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!
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...
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.
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...
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!
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:).
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:))
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
... 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:).
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!
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!
