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So I finally have time to blog again. The last few weeks were just crazy. I was barely at home. During the week I had my Chinese classes and every weekend I was in a different city. First me and a friend took a trip to Dalian 大连 to visit a friend there who also learned Chinese at that time. We first went to the port city of Yantai 烟台 (which by the way means "smoke signs", since in ancient times they burned wolf dung to create thick smoke as warnings when pirates were about to attack ) by nighttrain and then via speed ferry to Dalian. In Dalian was a nice beer festival at that time, so we had quite some fun there before hitting the clubs.
The weekend after that I was in Shanghai 上海 to find an appartment which I did through the kind help of two Chinese friends who supported me a lot! Thanx guys!!!
The weekend after that I flew to Beijing 北京 to pick up my wife who arrived from Germany. The weekend before the last we went to Qingdao 青岛, a colerful bathing resort at the Yellow Sea. Qingdao is probably the most clean city in China also in terms of air, which is actually breathable there. Also can you swim into the sea or put your feet into the water. Besides Qingdao is the home of China’s world famous Tsingtao Beer 青岛啤酒. Consequently, there was also a beer festival
Last weekend we moved into our new appartment in Shanghai. Unfortunately I ate something wrong so my stomach and bowls were upside down the whole weekend, that I couldn’t really enjoy my first days here. But since Sunday and a couple of antibiotics later I feel fine again. Today I had my first day at the office. Stay tuned for more…

I just found a pretty comprehensive website on how to get a local Chinese number for your mobile phone. Using your foreign card via roaming can be very expensive. So this is a cheap option if you are coming to China and you want to stay connected. In my case I just walked into one of the thousands of mobile phone shops, pointed at one of the numbers and got a simcard. However I still don’t know how much I am really paying for calls. I found some information about the rates but I am not sure how accurate they are. One thing that is really annoying is that China Mobile is constantly sending me shortmessages, my phone can’t read. Even if it could, my knowledge of Chinese characters would not be sufficient to understand As far as I know it is not possible to make them stop sending these messages and on top you have to pay for them. Next week I will go to a shop and try to solve the problem.

By the way: on that page I linked above, you also find lots of other useful information on Internet access, shopping, tourist sites etc.: http://www.thebeijingguide.com/

Today we (Wei Hou, his girlfriend, Volker and me) took a trip to the famous Baimai springs (百脉泉) in the city of Zhangqiu (章丘市) about 40 kilometers east of Jinan. It is a beatiful park with many springs. We went there by bus which took us right to the park. The entrance fee was 15 Y, which is about 1.5€. Baimai Spring Park and was regarded as one of the 72 famous springs in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). The water bubbles up like bunches of pearls. (Source) The park has a Buddha temple and a large lake with some islands. You can see people refill their water bottles at the springs and see the children play in the water. You can rent boats for 10 or 20 Kuai which is fun. I also got a very cool drawing of my chinese name.

何翰斯

It is quite a relaxing trip to get out of the city sometime, especially today as the smog was the worst in days and breathing was very hard.

You can see lots of photos in the photo section. More photos also here.

I just got back from my latest trip to the Eternal City, where I enjoyed somewhat that felt like spring, some sun, good food and of course, the main reason to go to Rome, good Cappuccino, Espresso and other Italian cafe specialties as well as Italian Ice Cream. Yummy!

While sitting in a little restaurant in Trastevere I found something quite funny on the menu:
"Bruschetta with Oil and Pillow". Actually the bread was fine, but the pillow was a little stringy

One last oddity I found was a store, whos owner might have immigrated from "Down Under" . Or  to put it with Asterix and Obelix: "These Romans are crazy!"

Yesterday we took a little trip to Detmold to visit the Hermannsdenkmal and do some Geocaching nearby. The statue is pretty impressive, over 50m high, and on the top of a little mountain. It was built in 1875 to be a symbol of Napoleons demise and the unity of Germany, which was at that time a mosaic of 38 sovereign states. After this flash of history and a nice view over Detmold we turned our attention to seek Hermann’s Cache (GC8C41) and found it rather quickly. For everyone who is into adventure sports and such, there is the Teuto-Kletterpark where you can climb from tree to tree over ropes and wooden platforms.
After this we drove to Detmold’s airfield to get the Luftsport Cache Detmold (GCH0QB).
Was a nice afternoon trip, very interesting.

Here is a great site for all of you who like to travel and see the world:
World66

You can read travel experiences and information or add your own oppinion.
And you can customize a map what countries you have visited and where you have lived. This is mine:

Try it out and have fun