vietnam pics



eating banh xeo (crispy pancake) at the market in hoi an





first scooter ride




saigon - onslaught of scooters



first broken tire on the bus ride to mui ne

self made banh xeo

sand dunes in mui ne



fairy spring



beach @ nha trang

wonderful beach @ hoi an

halong bay

halong bay

awesome crew @ halong bay trip

wake boarding @ castaway island (halong bay trip)

vietnam

it's been i while since i last posted, sorry.

i'm having a great time in vietnam. just came back from a 3 day boat trip to halong bay. it was amazing. although i was a bit concerned since this particular tour has the reputation of being a booye cruise, it was not that bad. we were a great group of people and even the cold weather (yes we were freezing for 2 days) couldn't keep us from partying. i finally was wakeboarding again, after neglecting it for 5 years. surprisingly i didn't have any problems and even learned how to do a 180 switch!

what happend in the last 2,5 weeks? my vietnam trip started in saigon, where i only stayed for 1,5 days. i couldn't stand any big cities anymore so i made my way up to mui ne. i took the bus and that was a real adventure. our journey should have taken 4,5 hours, but lasted 7 hours because the bus broke down twice (both tires in the back exploded!). when we finally arrived in mui ne, i was just glad to get to my hotel. mui ne is a very nice town, though a little bit quiet. just found out there that it is low season... but i enjoyed the quiet time (and my private bungalow with sea view) and relaxed at the beach and took a cooking class.

nha trang was next. total change of scenery - finally a "real" hostel and tons of people. met up with james again (met him in saigon) and we had a great time at the beach, waterpark and the famous boat trip to islands around nha trang.

the night bus to hoi an was just terrible - they booked us on a local bus instead of an open tour bus that only tourists take. so our bus was full with vietnamese people, which in itself is not bad, unless your bed is in the middle and people sit in the aisles on both sides next to you. one could get a little bit claustrophobic, so i switched to a bed "upstairs". as if that was not enough we stopped about every 5 minutes in the beginning. we also had tv screens with a vietnamese movie running. unfortunately those aren't really good. the driver seemed to have it on the highest volume so my ipod wasn't able to drown out the noise. when the screens were finally turned off, vietnames music played all night long... poor james was sleeping directly under one of the speakers so he had a pretty bad night.
but surprisingly we arrived in hoi an on time in the morning. the first thing we did (after getting some more sleep) was of course going to the tailors to order clothes. two canadians recommended a very good tailor - bee (it's good to have a recommendation since the whole town seems to consist of tailors only). i ordered quite a lot of stuff - just downloaded some pictures and bee made them. to my astonishment everything fit perfectly the first time i tried it, only little alterations needed to be made. in the end i paid 235 dollars for 13 pieces!
hoi an is the nicest place i've been to in vietnam. the little town is really pretty, probably due to the fact that it is a world heritage site and the houses are well kept. we rented bikes and just cruised through the streets. i also did another cooking class, which was even better than the first one. i'm starting to like vietnames food now, at least when i prepare it myself ;)

due to the floods north of hue, we decided to take a flight from hoi an to hanoi. so far i haven't seen much of hanoi, since i arrived in the evening and left for halong bay the next morning. will explore the city in the next couple of days. but what i've seen so far, i like it pretty much. way better than saigon!

awesome tokyo

sitting at the airport in singapore right now and waiting for my connecting flight to vietnam (where i will spend the next 3 weeks).

i loved tokyo! can only recommend to everyone to go there. it is such a vibrant and interesting city. though it was not at all how i expected it to be. first when we touched down at narita airport the landscape looked like home - a lot of fields, woods and houses in between. second it was not as busy as i would have imagined it. even the metro was easy to understand and i never had a situation were people had to be pushed into the train because it was that full. third i expected people to run around dressed like crazy (manga, etc.), but mostly japanese people are dressed extremely well. i've never seen that many guys in suits.

the hostel was a new experience for me, since my bed was actually a cabin where you could close the door and also had a window (still bunk bed style though - one top and one bottom cabin). was really nice and added an extra sense of privacy.

i did most of the sightseeing stuff (shibuya, shinjuku, imperial palace, fish market, ...) and of course also tried sushi and karaoke. latter was soo much fun, but i was also with a great group of people.

my cabin

imperial palace (no entrance unfortunately)

karaoke

shibuya

you can buy anything from a machine in tokyo

Abercrombie & Fitch (11 floors)

i'll try to get at least some sleep now, good night!

kon-nichiwa

although i haven't seen much yet, i just love tokyo. when we were flying in the landscape kind of reminded me of austria. everything is clean here, i feel save, people are dressed well, speak english and seem in general more open/helpful to foreigners.

the first thing i did was look up the only abercrombie & fitch store in asia. i didn't find it at first, but all of a sudden i smelled it and a few minutes later there it was :) it is crazy in there in the states already but in tokyo you feel like you are in a club. 11 levels and the music is so loud you just want to start dancing. of course i had to buy some essentials ;)

i also found a bakery and finally had the first decent bread, even with walnuts, since i left home.i am in heaven!! and i finally had some gyoza (pan fried chinese dumplings), which i was craving since i came to china, but never could find a place where they offered them. apperently in tokyo you get them everywhere. in general i think i won't have any problems with the food here, i think i'll like it.

the only thing that was a bit annoying, is that they don't really have escalators in the subway stations. which normally wouldn't be a problem, but i had to carry my suitcase and my 2 bags up a few flights of stairs. then i finally arrive at the hostel and my room is on the 5th floor - of course without an elevator! so i got a pretty good workout today.

gonna explore tokyo more in the next few days. definitely wanna see the fish market and try some sushi. maybe this time i like it.

sayonara

how i perceive china

i've been in china for 1,5 weeks and i can't say i'm sorry i'm leaving. well after some time you're getting used to the peole and their mentality, but still i am very much looking forward to tokyo. it probably was also worse since i was in china during the national day/golden week, where all chinese people are on the move and it is even more crowded.

shanghai didn't impress me much, but beijing was much better and a lot more to see and do. i already told you about the great wall (surprisingly i wasn't sore at all). on the actual national day i went to the forbidden city. it wasn't as crowded as i expected. for all of you who want to visit there, a word of advice: go in through the north gate - it is kind of the rear entrance and most people get in through the south gate. so you have a lot less hassle that way and it is actually quite enjoyable. i wanted to exit through the south gate, but that was not possible due to a gazillion people. i also couldn't make it to tiananmen square due to the massive amount of people. i tried on several days but no chance. the summer palace was really nice, but too many people again, so i left after only an hour. if you want to get anything for low cost go to pearl market and offer them about 20 - 30 % of their asking price. you gonna get them down to at least 50 % in the end.

i also did a cooking class for cantonese dim sum. that was the best experience i had in china. we started with a market tour, where we bought all the ingredients. the instructor explained all kinds of vegetables, spices, meats, etc. to us. finally a lot of stuff i wasn't able to place before made sense and i am not so "afraid" of chinese food anymore. after that we got an introduction into seasoning - what kind of soy sauce, rice wine to use for what kind of dish/meat. then we finally started the actual cooking. it was a lot of fun and making dim sum is actually not that hard. i definitely gonna make some when i'm back home!

following a few observations i made:

• chinese people are pretty rude and reckless and no one watches out for each other - you get shoved and pushed all the time, instead of letting people get of the subway, they just push in; there is no standing in line, people just skip ahead of you if you are not fast enough; it truly is survival of the fittest here
• crossing a street as a pedestrian (even if you have a green light) is life threatening - more than once i came within an inch of being hit by a car or even a bike
• there are no real toilets just holes in the ground and usally without any stalls, so you're just in one room with a few women... but at least they have public toilets at every corner
• the smell is terrible, especially in and around the public toilets
• almost no one speaks even a word english and mostly everything is written in chinese letters. so ordering in a restaurant, if they don't have pictures in the menu, proves quite difficult and reading instructions of any kind (metro, directions, signs, etc) is not easy either
• everything is really cheap - a subway ride no matter where (1 stop or a 40 minutes ride) costs 2 rmb, about 25 cents, same as a bottle of water
• there are no machines cleaning the streets, people actually sweep the streets, even the highways
• highways have about 6 lanes + 2 lanes for bikes

all in all i could have had a better experience, but still it was worth the trip. you at least have to see it for yourself. it's off to tokyo next, having a good feeling about that one. wish me luck!