trip to France, Belgium, England and Portugal - just a bit further East...

France, Belgium, England and Portugal?? What is she talking about?? Hasn't she been just in China??

Well I was and I am again, or lets say to be correct: I have been all the time since my last story... But having gotten an idea of mainland China and Chinese cities I didn't feel like being in China during the last 1,5 weeks:

Shanghai

Of all the three cities I will talk about now Shanghai was the one I liked the least. I have a hard time right now as well saying of which country Shanghai remembered me most - not of China, but of what else then? It is - as we would say in German - "not fish and not meat". In contrast to Hong Kong or Macao it has never been a colony, but it had British and Frensh concession-zones.

Within the French Concession - a very popular part of the town among tourists and expats - you would just feel somewhere in Europe. Where exactly? I can't say. Not in France despite its name and the many "french bakery" (or "boulangeries")...

On the bund - the former British concession - you're remembered of Good Old Europe? Well, again, I wouldn't say that it remembers me of England in particular - rather you get an idea of what the Commonwealth meant and of the trade going through Shanghai in the last 2 centuries...
Anyhow, this very boardwalk is defninitely really nice to walk along, especially at night!

Beside these places, where you get an idea of the recent history, I found Shanghai was stinking of money: Walking around between the skyscrapers in Pudong is impressive (but not even half as impressive as the skyscrapers in Hong Kong as I found out later), but it you can smell the money and the business there - a smell me in particular I don't like...

But don't worry, I still liked many things in Shanghai - it is just that I had the impression that this city was missing its own particular touch.

There are a few things I want to mention about Shanghai apart from the touristy spots I mentionned above: first of all I was staying with a really nice CS-host, an English guy teaching Math in an international school (expat-teachers are everywhere in China...):

Thanks to him I got to know a bit of the nightlife of Shanghai, saw the various different nice restaurants and Belgium-alike chocolate places (he really was addicted to chocolate :D). In Shanghai - and mainly in the French concession you see loads of Westerners, and the offers and layout of bars and restaurants are adapted to them and therefore like back home.

I have also been at a really freaky market, where they sold loads of different insects, crickets (that made the whole place sound like a big forest at night) worms and other animals.... iiiiiiiiiiiiihhh

This was for sure freaking me out, but what was freaking me out more was the marriage-market my host showed me: on Sundays parents would go to the central park of the town and hang up papers with descriptions of their sons/daugthers in order to find the perfect match for them... I mean, hello?? It's ok when people are writing announces for themselves in the newspaper, but parents looking for a partner for their children in a big intercultural city like Shanghai was not what I expected...

As a resumee: all in all Shanghai was ok, but nothing more to me...

Hong Kong

When going to Hong Kong you are leaving China... somehow... which was important to me, as my visa ran out.

Even though Hong Kong was given back to China in 1997, it is still a special administrative zone with different tax laws, more openness (no visa required for 90 days, no blocked internet sites,...) and a different currency. Well, in general you can say: it is still Great Britain, with a bit China on the top of it...

In buildings there is a groundfloor, you get along with English everywhere, no blocked internet, and everything is expensive: Welcome back to Europe!!
Unlike Shanghai, there is no doubt about the recent history of Hong Kong: England... cars are driving on the left side, you have double-decker-busses and double-decker-trams everywhere, and everything is in English.

I was of course visiting the most important tourist sites: Victorias Peak, where you get a view over all the skyscrapers (see photo above - really impressive!), going to the Big Buddha and so on. I was really lucky having met Niku, a girl from Sweden, who arrived just the same day in Hong Kong to travel in China for a month. With her I spent all my time in Hong Kong and continued after that (but more about that in my next story...) We went to the beach together, to different markets and just hung out together...

I liked Hong Kong but felt immediately that you need to stay far longer and live in this city to get to know it properly (which is the case for every city, or place in general, I guess...). So five days was fine to get an idea of it, but far from being enough. Interestingly enough I liked it far more than Shanghai, but have far less to say about it now...

So, pictures say more than 1000 words, right??

but no - this was not all I have to say about my trip to Hong Kong - There is for sure one thing I want to describe a bit more in detail: Chungking Mansions (it's even on Wikipedia... wow!!)

Chungking Mansions is a huge building (17 floors, 5 blocks...) with loads (and I mean loooooooaaaaaadddss) of cheap places to stay and cheap Indian and Pakistani restaurants.

In these hostels and sleeping-places many immigrants from India, Pakistan and Nigeria are living. The groundfloor is full with them offering you food or fake-stuff - "lady-wanna-copy-watch?"
Niku and me met in a supercheap hostel on the 3rd floor. For a bed in a room where there is not more space than for the 6 doublebeds they squeezed in it, you pay 100.,- HKD (€10,-) - the cockroaches in the bathroom are included in the price. As they didn't have any beds left we went to a really freaky hostel no the topfloor - only 60HKD (you won't find anything cheaper in Hong Kong): freaky because of the people living there. Not many travellers but mainly immigrants, and weird people like junkies and others we didn't know what they were doing in Hong Kong... No worries, it was not dangerous but simply not supercosy. We stayed there two nights, before moving to a nice CS-host (guess what... yes, she's Englsih-teacher) for another two nights.

With all the people we talked to and mentionned Chungking Mansions we got the impression, that you have only really been to Hong Kong if you stayed in Chungking Mansions. So even if it was not the most comfortable place to stay, it was an experience on its own and I wouldn't want to miss it!

Macao

From Hong Kong it is really easy to get to Macao. Instead of staying a few days there, as was my plan before, I ended up making only a daytrip, which was perfectly fine: I took the ferry in the morning there and in the afternoon back.


I definitely found what I was looking for in Macao - and no, it was not casinos; - but some South-European flair. When I arrived in the morning, supertired and freezing because of the aircon on the ferry, I wasn't sure if it has been a good idea to come here: close to the ferry-terminal are only ugly buildings and the huge casinos the Chinese people come to Macao for.

But after some walking I arrived in the old town, which is not without a reason Unesco World Heritage, I felt back in Europe: many churches, it was sunny and hot, many small squares with a tree in the middle, bars everywhere and everything was written in Portuese.


All in all I really enjoyed my trip to Macao!
With this I finish this very story - till the next is coming you may have a look at my gallery of this short "Europe-trip"!

New Gallery: Chinas North

before telling you about my impressions of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Macao I feed you with more photooooooos :)

so check these photos to see more about my trip and impressions of China from Datong, Beijing, Xian and the Terracotta Warrior...

next story coming soon!

Golden Week

The Golden Week: national holidays in China for one entire week from the 1st to the 7th of October - what a nighmare for travellers...

all queing up to squeeze into the same train...

Because it seems as if simply every Chinese person is travelling as well - which makes it super-difficult to get traintickets, trains are overcrowded (people are seriously standing in the train - and I'm not talking like standing all the way from Vienna to St. Pölten but standing 16 hours from Beijing to Xian - and a standing place does even cost as much as a sitting place) as well as all tourist sights, streets in cities,... or to make it easier: lets say simply EVERTHING EVERYWHERE is overcrowded. I mean, you would never feel alone in Chinese cities anyways, but where the hell do all these other people who seem to appear only for the national holidays hide during the rest of the year??

First I thought that it could be great fun still being in the capital during the start of this holidays but finally there is nothing special happening. Appart from huge amounts of people squeezing through the streets and alleyways, and flags hanging out of every door...

However, this week was full of events to me as well, which didn't have anything to do with the national holidays...

The very start of this public holidays was at the same time an end for me:  the end to my time in Beijing...

On the 1st of October we were celebrating one of the local couchsurfers birthday at the flat after a great dinner in a Ningxia-restaurant. The party was definitely great fun! And I took it as my goodbye-party from this great city as I was supposed to leave the following day! Having read my last story you know that I really really liked Beijing...

The day after the party I took the train to Xian.
While I had spent a lot of time with expatriates in Beijing and didn't really get to know many Chinese people, I got to know many on my way to and in Xian. The guy sitting next to me in the train - DaWei - turned out to be great fun, teaching me Chinese pronounciation and ending up giving me a Chinese name (娜仁).
In Xian itself I was surfing at another Chinese guy - GaoXu - who was really cool as well!

Due to limited ticket availability (guess why...) I stayed a bit longer in Xian than I first wanted - but finally it turned out to be great like this! GaoXu made sure that I had a great time there:

The first evening we met with a friend of his and walked through the Muslim Quarter - pulsing streets full with small restaurants and foodplaces: cooks who prepare food directly on the street, loads of delicious stuff! I was sooo impressed and really loved that place and the atmosphere (even though - again - there were soooo many people...)! 

Without GaoXu I would have never known about this very special dish (I have to ask him for the name of it... upcoming soon...) we were eating. And also in the upcoming days he would make me taste other typical dishes like a Hot Pot and some really delicious Jiaozi (dumplings -->) just before I left ... mhmmmmm

I met various of his friends during my stay: on the first evening for example some more friends of him would join us and we would go to a bar having beer (I admit that I found it sweet when he told me that he felt drunk after 2 small beers...).
He would constantly force his friends to speak English with me - for them to practice - and they would always say that they can't but end up speaking really well :)

But after all - the reason why I came to Xian in the first place was of course to see the Terracotta-Warriors. So on the third day of my stay in Xian GoaXu and me took the bus there (he guided me past the endless queues to a bus we could enter straight away). While he went to his university-campus I went to the sight.

So how about the warriors? You get exactly what you expect: loads of warriors lined up to protect their king Qin Shi Huang. It is really impressive though because they do really all look different and loads of them are not broken at all even though they had been burried over 2000 years ago! I can't imagine how long it must have taken them to build the army, even more as they had been all coloured as well what dissappeared during the millenia.

You want more photos? Here we go:

After my trip to the warriors I met GaoXu in his university campus - from 300BC straight back to 2011 ;) some friends of his showed me a typical Chinese dormitory room and I admit that this was to me as interesting as the warriors...

Still having time in Xian I rounded up my stay there with a nice bike-ride on the citywall on the last day. This was great fun I can tell you! And not to be underestimated: it took me - a few photobreaks included - more than an hour to bike the whole wall...

The national holiday week ends on the 7th - and with the end of it the unsupportable huge amount of people dissapears as well... On this very day I found myself again in an overcrowded train from Xian to Jiangyou (just to compare: in the train I took 4 days later from Chengdu to Shanghai everybody had a seat - can you imagine?!)

Within the upcoming 5 days - from the 7th to the 12th - I spent in total 66hours in trains, busses or waiting between trains and busses: this is in fact a huuuuuuge effort - effort for what?! To get to Jiuzhaigou.

 

This valley is not without a reason a UNESCO World Heritage - and it's not without a reason really expensive to go there - but still worth the effort and the money! And me being in China in autumn even more pushed me to take this effort, because the mix of turquois-blue seas, mountains, waterfalls, green and red leaves is too beautiful to be missed!

To get a maximum out of it I entered the park as early as 7am. Just to give you a slight idea of the size of it:  from the entrance to one peak its 31km - and there are two peaks... The whole reserve is perfectly organised with busses inside, hiking-trails everywhere and loads of maps to show you where you are. And even small signs every now and then hanging on trees saying which sort of tree it is... 

So I was of course hiking a lot, taking loooads of photos (you might have seen them already, if not: here we go) and when I got out of the park at around 5pm I had just managed to see about more or less every worth-seeing part of the park. 

What a golden week this was indeed...

New Gallery: Jiuzhaigou...

my dear readers :)
I will soonish - like tomorrow or after-tomorrow - update my blog. But till then you might as well check out my new gallery online: it's about my one-day-visit to the UNESCO World Heritage Jiuzhaigou - a national park, which is especially now in autumn soooooo beautiful! Was worth the effort (more about the effort in my next story!)...

And just a short information about my galleries: the "food around the globe"-gallery is constantly updated, so if you're into food, just check it out :)