room 215 on the top of the moon

now the rest I wont tell that detailed, I figured its too much...
... so on Saturday we hooked up with all the new people who had moved into our dorm over the last day and night: there was JuanPablo from Chile, Jitin from India and Emma from Beijing, so together we rented some mountainbikes and made our way out of the city... and into the pure nature... oh that was so nice! after a while we left Emma (sorry hun) and the main street and cycled on a rocky kinda country street... with huge-dust-cloud-causing-trucks-which-transport-the-bamboo-boats passing by (if you can see it on the pic, look at the 'motor'!!), and other than that only a few motor bikes etc.... again I felt like being thrown into the middle of some piece of art, this scenery is just so beautiful. After about 4 hours or so we arrived at Moon Hill, south of YangShuo. The hill is known for its shape, as it has a hole in - guess what - the shape of the moon, and thanks to the creativeness of Chinese it has such a great name now ;).
We payed 1,5 € admission, including having our bikes "watched" :S and set off the 1251 steps (according to LP again - so nothin's for sure) up the hill... it was quite a climb, but with several stops we arrived, actually I had expected it to be harder. Well, we had arrived at the hole, so we were in the moon kind of. And the view was beautiful!
But then we went on... getting to kindof another rocky cliff from where we could see Moon Hill from its side... the view was even better... we took a little break and watched the free-climbers on the hill climb and fall... and just enjoyed the view... but could it get any nicer?
oh yeah, and I am still amazed! After that stopp, we went on to climb ontop of Moon Hill, and with ONTOP I mean ontop, there was practically no single stone that was any higher than the one we were standing on. Unbelievable. And (god knows why) we were the only ones up there... Room 215 on top of the Moon... with a 360° view all around the area, weirdly shaped mountains and valleys with the river, streams ans towns inbetween... just gorgeous! It must have been the most gorgeous view ever! Definately one of the highlights of my time in Asia so far.
Unfortunatly, we had to go back as long as there was a little light - obviously the rest of Yanghuos population had the same idea and so we hit the bikers rush hour kinda... but was fun.
In the evening we had a good dinner alltogether, and also with our new roommate Lucile from France,... we tried the local specialty Pijiou Yu (Beer Fish)... but it sounds much better than it actually tastes, but luckily we had some other goood stuff... (yummy fried eggplant again :D etc. ) as well... ... while walking though town by the way, we met - again - our Chinese fellow from the boat! ... lateron we brought some 0,80cents beer bottles up to our room and had just a real good night! while us girls went sleeping around 2... the guys couldnt find an end and went out to find the last open bars... no problem that we had to get up at 6.. ;)

oh yeah.. 6AM... urghhhh.... but we wanted to make our way to Ping'an in the mountains NORTH of Guilin that day... so that meant: bus from YangShuo to Guilin - 2 hours, bus from Guilin to LongShen - 3 hours and bus from LongSheng to Ping'an- another hour. so we arrived at 2 up there after a bumpy but funny ride with great view over the mountainous area with rice fields and smalltown life to watch. The area reminded, don't laugh, seriously a lot of the German Black Forrest... up in Ping'an we walked up *few* more steps as the town has no streets... and checked into 'countryside Cafe & Inn' a totally cute little wooden house, and if it wasnt for the chinese style roof and the red lanterns hanging around, it could have seriously been in the Black Forest. Our room was totally made of raw wooden walls and ceiling... felt like Heidi in the mountain haha!! We took a break, had a good meal of which I still dont know what I ate (looked like small branches from a tree, but cooked and soft) and then hiked up to a viewpoint to enjoy the postcard like view over the rice teracces. Now this must have been the most beautiful view ever! (did I say that before ? hmmm)

Next day was already time to leave... but even though we had enjoyed a good evening with a bottle of chinese red wine for Verena and me... we got up early to hike to another peak. The view was just as good as the day before. Up there we got some postcards to send around... and while writing them... guess who we met? oh yeah.. our Chinese shadow from the boat!
We stayed up there for a while and then made our way back to town - by the way did I mention that this town had no more than maybe 20 all wooden houses, no streets, thus no cars, just some donkeys? it was so idyllic... and felt like set back to some centuries ago... anyways, reality caught us when we got on the bus for the bumpy ride down... then switched to another bus to take us to guilin. Well this bus misteriously should have taken about 4 hours. But even though we stopped several times to let people, ducks and chicken enter or leave and we stopped for about a half an hour because the motor broke down and driver/-mechanic-to-be had to fix it... we made it to Guilin within around 2,5 hours only... so we had more time there for some extra shopping. I got some chinese music and a new pyjama :D ... then we had to say our goodbyes to Verena - as she had to work tomorrow she was flying back home, and we hit the train, surely after buying some beer and snacks for the ride...

... entering the train... passing by the compartments (and of course our Chinese haunter) ....

... we arrived the next day - Tuesday - at 1 in Shenzhen... walked from the station to the border... where we met: oh no... not the Chinese guy!! but our friend JuanPablo.. yes its a small world... he had made it there by bus from YangShuo.

To enjoy being back in HongKong kind of Western civilisation we headed for the nearest McDonalds in Kowloon Tong.. and then made it home.

Seriously, this was, besides Beijing and Shanghai and Hangzhou and Anji and Hong Kong the best time in China so far!!

GuLin - YangShuo - LongSheng - Ping'An ....

So, it took me a while but now here's the rest of the trip to China:
Sleeeeping in and then a nice shower... well... kinda nice... the water was hot but there was no pressure in the pipe... so anyways... After buying our train tickets to go back to Hong Kong, which was surprisingly quick and easy (in Chinese terms that is) and took us only about a half an hour, we went through tha city in search for some breakfast... that turned out a little harder so in the end we made it lunch... so yummy- finnally back to real good chinese food that I've missed so much in Hong Kong! fried tomato with egg, fried potato slices, ... so good! Then we visited the 'Solitary Beauty Peak' and the surrounding palace. 'few' steps took us up the hill and up there we enjoyed a nice view over the city. The palace around it was nice, but after visiting all those numerous palaces in Beijing and Shanghai, it was just another palace for me. But of course this one was expecially great cuz it was built by the nephew of an emporer of the Qing dynasty... that sounds good doesnt it?! well... I doubt it. Anyways afterwars we walked all the way through the city on the way back to the hostel, hitting every single one of a few kilometers of sports shop which logos and names obviously faking Nike, Addidas or other brandnames. I got new fake but 'high quailty' t-shirt in the shop next to the shop which sold 'haiii quaity bag -is fake Plada (Prada) but is veely guud fake' ;) ... then I got some shoes yippiee.. new flip floppy kinda sandals... it must be a good day!! in the middle of the city we then found that the Chinese dont only fake the stuff tehy sell.. they even fake some sights! What? oh yesss... the one and only Louvre is where? no no no... dont think its Paris, cuz it is most definately in GuiLin - with some beautiful Pagodas and an ancient park just around the corner! nicccce!!
In the evening Verena joined us back at the hostel... and over some Card-drinking games we emptied the Hostels inventory of Bayleys and were *forced* to proceed with our ol' buddy Jack Daniels...

Next day started early, cause our boad from Guilin to Yangshuo was supposed to leave at 10... or at least the bus to take us from the travel-agency-shack/garage of our trust to the peer. Well... the tour was delayed by just an hour, obviously the river was tooo foggy for the boat to go... then the 'bus' (learned how to fit 8 people in a 5 seater 'bus') took us to the overly beautiful old town in the middle of nowhere (of course THE place to be)... were we had the one-time-opportunity to buy the most beautiful and unique, handmade, original fake artefacts ever seen for the best-discounted ripp-off-prices(because we are such good friends of the seller and *store*owner). Well, it actually wasnt so bad, really not.. I mean we just walked though the town watched the people and didnt buy anything.. but well.. then we finally left for the pier. Arriving, our 'tour guide' announced that he was hungry and so he treated us for some fried rice. nice of him! then we started out boat tour down the Li Jiang river and it was truely amazing. The mountains there just look so bizarre... they are mostly of limestone (Kalk) and have gotten their form through erosion throughout the last centuries. The most special mountains were of course pointed out to us by our only-chinese-speaking 'captain'... we passed by mountains with the creative names of 'five-tigers-catch-a-goat', 'an-old-man-push-a-mill', 'five-fingers-hill', 'apple-hill' and so further... of course the opposite hill then has the name 'old-man-watching-five-tigers-catch-a-goat-hill' or so... and obviously each single mountains has a legendary love story behind it - yes thats China!! We enjoyed the relaxing boat tour, took tooo many picturs of mountains which will now look all the same, but it was just so impressive, hard to find words of it again. stopping at a kind of stony-beach-shore locals were offering their special original fake handicrafts again. The waterbuffalos we passed didnt even acknowledge our boat with the blink of an eye... and somehow I felt like moved back centuries in time.
After teh boat dropped us of in Xingping we took the bus into the sunset... to Yanhshuo. The bus took us through scenic scenary (duh!) and fields of rice and grain as far as you can see... with just some mountains, waterbuffalos and small chinese villages with breaking-down-shacky-style houses in between, it all just seemed like traveling through a piece of art.
Arriving in Yanghshuo we checked into LP-recommended HI-Hostel - a good decision, as our 9-bed dorm was empty besides us and had a 'private' bathroom with a REAL toilet *luxury feeling*. Well throughout the night we should notice that the matrasses were of the uhm... old-overused-extra-'soft'-foam-on-wood kind. but it was ok.
Yangshuo is called the backpackers paradise, and that is for a reason! West-street is filled with bars, souvenier and all kinda other stuff shops, restaurants and everything the typicall tourists want. And guess what, while I usually hate such stuff, there for some reason it didn't even put me off. I guess I just switched of my 'I-hate-touristy-places' mind for a while and accepted that the locals sell of their culture there. After days of Chines food, being in such a place of course we treated ourselves to some real pizza... oh god that was so good! I am getting hungry again just writing this! Afterward some rice wine (throat-desinfecting 50% alc.) we hit another bar. Making friends with some chinese guys we let them buy us loads of beer and play the typical dice-game again... surely all of us having a blast. And that was just the first day in Yangshuo...

--> HongKong - Shenzhen - Guilin... trip day 0

after a busy beginning of last week, full of uni stuff and preparations for the next trip to China, finally it was Wednesday afternoon, and that meant the trip could finally start.

The start however was a bit confusing - complicated - whatever. I was supposed to meet up with David and Markus at the Kowloon Tong KCR Station Platform. That already turned out a little hard... as there were few more people willing to take just this exact train... anyways... we didnt find each other and decided over the phone to take the approaching train and meet up at the border station of LoWu. That all working out fine, we crossed the border without further complications and at 6PM we hit the Airport bus, which supposedly would take around 40 minutes, giving us another hour or so to catch the plane... no prob. - wasn't it for the *SLIGHT* traffic congestion of Shenzhen. argghhh... at 7 we start wondering and getting slightly nervous... at 7:10, we can still not see the glimpse of an airport, nor a plane landing or taking of anywhere skywide... hmm... 7:20, arrival at the airport - 30 min. til takeoff.. so yeah I guess we did well running from Terminal A (where the bus stopped) through all the way to terminal B (where we had to pick up our E-tickets (which were printed on paper- thats why they call'em E-tickets- and then back to terminal A where the check in gate was.... to find it already closed. so we jumped the queue of the next door check in counter... showing the lady the tickets and when she saw them she hurried to accelerate the proceedings...no questions of any kind... and within a minute we had our boarding passes, turned around and ran to security... standing in lind seemed endless (3 minutes or so) and already we could run on to Gate 14..... which we reached at 7:40PM - still 10 minutes before take off.... puhhh... ...but why is our flight not displayed on the screen or over the gate? *worry* *ask* *relieve* ahh.... its delayed by a half an hour and moved to Gate 15... puhhhhh....
other than that, the flight was quite normal and we landed in Guilin (Guanxi province - Southwest China) around 10 pm... took a bus to the city centre and found the hostel, a really cute place.

but besides actually making the flight and staying in this nice hostel, one of the great features of the day was: the air. You would not believe our pleasure when we stepped out of the plane (an Airbus A320 by the way *G*) down the stairs of the gangway and actually breathed in fresh and cool air... as if it was a limited good catching a deeeeeep breath after another. It is unbelievable how much you can appreciate cool air, which does not actually come out of the aircon!!

at the hostel, we throw our stuff into our room and go back downstairs to the cozy bar/lounge area to enjoy a cool beer for a mere 0,80 € / 600ml! :) ... then we meet... surprise surprise.... small world, another germyn guy *forgot-tha-name* who studies at Baptist University of HongKong together with Verenas Ex. After chatting for a while Markus David and I challenged us for some billiards... and had... together with some furhter beers... quite some fun. heel gezellig!!

so here we go - as promised, I am writing more often - and last time was yesterday!! Today I went hiking, what I wanted to do basically all the time since I got here... but first it was too hot... then we were away... then we were too busy... like it is, it took us 2 months to go hiking for the first time... and then it was a day full of so much trouble and yet so much fun and just great!!

Mandy (Asian-British), Ahong (Asian-Dutch guy), Zhung Nan (Chinese girl) and I met quite early at the hall.. then met Verena (German) at the Sha Tin station.. no problem so far... but it just took - like everything in Hong Kong - ages... and while we waited for Ahong's buddy Wanice (Hong Kong local girl) we tried to figure out where we were going to hike, cuz actually we were not quite prepared - that meaning we didnt have a clue of where to go, how to get there, how long we wanted to go, how hard it would be, we also didnt really consider bringing enough water and stuff... but anyways... finally... around 12 (!) we arrived in Kei Ling Ha Lo Wai (eastern New Territories) where we entered the MacLehose trail. Having *organisation-experts-combine-their-talents* taken a good look at the map there we decided to hike towards the East to end either in Pak Tam Au or in Long Ke. The beginning was nice, not too easy not to hard... and we made our way throug this gorgeous area... noticing ( after about 2 hrs. ) that we were kind of running out of water... and just had like about 6 hrs. ahead of us. so, any problem? :S
and the hike got harder and harder... I'm telling you, this was like torture for some parts, not joking here! we basically hiked from somewhat like sea-level all the way up to the 702m high 'Ma On Shan' mountain through the rainforest-like forest in the heat of the afternoon (now it is 8:45pm and it is still 26°C) puhhhhh... no water... and then we were kind of a little exhausted... and considered for the first time, where we would actually be able to leave this trail... which seemed to be endless. It was somewhere around that point were I figured out that we were walking in the other direction than planned... since only like 3 hrs then - and the next exit was another long way ahead. but what could we do? just keep on walkin' right?
We made it to the peak about half an hour later and had the most gorgeous view (so far) over Sai Kung bay to the south and to the north to Kei Ling Ha Hoei bay. wow that was so great. From there on it was a little easier.. rather going down than up and being a little cooler up there as well made it just so much nicer. We enjoyed the walk and watching the paragliders, getting jealous at everything they might see...
then we walked around Pyramid hill and walked on the rim of a few more hills. I had seriously always thought a trail like this existed only on TV - well obviously not.
Walking on adoring the landscape and taking too many pics again we came across a bunch of people who were doing paragliding on that grassy Slope there... and - people might call it nosy - I call it curious - I went up to them to ask whether it was possible to book a flight like this or if they did it privatly. Answer was totally unexpected and surprising: "no ui do ite priiivatli, du iuu want a ride?" French people asking me whether I want a ride on a parachute? uhhh... I am speachless! no wait, I am not - YESSSSS!!! if it is no problem! of course!!
So there I was - five minutes later, with some gear on my back, a helmet atop of me and wondering how much experience these guys might have with this stuff... but anyways who cares right?
Damn it that was SO COOL! Unbelievable undescribable... just wow! after some starting problems - this is not as easy as it looks - we took off. We being Thomas from Paris and me on the same parachute. I dont find words for the view, just look yourself - even though it doesnt work to put the movie into this blog, here is the youTube link to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzmwChzZUyc

anyways, it was only a 15 minute flight but it was definately one of the best things I have done so far in Hong Kong!

and as I just heard, some people dont know that the old picture page is full... so some pics are on a new page. the old one was: www.claudia-schmitz.medion-fotoalbum.com, the new one www.claudia-schmitz1.medion-fotoalbum.com. since this is also full now... the latest page is www.claudia-schmitz2.medion-fotoalbum.com!!

the last days...

hey guys... just few words on the last days here and tonight!
since I wrote last time, I dont know exactly what all happened but it was loads and so just some stuff that comes to my mind now!
First of all - I know - how awful - I am thinking about food first - unbelievable! Well, but this was special! the StudiVZ group and I went to a great dinner together: we went to the "Biergarten" (beergarden), which is - for the non Germans, a VERY typical german thing! however, here it is not an actual beer garden, just a restaurant. but still great as it offers real Bitburger beer from the tap and they serve real german food... so I had Frikadellen with Kartoffelsalat (German meatballs with potato salad--> sounds so bad in English, doenst it?), and the guys (typical Schwaben) were happy with their Käsespätzle and Wurstsalat! yummmy
another night we went for an indian dinner which was also great... anyways
what else happened?
uni stuff... becuase I am sure due to my reports you guys must all think I am just lazy here... doing nothing but partying and traveling? and that is SO TRUE! but I squeeze in some time for uni.. and lately I had to do more and more since I really gotta at least pass my classes here...
two weeks ago I had my first exam: Chinese!! uhh uhh... I was quite scared... the pronunciation is so hard and even though I learned all the vocabulary I still can sometimes not distinguish teh difference between a x and a q and the zh and ch sounds... but well, the exam went good in perfect cooperation with Julia and we both did really quite well *surprise-surprise*
and I had to hand in an ugly essay about the influence of gambling on residents of Macau with all the ethical stuff in it... yuck... so annoying to write... but well,.. I got a B+ Yippiieeee.. and since I worked for a D I am overly happy with that!
Well, thats not the end yet. just handed in another assignment today and the projects are going on.
we went on a fieldtrip to Sai Kung in the north-eastern part of HongKong which was really very nice and interessting.
and between all that? well.... some parties of course and: more travel plans... so next week I will actually go to guilin with David and Markus! We'll (hopefully) make it there on Wednesday and return to HK the Tuesday after. And no, I have no holiday but I take it ;)
and then finally about today: Sara, Christina, Suzanne, Julia, Laura and I were invited to a hot pot evening at Queenies house, she is also German but lives here at her grannys place. That was so cool. and yummy... and I am still stuffed!! It was just great to see a real Hong Kong home and be there and we did have a lot of fun. Singing all the way back on the bus I guess we must have done everything possible to establish a judgement of weird foreigners in the other people on the bus... and the driver... but well... it was fun.
Tomorrow I will *sportive* go hiking in the New territorries. I mean, its not that we had a lot of experience hiking or that we would have a hiking map with the trails... but we will just make our way!! ;) so now I gotta go to bed! c ya all...

the last days...

hey guys... just few words on the last days here and tonight!
since I wrote last time, I dont know exactly what all happened but it was loads and so just some stuff that comes to my mind now!
First of all - I know - how awful - I am thinking about food first - unbelievable! Well, but this was special! the StudiVZ group and I went to a great dinner together: we went to the "Biergarten" (beergarden), which is - for the non Germans, a VERY typical german thing! however, here it is not an actual beer garden, just a restaurant. but still great as it offers real Bitburger beer from the tap and they serve real german food... so I had Frikadellen with Kartoffelsalat (German meatballs with potato salad--> sounds so bad in English, doenst it?), and the guys (typical Schwaben) were happy with their Käsespätzle and Wurstsalat! yummmy
another night we went for an indian dinner which was also great... anyways
what else happened?
uni stuff... becuase I am sure due to my reports you guys must all think I am just lazy here... doing nothing but partying and traveling? and that is SO TRUE! but I squeeze in some time for uni.. and lately I had to do more and more since I really gotta at least pass my classes here...
two weeks ago I had my first exam: Chinese!! uhh uhh... I was quite scared... the pronunciation is so hard and even though I learned all the vocabulary I still can sometimes not distinguish teh difference between a x and a q and the zh and ch sounds... but well, the exam went good in perfect cooperation with Julia and we both did really quite well *surprise-surprise*
and I had to hand in an ugly essay about the influence of gambling on residents of Macau with all the ethical stuff in it... yuck... so annoying to write... but well,.. I got a B+ Yippiieeee.. and since I worked for a D I am overly happy with that!
Well, thats not the end yet. just handed in another assignment today and the projects are going on.
we went on a fieldtrip to Sai Kung in the north-eastern part of HongKong which was really very nice and interessting.
and between all that? well.... some parties of course and: more travel plans... so next week I will actually go to guilin with David and Markus! We'll (hopefully) make it there on Wednesday and return to HK the Tuesday after. And no, I have no holiday but I take it ;)
and then finally about today: Sara, Christina, Suzanne, Julia, Laura and I were invited to a hot pot evening at Queenies house, she is also German but lives here at her grannys place. That was so cool. and yummy... and I am still stuffed!! It was just great to see a real Hong Kong home and be there and we did have a lot of fun. Singing all the way back on the bus I guess we must have done everything possible to establish a judgement of weird foreigners in the other people on the bus... and the driver... but well... it was fun.
Tomorrow I will *sportive* go hiking in the New territorries. I mean, its not that we had a lot of experience hiking or that we would have a hiking map with the trails... but we will just make our way!! ;) so now I gotta go to bed! c ya all...

emerging into chinese traditions: the mid-autumn festival

and then it was Friday already! another unique day - believe it or not! basically I spent half the day at uni... and it would have been just an average Friday in Hong Kong if it wasn't for the moon! (yeah you think, now she's completely gone nuts) but seriously, it was Mid-Autumn Festival - due to the full moon! It is one of the most important holidays in the Lunar calendar, celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th moon of the year - and yes, that is in October, cuz the lunar calendar beginns in February... get it?! anyways. it is the tradition, that Asian family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn moon, eat moon cakes and sit around there brightly lit candles in Victoria Park. In Hong Kong there is a fire-dragon dance and at least half the poplulation and just as many tourists are on the streets. Fiona (friend from Scotland), Warning (our buddy, and yes thats really her English name ;)), Yip (her boyfriend), Christina (from Austria), Heidi (Christinas Buddy, a chinese girl with quite an interessting English name!!) Suzanne (from England) and I were just in the middle of it! We went to see the fire dragon.
The history of the festival is, that once - centuries ago, there was a small fishing village on Hong Kong island, called "tai hang". One day, the locals killed a python (Pythonschlange) which had found its way into town - a bad idea - since resulting from that a great storm devasted the town, and locals ended up sick: the Plague had come!! A town elder though had a vision of a buddha, telling him that performing a dragon dance would cure the people from their suffering. Ever since then, the fire dragon dance is performed by the few villagers of Tai Hang - which is today called Causeway bay, poplulated slightly more dense, in memory of the buddha who saved them.

Well, today, the streets are jam-packed with people, more than you would have ever seen in any place, all aiming to catch a glimpse of the now 60 meter long fire dragon which is being carried through the buzzing streets. The atmosphere is amazing... loudly celebrating people, aromtic smells of the burning incense sticks of the dragon and the hypnotic rhythm of the drums and cymbals (German: Becken (instrument!)). It feels just like beeing thrown right into some kind of undescribable whatever, I have no words for that! you gotta see it to believe it. Decorations are beautiful - with flags everywhere and lanterns lightning the city, especially Victoria Park, where another million of people is quietly sitting on blankets, holding lanterns, burning candles and enjoying the night out with their close family and friends.

For us, it was especially nice to have our local buddies around, since they could explain us so much about the happenings over a Shanghaian dinner (which was much better than the actual stuff I ate in Shanghai) and let us take part in their traditions. definately one of Hong Kongs unique events! Together, we wandered the streets and throughout Victoria Park, taking in every bit of it, shooting pictures (check claudia-schmitz1.medion-fotoalbum.com) and of course carrying our own shining little lantern, carefully not to let the little candle inside of it burn its yellow, orange or red paper to its ashes and trying to memorize the moment! I was just amazed!! A great day.










Saturday was more or less a not-much-done day.... just hung around here with Megan, who was leaving in the afternoon to go back to Anji. For lunch we went to the Spaghetti house, and yummmmm such good food. I guess I've never eaten so much deverse foods in just one week!

Sunday I did school stuff, or at least I started learning - together with Verena at Big Wave Bay Beach ;) , in the East of Hong Kong Island - a beautiful part of the region and afterwards we met up with Julia to have dinner at the mexican place again - I just can't resist this wine!!

Monday I did school stuff as well - for real and all day long... as I had to study for the first exam here, which I had yesterday: CHINESE!!! and - surprise surprise, it went much better than I'd thought, so letz wait and see the results!! now today, Wednesday the 11th was just another busy school day. in between a lecture and a seminar I picked up my new china visa - a multiple entry one so now I can come and go as much as I like - or at least until my passport is full of stamps... for lunch I met up with Warning in one of the campus canteens and now I am wondering whether to go to Taiwan, Yunnan, Chengdu, the Phillipines, Singapore or Malasia or Indonesia for my next weekend trip. any suggestions?

I just talked (thanks to skype) to Kathrin in Mexico... its 9:30 am there and she is preparing for a Spanish exam... so good luck with that and enjoy your holiday at tha beaaaaaaach!!I'll upload some pictures on the site above and try to sign up for utube so I can also share some freaky motion pics with you! but I'll do that tomorrow I guess... or later. bye, doei, tschüss, zaijien, adios, ciao...

... on beautiful Temples, exessive parties and suuuuch goooood fooooood!

So, getting back from the weekend trip a week ago and now starting a busy week, with - what else - a bunch of classes on Wednesday and trying to ignore the workload! And what was the date on Wednesday??? riiiight - the 4th of October! and what does that mean? oh oh ohhh yeahhh.... gettin' a year older and wiser tomorrow!! So I partied into my B-day in the Les Visages, with all my friends over here from Uni and the StudiVZ group. I guess we all had a blast! It was definately one of the greatest b-days ever, with a lot of vodka-coke, life music and this black hot guy on stage rapping my name into his song at midnight (hmmm...yummy!) (<-- thats the drinks, not the guy ;) - maybe) And I was so happy that so many people came, even Warning, my local buddy here came!! Thanks everybody for the great time, I'll surely remember that for a long time!! oh and I got such cute presents!! A new bag (yeahhh!!), a traditional moon-cake!

The next day woke up, and as usual, swung my legs out of bed to sit down in front of the notebook to check my mails.... ufff... a whole lot of them for my bday!! yeiii.... and I also got some ancient style real paper mail! yippiiii.... I met up with Megan to go to the 10,000 budda monestary in Sha Tin. Before goin there we decided to treat ourselves to a typical Hong Kong meal: Dim Sum! wow was that delicious in this kinda upscale Restaurant in the Festival Walk Mall in Kowloon Tong. And I hadnt seen that mall before - it was huge! and definately one of the greatest malls I've ever seen. You could seriously get everything there. So, afterwards Megan treated me some original Ben & Jerry's ice cream, kind chokolate therapy, there for my bday! yummmmmy!
And then we finally made it to Sha Tin. The monestary was so gorgeous! we climbed roughly 400 stairs, lined with golden buddas on each side up to the top of the monastary, taking way too many pics along the way of the statues and the natural surroundings. it totally seemed like a tropical place, and there were - for some unknown secret reason - barely any tourists there, what made it even more enjoyable. After staying there for about 2 hrs. we made our way back down, went past the IKEA (yeah know I know where it is.... and *proudly* I even resisted to go in!) back to the train... to make our way to Hong Kong Island.
Arriving there we took the Vicotria Peak tram up, which is an old tram car that is pulled up to the top in quite a steep angle just by a cable. And even though I'd already been there and basically went again to show it to Megan, the view is just THE VIEW of the city. I guess I could go up there every single night and I would still be stunned...
after an adventurous mini bus ride down (damn it I'd never heard breaks sqeek so loudly), we took the escalator to SoHo and enjoyed another special dinner in a mexican restaurant. Yummy fajitas and Chilean red wine. a great day, gorgeous, amazing, wonderful - just perfect! but guess what - it hadn't endet yet! We went back by ferry (Megan being astouned by the view, me almost being used to it (though you will never totally be), then I made the way home and - just after coming in, *knock - knock*, Claudia opens the door, the light goes off and Fi and Mandy come in with a little cake, lit by a candle and singing happy birthday! oh what a nice surprise! Thank you guys for the gift, I'll use it on special occasions only to make sure it lasts for looooong!!

Hong Kong - Shanghai - Hangzhou - Anji - Hong Kong

Wednesday 27th of September, 2pm: Claudia leaves student hall to go to shenzhen airport (just across the border to the mainland)... taking train to the Lo Wu border 3:30 pm, crossing border by walking (yeahh.. new china stamp in my passport) 4pm, finding and taking bus from border to airport - hoping that this bus would actually really go to the right airport and ever arriving there, 5:30pm due to traffic, flying from shenzhen to Hangzhou 7:30- 9 pm with crying and seat kicking kiddo behind me, taking bus from airport to train station 10 to 11pm, waiting in overcrowded small town crappy train waiting hall from 11pm til 3am, trying to sleep on one of the rows of uncomfy plastic chairs, switching into crappy train with smelly people who wont take their feet off the chair for a "laowai" (foreigner) like me, arriving in Shanghai at 5:30am, taking subway to Renmin Gongyuan (people square) and checking in at the hostel in a "authentic" chinese back street at 7am. wow, that was a quick and easy journey!!!!!!!!

Thursday, 28th: so I slept half of the first day there,then went "online" in the hostel --> welcome to China, I-net is shit here, no Hotmail, Messenger or whatsoever... everything blocked by communist policy arrhghhhhgggghhhh. The hostel is really nice by the way and very central! Then went out at 3pm finally to Nanjing Donglu. Consumerism hits me . Tourists everywhere: HELP??!! try some weird sesame snack - yummy! get tired of looking around and all the tourist stuff, take the subway back and decide to treat myself to a haircut! Why not in a country where nobody understands hello and goodbye?! After a new experience in a rather dry way of shampooing (using water out of spray thingy and no sink under my head) I get a wonderful head and neck massage. then me and about 5 employees of this "hair dresser" challenge each other for a mutual understanding of what I want with my hair. Drawing pictures helps a bit and they seem to understand what I mean with cutting the hair-ends (german: spitzen schneiden) .... well, it turns out ok but they didnt seem to quite understand it totally so actually it did get a little short. they seemed to especially miss the part of me explaining them that I want to be able to tuck my hair behind my ears - which is IMPOSSIBLE now.... and the more I think about it later I am devasted and depressed aobut how short my hair is! To make myself happy again I buy some cute earrings and try a Starbucks grean tea frappucino - yummy. Spend the evening in the hostel bar with Zhu Hui, the Chinese girl who also stays in my room and find out that the Formula1 race is actually in Shanghai this weekend, and she is just here to support Shuumaakkaaa!! hahahaah

Friday 29th: got up early to do all the tourist attractions of Shanghai today. subway to South Shanxi Rd. in the biddleof the French Condcession part of town. Walked around there for ages. how beautiful! a mixture o faded 1930s architecture, from old art-deco villas with the cutest quaint balconies and doorways in little backstreets and narrow alleyways with hundreds of small art galleries and shops. Felt almost like a French small town (not that I've ever been to one and my roommate would probably hate me for saying such a disdainful thing!)
Then I visited the old town of Shanghai, newly renovated in the 1980s and equipped with zillions of antique and souvenier shops. I wander around there for a while and then find some backstreet shops beyond all the tourist attractions, and I buy some Christmas gifts to send home... (early planning again).
Now after that I finally made it to THE sight of Shanghai - the bund! this is what you are supposed to see when looking at the Shanghai skyline - an assortment of neoclassical buildings in downtown New York style and across the river the Pudong area with all the high rise skyscrapers amongst which the oriental pearl tower sticks out most. Well,... it was ok nice there... this city is so filled with smok that I could barely see Pudong and the air smelled extremely of hte typical mix of chinese street cuisine and fumes of all the taxis and boats on the Huangpu River. YUCK!
met up with Zhe Hui again at night for some Shanghai nightlife and real shanghaian dinner. Turns out that the dinner place is at Yuyuan garden where I'd already been over the day, but nevertheless it was great, real good food, called Tong yuan, a Shanghaian kind of rice balls with poppy seeds (German: Mohn, Dutch: Klaproos/korenroos) in it. weird but yummy. Oh and then of course we also went to the bund again. Muuuuch nicer at night, cuz you cant see the smok! The skyline does look great with all the lights and of course I took hundreds of pictures. Anyways, I know a skyline that is so much nicer: Hong Kong!

Saturday was travel day again: got up early though so that I could still do something before, and I went - yippieeee... to the Shanghai Museum of Arts. Welll... out of all the museums I've been to, this must have been one of the worst ever. Seriously there was no piece of art in the whole place that was older than 2 or 3 years maybe, no traditional chinese art, no impressionist or what ever... only modern art, photographs that you and I can take, installations of wire or wood into weird forms or strokes of paint that make no sense whatsoever. nevertheless, I enjoyed the atmosphere and there were some quite good pieces!
Then I made my way to the train station again, got a train ticket and hat to wait of 2 hours.. kind of stressed I just wanted to sit in the supermodern waiting hall. I just sat down when this guy just sits next to me, introducing himself as Andrew and its his job to help foreigh coostomah at tha stationg and he like to make new frrien with "beauty girl from Noawahy" (told him I was from Norway) ... god how annoying. asks me for my contact info... write down Christina, and a fake email addy... and he keeps on talking and talking.. damn it- just get lost man!! the only good thing is that he can actually tell me where I gotta go for my train. He keeps talking for a while and then tells me that he has to return to his work (I thought this was his work) but probably he just spotted another poor foreigner around the next corner... I am SO not gonna email this guy! Well, the train ride was nice. Sat to a middle aged chinese guy who tried to make some converstaion in the beginning until he found out that I dont understand shit of what he was saying...
arriving in Hangzhou I met up with Megan, and we checked into a really nice hostel (IKEA shower curtains ;) ), enjoyed a good Chinese dinner nearby the Maya bar, then met up with a ton of Americans, two isreali guys we'd picked up in the hostel and some other folks and we spent the rest of the night in the maya bar drinking tiger beer and tequila. altogether, it was a lively group. much fun!

Sunday morning, megan and I walked on Hangzhous beautiful west lake for a while (though I dont see why Marco Polo should have said "in heaven there is paradise, on earth there is Hangzhou") I mean, it was nice but there are nicer places I guess....
Then we went in search of the elong (yeah again!) office to pick up our plane tickets to go back to Hong Kong on Tuesday. The address provided by elong was Fengqi road, number 6, first floor. Should be easy right? Well, It would not be china and not be Elong if they wouldnt do it according to their business philosophe, so it turned into 2 hour hike around fengqi road, as the taxi driver dropped us off near some hospital (number 8) which was nowhere near where we needed to be. we wandered to the 3rd floor of some building and into a cyts tourist office that was under construction. finally, we found the office at number 96 and got our tickets! Afterwards, we wandered through the silk market - a long pedestrian market street filled with silk shops. you can see scarf shops and old 1980s mannequins boasting VERY strange faces, colored hair, and frumpy ladies' silk shirts. we finally got the bus to Anji, the city where Megan lives and works, but not before sitting in the bus station for about 3 hours. it being national holiday, all travel centers are beyond busy, so the first non-sold out bus we could find was a 4:30 departure (it was 1:30 when we bought the tickets). we walked across the large, busy motorway and stumbled through a small goods market. we wandered down a small lane with dirty, two table restaurants and bought fried pumpkin rounds from a vendor. later, we sat on a ledge and looked through the lonely planet until it was *finally* time for our departure.

Anji is like a really small town, and quite typical chinese I guess. People constantly looked at us loudly whispering "laowai", and it was totally good to be in a small place for once, no more huge cities, no more tourists around!

we met up with Ivy, megans colleague and cathy and Heaven (ivy's boyfriend), megans friends to celebrate Cathy's birthday. To honour this event, Cathy had decided to change her name from Cathy into Shadow. Yeah well, why not right?
After the dinner party with a yummy cake, we went to a karaoke place!!! oh my god that was fun! I actually can sing a little bit (Antoinette, stop laughing already!) Well it was fun anyways, the chinese are such "GOOOD" singers.... it is not only impossible for them to sing in anything close to a rhythm but they are also totally off-key... wow was that bad! BUT fun!

Monday, the 2nd of October, was basically the last day of my trip. We went to see Megans friend Meshells workplace, a chair factory! then we went for lunch and I had my first dish of real bamboo, tastes good, I can only recommend it!! And then in the afternoon the three of us went to da zhu hai (big bamboo sea). There is no sea anywhere near by, but the hilly area is FULL of bamboo trees and cuz of their kind of treetop they wave in the wind just like waves on the ocean (very poetic, right?!)
at night we went to another restaurant and enjoyed a whole lot of dishes, eggplant, potatoes, rice, more eggplant and beef and FROG!!! whole frogs that is!! and they are so yummy, a bit like chicken, and they are quite muscular. Must have been quite some sunny-boy frogs... yummy ;) And on account of the 1Yuan beer (0,10€) bottles we had loads of fun also.
When we left, I drove Meshells scooter outside for a minute or so... and I didnt even fall over, as I had expected. this is so easy!!
on the way home, we passed a chinese style town fair and took a detour around it. interessting stuff they sell... got some new socks!!
now this was basically it... the next day we got up early to go back to Hong Kong... Taxi from Megans place to the bus, bus to Hanghzhou, another bus to the city centre, other bus to the airport, flight to Shenzhen, bus to the border, walk across the border and the KCR to Hung Hom. Finally back "home" in an area I know and english speaking people around! now since then also a lot happened, but I will keep that for the next blog which I'll try to write tomorrow or so.. cuz now I will go to tha beaaach!!


*I have to add here that I actually took a few phrases of htis blog from megans blog, cuz I am too busy to write and too lazy as well! so this keeps it a Plagiarism free site!! ;)

Online booking - the Chinese way or a practical guide to Elong.com

now, dear audience, this will be a major blog trying to put in everything that happened during the last week only, but there was SO much!!
maybe I will put it in more than 1 blog!! so here we go: SHANGHAIIIII
Well, most of you have allready done online booking sometime... and so have I. However this time it was a WHOLE NEW experience! For those of you who are in Asia and heard about Elong.com: forget that you ever heard about it and install a "beware of Elong" sign above your computer - for your own safety! Here's the story of a booking procedure in chinese way: As usual, you select your flight and itinerary, click on next step or whatever gets you forward, ... put in your contact information and credit card numberes and expiry date... and thats how I did... of course, I had also selected "E-ticket" for that. Now what is an eticket? usually i would have said its a number that you get in an email with which you can check in... but question: why does it say "delivery address" then on this weird semi-chinese page? well, I aint got a clue, so why not call them in China- skype makes it possible right. Slight problem: English!! So here am I, talkign to a chinese person and just saying "wo jiao ying yu" - I want someone who speaks English, and "wo tingbudong putoghua" I dont understand Putonghua (Chinese)... and, easy as it is... I get put through to someone who speaks some English... did you think now it was easy? well, wrong again... I gave this lady aaaall the info again... and she made a reservation for me. To confirm it, she would send me a "credit card authorisation form" which I had to print out (how good that I dont have a printer!) sign, and then fax (no fax here either) back, or (!!) take a digital pic of it and email that back. Together, I have to send a picture of my passport (which was at the travel agency around the corner at that time to get a visa for china) and a picture of the front (to compare the number) and back (to compare the signature) of my credit card! OH MY GOD!! but, its cheaper than anythign else.... so get over it and do it, right? ... only that this email did not come! time went by... 2 hrs, 3 hrs... 4 hrs... and I got slightly nervous to say the least!
So, why not call again... only minor difficulty this time: there was nobody who spoke english or even understood what I was saying... all that I got back from my tingbudong and ying yu?? was blablablalballbaalblalbalalbalaowieurpawoeir kbjaölfdkjasödfj putonghua oiweroaib k blbalablabllablablablabla... for like 20 minutes... also, I guess they put me through to every possible employee at this call center... ying yu xie xie.... bu putonghua..... tingbudong.... waaaaahaaaaa no chance.
that was Saturday and I wanted to fly Wednesday, so no worries - still 4 whole days, right? pfffff
sunday nobody could be reached and monday I finally talked to someone in English again... the email came (promised) only another 4 hrs later and then it was easy... just some rushing around back and forth to uni to print, copy, scan and send... and then: waiting for the confirmation. ... by now i was used to it so the next day I called again to tell them to send it and by Tuesday evening they had sent my confirmation! Its as easy as that!! Oh did I mention that this was only the confirmation of the booking and with this I could go to the China Eastern Airlines Counter at the airport to "pick up" my "e-ticket". Eticketing in China... the paper version I guess!
so, the next blog will be about Shanghai actually....

September 18th until 26th!

allright here we go... I am getting too lazy about writing here and now I have to catch up quite a while! So I sit here, have 20 min. time and rummage through my memory in order to remember what actually happened...
uni got busy - which means that I actually had to start working on some stuff.... a project on how the Singaporean Government influences the Tourism development there was quite interessting while an essay on social problems caused by the gambling industry in macau was well... not so interessting to say the least.
I went to a horse race in Happy Valley. Now you will surely say what?? a horse race? how booooring! but failed by far: horse racing is THE spectator sport in Hong Kong, and since the Chinese love to gamble - which is not allowed in Hong Kong - they do bet on Horses! there is thousands of people and our StudiVZ group in the middle. Even though we lost our bets (or I did at least) there was this funny indian guy standing right behind us who won a fortune there.... so he oviouly thought that this was reason for celebrating and he brought some pints of beer to share with us! Never seen the guy again after that but that was also not our aim.... but the beer was good!! ;)
allright - for those who've seen this post earlier - from here on is the new stuff which I couldnt write this morning...
on Friday the 22nd it was time to check out another place to party into Dennis' (StudiVZ) birthday and to have a good bye party for Tine we went to the Aqua bar, located on the 20somthingth floor of a building basically on the tip of Kowloon. Its the BEST view on the harbour ever and with some cocktails, an amazing view and good music we danced the night away...
the next day, I had signed up for a City Orienteering Tour - like a scaventure hunt - Schnitzeljagt for the Germans - throughout Hong Kong. Besides Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, it was the first time for me to go to the New Territories - the northern part of Hong Kong, where we went to Tai Po, Fanling and Yuen Long. Beauuuutiful area! I am so anxious to go hiking there once the weather is not as hot anymore...
so... maybe I'll have time tonight or sometime these days to let u know about my weekend trip to Shanghai, Hangzhou and Anji.. from which I just got back... now I gotta go to class again - Tourism business, ethics and law *puke* ....