further travels
Hello again!
People asked me to update this blog by telling you about the trips I did after my year abroad and to be honest I never really shared my experiences with family and friends.
This is why I am changing this website a little bit and add posts about me doing what I'm passionate about.
What did happen since summer 2015?
Well after a three weeks stay back home, organising a visa for China, I visited my brother in Beijing.
He studied there for almost a year which is why I thought it is a good idea to make the travel last a little longer. There we went to the Forbidden City, to some temples (photo 4 shows the Temple of Heaven) and the Summer Palace, which is nice because it's located aside of a lake. We also went to some parks and of course the Greate Wall (photo 1). The wall is very fascinating. At some points it is incredibly steep, sometimes a little less and you can see the wall disappearing far away into the mountains. Although we booked a Chinese Tour instead of an English one which was so exhausting and annoying, I did enjoy the Wall. As you can see on pic 2 and 3 we enjoyed the local food (do never order Sichuan Noodles (so so so hot!!) and got a bit unlucky because we had quite a few days with smog.
We stayed in Beijing for a bit more than a week before we head to Wuxi, a 'smaller' city which basicly meant that there're only 5 million citizen.
We visited a friend of my brother who he met at the university in Beijing. They were incredibly welcoming and the best hosts you can imagine. They showed us some real good places, spent the whole day with us and bought us plenty of food. I really mean PLENTY of food! I've never been so full before. Somehow in their culture you always have to leave some food on your plate or order too much food on purpose because throwing away food shows that you are wealthy.
The picture above shows the Grand Buddha at Ling Shan. It was a 30 minutes drive just out of town and is a huge park with temples, statues etc.. The main attraction is the 88m high Buddha you can see in the middle.
The next stop was Suzhou. It's one of the very famous water towns in the east of China. It was also a very lovely place with small streets next to silent rivers. This stop was rather to relax a little instead of doing sightseeing. So we again enjoyed the food (my brother tried chicken feets there - kind of disgusting) and walked trough the nearby area a lot.
For the last week of my stay in China we took a train to Shanghai.
Shanghai is very impressiv. The huge town with its famous skyline which is known worldwide. There are very different districts (like the french district) where you almost feel being in a western part of the world. Much cleaner streets, better shape of buildings and more international and western people. In total not comparable with the rest I got to know in China. Still, we experienced that white people are an attraction to some tourists from other parts of China. The third picture is from our view. They got so excited and took many photos of and with us. We felt a bit like some kind of VIPs.
The second photo shows my brother and 2 chinese girls who visited a convention. They were very serious about it and there were many young people dressing up, pretending to be one of the beloved figures in their stories. It was a little crazy but also lots of fun.
Well I could continue to tell you much more about China and the experiences there but for now it should be enough.
Lots of love,
Fiona
People asked me to update this blog by telling you about the trips I did after my year abroad and to be honest I never really shared my experiences with family and friends.
This is why I am changing this website a little bit and add posts about me doing what I'm passionate about.
What did happen since summer 2015?
Well after a three weeks stay back home, organising a visa for China, I visited my brother in Beijing.
He studied there for almost a year which is why I thought it is a good idea to make the travel last a little longer. There we went to the Forbidden City, to some temples (photo 4 shows the Temple of Heaven) and the Summer Palace, which is nice because it's located aside of a lake. We also went to some parks and of course the Greate Wall (photo 1). The wall is very fascinating. At some points it is incredibly steep, sometimes a little less and you can see the wall disappearing far away into the mountains. Although we booked a Chinese Tour instead of an English one which was so exhausting and annoying, I did enjoy the Wall. As you can see on pic 2 and 3 we enjoyed the local food (do never order Sichuan Noodles (so so so hot!!) and got a bit unlucky because we had quite a few days with smog.
1
2
2
3
4
4
We stayed in Beijing for a bit more than a week before we head to Wuxi, a 'smaller' city which basicly meant that there're only 5 million citizen.
We visited a friend of my brother who he met at the university in Beijing. They were incredibly welcoming and the best hosts you can imagine. They showed us some real good places, spent the whole day with us and bought us plenty of food. I really mean PLENTY of food! I've never been so full before. Somehow in their culture you always have to leave some food on your plate or order too much food on purpose because throwing away food shows that you are wealthy.
The picture above shows the Grand Buddha at Ling Shan. It was a 30 minutes drive just out of town and is a huge park with temples, statues etc.. The main attraction is the 88m high Buddha you can see in the middle.
The next stop was Suzhou. It's one of the very famous water towns in the east of China. It was also a very lovely place with small streets next to silent rivers. This stop was rather to relax a little instead of doing sightseeing. So we again enjoyed the food (my brother tried chicken feets there - kind of disgusting) and walked trough the nearby area a lot.
For the last week of my stay in China we took a train to Shanghai.
Shanghai is very impressiv. The huge town with its famous skyline which is known worldwide. There are very different districts (like the french district) where you almost feel being in a western part of the world. Much cleaner streets, better shape of buildings and more international and western people. In total not comparable with the rest I got to know in China. Still, we experienced that white people are an attraction to some tourists from other parts of China. The third picture is from our view. They got so excited and took many photos of and with us. We felt a bit like some kind of VIPs.
The second photo shows my brother and 2 chinese girls who visited a convention. They were very serious about it and there were many young people dressing up, pretending to be one of the beloved figures in their stories. It was a little crazy but also lots of fun.
Well I could continue to tell you much more about China and the experiences there but for now it should be enough.
Lots of love,
Fiona
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