seen that, done that... nooo, far from that!

Back in China... "Again?!" you might say, "how boring!"
And, what? I was even in the same places?! Pffff... how boring is that?!!

Well, nope, it was not boring at all!

After Fiji I definitely turned my different travelplan into reality: turning westwards and heading bach to Europe through Central Asia, hence crossing China again .

Both my stays in Hong Kong and in Beijing were dominated by people I had already met on this trip - and anyways: it was people I met who have made this trip what it is !

Rindo, my dear never travelling Indian friend I met in Singapore, came all the way to visit me for 4 days in Hong Kong. We had just a great time over lots of talks, some beers and delicious food, together with other friends.
Apart from the inevitable Victoria Peak we were lazy tourists and didn't really visit anything. We were rather just walking around, breathing in the air and flair of the city, watching the ongoing dragon boat festival and enjoying beer at the local beer festival. Oh, and of course I showed him Chungking Mansions where we had great (and authentic - according to Rindo) Indian food. Hmmm, yummie!

And Beijing was just again marvellous Beijing!

I stayed longer than expected: firstly because it is simply IMPOSSIBLE to get a train-ticket from Beijing to Ürümqi, where I wanted to go. And secondly because I, in consequence, applied for my Kazakh visa in Beijing instead of in Ürümqi.
This visa-application procedure was btw the most enduring, un-understandable and annoying ever. I will soon start an own story comparing all the different consultancies I've been to before and during my trip and giving you some anecdotes of this annoying detail out of the everyday life of a world-traveller...

Beijing treated me well! I met all my friends again I had made last year. Beijing had in fact been the first and only place where I made a lot of friends I in the meantime kept in touch with. So I was more than happy to see them again. And of course to make new friends through them too...

Beijing as a city also welcomed me well: the sky was blue (wow!!) for a few days, great sunsine. What I love so much about Beijing is the great mix: the houses in the city are not high at all, giving it a flair of a small town. You can reach a lot within the center by food or by bike. The hutongs (small alleys) are really old and you see and feel the old traditional Chinese life. There is loaaads of delicious food on the street available for just a few yuan. And if you want to get away from everything Chinese you will still find enough really nice Western-style cafés and restaurants.

The expat-scene in Beijing is just amazing, and the partying opportunities are huge, as well as the opportunities to get out of the city and do some stuff in the near countryside.
Yes, Beijing, I really like you :)

However, after a few days I got to see the bad side of Beijing too: smog. This photo was taken in the middle of the afternoon. It looks as if it was evening but it is not! So after one week, it was hard to say goodbye to all my old and new friends, but the smog made the leaving easier...





But I not only visited places I already knew, I also saw new things and new places.

Before coming to Beijing I made the inevitable stop in the bordertown Shenzhen. And there it just hit me and I saw and understood what China can be reduced to in one word: China is big. or rather BIG!!!

Hong Kong is a big city, Shenzhen lies just next to it and is huuuuuuuge too! Next to Hong Kong and Shenzhen lies Guangzhou, which is HUUUUUGE too. And during my stay in Shenzhen I went to the town Huizhou 30km from Shenzhen away, where the copy of an Austrian town is, and this town is huuuge too!

Public buildings in China (administrative buildings, trainstations,...) are all just amazingly big! A normal no-name-city (like Huizhou) has big amounts of skyscrapers. And of course there are just soooooo many people everywhere!
I checked on wikipedia and found out that China has: Shanghai with more than 10million people, another 5 cities with more than 5million people, and in total 24 cities with more than 2million people (by urban population). I'm from a country with a population of around 8million and live in its capital Vienna, which has a only around 1,75million people. So, yes, I do think that 24 cities with more than 2million people is kind of impressive!

No worries, you didn't overread what I was writing above: "copy of an Austrian town"... haha, remember, I mentionned I wanted to see the copy of Hallstatt! And I did (btw: only thanks to my CS-host who made this a day-trip: we drove around 2,5hours from Shenzhen to finally find the place of Hallstatt in Huizhou, walked around in the copy-town in the unsupportable heat for an hour or two and then again 2,5hours back! Thank you Peng!!)

I can only say: it is simply madness! They really copied the towncenter, it's just hillarious. The whole thing is part of a big project: they are building a new part of the city with many big villas and the center of this new villa-area is the already finished town-center of fake Hallstatt. Amazing!

The whole area, apart from the center, is under construction: villas are being built and the surrounding mountains set up. We went in two of the villas, they are really big! (Welcome to China!)

The town itself, well, it is not Hallstatt of course and I can only advise you to go to the original one if you want the real flair of a real Austrian town. But damn, it was fun to be in this copy-town!!

I made a few clips with comments by myself so you can just walk around the city by yourself through my videos: it is simply hillarious.

Approaching Hallstatt
Crossing the bridge to Hallstatt
Hallstatt Church inside
Hallstatt Main Square

Oh, and being in copy-cat-China I also went to the big entertainment park "Window of the World" where they copied major tourist sights from places all over the world, mainly in smaller or in real-life sizes... I wonder why I was travelling so long when I could have just gone to this park and seen everything and even more in one day??
(second time I meet this Strauß-statue on my trip... remember? The Wiener Café in Irkutsk, Russia...)

Thanks to my CS-host I was happy to experience not only really delicious traditional food but also something original (and not copied): a traditional Chinese dancing show. I was really lucky because I really like ballett. The chinese dancing was like ballett with much more acting and more acrobatic components... Whoever is interested might check out the two clips I put on youtube.

Isn't it just sooo beautiful? Want to see more? This second clip somehow reminded me of the 4 swans from Swanlake... well, kind of...

Anyhow, that's all already a while ago and now I am in Ürümqi, the capital of the Autonomous Uighuir province Xinjiang...after 46 hours sitting in the train (yes, SITTING!!!)

I thought I might give you an idea of how a Chinese hard-seat-carriage looks like: here we go! And yes, all those people who are standing in the corridor did not have any seats and were really standing around the whole time or sitting on the floor, on some small chairs, between the carriages on the floor, on the sink,...

Everything in China is simply too big, and China itself is too big, and too crowded...

In order to make this story kind of short (for a change), I will talk about the even more interesting and new part of China I got to know right now - Xinjiang - in my next story, which will be coming very shortly too! So get ready to read more in the upcoming days!

And I will definitely try my best to give you an as accurate as possible overview over the situation of the Uyghur people - suppressed like the Tibetians are - in their very province!