Water splashing festival and shopping maniacs

Today we (being Agnes and me) saw a water splashing festival which is normally held by the Dai minority in Yunnan, in Southern China. The festival is described as follows:

"The climax of the water-splashing activity is when the people of the different ethnic groups attending the festival splash water upon each other, using basins and buckets. Although all the people are soaked to the skin, all participants are happy."

Well, sounds like fun! Of course Yunnan is not Beijing, but in the Chinese Ethic Culture Park where they try to give you a feeling about traditions of Chinese minorities they had a performance of water splashing. Given the fact that it was a damn hot day it was hard to resist to participate.

The second part of the park also included Uygur, Kazak and Uzbek minorities which live in the Chinese North-West. Worth to remember: China has 56 minorities all over the country. If you're further interested in them / their traditions you can also check the following link: http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/nationality/56list.htm

Afterwards we went shopping. Never believe people who say: "I don't like shopping." Would people who don't like shopping buy around 12 pieces of clothes in a Decathlon shop (outdoor / sports brand)? But I can't complain because I myself also got some practical clothes at a good price...

Beijing bicyle and Behai park

Beijing is a relatively bicyle-friendly city. There usually is a seperate road for bikes where you can drive quite independently from the cars. However, at the crossroads you have to pay high attention and it's beneficial if you are used to Beijing traffic rules already, e.g. you should know that a green traffic light doesn't necessarily mean that you can go on. But as this was my third bike trip, I felt quite confident already...

On my way to town I drove past Italy, Germany, Russia and more countries, well, at least the embassies of these countries which are to be found in Beijing's embassy quarter called Sanlitun.

On the way to the city centre I also peeped at the small lanes with 'siheyuans' (typical Beijing style houses) where the daily life of the people who live there is going on. After having passed the drum and bell tower and cyled along the banks of Houhai (the upper lake), I reached my goal of today: Beihai park (the nortern lake park). I was quite surprised that including my detours the whole trip had lasted only one hour and this with a bike that has no gear shift (German: keine Gangschaltung).

Beihai park is a former imperial garden in the center of Beijing next to the Forbidden City. I love visiting Beijing parks on the weekend! People dance, sing, just walk around, birds sing and old men take their birds in cages out for a walk (see the photo)... Beihai additionally offers some sights like a white pagoda, the nine dragon wall and temples. I also learned that it's only 103 days until the Beijing Olympics start (well, you can't miss that, they have countdown boards everywhere in town). After my visit to the park I just felt so relaxed!

on the fastest train in the world and more - Shanghai adventures

My Shanghai adventures were:
- driving with the Maglev, the first magnetic levitation train (German: Magnetschwebebahn) in the world from the city of Shanghai to Pudong airpirt. Wow, not bad, we reached 430 km/h. In the curves this felt quite strange, but an interesting experience.

- visiting Yuyuan garden, a small garden hidden between busy tourist streets on the one side of the garden and old typical small alleys with foodstalls on the street on the other side of the garden.

- cruising on the Huangpu river from where you can see the Bund ('waitan') which basically consists of old colonial style buildings mostly in British style. The British founded the city of Shanghai as a trade port (of mainly opium, silk and tea) in 1842 - beforehand just some local fishermen had lived there. On the other bank of the river you can see the district of Pudong -the business and financial district of Shanghai. However, its skyline and skyscrapers cannot be compared to the impressive skyline of Hongkong which beats Shanghai by far when it comes to that.

My impression of Shanghai in a nutshell: a relatively modern business town worth visiting, but don't expect the big surprise. Still I cannot agree the statement of many people that Shanghai is not a Chinese city at all from the look & feel. Despite the fact that every tenth person you meet on the street / in the subway is a stranger, it still feels like China, because of the people, the buildings etc.

Hangzhou, my new grandma friends, tea plants and more

"The shimmering ripples delight the eye on sunny days,

The dim hills present a rare view in rainy haze.
West Lake compares to Xi Zi the beauty at her best:

She is gorgeous, richly clothed or plainly dressed."

(the author compared the lake to legendary Chinese ancient legendary beauty named Xi Zi)

This is what an author wrote about the West Lake in Hangzhou, which is by far the most wellknown sight of the city. The lake is surrounded by nice parks, temples, pagodas and bridges and inspired many authors and painters ever since.

I didn't go there on my own, but joined a Chinese one-day travel group from Shanghai. This was a totally new experience because the explanations were in Chinese only and the other participants were all Chinese. On the trip I made friends with some old Chinese ladies and on all our cameras together there probably are more than 100 photos of our group now. They were very attentive and made sure I didn't get lost (well, not that there was much of a chance anyway...). The second highlight after our boat trip on the West Lake were the fields with plenty of green tea plants. The Hangzhou area is known for it's extensive tea production.

Wuzhen, one of the Chinese 'little Venices'

Because I had to go on a business trip to Shanghai, I extended the trip in order to do some sightseeing in Shanghai, Wuzhen and Hangzhou.

My first destination was Wuzhen. Wuzhen is a very Chinese watertown, one of the six little watertowns in this region which are also referred to as 'little Venice'. A colleague-friend of mine had recommended me to go to Wuzhen instead of another more famous watertown because she said that "it is not that crowded". Well, I don't want to know how much more crowded the other watertowns must be! Tons of Chinese tourists were strolling through the town, but I still had the impression that the town is not a tourist scene only because many old people were living in the antique wooden houses by the water.

Well, water was another issue. It was raining cats and dogs on that day. Some new acquaintances I made in Wuzhen, two Chinese students, convinced me, however, that a watertown wouldn't be perfect without water coming from above as well and, as they put it, "the rain creates a very special atmosphere." Yepp, I couldn't express it better myself :-).

K.O. after karaoke

Yesterday after work a nice colleague had invited four other colleagues (including me) of our office to do karaoke (karaoke is a Japanese word literally meaning 'empty orchestra'). When we reached the so-called 'KTV' place at 6 pm I was astonished how crowded this place was on a normal week day. Karaoke really is a favorite spare time activity of many Chinese. We had a private room for the five of us and a big dinner buffet for all the KTV rooms.

Then we sang ... and sang ... and sang. I was astonished how good the others could sing! We had a lot of fun singing the latest Chinese love songs and rap songs. If you want to know what Chinese contemporary music sounds like you can try to search for 'zhong guo hua' in the internet and listen to the music video. Beforehand I had prepared some Chinese songs and although I had forgotten some parts I managed quite well. Well, I also was quite surprised about some Chinese songs which were cover versions of European / American songs, e.g. 'Dragosta sin te': "madahu, madahaha" was the same, the rest of the song seems to have been a loose translation.

Summer in Beijing, literary garden and traditional kites

24 degree celsius, sun, blue sky! Sitting next to a fountain, watching children play with the water and drinking a Frappuccino felt just like I could be anywhere Mediterranean, but not in China.

This weekend feels most relaxed, probably also due to the weather.

Yesterday Agnes and me went strolling through a Chinese landscape garden - 'Daguanyuan' at the other end of Beijing. We wondered why the entrance was relatively high (40 Yuan, approx. 3,80 EUR), but as we had left our guide books at home we just enjoyed the garden with its stone formations, its lake, the beautiful blossoming flowers. At home I then read that the garden was was built as a replica of one of the most famous Chinese books, the 18th century 'Dream of the Red Mansions' by Cao Xueqin. Well, shall try to buy and read the book now that I know how important it is in Chinese literary history. At night, after having had dinner in a Vegetarian hutong restaurant with own house altar (Bodhi-Sake) we decided to walk a bit and walked till Tianmen. Tianmen square by night is also worth visiting.

Today I visited Sunhe kite market, quite out of town. Spring is kite season (kite = German: Flugdrachen) in China: just look up into the sky and you'll see extraordinary kites flyiing in many places; not just children fly them, but mainly old men. Kites are something very Chinese: the first kite was invented in China approximately 2300 years ago. They were first used for military purposes to deliver messages or check the direction of the wind. Later on making kites became a Chinese handicraft and flying kites a popular spare time activity. Sunhe market sold anything from vegetables, meat, Xian terracotta soldiers duplicates, clothes to kites. The kites themselves were available in many forms: dragon, butterfly, batman, Mickey Mouse, Beijing opera themes etc. Although I had planned to buy nothing, I could not resist and bargained some decorative kites.