Yesterday Offroad, today snow and a week ago Kangaroos - what day is today and where are we?

Good question! I have no clue (most of the time)!

Based on the Halloween decorations that party must be close and considering that people all along the coast buy gadzillions of kilos of food a long weekend seems to come along. So, let's see ...

• We are driving on the wrong side of the road - must be Australia (too sunny for England, too sorted for India, too peaceful for South Africa).
• This is confirmed by the road signs which range from "Kangaroos", "Wombats", "Wallabies", "Trucks", "Ducks" and "Aged" ... you name it ... crossing
• Halloween = Oct 31, 2009 coming up (Make sure you don't open the door for Freddy!)
  
• Long Weekend = Melbourne Cup - the race that stops a nation; 3200m, 3 year and older - also coming up (Oh God, I didn't bring my hat!)
  
• We have snow and bright sunshine as well as surfer's on the beach - must be winter ;-)

Ok, for those who like to get a short understanding where we went so far, this is the list:

1. Adelaide - Nice couchsurfing
2. Down south to Kangaroo Island - don't miss Maslin Beach
3. 2 days on Kangaroo Island - Offroad, animals, rocks, Coastline - you can easily do 4 days to a week
   
4. Via Fleur Peninsula & Victor Harbor into the Grampians - Road-side BBQs are great stuff!
   
5. 2 days at the Grampians - you can do easily a full week there - bring your 4WD ;-)
6. Down to Great Ocean Road - Bimbi Campground is an amazing place, close to there is also an interesting Tree-top walk
   
7. Along Great Ocean Road to Melbourne - look out of the windows, an that is not just because of the many, many, many curves
8. 2 days in Melbourne - Great couchsurfing, fun city with good weather and very good food
   
9. Along the coast via Lake Entrance to Buchan - that is the center of the world ... with caves, no honestly: plan to stay there longer - it is "true holiday" at Buchan Lodge
   
10. Through the snowy mountains or Australian Alps to Jyndabinde - yep, snow, fun skiing area and very steep roads as well as just the perfect accomodation for Glenf & Soeren
    
11. Back to the coast at Narooma - make sure you watch out for whales, seals, penguins and birds on Montague Island and meet YHA Momo
    
12. Thats a little bit more than 2,000 kilometers so far. More the 3,000 still to go. 3 weeks left.

And that is about the only time and place which we should not forget.
Hope all is well with you and the weather plays nicely. Have a good day!

Home - far away from Home

We are approaching our 5th week on the road - it has been 5 amazing weeks with so many overwhelming impressions that sometimes I feel it is already very hard to keep track of time and place (what day is today? why do the stores close now? which city are we in at the moment? The pictures - see links on right - help to keep track and so does the continuously running GPS). The feeling to start into a new adventure every day is a very good (and very present) feeling every morning.

And there have indeed been some adventures: a tree bursting into fire just out of nothing (Otway Park), off-road tracks everywhere (Kangaroo Islands & Grampians), my shower-spider encounter (No, Heike, this picture is nothing for you!), taking a cab in Beijing (after they actually stopped to pick up some obvious strangers), eating Sijuan food and trusting the "Range" display of our car while being far away from any tank station whatsoever, ah, forgot driving on left lane ...

Also a big (and daily) adventure is to come "Home" every night. Because "Home" mostly is a different place and a different type of place every day. So far we have enjoyed Couchsurfing (Claudia in Shanghai, Christine in Adelaide and Rob in Melbourne), Hotel, Hostels and Campgrounds.

Couchsurfing (by now you! also! should! be! registered!) has been - as always - the true "Home" experience. Thanks to all of our hosts! The couchsurfing stays are for sure our opportunities to re-charge energy. This blog is written from a very stylish living room in south-east Melbourne (Dani, you would love it!) where we enjoy 3 comfortable days/nights with our great host Rob.

With regards to hotels we have tried the Ibis at Sydney Airport (clean but very, very, very small room, hideous expensive WLAN) and the Grosvenor Hotel in Victor Habor (shared bathrooms, very old house, no Internet).

Campgrounds with using either cabins or sleeping in the car (actually quite comfortable) we have visited: the Campground at the Koala Walk on Kangaroo Island (no link, but easy late night check-in "pick a site and pay tomorrow" and great facilities), the Emu Holiday Park at the Grampians (great location, a little bit off-track, but very nice facilities and a lot of space to enjoy your time; pics start here) and the Bimbi Campground at Otway Park close to the Great Ocean Road (absolute fabulous place, but a little grumpy management).

Hostel guests we were only on Kangaroo Island (very nice location, directly across from the ferry, easy late night check-in) so far, but there will be more for sure.

What also makes you feel "at home" on long travels is doing stuff, which you would normally do at home: like occasionally visiting McDonalds (only for the free WLAN of course ;-) ), going shopping instead of visiting another museum, sleep in (I still consider 11 am early mornings) and having a massage & manicure (I absolutely can recommend Dragonfly). We unfortunately missed the Sydney Habor Bridge Picnic Event: German - English. Too bad. But we have electric BBQ along the road, in combination with fresh fruit & vegetables just a perfect treat while killing kilometers (no kangaroos so far, thank god!).

Stay tuned & check out the new pics.

Online again!

After 2 days on Kangaroo Island with no mobile and/or data connection whatsoever we are back to old habits: sitting in front of the PC at 2am in the morning. Well, finally we uploaded a bunch of pictures to the China album and the new Australia album. Also the "Natural Tan" project was updated.

Speaking of a project: Also my other little project "Stranger" was started. I have asked people we meet along the way to contribute some words in their language or from their culture to my travel diary. So far I have received wonderful stories, advices, poems in Chinese, Hindi, Farsi, German and of course ... English. I am looking forward to more.

Btw: Thank you for all the Birthday e-mails and notes. It is great to hear & read from you ... and have an excuse to sit in front of the PC until, well ... now it is 2:40am in the morning. Good night!!!

anihc … or … looking back on China

It is surely not possible to put China in words. Guess what … I will try nevertheless.

It is mega-cities (close to 100 cities with more than a million inhabitants; some as large as 32 million people based on administrative area – imagine, that is more than a third of Germany all in 1 city!) with breathtaking (in multiple ways ;-P ) skyscrapers (check out the various pictures on facebook), high-tech public transportation, a very modern lifestyle (cars, clubs, clothes and cuisine) and rapidly changing and evolving faces. Mostly along with major global events like the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing or the Expo 2010 in Shanghai the cities are re-decorated, which means: construction everywhere, always.

But China is also: traffic that does consider red lights a nice warning (multiple policemen and traffic managers at every major crossing) and does not care much about walking people. Scooters and bikes which transport people and goods loaded with forbidden heights, amounts and volume while shaking adventurously (pic 1 and 2 and 3). No helmets, no security. It is amazingly cheap and surprisingly “lecker” local food (you must try Sichuan food – helps breathing ;-P) and a vivid social community life, which takes place outside while exercising, dancing, eating or enjoying one of the many parks. The not-so-nice part includes city quarters with sanitary facilities on every street corner (because the apartments there do not seem to have any inside) and an interesting, we might describe it as “pragmatic”, approach to standing in line and “human noises”. Annoying is the fact that hardly any cab driver is able to speak English (if he can read your presented map without a magnifying glass, consider yourself lucky!). Also speaking Mandarin (aka: take along Eufi) is an absolute asset when dealing with manufacturers, tour guides, tailors, landlords … you name it, they have it “look, look, cheap and very good quality”. On top of all this: there is noise (always!), smog (above the cities) and the smell (indescribable!) which require a lot of getting used to.

With regards to the modern part of China: We enjoyed Teppanyaki. We loved to take the clean, quick and easy to use subway (the ticket machines even speaks English, ha!). We learned playing the dices (with the drinking part not requiring too much training) while listening to fabulous music at the Muse Club (Note-to-self: find club like this in Frankfurt – if not available: open it!). We relaxed at Dragonfly (same here). And we explored the latest work of local designers at the M50 artist district in Shanghai (Tip: Firmly hold on to your credit card, this is shopping heaven!).

The traditional part of China surprised us with excellent new glasses and wonderful tailor-made suits, coats and shirts. Tip: Don't miss walking along little side streets, silently participating in the street food, little neighborhood markets and playing games-scenes. But do miss trying to find out what kind of ingredients the local pharmacy stores in glasses in every window or how street food actually tastes (your stomach will not like it!) and ignore the charming salesmen offering Rolex and Louis Vuitton for “very good prize” (“No” does not help a thing, no matter which language you use, but the louder the better). After a few days you automatically check every direction when crossing a street (5 cm are considered a safe distance for a bypassing car) and you know that a Google Maps screen-shot of your destination on your GPS-display helps a lot with the cab-driver issue … as long as he at least knows where that part of the city is. Parks are “recharging happy places” with loud Vienna Waltz inviting to ballroom (or any other form of) dancing and the public toilets in high-end shopping malls are usually usable. The historic sites we have seen – the temples, the great wall, the flag raising ceremony in China's capital and the forbidden city – were simply impressive.

Summary: It is a great country. It is also an exhausting country. It is for sure a controversial country. Censorship feels very weird, also does watching a military parade with military staff in pink miniskirts and white high-heeled boots. It is interesting as well as surprising what locals have to say about all of this, which is why you need to speak Chinese to really dive into the culture and to meet the human side of China, the people in the stores, on the streets and in the parks. A working alternative in English is Couchsurfing and/or Geocaching which both are a vivid communities, at least in Shanghai and Beijing. Make sure you go and try for yourself!

Adelhaid

Nope. That's not a wrong spelling. Adelaide was named after Adelhaid von Sachsen-Meiningen. Yep. A German.

So we made our way to Australia and exchanged our awesome host in Shanghai - Claudia - for an as friendly and helping host in Adelaide - Christine. Couchsurfing is really a blessing. Tomorrow we'll pick up our car and then we hit the road towards Cairns.

... and if we find a proper internet conection you will see a longer post about china and of course some pictures.

cheers to everyone

The old and the new, something borrowed, something blue

No, not what you think ;-) (I am just imaging our mums jumping up and down upon reading this ...) ... but this little rhyme just fits perfectly with our recent days in Shanghai.

We have visted the Longhua Temple and the Longhua Cemetary of Martyrs (see the Martyr sculputure on the pictures). Apart from learning about the Buddhism culture and history of both sites we discovered the "art of building a park". We didn't figure out how, but everytime we enter a park here in Shanghai it seems like someone turns off all noise. Although there are 4 huge streets around the park with gadzillions of cars all blowing their horns, ignoring any traffic light (if still working) and driving madly through as many people walking across the streets, right after the park entrance there is silence. Very strange. But great if you come here to relax. A lot of parks also offer free exercising areas with strength and mobility machines. You hardly see anyone run around, but you actually see a lot of people practicing what (to us) looks like Tai Chi.

So far for the old. There is quite a few new things we have learned:
If you want to buy a metro ticket or use one of the mostly disgusting (public or shopping mall) toilets (don't breathe!) forget everything you have learned about being polite. The end of line is right in front of the ticket machine or the next available toilet. No matter if the person in front of you is a mum with kids or an elderly woman. If you politely wait until it is officially your turn the last train will be gone. Mandy, one of the local Couchsurfers we met yesterday, advised to just scream at anybody who behaves like this ... would that change anything if I scream at them in German? I am not convinced ;-) And a practical sidenote: Never forget to bring your own paper towel even for restaurant bathrooms ... it is just not part of the service.

Also new for us: Everytime you see a stroller on the street, you nearly can be sure that a western looking person is holding on to it. Chinese mostly carry their kids on their arms, obviously due to heavy traffic and overcrowded metro trains. Also, how should you carry a stroller along with the party-of-5-family ride on your well-serviced moped? Or notice when it is time to hold you baby over a waste paper basket? Why: Quite a few babies actually do not wear diapers here, they wear pants with a hole in the middle ... no further questions asked, no pictures taken!

While visiting Pudong on Saturday, the financial district, we finally met China traffic as we thought it would be - some example pictures can be seen on the facebook album. But so far we survived well and are impressed how clean and well organized public life in Shanghai is. The pictures we took from the Grand Hyatt Bar up Jinmao Tower proved to us that 17 Million indeed is a lot more than 2 (Munich) or 4 (Berlin). Finally seeing all those buildings and skyscrapers makes it easier to realize the size of this city. Amazing. Tipps: You do not need to spend the money for the viewing platform. The bar is just 1 level lower and it offers ok-Margharitas. Also take a look down the 33-story atrium of the hotel.

A good dinner - yesterday we tried Sichuan food - does not need to be more expensive than EUR 5 including drinks per person. Even in a fancy mall restaurant. It is great to order a lot of small dishes and share. EUR 16 for all-you-can-drink-and-eat at our favourite (again today!) Teppanyaki place is VERY expensive!

With regards to the borrowed: We attended a couchsurfing picinic yesterday to meet some locals and learn about the insights of the city. There are great websites that help you to travel around (flight to Beijing for only EUR 25 / Person), attend free MIT/Stanford/Yale university classes, watch Grey's anatomy (URL upon request ;-) ) or simply the ultimative helpline which you can call on your mobile (dial 962288 from CMCC). You tell the person in English where you want to go and then hand over your mobile to the cab driver so he can understand in Chinese where he should be driving you. And the best: All of these services can actually be accessed with no further "help". Still, it is a strange experience that someone else decides what is good for me to read or hear about ...

The blue is covered by the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium and IKEA, yes, the Swedish furniture company just across the street from our appartement. IKEA actually is a 1:1 copy from ours - including Billy, Lack, Kötbullar and hot dog - only for half of the prize. After a little research we found out that the scary huge crabs we met at the Aquarium actually have relatives which we do not want to meet at anytime during our life (be careful, this is scary!).

Also, if you are lucky, blue is the color of the sky over Shanghai. Just like we were yesterday.
Alternative program: Grand Gateway, Super Brand Mall, Bundesliga.

Stitching

I can stitch, I really do. If you've ever seen the patch on my backpack you'll agree. Anyway. Digital stitching works as well. The following pictures are all stitched somehow.