Yes I am on my way to walk a bit of the Camino de Santiago! Just arrived in Bilbao today and will drive to San Sebastian tomorrow and from there to St. Jean Pied de Port. I took the chance to join Deanne and Chris, good friends from New Zealand, for a few days. It´s so awesome to meet someone again that you met at the other side of the world a year ago. I worked in their lovely restaurant on Stewart Island and had a wonderful time, so of cause I took the chance to take a hike with them. I also found out today that a good friend from Canada is on her way to do the Camino. Unfortunately we will miss each other I guess, because she starts a few days later, but it still is a sign. All good things right here and I am so excited. If I would not start a new job on June 1 I would just change my plance and walk a bit longer. Camino is raeally calling me! Weight of my backpack 8kg, without water. The weather forecast for our first and most difficult stage on Sunday over the Pyrenees is not so good. It´s suppose to rain. Today was great and I had 25 degrees in Bilbao. I love Spain. All the people sitting outside with a wine or a beer and tapa. And guess what they speak a bit english at least and I am able to communicate somehow! Should get some sleep! I will catch a bus early in the morning!
I am so German. That´s what I think, when I think about how I experienced China. I realized that I like rules you know, but in China nobody cares. Traffic regulations? Forget about it. The bigger the car the more likely it´s gonna run you over – no matter what. Green lights, crosswalks…whatever. The traffic is a nightmare and it takes forever to get from A to B, however they have a good metro system. Not to talk about the smog. Why line up, when you can cheat? 1000 people running to a train to catch a seat once they opend the doors to the platform. I saw it happening when we made a trip to the Great Wall. Kids and aged people struggeling alike. Overpopulation is really a problem for me. That´s for sure. What else. Hardly anybods speaks a word english. It´s very tiring if you can´t talk with anybody for two weeks. Not even small talk. Nothing. They look at you like you are an alien if you try it. If you try to speak poor Mandarin it´s even worse. I also like fix prices I guess. Tell me a price and I tell you if I would like to buy it or not, but in China you simple debate about prices all time time. Their is no fix price. I thought about getting a massage at the ariport right befor my departure. They had an official price list…at the end she said 200 and I said no, because the whole situation drove me crazy. I wanted to get an honest information about what I can expect…like what are the differences between the various options concerning the massages. No change. She smiled like she was high. It all was a big joke. Why fallow safety at work … one chinese more or les … nobody will notice it anyway. OK. I am getting cynical here. I really had problems to survive in China and I´m happy that I was not slain by a brick. It´s not my country, but it was an interessisting experience. The food was great and our trip to the Great Wall was awesome. We visited a spot that was not jet crowded by tourist. A wilder area close to a small lovelz village. They will build a holiday village there in the next few years unfortunately. We already saw the signs for the Great Wall Holiday Village. I loved the old opera house in the Forbidded City and of cause there are lovely hidden places like small theaters or roof-deck bars. Need to rethink all the experiences again, but now I am ready to walk a bit of the Camino. I arrived in Bilbao / Spain and I am very excited to meet up with Deanne and Chris from NZ tomorrow. I worked for them in their lovely restaurant on Stewart Island. They had planed to walk the Camino and I decided to join them for a few days. Hurra!
China never was on top of my travel list really, until a friend of mine moved to Beijing as a German teacher for two years. I always thought it is to complicated to travel to China and I was skeptical anyway, because of the one-party political system, the corruption, the overpopulation and the polution to only name a few reasons. Besides I need a visa (125 Euros. China are you kidding me?), I don’t speak the language and it is a ten hours flight to go from Frankfurt to Beijing. How do I make sure, that I only order vegetarian dishes, when I don’t speak Chinese and are unable to read the menu? A cheat sheet could help maybe. I’m flying tomorrow and it is time to get rid of the prjudices and make some new experiences. In preparation for this trip I started to read guide books and I am very excited how I will think about China after these next ten days. Here a a few things that I did not know about China jet:
Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou are Mega-Cities (10 million people or more)
1959 till 1961 Great Leap Forward Famine (Unofficial estimates vary, but scholars have estimated the number of famine victims to be between 20 and 43 million)
The Beijing Opera knows four types of main characters: Sheng (the positive male hero), Dan (all female roles), Jing (male roles with glorious face paintings), Chou (clowns or fools)
blowing your nose in public is considered rude
Do you have any tips for me or do you know great Blogs about Beijing or China? Please share the links. Thank you!
I hope we all stretched our lags these last days?! Don’t disappoint me. April 29 was the International Dance Day and I went to a concert by a band that is called Tralalka to enjoy folk and ska. They sing in Bulgarian and other languages, are a little bit crazy and based in Berlin at the moment. You can listen to one of the songs here. Dance into May is a nice tradition in Germany and so I happend to dance two nights in a row. The Panoptikum club in Cassel provided a line up of Reggae bands on April 30. Get fit in May! Dance, walk, hike, swim or jog and enjoy the flowerage everywhere around you!
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