China

Zhaoqing

We started our trip in China with the city of Zhaoqing. It's a big city, like most Chinese cities, which is in full expansion but still has some charm thanks to its old quarters, its old pagodas and its lake surrounded by hills similar to the ones in Halong Bay (Vietnam), all this right beside the city centre.

We rented bicycles to go around the lake and visit the city. We each had our own style:

Rodeo

Full steam ahead!

First funny story: we booked a hotel which was called "Zhaoqing Xingyang Fashion Hotel" according to the website but when we arrived there, nobody knew about this hotel... In fact, it was an automatic translation of the Chinese characters and the real name was "We Love Hotel". To find our way, we had to stop at another hotel to get the receptionist to call the reception of our hotel. We also asked in the streets but we had a hard time finding an English speaker! :D

We did a day out at the Denghu Shan park where we saw a buddhist temple and a small waterfall.

People come here to do their tai-chi, read their newspaper or sing out loud!

Another funny story we lived there: while looking for information to catch a bus to Guilin from Zhaoqing, we gathered about 10 Chinese people, all trying to help us find the right bus and the right bus station. They are not used to westerners, especially in this city as it's usually not on the itinerary of many people (we only saw 2 or 3 westerners in 3 days)... but people were so nice to us!

Guillin

After a 9h bus journey, we arrived in Guilin which is a very touristic city. We walked around the city quite a lot and also rented bicycles to visit by our own means since tours and touristic attractions are quite expansive in China! Altogether, the city was nice but not as nice as Yangshuo, about 80kms south of Guilin, that we visited two years ago (see here).

When we rented bicycles, we realized that it was actually quite hard to get out of the city because it's so big! We still managed to get to a small village and we surprised a few old women who came to chat with us! :)

Kunming

To get to Kunming, we took a sleeper train for 24 hours! That was a hell of a long trip! :)

We adapted anyway!

The train car had open compartments, each with 6 beds, and Chinese people lived there life as if they were at home: they eat, play cards, spit... and some of them even do some jogging!

Another funny story: a lady was looking over Aurore's shoulder what she was doing on the computer and she even laid her head on her shoulder! So funny :)

We were hosted by Anne we met on the couchsurfing website. She's from the USA and she also has Korean and Canadian origins. We spent good moments with her and we talked a lot about life in general and about our respective methods for well-being.

She also brought us to a discussion group to talk about courage. It was run by an American friend of her who is a life coach. It was interesting and we met a few locals, like Michael who is born and bred in Kunming, showed us the city.

A big Thank You to Anne for helping us, hosting us, advising us and to Michael for being our guide!

Anne invited us to a Korean restaurant with Michael and Phil (an American friend of her), it was a very good evening.

Another funny story: In China, they also have supermarkets called Carrefour (a French brand), except here they say "Cha-le-fou". :D

At the start, we were not big fans of this city... Chinese cities tend to all look alike: they break the old traditional buildings to build new ones instead of restoring them. What a pity! We finally found some old quarters and we'll especially remember the garden where old people came to play Mahjong, Chinese chess, cards or the game of Go. We also saw old men smoking traditional pipes:

This is some real old building...

... and that's the new "old" ones!

Guess what that is... it's tea!

One thing to note is that Chinese people are very kind and do not hesitate to help a foreigner in the street. It's not always easy to understand each other but multiple persons showed us where to go and even brought us to the place we were looking for.

Lijiang

It's on our way to Lijiang that Aurore has faced the worst toilet we've seen in Asia. :) To describe them, first you have to queue in front of 5 toilet blocks WITHOUT DOOR, so everyone can see what's going on... Then, you also have to know that each toilet block gives in the same gutter, like men's toilet! Anyway, being the only westerner and feeling all the eyes upon her, Aurore couldn't do it and ran away shouting "Oh My God, Oh My God"! :D Locals were pissing themselves laughing ;)

Aurore shooting sounds like this:

Lijiang is a very touristic city which has nearly been all renovated with new "old" buildings. It's pretty but it's missing some charm and authenticity, especially as the streets are full with shops that all look the same.

Some houses from another time...

Aurore, not quite like the locals :)

Nice street like many others.

Here, people still wash the vegetables, do the dishes, do the laundry... in the river.

Chinese people love to dress up to take pictures of themselves in a real setting

(Not so) Funny story in Lijiang: we were in China at the time they had a conflict with Japan about the ownership of a small island. Anyway, we do not know the full story but we saw some signs of this  conflict. Some signs saying "Japanese and animals not allowed" or "Japanese and pigs not allowed" were put outside of several shops. The first one was funny but then it gets on your nerve when you see it pretty much in every street, it made us think about what Jews could feel during WW2...

Moreover, they had a lot of fur shops with all kinds of animals... That did not help us to calm down.

Free hatred?

To get away from the city, we hired bicycles once again. We arrived in a small village just a few kms away from Lijiang. We were wandering in the village when Aurore starting feeling someone pulling her arm and we could hear something like "coin-coin, coin-coin" like the French sound of a duck, you see? It was an old woman who was calling us and showing us a small notebook she was holding in her hand. This notebook contained a lot of comments in different languages saying that we could trust this women and follow her to her house, that's what we did! That's the kind of moments we love in our trip :) When we arrived at her house, she made a sign to tell us to sit down at her table and wait. She came back with tea, fruits, sunflower seeds and biscuits. She was more than proud to show us all the notebooks she had from previous travellers who stopped in her place. So cute! This woman is maybe 80 years old and has been doing this for the last ten years! We had a very good time that we'll remember all our life, promise!

The countryside seen from our bikes ;)

Dali

We stopped in the city of Dali, which was a famous spot for hippies during the years 70-80. We spent two days wandering in the old quarters, trying different types of local food:

Ahah! Aurore still needs the sidewheels :)

Chengdu

After a 17h bus journey which was noisy and smelling of cigaret smoke... we arrived in the city of the pandas! Right after meeting our couchsurfing host, Simon, we went to see the pandas. Etienne was over the moon, we saw about 20 of them in cages but well... it's the only way we could be sure to see some!

We even saw red pandas, really cute!!!

We spent multiple nice evenings with Simon and Jewel, our couchsurfing hosts. We especially liked when we went to the best dumplings restaurant in the city, it was delicious and we had a good talk about Chinese culture! Thanks for everything Simon and Jewel!

We went to visit the city looking for the old quarters as usual.

We visited a temple, as usual too! :)

We walked into people's park at random and we were very happy to do some people watching. We saw people dansing, playing cards, writing on the ground with water and a giant brush and the best was to see how old people look for a husband or a wife for their kids, unbelievable! They all had a sheet of paper with age, occupation, size of their not-so-young children that they were showing to each others... and they were a lot of them doing the same thing! :)

... and the most surprising was to see people dancing in the park!

Shanghai

We took a plane to get to Shanghai. Yeah, we were a bit tired of doing all those 10+ hours journeys in bus or train...

We were hosted by San and Bell (couchsurfing), a couple of the same age as us, from Shanghai and very kind, interesting and so generous! We keep a very good memory of our stay in Shanghai thanks to their good advices and kindness.

San and Bell had organized a dinner with friends, we had a Chinese hot pot!

Of course, we walked along the Bund where you can see the famous sky-scrappers of Shanghai:

Aurore posing in front of the Aurora building of course!

We stopped by the museum of contemporary art of Shanghai where we saw an exhibition asking the following question: "Will things ever get better?". Good question, isn't it?

We discovered with pleasure the French quarter with its small streets and courts, we really felt like we were in Paris for a few minutes! :)

But what we enjoyed the most was the time we spent with our hosts:

We went to have a Chinese massage with Sam and Bell: at the start, you have to put your feet in boiling water then comes the massage. It's quite dynamic but a lot more pleasant than the thai massage ;)

We were invited by Bell's parents to a traditional restaurant for the day of the Moon. A good occasion to gather and eat a delicious meal!

To finish, we met Jiyuan, one of Etienne's former colleague in Citrix. It was nice to see each other again and we had a good time. Thank you Jiyuan!

Our second trip in China allowed us to know and understand the Chinese culture a little better, to learn about the customs and to discover the beautiful landscape of this amazing country. It's a pity we could only see the landscapes from the train and the bus though... Indeed, we were a little frustrated that we could not rent a car or a motorcycle. We hope this will change one day!

To sum up, it's a country which has kept its authenticity and we recommend going there, it will disconnect you from your day to day life, promise! :) But be quick, the cost of living is increasing there... We can tell you, the money is there at the moment! :D