From October 1st to October 7th the Chinese celebrate their National Day. On October 1st 1949 this "communist" country was founded and Mao was declared (or rather declared himself) the new leader of the Chinese people. Th communist ideas have pretty much disappeared during these 60 years and China is now a place with less communist characteristics than Germany.
We decided to spend this week without work in the Chinese capital Beijing. I went with Hannah, Becky and Stacey and on top of that, Anninka and I could celebrate our reunion once I got to Beijing, because she, like us, had decided to use this opportunity to visit the Beijing.
Everyone had warned us that during the week of National Day Beijing would be very crowded and they had been right. Getting there and back turned out to be the first problem. We had trouble finding a train to get to Beijing and couldn't get one for our way back, so we had to take a plane.
Our train took us straight from Huai Hua to Beijing...and it took 27 hours. It wasn't as bad as it sounds due to our comfy beds and creative and noisy games which entertained th whole train.
We, who had gotten really used to Huai Hua's small town life, were a little lost in the big city of Beijing. There was no street food, the buildings were new and modern, everything was clean, there were no piles of trash in the corners, the traffic was less noisy and more organized, there were foreigners in the streets, the people spoke some English and everything was more expensive. We were really confused.
We had some trouble finding our hostel but thanks to the amazing helpfulness of Chinese people we finally got there. It was very nice to see Anninka again. We had a lot to talk about, a lot of experiences to exchange and I had definitely missed her company after leaving Kunming.
The very touristy bits of Beijing were crowded, full of foreigners, expensive and not very Chinese at all. We went to a cute little street with old houses and we could hardly walk because of the amount of people shoving and pushing through the narrow streets. But in the end we found a nice little cafe with a good view over the cute street where we could sit on the roof and enjoy some calmness.
Naturally we had to do the main tourist attractions. There are so many things to see and to do in Beijing. A lot of history but at the same time it is a very new and modern city. We had to pick well when we decided what to do with our limited time in Beijing.

Thursday: Tian'anmen Square and Forbidden City
The most famous image of Beijing, known all around the world with the huge painting of chairman Mao in the background: That's what we saw when we stepped onto Tian'anmen Square, the biggest square in the world. It did look a little different than I remembered from the pictures though. There was a huge street crossing right through the square and every inch of it was packed with picture-taking people. The entrance to the Forbidden City, the place where the Chinese Emperors used to live until the kingdom was overthrown in 1911, was right below the image of Mao. The whole city (and he name is accurate - it is huge!) is enclosed by a huge wall and during the time of the emperors it was prohibited below death penalty to enter the forbidden city. Now the prices still try to achieve the same purpose but unfortunately that doesn't keep the masses of tourists out of that special place, and neither did we hesitate to pay to get in.
Even though place lost some of its magic due to the crowd, it was still a very special place to see. There were many squares, palaces, huge stairs, statues and temples, all very beautifully decorated, some made out of wood, some out of stone. All the roofs were golden or yellow and we were taught that yellow and gold were the colors of the emperors and no one used to be allowed to use them except the royal families. We couldn't go inside any of the buildings but it was still very impressive to think for how many years this place had been home to the kings and queens of China. It was opened during the Ming Dynasty in 1420 and even the last Chinese king still lived in this city.
We spent many hours in the Forbidden City and finally got to a park which was very Chinese and very pretty and used to be a place for the emperors to relax and qrite poetry and we did the same thing-without the poetry-part.
Even though we had spent almost all day in the Forbidden City we weren't able to see all of it. It was too big. But it is definitely a place to come back to, even though I want to pick a less busy day.

Friday: To be a real man you must climb the Great Wall!
And that's what we did. I had dreamed about going to see the Great Wall, but I was not expecting at all what we got. Because we were a little tired of crowds after our day in the forbidden city we followed the Lonely Planet's advice and picked a less touristy part of the Wall- what w hadn't thought of was that this would also mean that it would be much harder to get there. But we finally did, after a long bus ride and a weird taxi driver and from the small village we had arrived in, for the first time, we laid our eyes on the Great Wall of China- One of the Seven Wonders of the World.
We had to climb up the mountain through a forests until we got to the actual wall, which was winding itself along the mountaintops, like a white snake, imitating the exact form of the mountains. After a one and a half hour hike up the mountain we suddenly saw the first bricks of this mysterious and at the same time famous wall. Screaming in excitement and disbelief we ran around the last corner and stepped onto this historic piece of architecture. The Great Wall of China was built more than 2000 years ago ans was meant to protect the Chinese Empire to the north. It has since been rebuilt many times, in the Middle Ages it was rebuilt almost completely. It is not and has never been a continuous wall. There are parts in between where there is no wall but if you look at it as one wall, it goes almost from one end of China to the other end.
We had picked a relatively unrestored section of the wall, which meant it was less crowded but at the same time it was a lot more difficult to walk on this part of the wall. It was covered with small shrubs and trees and there were a lot of loose rocks. Compared to the other, very few, people we came across on the wall, we looked really out of place without any hiking or rock climbing equipment and unhandy purses instead of backpacks. But we had a lot of fun finding our way over rocks and between trees, up and down, the way the wall led us. Sometimes we really had to climb some rocks and sometimes we had to be careful not to fall off a steep drop when parts of the wall were missing. It was exciting and fun to climb, walk, hike and take in the amazing views during our breaks in between. When we finally got to the top of the mountain we found ourselves facing a breathtaking view across the mountains and the wall, creeping over peaks and through valleys. We decided to make this our spot for our lunch break and sat down with our feet dangling high above the beautiful landscape.
We stayed there for a long time, trying to take in and understand this magical place until we finally felt ready to move on.
We passed one of the watchtowers and found ourselves unable to continue. The mountain, and therefore the wall, suddenly went straight down in almost a 90 degree drop before continuing in a straight line, as if nothing had happened, about 100 feet below us. Even though we were a little nervous we finally decided to take the risk and climb, or rather scramble down the Great Wall, holding on to stones, trying to step on protruding rocks without sliding off or if nothing else worked sliding down on our bums!
After the first sudden drop we came across two more similarly scary declines and when we had reached a "normal" part of the wall and then finally the village again we were all very proud of us! And on top of that we had been declared real men by two fellow wall-climbers who looked way more elegant than we did as they were climbing down behind us. Apparently there is a saying in China: "To be a real man, you must climb the Great Wall". And so we did! I have hardly ever had as much fun in my life!

Saturday: Lama-Temple and Summer Palace
When we got up on Saturday morning we could feel our every muscle. Our bodies hadn't been used to the kind of "hiking" we had done the day before. On top of that we all still seemed to be a little tired. But we wanted to use our time in Beijing and decided to visit the Lama Temple, the biggest Tibetan temple outside of Tibet. It was built during the Qing Dynasty ad has a lot of buildings, different temples, big and small, statues, squares, and many many colors. I love how colorful all Buddhist temples seem to be. Before entering we had to buy incense sticks, which everyone carried around with them. In front of almost every building there were little fires where you could light up your incense sticks and so we did but it was a little awkward because we were surrounded by masses of praying Buddhists, while we didn't have a clue what we were supposed to do. We burned our incense sticks and bowed our heads respectfully (or so we hoped) and admired the artwork and the statues but during our visit, I started feeling more and more the desire to learn more about Buddhism. Even though I did feel a little uncomfortable I really enjoyed the temple with its colors and friendly atmosphere.
We had a quick lunch (at Subway, once again it felt like we were back home and not in China any more) and went on to the Summer palace, which is a huge palace, a little outside of the center of Beijing with big park. Like the Forbidden City the entrance and the buildings and squares were very crowded but the park was big enough, so that we were able to escape the masses. We didn't walk very fast, due to our sore bodies and stopped when we heard singing. We looked around and saw a group of older women and a couple of men singing with the most beautiful voices. We sat and listened and they came up to us and asked us to sing something. we were a little embarrassed because whatever we could do, it would always sound bad after what we had just listened to. But they seemed really excited about it, so we decided to sing "Amazing grace" . After a while they started to sing matching harmonies and in the end it did sound pretty good. They were just the nicest old ladies! Some of them spoke a little bit of English and Anninka could help out with her Chinese, and we ended up spending quite a lot of time with them in the park, singing, listening and talking to them. The whole thing was ended honorably with the Chinese, the German and the English national anthem ( we had asked them to sing the Chinese one, so they wanted to heard ours) and then we said good-bye and went on, all in a very good mood!
We wanted to find the famous yellow duck, which has been in Beijing for a couple of years now, swimming randomly in a lake in the Summer palace. It was meant to be an advertisement but people started liking it and it was never taken away. So the HUGE yellow duck has now become one of the main tourist attractions in Beijing. Of course we had to go and see it and it is definitely the biggest duck I've ever seen.
By now the palace was a little emptier, so we could get a better look at the buildings and then we left and wet to look for something nowhere to be found in China, except in Beijng: a vegan restaurant!
Once we got in there I literally felt like I was back in Germany. The furniture looked like it would in a vegan place in Europe. The food on the menu was western food, there were advertisement because all the ingredients were organic, there was a vegan chocolate cake in display. To our disappointment even the prizes were the same as they would have been in Europe and to top everything off, we were given a knife and fork to eat with. It was like being back in Europe. In there we could all forget we were in China. The food was amazing. Anninka looked like the happiest person on earth, she was enjoying it so much.
Saturday night was already Anninka's and Stacey's last night in Beijing. Hannah, Becky and I had one more day left. To celebrate our second good-bye during our China-trip, Anninka and I went out with a group of Germans who were studying in Beijing for half a year and all night we stayed in the small western bubble we had created in Beijing, sitting in Western bars and dancing in a western club alongside other foreigners. It felt nice to have come of "our old life" again, but it also made me miss China a little bit.

Sunday: bye-bye, Beijing!
Sunday was another lazy day. We went to the Beijing university, Laura, one of the Germans showed us around. After some really good food by a lake on Campus we went to the center of Beijing and walked around there until it got dark. There was a lake, overpriced restaurants and bars, and lots of flashing lights everywhere. At night we went to one of the western bars again to say good-bye to our German friends and then back to the hostel to get ready to spend our last night in Beijing.


It was definitely a nice break from the routine and it was nice to have some fun and there are some things I miss about Europe. But then, I really did miss Huai Hua and was happy to be back, because this is China and Beijing just doesn't feel like China if this is what you're used to. It was very overwhelming-in a nice way- but I prefer my little Huai Hua as a place to live!
I do love China!

From October 1st to October 7th the Chinese celebrate their National Day. On October 1st 1949 this "communist" country was founded and Mao was declared (or rather declared himself) the new leader of the Chinese people. Th communist ideas have pretty much disappeared during these 60 years and China is now a place with less communist characteristics than Germany.
We decided to spend this week without work in the Chinese capital Beijing. I went with Hannah, Becky and Stacey and on top of that, Anninka and I could celebrate our reunion once I got to Beijing, because she, like us, had decided to use this opportunity to visit the Beijing.
Everyone had warned us that during the week of National Day Beijing would be very crowded and they had been right. Getting there and back turned out to be the first problem. We had trouble finding a train to get to Beijing and couldn't get one for our way back, so we had to take a plane.
Our train took us straight from Huai Hua to Beijing...and it took 27 hours. It wasn't as bad as it sounds due to our comfy beds and creative and noisy games which entertained th whole train.
We, who had gotten really used to Huai Hua's small town life, were a little lost in the big city of Beijing. There was no street food, the buildings were new and modern, everything was clean, there were no piles of trash in the corners, the traffic was less noisy and more organized, there were foreigners in the streets, the people spoke some English and everything was more expensive. We were really confused.
We had some trouble finding our hostel but thanks to the amazing helpfulness of Chinese people we finally got there. It was very nice to see Anninka again. We had a lot to talk about, a lot of experiences to exchange and I had definitely missed her company after leaving Kunming.
The very touristy bits of Beijing were crowded, full of foreigners, expensive and not very Chinese at all. We went to a cute little street with old houses and we could hardly walk because of the amount of people shoving and pushing through the narrow streets. But in the end we found a nice little cafe with a good view over the cute street where we could sit on the roof and enjoy some calmness.
Naturally we had to do the main tourist attractions. There are so many things to see and to do in Beijing. A lot of history but at the same time it is a very new and modern city. We had to pick well when we decided what to do with our limited time in Beijing.

Thursday: Tian'anmen Square and Forbidden City
The most famous image of Beijing, known all around the world with the huge painting of chairman Mao in the background: That's what we saw when we stepped onto Tian'anmen Square, the biggest square in the world. It did look a little different than I remembered from the pictures though. There was a huge street crossing right through the square and every inch of it was packed with picture-taking people. The entrance to the Forbidden City, the place where the Chinese Emperors used to live until the kingdom was overthrown in 1911, was right below the image of Mao. The whole city (and he name is accurate - it is huge!) is enclosed by a huge wall and during the time of the emperors it was prohibited below death penalty to enter the forbidden city. Now the prices still try to achieve the same purpose but unfortunately that doesn't keep the masses of tourists out of that special place, and neither did we hesitate to pay to get in.
Even though place lost some of its magic due to the crowd, it was still a very special place to see. There were many squares, palaces, huge stairs, statues and temples, all very beautifully decorated, some made out of wood, some out of stone. All the roofs were golden or yellow and we were taught that yellow and gold were the colors of the emperors and no one used to be allowed to use them except the royal families. We couldn't go inside any of the buildings but it was still very impressive to think for how many years this place had been home to the kings and queens of China. It was opened during the Ming Dynasty in 1420 and even the last Chinese king still lived in this city.
We spent many hours in the Forbidden City and finally got to a park which was very Chinese and very pretty and used to be a place for the emperors to relax and qrite poetry and we did the same thing-without the poetry-part.
Even though we had spent almost all day in the Forbidden City we weren't able to see all of it. It was too big. But it is definitely a place to come back to, even though I want to pick a less busy day.

Friday: To be a real man you must climb the Great Wall!
And that's what we did. I had dreamed about going to see the Great Wall, but I was not expecting at all what we got. Because we were a little tired of crowds after our day in the forbidden city we followed the Lonely Planet's advice and picked a less touristy part of the Wall- what w hadn't thought of was that this would also mean that it would be much harder to get there. But we finally did, after a long bus ride and a weird taxi driver and from the small village we had arrived in, for the first time, we laid our eyes on the Great Wall of China- One of the Seven Wonders of the World.
We had to climb up the mountain through a forests until we got to the actual wall, which was winding itself along the mountaintops, like a white snake, imitating the exact form of the mountains. After a one and a half hour hike up the mountain we suddenly saw the first bricks of this mysterious and at the same time famous wall. Screaming in excitement and disbelief we ran around the last corner and stepped onto this historic piece of architecture. The Great Wall of China was built more than 2000 years ago ans was meant to protect the Chinese Empire to the north. It has since been rebuilt many times, in the Middle Ages it was rebuilt almost completely. It is not and has never been a continuous wall. There are parts in between where there is no wall but if you look at it as one wall, it goes almost from one end of China to the other end.
We had picked a relatively unrestored section of the wall, which meant it was less crowded but at the same time it was a lot more difficult to walk on this part of the wall. It was covered with small shrubs and trees and there were a lot of loose rocks. Compared to the other, very few, people we came across on the wall, we looked really out of place without any hiking or rock climbing equipment and unhandy purses instead of backpacks. But we had a lot of fun finding our way over rocks and between trees, up and down, the way the wall led us. Sometimes we really had to climb some rocks and sometimes we had to be careful not to fall off a steep drop when parts of the wall were missing. It was exciting and fun to climb, walk, hike and take in the amazing views during our breaks in between. When we finally got to the top of the mountain we found ourselves facing a breathtaking view across the mountains and the wall, creeping over peaks and through valleys. We decided to make this our spot for our lunch break and sat down with our feet dangling high above the beautiful landscape.
We stayed there for a long time, trying to take in and understand this magical place until we finally felt ready to move on.
We passed one of the watchtowers and found ourselves unable to continue. The mountain, and therefore the wall, suddenly went straight down in almost a 90 degree drop before continuing in a straight line, as if nothing had happened, about 100 feet below us. Even though we were a little nervous we finally decided to take the risk and climb, or rather scramble down the Great Wall, holding on to stones, trying to step on protruding rocks without sliding off or if nothing else worked sliding down on our bums!
After the first sudden drop we came across two more similarly scary declines and when we had reached a "normal" part of the wall and then finally the village again we were all very proud of us! And on top of that we had been declared real men by two fellow wall-climbers who looked way more elegant than we did as they were climbing down behind us. Apparently there is a saying in China: "To be a real man, you must climb the Great Wall". And so we did! I have hardly ever had as much fun in my life!

Saturday: Lama-Temple and Summer Palace
When we got up on Saturday morning we could feel our every muscle. Our bodies hadn't been used to the kind of "hiking" we had done the day before. On top of that we all still seemed to be a little tired. But we wanted to use our time in Beijing and decided to visit the Lama Temple, the biggest Tibetan temple outside of Tibet. It was built during the Qing Dynasty ad has a lot of buildings, different temples, big and small, statues, squares, and many many colors. I love how colorful all Buddhist temples seem to be. Before entering we had to buy incense sticks, which everyone carried around with them. In front of almost every building there were little fires where you could light up your incense sticks and so we did but it was a little awkward because we were surrounded by masses of praying Buddhists, while we didn't have a clue what we were supposed to do. We burned our incense sticks and bowed our heads respectfully (or so we hoped) and admired the artwork and the statues but during our visit, I started feeling more and more the desire to learn more about Buddhism. Even though I did feel a little uncomfortable I really enjoyed the temple with its colors and friendly atmosphere.
We had a quick lunch (at Subway, once again it felt like we were back home and not in China any more) and went on to the Summer palace, which is a huge palace, a little outside of the center of Beijing with big park. Like the Forbidden City the entrance and the buildings and squares were very crowded but the park was big enough, so that we were able to escape the masses. We didn't walk very fast, due to our sore bodies and stopped when we heard singing. We looked around and saw a group of older women and a couple of men singing with the most beautiful voices. We sat and listened and they came up to us and asked us to sing something. we were a little embarrassed because whatever we could do, it would always sound bad after what we had just listened to. But they seemed really excited about it, so we decided to sing "Amazing grace" . After a while they started to sing matching harmonies and in the end it did sound pretty good. They were just the nicest old ladies! Some of them spoke a little bit of English and Anninka could help out with her Chinese, and we ended up spending quite a lot of time with them in the park, singing, listening and talking to them. The whole thing was ended honorably with the Chinese, the German and the English national anthem ( we had asked them to sing the Chinese one, so they wanted to heard ours) and then we said good-bye and went on, all in a very good mood!
We wanted to find the famous yellow duck, which has been in Beijing for a couple of years now, swimming randomly in a lake in the Summer palace. It was meant to be an advertisement but people started liking it and it was never taken away. So the HUGE yellow duck has now become one of the main tourist attractions in Beijing. Of course we had to go and see it and it is definitely the biggest duck I've ever seen.
By now the palace was a little emptier, so we could get a better look at the buildings and then we left and wet to look for something nowhere to be found in China, except in Beijng: a vegan restaurant!
Once we got in there I literally felt like I was back in Germany. The furniture looked like it would in a vegan place in Europe. The food on the menu was western food, there were advertisement because all the ingredients were organic, there was a vegan chocolate cake in display. To our disappointment even the prizes were the same as they would have been in Europe and to top everything off, we were given a knife and fork to eat with. It was like being back in Europe. In there we could all forget we were in China. The food was amazing. Anninka looked like the happiest person on earth, she was enjoying it so much.
Saturday night was already Anninka's and Stacey's last night in Beijing. Hannah, Becky and I had one more day left. To celebrate our second good-bye during our China-trip, Anninka and I went out with a group of Germans who were studying in Beijing for half a year and all night we stayed in the small western bubble we had created in Beijing, sitting in Western bars and dancing in a western club alongside other foreigners. It felt nice to have come of "our old life" again, but it also made me miss China a little bit.

Sunday: bye-bye, Beijing!
Sunday was another lazy day. We went to the Beijing university, Laura, one of the Germans showed us around. After some really good food by a lake on Campus we went to the center of Beijing and walked around there until it got dark. There was a lake, overpriced restaurants and bars, and lots of flashing lights everywhere. At night we went to one of the western bars again to say good-bye to our German friends and then back to the hostel to get ready to spend our last night in Beijing.


It was definitely a nice break from the routine and it was nice to have some fun and there are some things I miss about Europe. But then, I really did miss Huai Hua and was happy to be back, because this is China and Beijing just doesn't feel like China if this is what you're used to. It was very overwhelming-in a nice way- but I prefer my little Huai Hua as a place to live!
I do love China!

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a Chinese National Holiday to celebrate the full moon and the harvest. In the western calendar this year's Mid-Autumn-day was celebrated on the 19th of September, but confusingly in the Chinese calender it was the 15th of August.
China celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival every year on the 15th of the 8th month, always on the day of a full moon.
The Chinese calendar is a lunar calender, a type of calender which is still used in some Asian countries. Instead of fixed days, the year is divided into months based of the cycle of the moon. One month is exactly one cycle and a new month always starts on the day of a new moon.
Some Chinese holidays are still based on this traditional calendar, like the Chinese New Year and, of course, the Mid-Autumn Festival.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is to celebrate the harvest and to give thanks. In China there is a connection between the harvest and the moon, which is a traditional Chinese symbol of fertility. That is why the Chinese celebrate the Festival in honor of the moon and it is always celebrated on the day of a full moon.

Most of the teachers at my kindergarten used the three-day-break we were granted for the Moon-Festival to go home and see their family. One of the girls, Anna, invited me to come along and spend the break with her and her family and I with no other plans and interested in meeting her family, accepted.
Due to language barriers it is very difficult to talk to Anna, so when we left early Thursday Morning, I still had no clue of where exactly we were headed. When I found myself among rice fields, farm houses and cows and chickens in the streets, I realized that we had left Huai Hua and were going to a more rural place... Which was especially interesting because all I had seen of China so far had been cities. So we kept driving through the countryside until we reached Anna's home town. I had never seen a place quite like that: It resembled a village trying to look like a city. It was small, smaller than my home town Schönberg but the buildings were big grey apartment buildings instead of houses with gardens. Anna said that before it had been different but they had torn all the buildings down and built everything new (this tactic seems to be very popular in China).
Anna lived in a apartment close to a little farmer's market. I met her mother, her sister in law and her little nephew (who shares my birthday as I found out) and at night her father joined us. Her brother was in the hospital. We had visited him before going to Anna's house and seeing the hospital made me hope that I would never get sick while I'm here. It was scary.
But her family was very nice and welcoming to me. Even though there was more gesturing going on between me and the others than actual conversations we got along very well and I think we all enjoyed each others' company. We didn't do much, except eating the delicious food Anna's mother cooked, playing with the baby, eating grapes, nuts and moon cakes, watching TV (in Chinese) and taking walks around the village. But it was a really nice and calm holiday. Anna's mother liked me so much that she gave me a dress and said she wanted to be my Chinese mom! She was very sweet!
When I got back on Saturday Huai Hua seemed like a big city to me for the first time!

//

Das Mid-Autumn Festival ist ein chinesischer Feiertag zur Ehre des Vollmonds und der Ernte. In westlichen Kalendern ist der Mid-Autumn Day dieses Jahr auf den 19. September gefallen, aber zur allegmeinen Verwirrung war es im chinesichen Kalender erst der 15. August.

Das Mid-Autumn Festival wird in China jedes Jahr am 15. Tag des 8. Monats gefeiert, immer zum Vollmond.
Der chinesische Kalender ist ein Mondkalender, eine Art des Kalenders, die in vielen asiatischen Ländern noch existiert. Anstatt festgelegte Tage zu haben, richtet sich die Aufteilung der Monate nach dem Mondzyklus. Ein Monat ist jeweils ein Mondzyklus, wobei ein neuer Monat jeweils zum Neumond beginnt. Einige Feiertage in China richten sich nach diesem traditionellen Kalender, unter anderem das chinesische Neujahr und das Mid-Autumn Festival.
Das Mid-Autumn Festival ist eine Feier der Ernte und des Dankes. In China wird der Mond mit der Ernte in Verbindung gebracht, da dieser in der chinesischen Tradition für Fruchtbarkeit steht. Daher wird das Festival ebenfalls zur Ehre des Mondes gefeiert und findet immer zum Vollmond statt.

Die meisten der Lehrerinnen in meinem Kindergarten haben die drei freien Tage, die wir für das Moon-Festival bekommen haben, genutzt um nach Hause zu fahren und ihre Familien zu sehen. Eine meiner Mitarbeiterrinen, Anna, hat mich zu sich nach Hause eingeladen und da ich nichts anderes zu tun hatte und außerdem sehr gern Annas Familie kennenlernen wollte, habe ich die Einladung sehr gern angenommen.
Aufgrund von Kommunikationsschwierigkeiten ist es nicht so leicht mit Anna zu reden und als wir am Donnerstag Morgen losgefahren sind, hatte ich immer noch keine Ahnung, wo genau es hingehen würde.
Als ich mich zwischen Reisfeldern, Bauernhäusern und Kühen und Hühnern auf den Straßen wiederfand, wurde mir klar, dass wir Huai Hua wohl verlassen hatten und auf dem Weg in eine eher ländliche Region waren... Was besonders aufregend war, weil ich bis jetzt hier in China nur Städte gesehen hatte. So fuhren wir weiter durch die Landschaft bis wir in Annas "Heimatort" angekommen waren. Ich hatte noch nie einen Ort in dieser Art gesehen: Es glich einem Dorf, welches versucht, wie eine Stadt auszusehen. Das Dorf war klein, kleiner als mein gutes altes Schönberg aber die Gebäude waren allesamt große graue Mehrfamilienhäuser anstatt von Häusern mit Gärten. Anna hat mir erzählt, dass es vorher anders aussah, aber dass das ganze Dorf abgerissen wurde um alles neu zu bauen (Die Taktik scheint sehr beliebt zu sein, hier in China).
Annas Familie wohnt in einer Wohnung, direkt neben einem kleinen "Bauern Markt". Ich habe ihre Mutter kennengelernt, ihre Schwägerin und kleinen Neffen (der am gleichen Tag Geburtstag hat wie ich, wie ich herausgefunden habe) und am Abend ist Annas Vater auf dazu gekommen. Ihr Bruder war im Krankenhaus. Auf dem Weg sind wir bei ihm vorbeigefahren und seit ich das Krankenhaus gesehen habe, bin ich sehr abgeneigt, hier in China krank zu werden. Es war gruselig.
Aber Annas Familia war sehr freundlich zu mir und ich habe mich gleich willkommen gefühlt. Obwohl der Großteil unserer Kommunikation aus Gesten bestand, haben wir uns sehr gut verstanden. Es gab nicht viel zu tun, außer das leckere Essen zu genießen, das Annas Mutter dreimal täglich auf den Tisch zauberte, mit dem Baby zu spielen, Weintrauben, Nüsse und Moon Cakes zu verspeisen, Fernsehen zu schauen (auf Chinesisch!) und Spatziergänge durch das Dorf zu uternehmen. Aber wir hatten eine sehr nette und entspannte Zeit. Annas Mutter mochte mich so sehr, dass sie mir ein Kleid geschenkt hat und gesagt hat, dass sie meine chinesische Mutter sein möchte! Sie war sehr nett!
Als wir am Samstag wieder zu Hause angekommen waren, kam mir Huai Hua das erste Mal wie eine Großstadt vor!

Keen to travel and wanting to get to know as much of this mysterious and diverse country, my British friends and I decided to use any opportunity to leave Huai Hua and get a taste of something else. Since most days we all had to fulfill our duty as an English teacher, we were left with free time on the , which we are determmined to fill with short, exciting trips to special places - and China has a lot of them!
Our first weekend trip would be dedicated to Fenghuang which is only a one hour bus-ride away from Huai Hua.

The ancient town of Fenghuang with well preserved architecture that goes back to the Ming and the Qing Dynasty is located between beautiful mountains along the Tuojiang river in Hunan Province. Fenghuang is the Chinese word for Phoenix - a name the beautiful town definitely deserves. The region is home to the Tujia and the Miao minorities; traditions, especially in form of clothing and preserved as a tourist attraction, are still visible.

Fenghuang has become a big modern city but the historic center has kept its old flair: stretching along the river little streets and houses create an authentic feeling of historic China. Besides old beautiful bridges corssing the river, there were so called "stepping-stones" - a line of flat rocks in the water to cross the river on - , there are buddhist temples, very colorful and with lots of decoration, and an ancient town wall to walk on and get a good view of the town.
And then, there are the tourists! So far my time in China had been pretty toursit-free. Fenghuang was the first place I've visited where non-local people were crowding the streets and we even saw some fellow foreigners: A great excitement! There were souvenir-shops and a lot of people selling crafts or food in the streets. It was really interesting to see this side of China because so far I had hardly seen any touristic parts of this country.
We spent our days walking the streets, we took a nice little boat-ride on the river - very relaxing - we vistited two buddhist temples, which were some of the prettiest places I've seen so far and we sneaked into a park on a mountain. We got around paying the entrance fee because we entered from the other direction with the help of a couple of local kids. After all the stairs leading us up the mountain we were really hot and once we got back into the city and to the river we decided that it might be a good idea to go swimming. Not caring about getting our clothes wet we went into the river which felt heavenly after having been in the blazing sun all day. Then we had the glorious idea to jump off of one of Fenghuangs bridges into the river. Becky, Adam and went up there, getting thumbs-up from the crowd, and three, two, one: splash! It was so much fun that we decided to go again. It didn't matter any more since our clothes were already dripping wet!
At night we admired the colorful lights decorating all the houses in Fenghuang before getting a taste of the Chinese nightlife - which is definitely different...but we did enjoy ourselves.
The next day we went to climb another mountain with a girl from Australia we had met at the hostel. It took us a while to figure out how to get up there but once we could enjoy the amazing view on top of the tower on the hill, we forgot the heat and our sore legs.
Unfortunately a weekend goes by very fast and before we knew it we had to get on the bus back to reality: Let's go home to Huai Hua!

//

Da wir alle sehr reiselustig sind und unbedingt so viel wie möglich von diesem mysteriösen und vielfältigen Land sehen wollen, haben meine englischen Freunde und ich uns entschieden, jede Möglichkeit zu nutzen um aus Huai Hua wegzukommen und was anderes zu erleben. Da wir die meisten Tage damit beschäftigt sind, unsere Pflichten als Lehrer zu erfüllen, bleiben uns nur die Wochenenden und wir sind "entschieden" diese mit kurzen, aufregenden Ausflügen zu füllen - und in China gibt es reichlich!
Bei unserem ersten Wochenend-Ausflug sollte es für uns nach Fenghuang gehen, eine historische Stadt, die nur ungefähr eine Stunde von Huai Hua entfernt ist.

Die Stadt Fenghuang, mit seiner gut erhaltener Architektur, die aus der Ming und der Qing Dynastie stammt, liegt in der Provinz Hunan an dem Fluss Tuojiang inmitten von wunderschönen Bergen. Fenghuang beduetet übersetzt "Phönix", ein Name dem die hübsche Stadt alle Ehre macht. Die Region beheimatet die Minderheiten der Tujia und der Miao; Traditionen sind noch immer sichtbar, allerdings vor allem in Form von traditioneller Kleidung als Touristenattraktion.

Fenghuang ist zu einer großen, modernen Stadt geworden, aber das historische Zentrum hat seinen alten Flair behalten: Kleine Straßen und Häuschen schmiegen sich an den Fluss und vermittelt ein authentisches Gefühl von Chinas Vergangenheit. Neben hübschen alten Brücken, die sich über den Fluss spannen, gibt es "Stepping-Stones" - eine Reihe flacher Steine im Wasser, auf denen man den Fluss überqueren kann - , es gibt Buddhistische Tempel, farbenfroh und mit Dekorationen aller Art, und eine alte Stadtmauer, von der aus man einen guten Blick auf die Stadt kriegen kann.
Und dann sind da die Touristen! Bis jetzt war meine Zeit in China ziemlich Touristen-frei. Fenghuang war der erste Ort, den ich besucht habe, wo nicht-Einheimische die Straßen bevölkerten und wir haben sogar einige Ausländer entdeckt: Das war aufregender als man denkt! Ein bisschen kann ich die Chinesen und ihre Aufregung für Ausländer verstehen. Es gab Souvenir-Läden und viele Leute, die Handarbeiten oder Essen aller Art auf den Straßen verkauften.
Wir haben das Wochende damit verbracht, durch die Straßen zu spatzieren, haben eine nette kleine Bootfahrt auf dem Fluss gemacht - sehr entspannt - , zwei buddhistische Tempel besucht, die zu den hübschesten Orten gehörten, die ich gesehen habe, und sind durch einen Park auf einem Berg spatziert, in den wir durch einen Umweg und mit der Hilfe von einigen einheimischen Kindern ohne zu bezahlen "reingekommen" sind.
Nach den ganzen Treppen, die wir uns hochschleppen mussten, um auf den Berg zu kommen, war uns allen ziemlich warm als wir wieder unten in der Stadt angekommen waren. Wir sind auf die tolle Idee gekommen, im Fluss zu baden und ohne uns darum zu kümmern, dass all unsere Kleidung nass werden würde, haben wir das himmlisch kühle Wasser genossen. Dann hatten wir die glorreiche Idee, von einer von Fenghuangs Brücken in den Fluss zu springen. Becky, Adam und ich haben uns auf den Weg zur Brücke gemacht, während unsere Zuschauer immer zahlreicher wurden, und drei, zwei, eins: Splash! Es hat so viel Spaß gemacht, dass wir gleich nochmal gesprungen sind.
Als es langsam dunkel wurde und nachdem wir unsere Kleidung gewechselt hatten, sind wir noch einmal durch die Straßen gegangen, wo farbige Lichter jedes der alten Häuser in Fenghuang dekorierten. Später konnten wir einen Geschmack von chinesichem Nightlife bekommen - welches etwas anders ist, als was man so gewohnt ist...aber wir hatten auf jeden Fall Spaß!
Am nächsten Tag haben wir uns trotz unserer schmerzenden Beine wieder aufgemacht, um einen weiteren Berg zu besteigen - in Begleitung von einer Australierin, mit der wir uns in unserem Hostel angefreundet hatten. Sobald wir auf dem Berg waren, waren wir uns alle einig, dass die tolle Aussicht von dem Turm auf dem Gipfel die Anstrengung zu hundert Prozent wert gewesen war.
Leider geht so ein Wochenende zielich schnell vorbei und so ging es auch schon wieder in den Bus und zurück zur Realität: Nach Haus nach Huai Hua!

Now I have already spent a little more than one week in this "small" town of Huai Hua, which is still pretty big, with its about 5 Mio. inhabitants, compared to Salisbury (24 000), Kiel (240 000) or even Berlin (3 500 000). But in China it is a small city in Hunan province, which many Chinese people don't even know, much less, any foreigners. There is also not a lot to do in this city (or so I have been told by everyone so far) and it is definitely not one of the main tourist destinations in China and it is not easy to find any foreigners OR any English-speaking Chinese people, a fact which has made my first week here rather difficult... My first week here in Huai Hua has been full of ups and downs. It's not easy to get used to such a city, because EVERYTHING is different. On top of a huge culture shock, I felt like I couldn't communicate with anyone (because even the English teachers at my kindergarten don't really speak English), my internet wasn't working well and it was just way too much at once.

I started working right away (which has left me so little time that all my stuff is still spread out on the floor of my room). Part of the work I have to do is to say hello to the parents and kids, then I have to give classes, of course and I also spend time with the kids, playing with them, giving them food, help to put them to bed. It is usual here that all kids (in kindergartens and schools) take a nap after lunch. The kids come here at 7.30 in the morning and leave at 5 pm. The classes are very difficult... The groups are very big, much bigger than in German kindergartens for example. i have to teach two classes, each on with around 30 kids of screaming, jumping, crying 3- 5 year-olds... I still have to get used to that. My favorite part is to play with the smaller kids, because the groups are smaller and I get the chance to talk to a kid face to face, play with them, or a read a book.

At first I felt very lonely here because I couldn't communicate, but I have found that most people here in the kindergarten are very nice and I get along well with them even if it's difficult to communicate. It creates a lot of funny situations every day and I have gotten very good at sign language! Also, I have met someone (a Chinese guy) who speaks very good English and a few foreigners, who I met up with once. We had a lot of fun together.

There is not much to see in this city... But I still like it. Even though there is more poverty here than in Kunming or Changsha. I see people begging in the streets and I have seen the first child, begging for money here. But it is very lively. There is a big market in the center of the city where you can buy ANYTHING: freshly prepared food, fruits, candy, clothes, electronics, and much more! I especially like all the smells because so many people cook in the streets. There is also a lot of construction here (like in many Chinese cities I guess). The kindergarten is very new and a lot of houses are being built here in this region. Also there is a national park very close to the city. It's called Zhong Po and I went once with Young, my Chinese English-speaking friend. On Sunday we'll go again, but this time we will climb a mountain close to it. The mountains around the city are very pretty but I've been told that most of them are not accessible for civilians.

What I've also noticed is that people look at me a lot more here. Hardly anyone I've met so far has met any other foreigners here. So in the streets the people look at me like I'm an alien and even here in the kindergarten they treat me like a queen. Which is funny at first, but also a little uncomfortable.

The biggest problem for me here is that there is no language school in Huai Hua, which makes sense since there are basically no foreigners here. So the only way is to learn Chinese privately, which is not easy, I found out. I've been practicing vocabulary with the help of a couple of friends from the kindergarten because the pronunciation is still hard for me. Don't even talk about the writing!

The food here in Huai Hua is good, I even like the food from the kindergarten-cafeteria. I've been trying to stay "as vegan as possible" but the people here eat such strange that I can't always recognize what exactly I'm eating. So it's been hard. I've really come to like the Chinese food though: In the morning we eat noodles or dumplings in a sauce, for lunch we have rice with vegetables and/or meat and for dinner we eat rice again. In between we eat fruits or some kind of cookies... The watermelon here is SO good!!
-just now as I'm writing this, for example some girls came in with some kind of vegetable I can't define...but it tastes good! -
At first I missed bread or cereal, because the people here eat literally no bread! But by now I have gotten used to eating rice and I really like it! BUT, the food here is very spicy and I haven't quite gotten used to that yet. They've told me that here, in Hunan province the people eat the spiciest food in all of China!! And I can use chopsticks now!

All in all, the most difficult part of my trip so far is over and I feel a lot better about this again! I wouldn't stay here forever but for a time I will be able to enjoy this city.

Yesterday it was the birthday of two of the girls here and I told them I was going to make a cake. They were VERY happy about that idea, because usually no one makes cakes here. None of the girls had ever made a cake. It was very hard to buy the ingredients because I couldn't explain well what exactly I needed but finally we got the most basic cake-ingredients and about some things I'm still not sure what exactly I used! The next problem was that I had to prepare it in the canteen, which was hard because they didn't have anything to mix the ingredients with (I had to use chopsticks) nor a cake pan, in the end I made the cake in a huge pan, they usually cook rice in. The oven was one of the huge canteen ovens and when we turned out it started to smell really bad, and with the time the smell got worse. So the whole time I was worried that the cake was about to burn. But it turned out pretty good and the girls were very very happy about their birthday cake!

Moving around is also still very difficult because I can't tell the taxi driver where to go, so I have to have an address written down or I have to call someone to explain to the taxi driver where I want to go (taxis are cheap here and buses even cheaper: 1 yuan for each ride, which would be about 0.12 € and 0.16 €).

That's my life in Huai Hua for now! Everything is still very new and different and I can tell you that this is the most authentic way to experience China I could get!

Your Cho Cho (which has become my most common name here)

After take-offs, good-byes, hellos, problems, changes, and a lot of excitement I have now found my new "home": Huai Hua. It doesn't quite feel like a home yet but I'm trying to get used to the thought.

My last day in Kunming (Monday, August 26th) was very nice. We went to the city center to get some necessities done to prepare for our life in China: I needed to get some Chinese yuan and Anninka bought a SIM-card for her phone. After that Anninka and I went to a small market where we found all kinds of interesting things: animals of all kinds, food and accommodation for the animals, food and drinks for humans as well, musical instruments, clothes, decoration, etc... We got some snacks and went to a close-by park, which looked very Chinese. There we spent the rest of the afternoon, enjoying our last day together. On our way back we stopped at Anninka's former language school, where she had learned the helpful bits of Chinese, that have been very useful to us. Then we took a bus to Sunny's house to spend my last night in Kunming.

The next day (Tuesday, August 27th) I had to get up early (early, if you consider that the past couple of days we had slept until noon or even later) to take my flight to Changsha at 12.40 at the Kunming airport. Nothing very special happened, everything went well and I was a little sad to look down on Kunming between the clouds for the last time in a while...

At the airport in Changsha I was hit by an incredible heat. Soon I felt as it I had lost more sweat than I had liquid in my body, with the heavy backpack on my back.
I was picked up by Michelle, who works for "Dragonsharm", the organization that employs foreign teachers who teach English at different schools, kindergartens or in families. That is what I was going to do for the next half year. Michelle told me that I was probably going to work at a kindergarten in Changsha and live with a British foreign teacher but once we got to the office, they told me that my plans had changed: I was going to a SMALLER city, I had never heard of before (like the majority of the Chinese people as well): Huai Hua!
I was going to spend one night and the next day in Changsha and then the next night we would take an overnight train to Huai Hua. I had a nice time at the office with the Dragoncharm-people in Changsha. Michelle and the others were all very nice and I enjoyed talking to them. My first night in Huai Hua I went out to eat with the boss (Fey) and a couple of her friends. We went to a very authentic Chinese restaurant, where we sat in a small room around a plastic table but the food was very very good!

The next day (Wednesday, August 28th) I spent the day at the office with the Dragoncharm-people. We visited a kindergarten in Changsha, I had my photo taken with every staff member and we had lunch together, which was a lot of fun and I was given a Chinese name: Cho Cho! ( which by the way has become my most used name here!) At night Michelle invited me to her home and she cooked for me (which she was very good at!!). I really liked Michelle, I had a lot of fun with her but unfortunately she had to go back to Changsha. At 10 pm we took our train to Huai Hua. I went with Michelle and Jason ( Michelle's colleague, who is very nice as well but more quiet). The beds were pretty comfy, I had never spent the night in a train except in a hostel in Bonn, but there the train wasn't moving.

At 6 am we got to Huai Hua, at first I thought it wasn't as hot as Changsha but as the day went on, I realized it got REALLY hot and only in the morning it had been a little cooler. We went straight to the kindergarten, which is a huge building with three floors and a park. I hadn't slept well and was a little tired. We brushed our teeth and changed our clothes and then we were shown around. I got a bedroom for myself on the third floor, which is way too big for me and doesn't look very comfortable, because it is also very empty. Then, at 7.30 the kids started arriving and I had to sit downstairs to say "hellooooo" to them and their parents. Once all the kids were inside, we went out to get a bank account and a SIM-card for me and to buy some basic things I would need to live here (detergent, toilet paper, clothes hangers, etc...)
The rest of the day Michelle and I spent asleep on my bed, until she and Jason had to leave at about 5 pm to go back to Changsha. That's when my problems started. Michelle's English was very good and she had translated for me all day, but now she wasn't there and I was alone with all the kindergarten staff with none to very limited knowledge of English.
So here I am now, still struggling to communicate, with no clue of Chinese and no idea of how to organize myself Chinese classes, and a bad internet connection, which I can only use when I'm outside. Until Saturday I didn't have any access to internet at all and I'm still waiting for a connection in my room which they promised me.
I will soon tell you more about my life here in Huai Hua!
Your Cho Cho

This little boy came up to us with his mom and introduced himself with the few English words he knew, saying his name was Robert and he was 8 years old. Meanwhile his mother tried to talk to us in Chinese, which wasn't very successful, of course!
Then they took out a piece of paper which said: "I want to go to Europe. How much would this cost?" We tried to ask, if he wanted to know how much a flight would cost but they didn't understand us, so finally we drew a plane on the piece of paper and they were so happy we had understood! So we tried to figure out how much yuan a flight would cost and wrote it down for him. He was so grateful, so we told him to e-mail us if he wanted to know more and then he asked for a picture with us. He was the cutest little Chinese boy!!

So, here are my first news from China! It took us 11 hours to get from Frankfurt to Hong Kong and then another 2 hours to get from Hong Kong to here! We couldn't sleep very well because of the time difference and had hardly gotten any sleep on the plane. So when we got here to Kunming, which is a city in the Yunnan district in the south of China, we were pretty tired but we decided to stay awake to get used to the China-time! Sunny, her husband and their daughter Anna picked us up from the airport. They are the family we are staying with here in Kunming. Anninka stayed with them when she was here two years ago. They are very very nice and we got along very well from the beginning.
So we started our stay in China by drinking real Chinese tea! Which actually tasted very different from any tea I had ever tasted. Then Sunny had to go out to get something at the grocery store and we went with her and got our first impressions of the city of Kunming: Very colorful, a lot of smells and sounds, a lot of traffic, honking, flashing lights and a lot of people! And everything is in Chinese! It's very hard to get around here without knowing Chinese! Most people don't know English and everything is written in Chinese! It's going to be fun when I'm gonna have to buy food or something! I'm gonna have to guess what I'm buying.


The traffic here is crazy (especially when you are used to the ver organized German traffic). There's cars, bikes, buses, and the main vehicle you can see here are small electric motorcycles which are literally EVERYWHERE! Every person in this city seems to have one, which makes sense because it's the easiest way to get around, because you don't get stuck in traffic and you can park anywhere. On top of that they find ways to transport a lot of stuff on those small motorcycles. I've seen whole families on one of the motorcycles and people who transported their entire shop on one. The best part is that they are electric so you don't have to worry about pollution! And you don't need a license to drive one. They're awesome!!

Today we went to a street which the Chinese call "Foreigner Strees" because supposedly it's where all the foreigners are. But I didn't see that many foreigners. So far I've just seen all kinds of Chinese people. And they don't look alike at all! They actually have very different faces! I and Anninka are an actual attraction here. When a motorcycle goes past us the driver goes slower to get a good look at us and the people talk about us when we walk by (only that we can't understand what they are saying).

I'm also liking the Chinese food. It's a lot of rice with all kinds of vegetables (some known and some unknown), then there's soup, and I've had some Chinese pasta so far which was very good!
There's also a lot of meat (Today on the street someone was making hearts on a grill! I wasn't quite used to seeing that! And then they're selling pickled chicken feet everywhere.)
They also sell a lot of juice in the streets. Today we had one and we didn't know what it was made of but it was very good!
Also, there are a lot of soy products here (to my personal delight!). They eat a lot of tofu and you get get soy milk anywhere. Weee!

The communication is still very funny. Anninka knows a little bit of Chinese which has helped us a lot and apart from that we've gotten around using sign language, drawings, sounds...I don't know if we always understood but at least we all got a good laugh. But my Chinese is improving! So far I have learned five Chinese expressions!

I'm going to be in Kunming until Tuesday and on Tuesday I will leave to Changsha, where I will spend most of my six months in China. So I'll keep you up to date!

//

Hier kommt nun also mein erster Bericht aus China! Es hat 11 Stunden gedauert, von Frankfurt nach Hong Kong zu kommen und dann nochmal 2 Stunden von Hong Kong hierher ach Kunming. Wegen des Zeituterschieds konnten wir während der Reise nicht gut schlafen und als wir hier ankamen waren wir ziemlich müde. Wir haben aber beschlossen, nicht zu schlafen, sondern den Tag zu nutzen um was von Kuming zu sehen. Kunming ist eine Stadt im Distrikt Yunnan, im Süden Chinas.
Sunny, ihr Mann und ihre Tochter Anna haben uns vom Flughafen abgeholt. Als Anninka das letzte Mal in Kunming war, hat sie auch schon bei ihnen gewohnt. Die drei sind sehr sehr nett!
Wir haben also unserer China-Aufenthalt damit begonnen, echten chinesischen tee zu trinken. Der war sehr lecker und hat gaz anders geschmeckt als der Tee, den ich kannte.
Danach musste Sunny was einkaufen gehen und wir sind mitgekommen und haben unsere ersten Eindrücke von der Stadt bekommen: sehr bunt, viele Gerüche und Geräusche, viel Verkehr, Hupen, viele Blinklichter und viele Menschen!
Und alles ist auf Chinesisch! Es ist nciht so einfach, hier zurechtzukommen ohne Chinesisch zu können. Es gibt nur wenige Menschen, die Englisch sprechen und alles ist auf Chinesisch geschrieben. Das wird noch lustig wenn ich hier alleine einkaufen muss, ich werde raten müssen, was ich da dann essen werde!

Der Verkehr hier ist verrückt! Besonders wenn man an den gut organisierten deutschen Verkehr gewöhnt ist. Es gibt Autos, Fahrräder, Busse und die Hauptfahrzeuge, die man hier sieht sind kleine Elektro-Mopeds, die E-bikes genannt werden undmit denen gefühlt jeder Stadtbewohner hier kreuz und quer durch die Straßen saust. Das macht auch Sinn, denn das ist der einfachste Weg, hier in der Stadt zurechtzukommen ohne sich über Staus und Parkplätze Sorgen machen zu müssen. Auch das mit dem Transport auf den E-bikes lösen die Chinesen ganz einfach: Ich habe sie schon bepackt mit ganzen Familien oder einem kleinen fahrbaren Laden gesehen. Aber das beste ist, dass sie alle mit Elektrizität funktionieren, man brauht sich also keine Sorgen über Luftverschmutzung machen! Und man braucht hier keinen Führerschein um eins von denen zu fahren.

Heute waren wir in einer Straße, die "Foreigner's Street" genannt wird, weil wohl die ganzen Ausländer dahin gehen. Ich habe aber trotzdem kaum Ausländer gesehen und habe inzwischen so viele chinesische Gesichter gesehen, dass es mir gar nicht mehr vorkommt, als würden sie alle gleich aussehen! Anninka und ich sind eine richtige Attraktion hier. Wenn ein E-bike vorbeikommt, fährt der Fahrer langsamer, um uns anzugucken. Und immer wenn wir vorbeigehen gucken die leute uns an und fangen an zu reden, nur verstehen wir nicht, was sie sagen.

Auch das chinesische Essen gefällt mir. Es gibt viel Reis, und viel Gemüse (bekannt und unbekannt) und es gibt Suppe und chinesiche Nudeln. Alles sehr lecker!
Es gibt auch viel Fleisch, was ich mich weiterhin als Veganer bis jetzt noch nicht getraut habe zu essen. Heute haben wir jemanden gesehen, der auf der Straße Herzen von irgendeinem Tier gegrillt hat und es werden eingelegte Hühnerfüße verkauft. Außerdem kann man viel Saft auf der Straße kaufen. Heute hatten wir einen aus einer undefinierbaren Frucht. War aber lecker!
Außerdem gibt es zur großen Freude meines Veganer-Herzens viele Sojaprodukte!! Es wird viel Tofu gegessen und man kann überall Sojamilch kaufen. Juhu!

Die Kommunikation ist immernoch sehr lustig! Neben Anninkas wenigen chinesisch-Kenntnissen verständigen wir uns bs jetzt mit Händen, Füssen, Geräuchen, selbst gemalten Bildern und was uns sonst noch so einfällt. Auch wenn man nicht viel versteht, trägt das immerhin zur allgemeinen Erheiterung bei.

Ich werde noch bis Dienstag in Kunmign sein und dann weiter nach Changsha fliegen, wo ich den Großteil meiner sechs Monate in China verbringen werde. Ich halte euch auf dem laufenden!

The time has come - it is my last day in my cozy little home in Schönberg! I'm working on the last preparations (which are still too many considering the time I have left - a couple of hours).
I need to pack my loyal backpack, buy a few last things to take with me and get my money organized. Whew! To most of my family and friends I have already said good-bye, but tomorrow will be the big day: First Daniel, then my mother Maren, my father, Erik and my two sisters, Lina and Muriel! That's gonna be hard!
I have had a very stressful past couple of days/ weeks / months. And I have learned that organizing a trip all by yourself is lot more work and stress than having an organization at your side. But now I kinda have a plan: First 6 months China, teaching English, and then I'm off to who knows where...?
The first worry was getting to China - which is a lot more difficult than I would have thought. It seems that the Chinese don't really want any more people in their already overcrowded country!
Anninka and I soon gave up on our idea of taking the transsibirian railway because it would have been too much to organize for the little time we had, so we decided to go straight to China.
After my first try failed, I finally got my Chinese visa TODAY, which allows me to stay for 180 days in the "Middle Kingdom". The last couple of days have been pretty nerve-wracking, considering that I thought my flight was booked for tomorrow, a day later.
Well, that thought then turned out to be false, since my flight HADN'T been booked at all due to problems with the payment. Well, so, two days ago, when I found out, we thought: Let's book a new flight, should be easy. You think? First flight we booked: canceled! Second flight: canceled! Third flight: canceled! Fourth flight: canceled! Our fifth attempt finally worked out (though I wouldn't be too sure any more, there is always something else that can happen it seems! So, that was pretty much what my last days in Germnay have been like: Just when I thought it's all done, China turns up with another surprise! Half a year there is gonna be fun! :D

//

Es ist soweit - mein letzter Tag in meinem trauten Heim in Schönberg ist da! Ich hab noch einiges zu Schaffen an den letzten Vorbereitungen (die immer noch viel zu viele sind, wenn man die Zeit die ich noch habe bedenkt - ein paar Stunden). Mein treuer Begleiter, der Rucksack muss gepackt werden, es müssen eiige letzte Besordungen gemacht werden und mein Geld muss organisiert werden. Puh! Den meisten Familienangehörigen und Freunden habe ich schon Tschüss gesagt, morge sind die letzten dran: Erst Daniel, dann meine Mutter Maren, mein Vater Erik, und meine Schwestern Lina und Muriel. Das wird noch schwer!
Ich hatte ziemlich anstrengende letzte Tage / Wochen / Monate. Und ich habe gelernt, dass es viel mehr Arbeit ist, eine Reise selbst vorzuereiten, als von einer Organisation begleitet zu werden. Aber ich habe zumindest schonmal den Ansatz eines Plans: Erst 6 Monate in China Englisch unterrichten und danach gehts für mich wer weiß schon wohin?...
Die erste Sorga war, nach China zu kommen. Es scheint, dass die Chinesen nicht noch mehr Leute in ihrem schon überfüllten Land hben wollen.
Anninka und ich hatten useren Plan, die transsibirische Eisenbahn zu nehmen schnell wieder aufgegeben, da das zu viel Organisation in Kombination mit zu wenig Zeit gewesen wäre.
Nachdem mein erster Versuch, ein chinesisches Visum zu erlangen, jämmerlich gescheitert ist, habe ich HEUTE mein chinesiches Visum bekommen, mit dem ich ganze 180 Tage da bleiben darf! Die letzten Tage waren ziemlich aufwühlend, wenn man bedenkt dass ich dachte, mein Flug wäre für morgen gebucht.
Tja, das hat sich dann leider als falsch erwiesen. Mein Flug war nämlich NICHT gebucht worden aufgrund von Problemen mit der Bezahlung. Wir dachten uns dann vorgestern, nachdem ich das rausgefunden hatte: Kein Problem, wir buchen halt nen neuen! Nichts da! Der erste Flug, den buchten: Storniert! Der zweite: Storniert! Der dritte: Storniert! Der vierte: Storniert! Unser fünfter Versuch hat nun (hoffentlich) geklappt. Auch wenn ich mir da nicht mehr so sicher wäre, denn es scheint noch immer etwas passieren zu können. Wenn das in nächster Zeit so weitergeht, kriegt ihr hier viele tolle Geschichten! :D