We met a friend and went around the city for a while, enjoying every bit of such a “new” place. No more skyscrapers building and smell of sea all around. On the topmost point of Busan, a group of locals was dancing creating a really happy mood!

Back on the market streets, we tried a typical summer sweet, a mixup of smashed ice with red beans and fruit. Perfect for the hot weather!

Later, after about 30 minutes on a bus, we went to an even more peaceful spot in Busan, a natural park on the junction point between the two oceans. No words could describe that natural beauty and the sensation of being free you have when you reach the sea shore.

It’s amazing how, after moths of living in city without seeing that much nature, getting in touch with something that is not made out of glass and bricks generates fantastic emotions!

Last but not least in Busan, we had dinner on the roof of the world’s biggest mall! It really was an amazing day, I’ve never imagined such great feelings in Korea, from people to places – everything really sounds new and there to be discovered!

After a long time of planning, booking, thinking and long periods of meditation (!) we finally and fortunately choose to come here, to South Korea. As Hong Kong, coming from China everything down here seems absolutely cool and amazing (it’s 1 in the morning and there’s still people in the streets!)

Tired from the trip – and the last 2 days spent packing every little piece of chinese life, we just went out for dinner. It was really cool to see how korean people is, I mean, they’re all on the streets! Thing that I didn’t see for the whole time spent in China! Then, we had our first korean meal at a pretty cool place not too far from the hostel with some korean friends of our friends and… Yeah! I felt like they’re really more free and quite and… Cool, I don’t know, everything more than chinese people – and I’m really sorry to say that! But unfortunately, in China everyone’s really cold and quite  and… Yeah you got it! I’ll keep saying good things about Korea as I did with Hong Kong… Maybe!

I’ll let you know what will happen tomorrow. I’m sorry for not publishing any pic but I didn’t really have so many chances today!

Keep up! Andy.

One year in China has been a really long time. I left Italy about 10 months ago, on September 9, and I’m coming back on July 23. So why writing this post now? Because… I have a surprise! I am leaving to South Korea in almost one week and I’m gonna spend 10 days in this AMAZING place. Well, I still don’t know that much about South Korea but for the less I’ve read and heard about it should a really wonderful and crazy place – almost as Hong Kong was back in February!!!

Coming back to the China thing, I’ve really learnt a lot down here during the past moths. I have the impression that almost everything I did gave me something important and constructive! And I seriously love this! Thanks, China!

I am pretty sure I’ll miss Shanghai and China! I don’t know what I will miss, but something will not be there… I’ll move again to my country-side house in Northern Italy and no more cars will be on the streets, no one will shout around, everyone will speak italian and it’s gonna be really strange to me!

Now, the only problem I still have before leaving is packing… I took a look at my luggage today and I was trying to figure out how to make all of the stuff I have fit into it!

It’s gonna be hard, I’ll take pictures!

Next, soon! Maybe from Korea, maybe before!

Walking around we reached the city walls and had that terrible idea to climb up for a while, it was midday and more than FOURTY degrees were burning us out! Fortunately we ended up our day walking into a very nice landscaped chinese park in the middle of the city, a green and relaxing spot – and by the way also extremely refreshing!

The following day we scheduled to visit the famous Dr. Sun Yatsen Mausoleum and the mountain where it’s builded on. Again, the weather wasn’t on our side – extremely hot and humid! But we made it, we walked up to the top and back down (with the help of one of the longest ropeway’s I’ve ever seen!)

The mausoleum was not that wonderful spot (also because the foggy and humid landscape closed up a little bit the panoramic view) but we had a great time starring at chinese people addicted to stairs walking up the hill to meet the Dr. in his eternal peace!

As in Beijing, the most important (at least to me) spot came by on the last day. We took a bus to the Memorial Hall of the Nanjing Massacre, that was built in the early years to remember what Japanese people did to chinese population during the first 50 years of the past century.

Every little piece of the museum was there only to emphasize the strong desease that japanese brought to China – chinese visitors were all looking at the pictures with a shocked expression. Some were really rude, scary, shocking – mostly when you reach the skeleton “open-air” exposition, where killed chinese people are shown in a big glass box.

This time I’m really leaving a city which survived from such a strong and great power. And this time I’m not really in the mood to end up a post with a word different from Peace.

Anyways, as good turists we’ve visited the most attractive places in town and, even if they are all pretty old and maybe boring somehow, the people and the atmosphere it’s totally different than in other parts of China. The first day we went straight to the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace. The first one is incredibly circular, in every part! I mean, everything is circular, they built a circular temple within a circular square within a circular park! And there is a circular echoing wall which is absolutely interesting!

The Summer Palace instead is an absolutely calm and relaxing place! It has a big lake in the middle with a great park all around, full of colorful chinese-style buildings and temples. As it was April, the park was also full of flowers and green trees which painted a very nice landscape all around us!

At night, was Easter day, we went to a very cool restaurant close to our hostel and had a spectacular Peking Goose – really YUMMY!

The day after we planned to visit the Forbidden City and, finally, discover what’s behind the scenes of China’s old Emperor. I really enjoyed the visit in there because, after some hours walking around this huge architectures you really feel how boring and tiring should had been living those days! Everything looks really the same, all of the small houses are absolutely the same and in the same style. I would never been able to live for more than half a day in place like that without seeing anyone but my concubines and slaves! It’s really crazy!

And it was really amazing! Full of those strange-style chinese stuff as the small cars in the picture! Great! In the afternoon we hanged to the Lama Temple, where one of the biggest Buddha’s statue is preserved. There everything is so Indian… So strange, I don’t know why but for a while I didn’t feel that chinese temple feeling as in the other places! Was very nice.

The last day came by and then we had the most exciting part of our trip, the Great Wall tour! I was waiting for it since we got to Beijing and finally we were there, to that stunning place! I don’t know how to describe it but it’s surely one of the top attractions I’ve been to during this year in China.

Getting from station 1 to station 24 had been really tiring but it really did worth the pain! The amazing landscape and calm atmosphere all around had something really special, I still don’t know how they could built something so great! So big! It’s such a strange and awesome place!

A couple of hours on the wall tired us a lot and we had to go back, with our tour guide, to the hostel. Later we took the train back to Shanghai. This unexpected trip to Beijing was really cool! I’ve enjoyed a lot visiting the crowded city and it’s cool attractions! I should go back one day to discover the artistic side of it, I felt as I was missing something going around! Again, I should thank China for another great adventure! Thanks!

We spent there half day and it was enough! Ahahah! The great thing begun once we got on the Yangzi river cruise boat, as the lady in Chengdu told us, it’s gonna be a chinese thing. The first impression about the room & the boat is something like… Augh! Ehmmm it’s cool!!! Well yeah, it was cool! Absolutely nothing went wrong and our roommates were cool, but the room… Was a little bit… Let’s say, small! Ahahah!! Maybe two people can fit in there, but we were 6! Damn!

In any ways, that was our bed, we got the deck access card and spent all of our spare time up there, where everything happened! Crazy things on the Yangzi, like spending an evening with chinese guys from Beijing drinking beer and eating chinese dried food, taking pictures with anyone on the cruise, try to catch something that the guide explained about the stones looking like everything on earth and so on… Amazing! Ahahahah!!! As always, we were strangers up there and everyone were starring at us almost all day long when we were not around for some excursion…!

The first day at 7.30 (as everyday) we got off the boat for the first excursion, the Ghost City, the only buddhist temple dedicated to the Hell. I was expecting something really awesome but actually it was nothing so… Special! But nice, yeah! Then that night at 10.30 and something we got off for another temple excursion to another place, a kind of writing techniques museums, again nothing that special!

Ghost City

“Writing history” temple

The second day, again at 7.30, we got off to an island, a little island, where we visited some cute temples in a nice environment! In the afternoon, we took a smaller boat that took us in the middle of the small three Gorges where we took another even smaller boat, kinda wooden boat, that drove us thru a small river on a side of the main one, inside one of the three Gorges.

The temples

Thru the gorges

The third day, of course at 7.30, we took the smallest boat ever to get inside and walk thru a Gorge, one of the three big ones, on a plastic path on the water. This was the last stop before getting to Yichang and see the BIG, SCARY and AWESOME three gorges dam. Something absolutely, AWW! GREAT!

The big three gorges

The three gorges dam!

This experience on the river has been so cool! So amazing! So chinese! Cool! I loved it & enjoyed it!

Walking around the town center we just found out a lot of street food, well almost the same things sold by a lot of different shops (!) and nothing more. I don’t really know why but I think that’s one of the most sad and empty places we’ve been in the last month.

Well but after like 4 hours we had already visited almost all the town and we took our bus back to Chengdu. Last night here in this strange – developing chinese city. Tomorrow morning we’re leaving to Chongqing and start our Yangzi cruise!!! It’s gonna be one of the most awesome and unforgettable things ever! I’m sure of that!!

Next updates from the boat, I think! Bye!

As almost every chinese is still on holiday during these days, we had to queue up for more than 30 minutes to get to the Buddha’s feet, 72 meters below his head! The statue is really spectacular! No words to describe it, just pics! Looook!

Leaving the Big Buddha in Leshan, we took a minibus to Emei Shan, the real adventure of the Chengdu stop. This is how the landscape was at almost 1500 mt on Mount Emei, everything totally FROZEN and STUCKED.

We slept at the top bus stop, at about 1700 mt. This morning we started our climb up to the top, unfortunately because of the weather we cannot walk down the mountain to the bottom (or at least to a certain point) so we did that with a bus that took us to the middle point bus station and walked around there for a while. But before, the top. Up there was AWESOME! Clouds and fog were all around us and a lot of Tibetan Monks were visiting the temple giving that place something really mistic.

Once we’ve visited the top we went down to the bus station with a fast (!) cable way and down again to the mid bus station with the bus. From here we entered the mountain and walked down about 3km passing thru some scenic spots. Coming from the icy top, the weather here is definitely different and warmer! But still… Foggy!

Because of the snow we had to cut our trip along the mountain but the few we saw was great! Chinese are absolutely great in these kind of environment building, they always find the right place and the right style for buildings to perfectly fit with nature. And I always appreciate and love this!

And I found out that there are a lot of different Pandas, in the park we just saw the red and the black & white ones but there are a lot more! And they’re all absolutely PUFFY! (I cannot find the right way to describe them!)

During the afternoon we moved to the city center and took the BRAND NEW Chengdu metro line 1 to the developing IT center. The only thing we found there were… Buildings under construction! Crazy, this city is crazy! At this time there’s almost nothing around but great architectural projects that will be filled up with offices and a lot of Investments company buildings, that will finance most of the research projects the city is going to host. This all sounds great but… You should come back in at least 5 years to see something really interesting down here!

Later we moved back to the city center and entered a very interesting fair. Unfortunately was a little bit late and no one was more around, but the strange street food was still there! We found out they love fishes and… Crabs!

Today – which btw was my birthday! We again hanged around Chengdu, looking for something to do. We randomly pick a bus stop and went down. The first strange thing of today was that… A couple of chinese shooting their wedding album decided to shoot some pics with us! Ahahahha they were so excited to see us!!!

Well, this city in winter is not that great, everything is a little bit sad and grey… But after a while we randomly (again!) entered a temple, where the ticked is a COOL Panda Card!!! And we discovered that we entered the lantern festival!! It was cool!

Rabbits were everywhere! And once it turned dark everything was brighting in an awesome and a little bit… Chinese style, light world!!!

After a “typical” chinese foreign people show (that is a chinese show with non-chinese people!) we came back home (!). Tomorrow we’re going to Leshan and Emei Shan, that’s gonna be another high mountain climbing! Coooooool!

PS: I turned 21 in Chengdu!! Woooh!

We visited the island on the river, which is in a typical english style – now covered by luxurious hotels and posh places. It’s always strange to find a bit of a culture into another, and this is the case. Walking thru its gardens we felt like at home, with a lot of old buildings in western style and a Church! A catholic church, in China. That’s strange!

Of course we lost ourselves in this big island (!) and had to run to catch the flight, which we almost missed coz of chinese queues and boring long (extreeeemely long) metro lines! But we got on the plane, and flown to Chengdu. Tomorrow we’ll start our Chenhdu trip, which turned out to be very interesting – as in Chengdu there’s almost nothing but around it there are too many spots we’ll have to choose from, it’s gonna be fun!