China (中国)

Three weeks ago my godmother and I travelled to China for a one week holiday.

We spent the first three days in Beijing and the rest of the week in Shanghai.

Saturday. Getting up at five a. m., off to the airport by bus.

First unpleasant surprise at the check in at Narita Airport: although my suitcase only contains a few shirts and trousers (I am planning on a lot of shopping), it weights ten kilogram. Furthermore, I had underestimated the security regulations - no liquids, including water on the plane! The good news is, this time I don’t seem to be carrying my pocket knife in my hand luggage.

The first Chinese person I met, an airport assistant, was happily singing away while – more or less efficiently - serving a customer, unthinkable in Japan! There was also considerably more pushing and shoving than in Japan.

An even more significant difference could be made out in the airport’s bathrooms: none of those fancy toilets with all the gadgets that are the standard in Japan. No rinsing function with adjustable angle, intensity of water flow and temperature, and no blow-dryer. However, here, in the airport toilets, ladies and gentlemen, you could find the softest and most cuddly toilet paper ever! The Japanese might produce the best, smoothest and finest note paper but they do not seem to be able to produce quality toilet paper...

Anyway, back to China…

In Beijing we stayed at my godmother’s friends’ house; he is German, she is Chinese.

Upon arrival at their place, I actually had to be encouraged to actually step inside without taking my shoes off. What a weird feeling to be walking around a flat with shoes on!

Almost immediately we took off again for the Summer Palace where we went for a long walk, enjoying nature, the fresh wind, and the beautiful premises and buildings. A most charming place!

That night we went to a typical Chinese restaurant and had the best food!
In a typical Chinese fashion, we ordered several dishes and shared them.
We had chosen the fish and seafood from several aquariums in the restaurant (“an eye for an eye”).

I don’t know the names of all the dishes (sometimes I didn’t even know what I was eating), but everything was delicious!

On Sunday we did some more sightseeing: the Forbidden City, right in the middle of Beijing. In this picture you can see Mao Zedong’s portrait over the entrance to the palace. Mao is still very much present in China. You also see some soldiers marching lock-step.

Upon entering through the first gate we noticed the little emperor, wearing the imperial colour yellow, waving and saluting, just like in the movie “The Last Emperor” (link). There must have been hundreds of tourists walking about.

The Forbidden City (“forbidden” to the public for more than five hundred years) is truly impressive. The buildings and roofs are beautifully carved and painted.

But, no matter how dignified the premises – they do host a Starbucks restaurant.
I have had Frappuccinos in quite a few weird places, I must say, but to have one here I found rather unusual.

I do not seem to be the only one, though. At the moment there is a discussion going on whether or not to close the shop.

For lunch we had Jiao Zi in a small street side restaurant. We spent approximately one Euro to feed four hungry grown-ups!

The rest of the day we went shopping for trousers and shirts, but, just like in Japan, there is not much to choose from for the average sized European woman. So we ended up looking around some silk shops.

On Monday we rented a cab for the whole day. Due to the fact that China is still a threshold country services are comparatively cheap. With two of our host’s students accompanying us we went to the Great Wall in the North of Beijing.

Needless to say it would have been out of the question to use one of the cable cars to get to the top of the wall. We climbed the stairs even though that was quite exhausting.

But we were well rewarded. The view was spectacular! It is only too obvious why the Great Wall is a Unesco World Heritage site.

It truly is a great wall, the biggest monument in the world! It is so big, so long (635 km), you can see several towers in some hundreds metres' distance. It is so old and still very beautiful.

The best time for sightseeing, it seems to me, would be summer or autumn.

It is, however, a canard that the Great Wall should be visible to the unaided eye from the moon!

Except for the Chinese peddlers who sold drinks, snacks and postcards, there were tourists from all over the world. We heard American and British English, French, Italian, Danish, Russian.

One language sounded very interesting to me, and because I could not figure out where the people were from I asked my godmother. I was very embarrassed when she told me that they were from Bavaria. I must have come a long way! Shame on me...

After climbing all the stairs back down one of our Chinese guides bought us some postcards (he was very good at bargaining) while we watched a donkey and a camel waiting for tourists.

All the climbing and walking had made us hungry, so we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant. The food was – again - very delicious.

Thus invigorated, we drove to the next sightseeing spot. On our agenda there were two of the 13, originally there were 16, Ming Tombs.

In general, what can be said about Beijing:

- the city has a lot of cultural heritage

- there are a lot of building sites since the government is investing a lot of money to get the city ready for Olympia 2008

- the city is compared to Tokyo very spacious

- Beijing is dustier and dirtier than Tokyo

On our last morning in the capital we did some last minute shopping in a nearby supermarket: every kind of candy with green tea flavour, my favourite!

Then suitcases were packed and off we went, to the airport by cab. We had plenty of time to finally write postcards and check out the internet café. As was to be expected, several websites could not be accessed, for example Wikipedia. The Chinese government controls everything.

Eventually it was time to pass the security and hand luggage check. And here we go: In addition to a few other things my dear mother has passed on to me, we both like to have all kinds of dangerous tools ready at hand, knives, scissors… This time it was my Swiss army knife that did not pass inspection. The same thing had happened on my flight from Stuttgart to Tokyo. What an embarrassment! Since I did not want the custom’s officer to throw my knife away, I had to go back to the luggage-check-in-counter. That was hard work because none of the staff at Beijing airport spoke English. I finally managed and reached the gate in time.

Shanghai

In Shanghai one of our hosts picked us up from the airport.

Arriving at their place we were greatly impressed: they live in the French Concession in a beautiful colonial building with painted glass and old furniture, a National Heritage site, in fact.

We did some more sightseeing. Having a soft spot for everything Art Nouveau, I enjoyed walking along the Hangpu River with the waterbund (The Bund).

And here I am now going to quote, for the first time, because I cannot find better words to explain what I saw:

“Shanghai’s most august row of grand buildings parades itself on the Bund (waitan), it’s doddery and gaunt haughtiness scowling at the newfangled glass and steel Pudong horizon beyond. Nowhere else in Shanghai are the retiring symbols of Western hegemony so deftly contrasted with the signs of growing Chinese clout.” (Damian Harper: lonely planet, p 8).

Very interesting was the Shanghai Municipal History Museum. In the first two pictures you can see how life was some decades ago.

These pictures show the waterbund.

In Shanghai we did a lot of shopping. Like in Beijing, I did not find a lot for my size. So we went to several markets, bought some material, brought it to two tailors and - here we are – two new suites and trousers which fit.

There are several markets in the city where you can buy scarves, cashmere, silk, pearls and all kinds of souvenirs. It is common to bargain, and although I had loved to go on flea markets as a child, this was different. The sales person offers a price, far too high of course. You critically inspect the item you might want to buy while they praise it.

Then the game begins: You tell them how much you would pay. They seem to be indignant, you look at the shirt, or whatever it is, again, offer a price a bit higher than the first one and so on and so on… That can take quite a while, and if you want a good price you should take your time.

If you are lucky you pay about one third of the initial price.

Having lived in Indonesia for a few years my godmother is very good at bargaining, adamant…

Another very nice experience was a concert with a Chinese instrument called “Erhu”. The music was very touching and rhythmical. Although being some kind of nonmusical I claim that the Erhu player was very talented.

On our last evening we went with our hosts’ family and some more friends to a famous restaurant to have Beijing duck. Beijing duck is probably as famous as Kobe beef or Wiener Schnitzel J

And then it is already Saturday morning. We have a very nice western brunch, take leave of this lovely family and take a cab to the final sightseeing-spot:

Built in Germany in 2002, the “Transrapid Shanghai“ - first commercial high-speed maglev line in the world – connects downtown Shanghai with the Pudong International Airport.

For these 30 kilometres it takes about eight to ten minutes, the maximum speed was 430 km/h.

We arrived at Narita – the International Airport Tokyo – late at night and it was both funny and delightful that the Japanese clerk asked me for permission to examine my luggage while he apologized for doing so.

Although it was cold and raining, we were simply happy to be “back home”.

China and Japan my both be located in Asia but these two countries differ so much in their culture and customs. One cannot say that one country is better than the other, each one has its own attractiveness.

The journey was great, absorbing, informative and thrilling, thanks to my godmother and our lovely hosts!

Ohanami (お花見)

There are a few things people think of at once when they hear the word "Japan", for example "sushi", "kimono", "crowded trains and staff that pushes people into the train" .

One very nice "japanese feature" might as well be the period of the cherry blossom (usually starting at the end of March/beginning of April).

To give an impression what it is like to be surrounded by hundreds of blooming cherry trees:










Every Japanese goes at least once to "Ohanami" (which literally means "cherry blossom viewing"), with colleagues from work or friends, family... sitting on a blue blanket (no other colours, please!), while having a picnic and watching the cherry blossom.



Since March/April is a good time of year to visit Japan, I would recommend everyone to come at this time of year.

I went two weeks ago and on my way home I (actually, Lars spotted them), anyway, there were two turtles sitting on a stone in the moat of the Imperial Palace...