Huangshan, the first rainy disappointment

Not to much to tell at all. 16 hours in the train and in the rain. 2 days of Tom being ill and again rain. Last day, again rain.

This was a hit in the face. Huanshan is like the highlight of the china trip. At least we thought it would be. But we could not go due to the heavy rainfall. But this will happen more often in the raining season. Instead we did nothing, learned and played some chinese mahjong games and slept. Which we did.

Here is a picture of what we expected to see... Hope Guiling will treats us better!

Shanghai - shopping, shopping, shopping...

It wasn't easy to say good bye to Beijing and our couchsurfng host Bin. We had a great time, but Shanghai was waiting. We arrived in Shanghai on a sunny day where we could finally see the blue sky for the first time in china. So we took our chances and started walking around right away. Our hostel was right in the city center next to the financial district and close to the river.

Shanghai is very modern and clean compared to Beijing. People are less pushy and try to be friendlier. We crossed off the touristy stuff after one day so we (lea and Nina) spend the rest of the days shopping and visiting different markets. Tom decided to skip the shopping, he grew kind of tired of it hahaha.

Yangshuo - bamboe rafting in scenery paradise

Finnaly, after a 26 hour train ride and the disappointment of Huanshan we were rewarded with something stunning, amazing, mind-blowing. Close to the city Guilin lays Yanshuo in the middle of random pikes of stone and trees. Loads of small mountains. Between these mountains lays a river.

This was the river we went rafting!! (And getting sunburned like crazy). The rafting was fun, slow but fun. So much to see, the mountains have no end to it seems. Shit I wish we had mountains in holland. Somehow I adore those stony and bushy things. Nevertheless, check the picca's below! More upcoming in the next days

The Great Wall of China

While being in Beijing we had to, wanted to, visit the Great Wall And hike it for a day. We asked our host Bin if he knew a good spot which was less touristy so we wouldn't be annoyed by thousands of others. We are not the first guests who asked this, and Bin surely did his homework! He knows a great place, even went camping there once. It was just a hassle to get there, taking a bus and find an illegal (black) taxi who can take you to the right spot. All of this with no one speaking English.

It already went wrong on the bus, luckily we look white enough to be tourists, or it's just the pretty girls I'm with. But the black taxi driver found us, came into to bus, asked us were to go and told us to get off. This was a little bit weird but we it seemed to be ok and we arrived at the wall half an hour later. 

There was a cable car to bring you up the mountain, which we of course did not take. Budget stuff, we hiked up! People declared us crazy but it was just 30 minutes or less. Doable, even in the heat. The wall was stunning and unreal. How did they build this for miles and miles over mountains up and down. It's already hard just to walk there up and down, imagine guarding and building the wall. It was a shame the reach of the smog of Beijing is so large. The wall is a three hour drive from the city center, and still there is smog which minimized our vision, yet it did not ruin the day, the wall is stunning. A must see for everyone who visits china.

Beijing - the city of smog

When we arrived in Beijing we could already see the smog everywhere. Zoe in Yantai told us that still a lot of chinese think it is fog because that's what it's called on the news. They don't call it pollution - so bad for the people who have no idea how and it is.

In Beijing we met Lea (Nina's sister) who is travelllign with us for 3 weeks. Our Couchsurfing host Bin Que picked us up right at the airport. And again: an amazing Couchsurfing experience! Bin let us sleep in his bedroom while he slept on the floor in the living room. Bin is 30 years old and is an airplane mechanic. So he works 12 hours everyday and sometimes also nights. But when we had time, he spend it with us, showing us around Bejing. The first 2 nights, he also hosted 2 Canadians who were hitch hiking trough Asia. He brought us to a homemade noodle restaurant and to a great night market where lea could start shopping right away (addicted shopper). All the guys were surprised how much time one girl can spend at one shop haha (and this didn't change in the next couple days - poor Tom!). 

The next day we spend fully sightseeing, by visiting the forbidden city and the parks around it. WOW! It looked so unreal, just walking through the forbidden city and  ring sourrounded by beautiful buildings. Even though it is sooooo hot and humid here, the forbidden city was great. I think we drank at least 4-5 liters of water per person during that day. 

Lea is a vegetarian, chinese are not. This is a big challenge we face daily, get her some food without meat! Bin wrote us a chinese line and drawed what she does not eat. See the pictures. We found a delicious dumpling restaurant and walked a long the street, shopping a little bit from street vendors. Day after we had Beijing duck with Bin, our host. When you are in Beijing you got to try the duck! Luckily Bin found an amazing place which also had some veggies for Lea hahaha.

China!!! Couchsurfing in Yantai!

Yantai was our stop in China. A nice city close to the beach. We decided to try couchsurf (sleep for free on someone's couch) here because we wanted to get in touch with some locals and find out how Couchsurfing is. We stayed with Zoe and Mark for 3 nights and we had an amazing time. Zoe is a chinese girl from the north of china and Mark is an American guy who moved to china 8 years ago to teach English. They were so caring and shared everything with us. When we arrived the table was already set for lunch with a lot of small different chinese dishes, delicious.

Zoe cooked for us everyday and it was great to get to taste the chinese cuisine that way. We ate a lot of vegetables we have never had or seen before. The couchsurfing experience was awesome because Yantai is such a small non touristy city and without them we would have never found anything. 

We went to the beach together, had chinese BBQ at the beach, went to a farmers market and Zoe also helped us to buy train tickets for the trip from Beijing to Shanghai. We got very lucky to meet and stay with them. A great start of our trip in China!

Zoe also recommend us a couchsurfing host in Beiing, so we canceled our hostel in Beijing and decided to couchsurf even more.

Korea round up

Korea-country of barbecuing, hiking, gaming and plastic surgery.

Korea is nothing like Japan. So luckily we did not make the mistake of comparing these two countries. We spend 3 weeks in Korea and went from south to north (Busan, Jinju, Daejeon, Seoul). It is a beautiful country with a hard history which is still a daily talk. 

We spend too little time in Busan, our starting point. The city with a nice beach and great food with a nice student area. Truly a nice place to be, but, first thing we noticed: South Korea tries really hard to become western which is in my humble opinion a shame. It's neglecting the traditions it once had, yet I am of course influenced by the Japanese who did their best (succeeded) to not become western. 

But,

Once arriving in the smaller city's, Deajeon and Jinju, this feeling was gone. There South Korea gave us the Asia feeling again, with crazy people on the road, street foods and truly, no English speaking people or menu's or bus-stops. A great adventure taking a bus for a long time to hike a mountain and hoping you are in the right place, if you weren't, then people were willing enough to give you a little help. In Korean of course. 

We spend around 38 euros a day in South Korea, including everything. Food, getting around, a place to stay, the DMZ, etc. Only achievable if you eat Korean food, not like the Americans going to MC Donald. But to the grill, chicken and beer places, bibimbap and of course kimchi.