trip to France, Belgium, England and Portugal - just a bit further East...

France, Belgium, England and Portugal?? What is she talking about?? Hasn't she been just in China??

Well I was and I am again, or lets say to be correct: I have been all the time since my last story... But having gotten an idea of mainland China and Chinese cities I didn't feel like being in China during the last 1,5 weeks:

Shanghai

Of all the three cities I will talk about now Shanghai was the one I liked the least. I have a hard time right now as well saying of which country Shanghai remembered me most - not of China, but of what else then? It is - as we would say in German - "not fish and not meat". In contrast to Hong Kong or Macao it has never been a colony, but it had British and Frensh concession-zones.

Within the French Concession - a very popular part of the town among tourists and expats - you would just feel somewhere in Europe. Where exactly? I can't say. Not in France despite its name and the many "french bakery" (or "boulangeries")...

On the bund - the former British concession - you're remembered of Good Old Europe? Well, again, I wouldn't say that it remembers me of England in particular - rather you get an idea of what the Commonwealth meant and of the trade going through Shanghai in the last 2 centuries...
Anyhow, this very boardwalk is defninitely really nice to walk along, especially at night!

Beside these places, where you get an idea of the recent history, I found Shanghai was stinking of money: Walking around between the skyscrapers in Pudong is impressive (but not even half as impressive as the skyscrapers in Hong Kong as I found out later), but it you can smell the money and the business there - a smell me in particular I don't like...

But don't worry, I still liked many things in Shanghai - it is just that I had the impression that this city was missing its own particular touch.

There are a few things I want to mention about Shanghai apart from the touristy spots I mentionned above: first of all I was staying with a really nice CS-host, an English guy teaching Math in an international school (expat-teachers are everywhere in China...):

Thanks to him I got to know a bit of the nightlife of Shanghai, saw the various different nice restaurants and Belgium-alike chocolate places (he really was addicted to chocolate :D). In Shanghai - and mainly in the French concession you see loads of Westerners, and the offers and layout of bars and restaurants are adapted to them and therefore like back home.

I have also been at a really freaky market, where they sold loads of different insects, crickets (that made the whole place sound like a big forest at night) worms and other animals.... iiiiiiiiiiiiihhh

This was for sure freaking me out, but what was freaking me out more was the marriage-market my host showed me: on Sundays parents would go to the central park of the town and hang up papers with descriptions of their sons/daugthers in order to find the perfect match for them... I mean, hello?? It's ok when people are writing announces for themselves in the newspaper, but parents looking for a partner for their children in a big intercultural city like Shanghai was not what I expected...

As a resumee: all in all Shanghai was ok, but nothing more to me...

Hong Kong

When going to Hong Kong you are leaving China... somehow... which was important to me, as my visa ran out.

Even though Hong Kong was given back to China in 1997, it is still a special administrative zone with different tax laws, more openness (no visa required for 90 days, no blocked internet sites,...) and a different currency. Well, in general you can say: it is still Great Britain, with a bit China on the top of it...

In buildings there is a groundfloor, you get along with English everywhere, no blocked internet, and everything is expensive: Welcome back to Europe!!
Unlike Shanghai, there is no doubt about the recent history of Hong Kong: England... cars are driving on the left side, you have double-decker-busses and double-decker-trams everywhere, and everything is in English.

I was of course visiting the most important tourist sites: Victorias Peak, where you get a view over all the skyscrapers (see photo above - really impressive!), going to the Big Buddha and so on. I was really lucky having met Niku, a girl from Sweden, who arrived just the same day in Hong Kong to travel in China for a month. With her I spent all my time in Hong Kong and continued after that (but more about that in my next story...) We went to the beach together, to different markets and just hung out together...

I liked Hong Kong but felt immediately that you need to stay far longer and live in this city to get to know it properly (which is the case for every city, or place in general, I guess...). So five days was fine to get an idea of it, but far from being enough. Interestingly enough I liked it far more than Shanghai, but have far less to say about it now...

So, pictures say more than 1000 words, right??

but no - this was not all I have to say about my trip to Hong Kong - There is for sure one thing I want to describe a bit more in detail: Chungking Mansions (it's even on Wikipedia... wow!!)

Chungking Mansions is a huge building (17 floors, 5 blocks...) with loads (and I mean loooooooaaaaaadddss) of cheap places to stay and cheap Indian and Pakistani restaurants.

In these hostels and sleeping-places many immigrants from India, Pakistan and Nigeria are living. The groundfloor is full with them offering you food or fake-stuff - "lady-wanna-copy-watch?"
Niku and me met in a supercheap hostel on the 3rd floor. For a bed in a room where there is not more space than for the 6 doublebeds they squeezed in it, you pay 100.,- HKD (€10,-) - the cockroaches in the bathroom are included in the price. As they didn't have any beds left we went to a really freaky hostel no the topfloor - only 60HKD (you won't find anything cheaper in Hong Kong): freaky because of the people living there. Not many travellers but mainly immigrants, and weird people like junkies and others we didn't know what they were doing in Hong Kong... No worries, it was not dangerous but simply not supercosy. We stayed there two nights, before moving to a nice CS-host (guess what... yes, she's Englsih-teacher) for another two nights.

With all the people we talked to and mentionned Chungking Mansions we got the impression, that you have only really been to Hong Kong if you stayed in Chungking Mansions. So even if it was not the most comfortable place to stay, it was an experience on its own and I wouldn't want to miss it!

Macao

From Hong Kong it is really easy to get to Macao. Instead of staying a few days there, as was my plan before, I ended up making only a daytrip, which was perfectly fine: I took the ferry in the morning there and in the afternoon back.


I definitely found what I was looking for in Macao - and no, it was not casinos; - but some South-European flair. When I arrived in the morning, supertired and freezing because of the aircon on the ferry, I wasn't sure if it has been a good idea to come here: close to the ferry-terminal are only ugly buildings and the huge casinos the Chinese people come to Macao for.

But after some walking I arrived in the old town, which is not without a reason Unesco World Heritage, I felt back in Europe: many churches, it was sunny and hot, many small squares with a tree in the middle, bars everywhere and everything was written in Portuese.


All in all I really enjoyed my trip to Macao!
With this I finish this very story - till the next is coming you may have a look at my gallery of this short "Europe-trip"!