Category: China

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Harbin Ice Festival 

It’s -20C with the wind blowing from the East. We are hiking through the icy wastelands of China’s most northern Province Capital. Across the frozen river, we reach the Snow Park on a small island where only the name reminds of summer, “sun island”.

What we discover is an amazing world of Ice and Snow; a snow church, 40 meters high, and an entire scenery carved out of snow and frozen ice. As we watch the sunset, the ice becomes illuminated and shows a very colorful side. Hand and foot warmers and warm ginger tea helped to keep us warm. Continue reading “Harbin Ice Festival “

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Pandas

With one extra day to spare after our disastrous night with the Chinese zombies, we set out to explore Chengdu. Surprisingly to us, the town is very charming. The town is clean, attractions are spacious and well maintained, shops and restaurants are high quality (some even up to western standards).

First, we explored the Giant Panda Research Center. This is the main attraction of Chengdu. The Institute is specialized on the breeding of Giant Pandas and does so very successfully. Continue reading “Pandas”

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On the top of the world

National Day holidays and annual leave are coming to an end. It’s time to remember.

Our first trip led us to Chengdu for a trek into the Minya Konka mountain range, south west of Chengdu. I had been in Germany the week before, so I was able to travel in style: Arrive in Shanghai on 27.09., packing and leaving for Chengdu with Michi on the 28th. Our guide picked us up from the airport and dropped us of at our hotel (“Traffic Hotel”… some advanced marketing was at play to come up with that name). In the evening, we did some last minute shopping and explored the old streets of Wuhouci (old temple surrounded by old-style streets with a lot of bars, restaurants and live music, sometimes two singers in the same bar (singing different music…)).

Continue reading “On the top of the world”

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Suzhou hen piaolian

This weekend, we went on a trip to Suzhou. The city used to the hometown of parts of the country’s intellectual elite (the silk industry was the source of the city’s wealth, which, in turn led to the regions high education. We took the bullet train from Shanghai – a short 30 min ride. We stayed at the Soul Hotel downtown, perfectly located (right next to an awesome hotpot place) Continue reading “Suzhou hen piaolian”

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Weather in Wuhan

I was lucky, this time. One day before I arrived, temperatures dropped from over 40C to 25C. So I may live another day. Interesting fact: if you ask nicely, you may bring your own drinks to the restaurant.  

Today I am back in Shanghai. Have to get up way to early (7:00). Michi just landed in PVG. So this will be a great day!