"By being yourself, you put something wonderful in the world that was not there before." - Edwin Elliot

Well, well well. Yesturday I could post and I could not read now I cant even post. However if I remember correctly I should be able to send this email and it will get posted on the blog!! Lets give it a try, although this does mean no pictures. A few minuts ago my keyboard changed into chinese characters so I couldnt write a single email but I think its now back to normal!!!

 

Yesturday I flew from Shanghai to Guilin, in Guanxi a 2hour flight. Thursday night excitment didnt let me sleep much, friday night festes de sants, saturday night flight so technically speaking I should have been able to sleep on sunday but that was imposible. Jet laged became my enemy and I spend 4h tumbing in bed. I had to wake up at 5 in the morning to go to the airport, which we had guessed might take 1h took me 20min :) Shanghai has various airports, this one was clearly super modern and nice, I felt so tiered but there was no way I fell asleep in the airport or the plane itself. When I arrived in Guilin, I went to find the family that was going to host me and that I had met thorugh couchsurfing. I took a taxi to their place and there was the little kid who is three ," hello sister, nice meet you" jejeje so cute. Qiong (the mom) welcomed me very warmly and I finally took a shower. She did say they had no hot water but that was clearly not an issue for me!!! So we had some delicious chinese food and then I decided what to do, she told me I could go to yao san, this mountain where you can see the view of all the little mountains surrounding Guilin. First (the kid) was very excited and wanted to join so we all went but by the time we got there he had gotten asleep. This region is full of small round looking mountains, a type of Halong Bay style in Vietnam. I took a chair lift up, and it was so long, at the end so high !!! So there I was getting burned. These places have quite a few chinese tourists but I have not found many westerners, james gave me a Learn Chinese booklet, I serioulsy cant pronunce shit... but well I will try. On the way back home we had to walk for 30 min which was nice as I saw some villagers playing what for me were extremly exotic cards :D

Then we fuxed up and had tot ake 3 busses, by then 5pm I was dead and even if I tried not to I fell asleep in every single bus there was, always being the only westener. Thanks to Qiong I got around. She has writen for me tons of chinese things in my notebook so I can ask for directions. We then had dinner and I played with First but by 8 o clock I was snoring... now finally think I have recovered all my tierenes..

the austrlian look outs or miradores in spanish have a more clear name in chinese " place of viewing the beauty"

Multiple ways in which someone can fall, you slip, you fall down or the floor starts trembling under you....

Doraimon is guarding the house where im staying at

National Hamburger Day..may 28th lets take all note of that!

Frankfurt never ending wait was long, the flight itslef went by quickly, only 10 hours!! i am so used to the 24hours flights to Sydney in which once you are in asia you still have 10 more to go that it felt like nothing. Nevertheless I bearly slept, also Air China literally suxs. it was already1 10 years ago since I took my first flight where every economy seat had its own little tv. So here i am on an air china flight in 2011 which litteral has 2 tvs for the entire middle section of the plane and to add to it they play a bad movie and i ask for another headphones and the repy is "yeah later..." whatever... food was OK but the woman gave fish to everyone who ordered meat and vice versa. I had a good laugh. Fat guy sitting by me, wierdo actually he had checked in a black luggage and when the black luggages were coming out of the convery belt he would take each one of them out and start checking if it was his. Dude put some tag that makes it clear its yours!!!! Also I LOVE watching the map in the plane knowing where we are,but since there was 1 tv I saw we were in Frankfurt but next thing I know we are in Shanghai...

So at border control in Shanghai you can actually rate the person that controls your passport. are u satisfied very satisfied unsatisfied or very unsatisfied. Loved this idea! The airport seemed extremly modern.

I then had to take a shuttle bus to HongKou...so I asked and people thoguht I wanted a flight to HongKong...damn... then I got send to the long distance busses which go to other provinces and eventually i made it to shuttle bus 4 that took me to HongKou..seriously it wasnt that hard, I just made it hard after 2h flight 6 h transfer 10h flight and 1h bus I made it and saw James again. Well so we bought some amazing water pears HUGE went for some delicious food.. I was starving!! And also booked our flights back to Shanghai after our trip... to my suprise 30 min later when I checked my mail again I had an email saying my flights would be canceled if before 9pm I didnt send photocopies of my ID, credit cards and a document signed. Of course to sign the document I first need it to print it...there started the hassle. Back on the streets looking for an internet cafe. We found one but couldnt print...what a mess. Suddenly I saw a tour agency, I asked James to stay outside as I had to put on my poor foreigner face. I went in and

I said "hi you speak english?? I need to print" yeah they didnt understand me so I pointed to the printer. THey said NO. I insited this was very important I really need it that sheet. And after a while I gave them the USB and they printed out the page! Phew saved by my poor foreigners i dnot speak chinese face. Back to James to sign the paper take a pic and send it to the reservation company. A few phone calls up and down and back on the streets for a 1h neck and foot massage 2,5euros. Wonderful. we then went for some tea with milk and beans, it was goooood!! Delicious...it just made me go to the toilet quite a few times in the night :(

China

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At Martas 2h before the flight and running late... my Estrella Damn I love festes de Sants Hat is traveling with me to China

Current destination.... CHINA! Im back in China, 10 years after my last visit, the visit that I thought was OK but which clearly did not make it to my top rankings of best trip ever. So here I am, my second Berlin visit made me change my mind...so will this one do so too?? I will try and do some updates, I dont know how often this will happend but here we go... This trip is to Shanghai (modern china) and to the rural parts of Sichuan and Guanxi.

The night pre China was Festes de Sants, which were just AMAZING. Festes de sants are the street parties of the neighourhood Sants in Barcelona. It doesnt stop to amaze me how life is in Spain, pepople will be in the streets having dinners with all the neighbours, concerts for the elderly, story tellers for the young, traditional songs... its a blast!! I left my luggage at Martas place as she lives right by pl.catalunya place where the bus departs to the airport ...went out partying. At 4am when I got back at Martas I ended up calling a friend who works on TV in one of those shows that predicts your future, he put me live on TV and the woman answered all my doubts of my life. So it seems that my life will be fine ....phew!! So be it I forgot to put an alarm clock to go to the airport!! Luckily I woke up! marta had put the alarmclock anyways for double saftey. I was running I got to the airport and flight delayed, more delyas, due to a major storm in my transfering airport Frankfurt. It al lmade sense when the plane was tumbling in the air over germany, claps came along when we landed. People were freaking out as many lost their connections, I had a never ending long wait in Europes hub so I just waited waited and waited. Recharged my phone as im using it as MP3 in mcdonalds and waited seeing the 747-400 being prepared for the following departures.

Anecdote 1: my luggage is only 10kilos, how did I manage? I think experience made me smarter!! :)
Anecdote 2: The moment Im putting in my stuff in the security tray the kid infront of me takes every object I leave out of the tray, I put it back in he puts it back up. Mom doesnt even care to look at what son is doing.