Asia trip - 12.5-1.6.2008
Before leaving Vietnam to China I had the chance to spent a few more days in Hanoi, man how I love this city! The most fun here is the daily live and watching people on the streets while sipping on some cool bia Hanoi for a few cents per glass!
Crossing the border into China was quite an experience, they searched all my bags and they even tried to check my portable hard drive and the pictures on my camera, but after 1 hour they finally decided that I am not a threat to their country and they let me in...the first night I spent in Guilin, I was shocked how developed these Chinese cities are, not much difference to any western city...
but I didn't come to China to see western cities, so after a night in Guilin I took a bus down to Yangshuo, pretty much Halong Bay without the water! Amazing rock formations sticking out of the ground with rice paddies in between and a whole bunch of tourists...
These two girls spent the day with me, they were local English students and it was cool for me to get in contact with locals and they could practise their English! Here they dressed up in some local minority dress for a fotoshooting.
My next stop was a small little mountain village called Long Tien, it's famous for it's rice paddies that they carved into the mountains during the last 800 years. Amazing scenery, friendly locals and clean fresh air made me hang around here for 3 days...
Some of the old locals selling their fresh produce on the tiny village market.
one day of rain, not much hiking today, instead I used the chance to get in touch with local teenagers that spoke a little bit of English and that couldn't afford to continue with high school becaue their parents can't afford the 200$ per year for school...so they had to work.
22 hours on the train brought me up to Shanghai...
There I met up with an old friend from school, some of you might even know him! His girlfriend studies here in Shanghai and he just visited her for a while. yeah and somewhow our schedules worked out that way that we could meet for a few hours! Actually he flew back home on the same night.
Shanghai's scyline at night
and during the day...it's a big city with a lot of people that want to sell you anything from toys to tea ceremonies and pictures from art galleries, actually quite annoying! But still there a also a lot of interesting things in Shanghai with different districts and also a old town with a huge market.
little church in downtown
A night bus brought me up to Qingdao, an old German colony town...supposedly Germany in China. Well so I had to check that out and since this is also a busy port town at the coast with good connections by boat to Japan and South Korea I had to go there anyways. This city is split up in a old town with easy going locals and a new area with high rise buildings and the typical chinese consumer crazieness! Fortunately my hostel was in the old town!
Only here in the old town you could find these places, we named here 'mama tsingtao' for the cheap Tsingtao beer that she was selling in PLASTIC BAGS!
There were some great people at my hostel and it was easy to find new friends, with two of them we spend a day walking along the beach and just enjoying life.
That was actually my last night in Qingdao after waiting there for 6 days. because of bad weather and heavy fog out on the sea the boats couldn't leave the harbour. Looking back it was perfect that the boats couldn't leave, it was so much fun to spent time at this great hostel, get to know the staff there and spend a lot of time eating out on the local street market. Here I was having some beers with a local teacher that was spealing pretty good english.
Finally on the boat, not straight to Japan as planed but instead to South Korea first...
Next morning the boat arrived in Korea, immigration was no problem and then I heade straight down to Gapsa, a small village in the mountains with good hiking trails in a national park and some old mountain temples.
hiking through some fog close to the peak
After one night in Byeo I took a bus down to Yeosu, a small city on the south coast of Korea. First day I checked out the city and some parks...
...second day I took a bus out to Dolsando Island, there is also a small national park with some little mountain temples and nice trails up to the peak. In the evening I got invited by some locals to join their seafood BBQ party, man what a feast with lots of Soju, the Korean version of rice wine!
posted by Dönner - เดินเนอร์ - 듀너 - ドエナー - 德納 at 4:46 PM
3 comments
