Schnecken on the run

Beijing – Shanghai – Xi´an – Beijing. Our „Classical Tour de China“ in 12 days. From the ancient Terracota Warriors to modern ex-pat parties overlooking probably one of the most dynamic cities in the world, we had a great time and a great mixture of sights and fun events.

„Thomas?“ we heard somebody calling behind us after we passed the immigration desk in Beijing. We didn´t expect any pickup nor to meet somebody who knows us. Turning around we saw in the middle of the immigration lineup the smiling faces of Soeren and Caro, friends who live in Beijing and just returned from their travel to Germany, where they just got married. What a great surprise and happy coincident! We were expecting to see those guys a week later (once we returned to Beijing from our „Classical Tour de China“), but here they were.

Soeren helped us with a taxi so we were quicker than ever in the middle of sightseeing and stood in between the walls of the great Forbidden City. After a couple of dumplings (we missed them) and a nice chinese beer, we were ready to stroll through the great shopping district and „Scorpion alley“(named by Whitney); a small food alley where they serve fried scorpions on sticks and other strange food. Yummy?

The highspeed overnight train got us to the distant Shanghai in less than 12 hours. What a great way to travel that helps to reduce on daytime travelling. These ultra modern soft sleeper trains provide everybody with little TV´s in each bed cubicle (unfortunantely no Rocky movies…all chinese stuff).
For me, Shanghai is the biggest construction sight I have ever seen. I already had been told so years ago, but I thought, they would be done by now. They are not! Maybe the Expo 2010 made the authorities decide to give the city another face lift. We don´t know but wherever you go, there is a mega construction sight somewhere right next to you. Whether they build a new scyscraper, renovate an old one or just change the whole 8 line street, lots of work is in progress.
We had a fun time in Shanghai. My aunt told us to visit the Jinmao Tower for a spectacular view. We decided to do that first thing after arriving and took the subway to the business district beside the river. Highrise after highrise, quite impressive!!. Whitney pointed to a building saying „This must be it“. I thought we better have a look around the corner to make sure. Wow, and there we saw this very extraordinary building and we (or I?) were sure, that it was the one my aunt had written us about. We paid the ridiculous entrance fee of 30€ for both of us and took the elevator to the second platform at 263 metres in an enormous speed. Great views! We took the elevator to the third platform at 350 metres and, wow, the view got even better. Besides the countless construction sights you could see from here, the view of the river and the highrises was fantastic. After 30 minutes up there, we realized, that we were on Shanghais TV tower, the so called „Oriental Pearl“ and we already took a lot of pictures of the beautiful building right in front of us: That was the „Jinmao Tower“, the one that my aunt told us to visit. (And by the way, the one that Whitney pointed out first). Probably the entrance fee for that one would have been a lot less (-;

After three days in Shanghai, filled with intensive shopping with all the tempting knock-offs, we took the night train to Xi`an, especially famous for the Terrecota Warriors which were found not long ago. Whitney had visited them before and convinced me to go alone on a tour. It was great! The story behind the warriors is super and so is the story of the discovery and the ongoing excavation. One of the 5 farmers who found these warriors on his land more than 30 years ago, was sitting at a table beside one of the sights giving autographs!! This is as „chinese“ as something can be „chinese“. We learned that he and his farmer friends are taking turns sitting there and signing books. What a change in life: Yesterday a farmer, now sitting here day by day signing books like a popstar…without popstar status. Back home this man would be driving around in one of his Ferraris. Here in China he probably got told that the land is not HIS land anymore and that he has a new job from now on: Signing books. And that his name is only „THE farmer“. Our little tour group loved that story and laughed a lot. There he was sitting, Poor guy.
The muslim quarter in Xi´an is a great place to explore. We spent hours walking through the little alleys, trying all kinds of food from the stalls and restaurants (Thommy and Whitney) and finding souvenirs (Whitney) or silver bracelets (Whitney).

4 days in Xi´an and we hopped on our last overnight train back to Beijing. We stayed with Caro and Soeren and that was great fun! A day of sightseeing The GREAT Wall, The Summer Palace and the Olympic Birdsnest with our private driver made our sightseeing agenda in Beijing complete. The rest was shopping at the great markets (clothes and outdoor camping equipment for the time to come) and lots of fun time with our two friends. They took us to very nice restaurants for classical chinese food, Beijing duck and finally on our last day hot pot experience. That was a nice way to end our culinarian chinese experiment. The first day we arrived in chinese Yunnan about 3 month ago we had a hot pot experience with chicken heads, feets and lots of unidentified incredients and we decided not to have hot pot again. But this one we had in Beijing gave a new perspective and YES, we want to have this again.
One of our highlights (maybe because it reminded us of an evening back home) was a great theme party Soeren and Caro took us to. On a balcony overlooking the constantly and ridiculously smoggy Beijing, we were chatting, singing and drinking with lots of friendly ex-pats from all over the world. A fun night that left us a little slower and somehow foggy the whole next day (-;

That was the last event of our almost 5 months in Asia. We had a great time and are now looking forward to changing fried rice, fried noodles and assorted chicken dishes for something more western. Australia and New Zealand: We are coming!