Great Wall (Tiger Mountain), with only a tiny little stream dividing China and North Korea. Midday seems to be an excellent time to see more of the landscape and less of the local tourists. We think they are either eating or avoiding the intense midday heat - and thus us.

Tomorrow we are off to the biggest Nature Reserve in China called the Ever White Mountain and Heaven Lake. We'll have to have an early start (for a change) with a 6.00 am bus, and will entering remote China.

This area has a very nice feel to it. People are very friendly, and appear to be more social with each other. It might be the cold winters that make people bond. Something else which will get lost in global warming...

Dalian

We were particularly interested in this place, since we nearly ended up working here. It's very close to North Korea, and considerably richer than the area around it. Come here if you want to see Japanese, Koreans and Russians (or ideally a mixture of all of them).

It's a pleasant place, and quite western friendly. We noticed that a lot more people seem to be driving cars - more than we felt in Shanghai.

We are looking forward to trying out the "Coffee and Curry" restaurant tonight, which is advertised in the Lonely Planet (It had better still be there, Lonely Planet, unlike most other useful places which seem to have vanished from reality!)

We hope you are all well, and starting to think how nice it will be to see you all again.

Avoid Qingdao at any cost...

Hello Readers,

We are moving north, and yesterday we started our day in Qingdao. This sounded like it had a lot of promise - beaches, German colonial architecture and the origin of TsingTao Beer! In other words a real pearl. But we saw more hookers than nice buildings. We were shocked by the state of the city, considering the Sailing part of Beijing 2008 will be hosted here.

Our experience was not enriched by the fact that we stayed in a room that can safely get the "Grottiest Hotel we've stayed in China" award! The first room got flooded by a faulty AC unit... We thought that was as bad as it was going to get, when in fact the next day the whole city got flooded, after a heavy rain storm.

From Qingdao we took a bus up to Yantai (also should be avoided!) Then a seven hour boat trip up to Dalian. We could only get "cattle class" tickets which meant that we shared an internal/windowless cabin with 20 other Chinese who liked to smoke a lot. This resulted in us camping outside our "cabin", armed with books, travel scrabble and instant noodles/coffee. Looking back, we make ourselves believe that it was in fact a pleasant trip...

Shanghai - we are still here

Since we liked the “vibe” of the city along with its sights and museums, we decided to stay another day.

The heat wave has passed, and theoretically we should be exploring today. Yet - after four days of marching through the city - we have decided to take the day off sight-seeing. Instead, we had a leisurely brunch at Costa Coffee and went back to the Hotel to read and relax. Then dinner at a very nice Indian Resturant in the French Quater...

The rate of change in this city is incredible. Yesterday, we went to the South Long Distance Bus Station to book a ticket, but it turned out to be a building site. Thus we decieded to buy a ferry ticket to Nanjing, and were very proud of ourselves to find the booking office address, but this turned out to be yet another building site! Later it turns out contrary to a lot of guide books and info on the web, there is no boat/ferry to Nanjing, which is a shame.

Despite the heat and frustrations of the moving transport hubs, this is a very special city. At times you could believe that you are in a trendy part of Europe, but then you get other parts which look just like any other large Chinese city. I get the impression that if/when we return we will see yet another Shanghai.

Tomorrow we’re heading to Yangzhou, a small town on the Great Canal, where we’re going to break our journey on our way to Qingdao.

The great china firewall seems to be playing up again, and no more flickr for a while... we are trying our best to work around this!

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of China with Johanna and Lee!

Shanghai here we are

Hangzhou is best seen by bike. We rented a couple of "clown bikes" and cycled around West Lake. Along the way, we admired Red Carps and Turtles in a lovely Buddhist pond. Unfortunately, we also witnessed that turtles in fact are canibals (or at least wanna-bees), which spoiled the zen moment.

China is experiencing both heat waves and floods. Chongquing by the Jangtze River was hit particularly hard by floods, while the West coast (where we are) is getting hit by an average of 38 C. Global warming seems to travel much quicker than we hoped...

After a very modern train trip from Hangzhou we arrived in the bubbling Shanghai. In some ways, it feels very much like Hong Kong (very big modern buildings and new metros). Yet, the backstreets still have the charme of almost rural China.

So far, we have been pounding the streets around the Bund, Nanjing Road and People's Square. Lee was very excited about going to the Dinosaur museum, followed by a visit to the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum. This was a wonderful museum, which shows both the explosive growth of Shanghai and the modern measures to deal with it. We are impressed by the fact that Shanghai manages to stay "green" and by lack of expected pollution.

It's been really nice eating Western food again - but one has to pay for it (both is bucks and body weight gain).

In the two days remaining we'll try to explore the Concessions and the modern Pudong part of Shanghai.

Still working on getting the photos up. Thanks for your patience... you will not be dissapointed :).

Lee says thanks for all the birthday greetings. It's nice to be remembered... even if it's a few days late, Jef and Franky:).

On the road again: Xiamen and Hangzhou

This is to confirm we have actually left Guilin. Our students and Kimberly, our boss, safely ensured we're on the train to Guangzhou, which was a nice touch.

That night was our first experience sleeping with 6 Chinese in a "hard sleeper" class. From time to time, Johanna had an old lady actually trying to sleep by her feet. Despite the cramped conditions, we had a good night sleep and felt safe.

After spending a day sight-seeing in Guangzhou before catching another night train to Xiamen. This time we weren't so lucky: instead of the bottom bunk we ended up on the third layer, around 2 cm from the ceiling/air conditioner. We can see now why the old lady preferred Johanna's feet.

Xiamen is a big coastal city (4 million people), but we took a ferry to a nearby island called Gulang Yu. It's car free island (2 square km), which was once a colonial concession and hence loads of beautiful colonial architecture remains to be admired. This was a very peaceful experience, also thanks to the nice sea-breeze, enjoyable beaches and nature. Definitely recommended!

We took a sleeper bus to Wenzhou, an ugly industrial beast town NOT worth going to. Yet, it was useful as a hub and we visited some spectacular mountains in the vicinity.

This morning, we happily left for Hangzhou, a city which attracts a lot of tourists... and for good reason. It is set on the big West Lake. We were lucky enough to get a youth hostel located directly on the lake. After a nice (but outrageously expensive) Italian dinner, we enjoyed watching the sun setting over the lake and distant mountains. Also, the city has almost a Mediterranean feeling to it unlike to Southern China. It is lovely to watch the locals come out to the parks to enjoy themselves.

Please stay tuned, and we'll put up our photographs as soon as technically possible.

Thanks for the positive feedback from our "regular readers" (hello B and K and Ivano and... insert your name here if you fit this category:))

Good-Bye Guilin

Sunday, 22:11, Captain's log, Guilin teaching building 329, apartment 1-2. We have officially closed the last box we will be sending to Europe tomorrow. We have
- said good-bye to all of our friends and students
- taken some last lovely photos of the campus
- eaten in our favourite street restaurant once more
- been feeling slightly blue
- been fighting one tear or the other

Now we are
- ready to leave
- looking forward to what's ahead
- grateful for this great experience
- totally tired from packing
- hoping that you will continue reading our blog throughout our travels

Thanks for sticking with us!

All our love,
J&L

Almost packed

... and "camping" in our own apartment. So far, two big parcels have started their (hopefully not too) long journey to Europe. Once again, we were impressed by Chinese efficiency. The post office picked up the parcel from our door within five minutes after we had called. They couldn't believe we had put an actual tracking backpack in there, and found it hillarious. They must find us equally as crazy as we find them:). We guess that's what is called cultural differences. Oh well, as long as we all find something to laugh about, that's probably a good thing.

Also, some of our students have been kind and generous enough to get us some farewell-gifts, so we have opened up a third box, which will only be sealed briefly before we leave. Be both think we're great teachers who desere many pressies, and thus got the largest box available:).

Flickr Frustrations

We just had an emotional outburst against the Great Chinese Firewall after just finding out that our beloved Flickr site has been bared from us (and the Great Chinese public)... and thus keeps us sharing our photos with you.

Apparently it has something to do with the ninteen eighty nyne Tyanamin [] incident, in which a few students got run down by local tancs! These pictures got put onto Flickr, so we all have to suffer... oh its like being back at school again when somebody put glue on the teacher's chair...

We hope to overcome the flickr blues, and we will keep you updated on any great move forward. Thanks again Chyna!

Packing Up

Today has been the official start of project "Packing Up". It's hard to believe how much junk and "things" you can acquire in such a short time - even when you know that you will be shortly moving again!

Luckily for us we know people who are staying/arriving in Guilin, so we can donate a lot of our goodies such as DVDs, (hardly used, as noted by Lee the "unironed") Iron Boards and the like to them.

The year has flown past, although we fell like we are ten years older/wiser for the heap of experiences since arriving. Touch wood, no major disasters (the swimming camera was about as bad as it got). On the contrary, it was as rewarding and rich as we could have ever hoped from a single year in our lives.

This is our last week in the apartment, and we are busy saying our goodbyes to everybody here. Some of the students we have grown quite attached to (others won't be missed so much!:))

Stay tuned for more adventures form China with us!

We are not getting any better...

... at keeping our blog updated. This is partly due to the fact that we couldn't access this site for a while.

Also, not much has actually happened in the last three weeks!

In fact, we have mainly been teaching and being lazy on the weekend.

Now, our last two weeks of teaching have started, and we're preparing to leave Guilin. We'll be taking many fond memories with us, and we hope to return some day. Also, this one goes out to anybody who might be interested in teaching in China: Come to Guilin University of Electronic Technology. We have been very happy here, and felt that everything was taken care of properly for us by the International Office. Thus, we'll be a little sad to leave.

Yet, we have some nice travels ahead of us: So far, we're planning on going up the East Coast to Beijing via Xiamen, Shanghai, Hangzhou and whereever we'll feel like stopping and exploring.

Stay tuned for our travels. Our blog will be more frequent and interesting then :).

Criticism, criticism, criticism

Recently, just before the G-8 meeting, we (Germany and England) got criticized by the French (Isa and Jean) for not updating our blog regularly enough. Well, that’s not a very good start for closer cooperation so we are trying to do our part by updating this site now.

What’s new then? It’s the weekend, and since it has been raining cats and dogs, we’ve been couch potatoes watching “South Park”. Tomorrow, we’ll try out a “French” bakery in town, which was recommended to us.

BIG news is that we have our own website now (browmans.com), which Lee is currently setting up. We’ll let you know once it is worth visiting the site. Currently Lee is shouting and swearing about the practical problems of setting up such a site... but stay tuned!

Other than that, we are starting to plan our travels through China and South Asia in July and August. If you know of a special place not to miss, let us know.

Then, starting from September, Europe will have us back… whether it likes it or not.

Future plans

Everybody asks: What's next?

There is no definite answer yet, so please remain patient. Yet, we have a medium term plan.

To start with, we'll be leaving Guilin early July. From there, we'll explore China and South Asia. Can't wait... we'll be traveling for two whole months and feel very fortunate.

Johanna's sister Eva has offered us a place to stay in Cologne, where we'll arrive in September. Thanks, Eve and Michael, you're stars!

There, we'll start applying for jobs, preferably in Germany or Belgium. The U.K. is also a possibility.

Although Lee very much wanted to be a lecturer at a university, we have put these plans on ice for now, since the market seems too competitive. In fact, he's looking forward to programming again, so maybe it is a mixed blessing. Time will tell. He still has some pokers in the fire, so who knows what might come of it.

Right now, we're hoping for the best and enjoying the remaining time we have here. It is unbelieveable how much we have experienced in just one year - it feels like we have had ten years worth of adventures.

One child policy and Chinese pragmatism

Quite a few of our Chinese students have siblings. We were intrigued to find out about the loop holes in the one child policy and thus dared to asked about it.

In fact, there are many ways around it (apart from the obvious one, which is paying a lot of money for the second born):

Firstly, if you're a farmer in China and your first born is a girl, you get a second "chance" to try for a boy.

Also, if one of your parents belongs to a minority group - and there are 56 of them - the family is allowed two children.

Thirdly, in the early 80s it became so obvious that there won't be enough women in society that couples with a son were encouraged to try for a girl. That only lasted for a very short while.

Kelvin, the older son of such a "case" told us the following: "My parents wanted a girl, and the government wanted girls. That's why my baby brother has got a girl's name". While we couldn't help but bursting out laughing, the other eight people around the table just nodded in understanding.

Chinese Hot Pants explosion

Before we came to China we read that Chinese women don't show their legs. To our surprise - and Lee's appreciation - the very opposite is true in Guilin.

With the nice weather you see legs everywhere, covered in a very minimalistic way. In other words: One can't tell whether the girls are wearing a big pair of underwear or a very short pair of hot pants.

In other words again: A good time to visit Guilin.

Back at work

As from May 8th we started work again. Now, the sun and heat has made it to Guilin. While it is lovely in the evenings, all we do during the day is sweat, sweat, sweat… Luckily, Johanna’s sister left us with some good deodorant; otherwise our students would probably fall unconscious.

Yet, we are really enjoying our last two months here. Lee enjoys going to the local market to buy fresh vegetables and fruit, and the stall sellers always have a big smile for the big white man with the big (now red) nose. Johanna is determined to learn as much Chinese as possible in the time remaining. Jan, our visitor, put us to shame, by speaking and understanding as much as us within two weeks!

Kunming and Dali

For the 1st of May we had a week off, and we decided to explore the West of China with Giz and Jan. It was definitely worth it! We all agree that this is the nicest part of China so far. Thanks to the altitude (around 2000 m), sunshine is almost guaranteed. After a week of grayness and rain in Guilin, that was most appreciated. Due to that region being on the “Silk Road”, one finds a lot of cultural variety. Some merchants brought more than their goods to this part of the world. Thus, the gene-pool got “mixed up”. We found it very interesting to guess the origins of the people there.

Afterwards we traveled on to Dali, a lovely city surrounded by mountains and next to a big lake. There, we found both perfect weather conditions and lovely Western food. The latter made us strong enough to go for a bicycle ride in the countryside and on a big hike up the local Changshang Mountain. Believe it or not, but the Chinese workers built a 12 km – long hiking “pavement”… 2800 m above sea level. Very convenient and impressive. In fact, the track was wide enough for people to cycle on it. The views we got on there were breath-taking. If we got you curious, please take a look at our photos at our flickr site.

Lee followed his nose and found a large plantation of his favorite plants. They can be found all over Dali, and old grannies are continuously trying to sell their herbal wares.

On our last day, we took a bus to a neighboring village inhabited by the Bai minority. We were able to see a lot of original Bai architecture buildings. Most of all, we liked the concept of courtyards. They are such a great idea. Why don’t we all do it? Shikun, what do you think?

Giz and Jan...

... stayed with us in Guilin for about a week and it was lovely doing “normal” things together: We cooked, watched movies, played sports and gossiped. They are traveling for a year, so they are in no rush. It was nice hearing about their adventures in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia and Nepal.

Lee commented on how nice it was to be a competitive man again – he tried to be Alpha man (despite his continuous losses in frizbee, pool, ... ).

Collections

Our photos are arranged in collections now (we must be getting seriously old to do stuff like that: it is like preparing for the afterlife and/ or for the next generation to remember us!)

To view our impressions of Central China along with the trip on the Yellow River please surf to
www.flickr.com/photos/leeandjohanna/collections/

Enjoy!

Time flies

Although we aren’t the first ones to have made the discovery, it is very true right now. When our time in China seemed almost endless not too long ago, we realize that it is almost coming to an end. At the end of June we will be taking down our tent here and onto the next adventure.

And an adventure it is indeed, since we haven’t had any job news. In order words, we have no clue where we are going to be next. Some days, we just enjoy our freedom and yet, on other days we wish we knew what was coming next. We guess that’s life.

As for company, we keep on being spoiled: Anna and Vanessa came back to spend almost another week with us. Also, old friends of Lee’s, Wim and his wife Veerle from Ghent, paid us a little visit on Monday. We showed them around the Campus.

With the sun coming out, more and more students are playing all sorts of sports again, from as early as 5.30 a.m. to sunset. We sometimes join them, and they are especially keen on getting Lee on their Basketball team. Lee likes being fought over, so we started to play quite often. In the end, somebody even takes Johanna on their team...

Pictures are comming....

We will keep you posted when our pictures have been sorted. We will also include links to others photos as and when.

An excellent "third-party" set of photos has already been put up by our first visitor - Ivano. You can find these at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ipinneri/sets/.

Sometimes it seems like the great fire wall is also blocking the blog. So we are sorry if some of the articles are not as fresh as they could be...

Welcome (back) to the real world

We said our goodbyes in Wuhan, and gave each of our guests a little jade Buda to look after them on their travels. (Anna – should we have given you another Buda to look after the first one?:)) It was sad to say goodbye, but the real world was calling our name. The University was kind in letting us start a week late, so that we could spend some time with our guests.

We arrived back in Guilin late on Sunday, and started to teach on Monday. Like normal, we only got our time table one hour before we were teaching. Lee has been improving his “seat of pants teaching approach”.

Now the weather in Guilin has become sunny and warm, and today we mentioned how nice it would have been if our guests were still here…

Jangtze River Cruise

It was always our plan to make the Jangtze River Cruise before 2008/9 when it will be completely flooded by the Three Georges Dam Project. This has been somewhat controversial in the number of people it has displaced, and has had many problems along the way. We feel we were a little bit duped, since a lot of the flooding has already happened – up to around 150 meters above the normal level. There are still another 25 meters to go… Saying that, it was a huge success, and the scenery was breath taking. Even with the flooding, the sheer magnitude of the gorges was overwhelming.

Despite some high-price excursions to tacky places, it is still much recommended. Jef fell in love with a middle age Chinese woman there – or was it the other way around… It would be a crime not to mention the sterling performances on the Karaoke floor by many of our guests (Lee was too chicken!)

The Worlds Largest Man-Made Waterfall (until 2003…)

Lee took the complete tour group (3 Germans, 2 Belgians) to witness the nightly “Waterfall Show” at the Waterfall Hotel. This was in the Guinness book of records in 2002 (being 76 meters wide by 42 meters high). But these crazy locals like a challenge, and this was superseded by one in Guangdong (our neighbours!) which is 300 by 42 meters. Despite being like the second man on the moon, it was still impressive, although 13 minutes of this display was really quite enough.

Anna and Vanessa Arrive - the group is complete

Last but not least, the two cops arrived. After a very long trip and an even longer wait in Hong Kong (10 hours), they only wanted to sleep initially… and they did: from 10 pm until 1.30 pm the next day.

For a while Lee was the alone with 3 German speaking ladies, which he has attributed to his new nervous twitch. They also showed a great liking to Chow Mien, and Egg and Tomato dishes.

Together in Yangshou

The next morning, we left for Yangshuo, where we invested in souvenir items like stone-carved stamps, Chinese “silk and handmade” handbags for 1.5 Euro and so on.

Cornelia, Catherine and Jef went on a bicycle ride to the countryside the next day with a local guide.

Finally, they followed a cooking lesson and got to (had to?) eat their own food. Especially Catherine was very impressed with herself!!

Catherine and Cornelia - the new wave...

Two days later, the “a German and a Belgian” (as Lee refers to them) got here. We explored the “Seven Star Park and Cave” followed by a superb meal in the “Big Aunt”, where all the dishes are laid out and one can just point. We went totally crazy and had huge left-over’s. In fact, we were starting to fear the waiters who passed our table, hoping that the dishes wouldn’t be for us anymore!

They had an interesting story of being in Hong Kong while their bags made a journey of their own. (It ended well though!)

Jef - The 2nd Visitor

After having told us that he can’t make it here, he still had the nerve to show up on short notice… and we were glad.

Lee really appreciated having “boy-talk” again and letting off fireworks with a fellow pro.

Also, we all got addicted to watching “The Office” (American TV-Series), which Ivano had brought over earlier. Big thanks, Ivano, you saved the day!

(p.s. Any chance of Season 3 DVD making it over this way?)