After 14 weeks in dull Tianjin it is time for what was originally scheduled every 6 weeks: TIME FOR HOLIDAY. The last weeks I have been virtually longing for that. Fun level in Tianjin dropped significantly. The new apartment turned out to be noisy, a bit run down, no television, no desk – I had made too many compromises for not having too much trouble in finding, also the 3 months contract I had to offer decreased the choice. Work was not this special than it was in the beginning and the situation that nobody could tell me when my job in the Tianjin project will end did its share.

Happy that this is quite clear by now – even though it means a longer stay. Two weeks holiday and than 3 more months Tianjin most probably until end of September. This meant for the last week: move out again (the 3 months contract really ended after three months), pack everything and bring all my belongings (including about 15 midsize indoor plants) to Olafs apartment. Mr. Cao, our driver will hand over the apartment end of June. When I come back I will move for one week or so into a (quite luxurious) hotel room (why cant I stay there??) which I already chose in order to have time to find a new apartment.

After Friday night dinner with Angel and Michael (the Chinese teacher and her boyfriend) and the obligatory visit to Rainbows (the bar with the Philipino band) I started on Saturday morning (6 a.m…..nearly night) to Guangzhou for the Hong Kong / Hainan holiday with Tom.

Guangzhou – formerly known as Canton is a quite nice place (…why couldn’t I have happened to work here – our company PEC+S also does the Supervision in a highspeed project over here). Even though Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province is one of Chinas most prosperous cities (maybe not as much as the industry centre Tianjin…) it has preserved something of a relaxed touch, with trees (real trees, not trunks with two branches, the rest cut like in Tianjin), recreation areas and calmer people – maybe the temperature (up to 35°) and the humidity (90%) do their bit.

Highlight of the day: modelling for about 15 Chinese photography students who were on practical tutorial and really happy to find a ‘waiguoren’ (foreigner) who stands model together with the two girls they brought. Also nice: dragon boat festival on Pearl River.

Today, after a nice breakfast (including real coffee and western delicacies like Muesli, buns and bacon) I took a bus which brought me via Shenzhen (the Chinese border town to Hong Kong) and the immigration (is it now China or not...) to Kowloon, the southern tip of mainland Hong Kong. There I hopped on the MTR (the metro) and crossed over to Hong Kong Island.

Highlight of the day: exercising on the running machine in the 30^th floor of Metropark hotel. The view through the panorama window towards the harbour is just amazing: below is Causeway Road, one of HK major streets, in front the harbour with hundreds of ships waiting for the entry, to the left Victoria Peak with some exclusive high rise buildings nestled to the hillside. I remind the book ‘Typhoon’ from (….I don’t remember, its in the shelf mum), which I once found in a youth hostel and read during my round the world trip, a book that makes you feel the myth of Hong Kong, city between East and West, rich and poor, city of commerce and economy, city of the triads. Hong Kong is really special. A hilly, lush and green peninsula and island, dotted with skyscrapers.

Enough for today. I will get ready to go out. Two hours more and Tom will – hopefully – arrive at Hong Kong airport. 

I realised that the weekends in Tianjin do not live up to their promises. Permanent traffic noise, polluted air and nature, the masses of people - it makes it difficult to relax. I admit that Tianjin has three fun bars and danceclubs, perfectly suitable for foreigners: 'Scarlet' danceclub with its guests from all around the world, 'Rainbows' with the entertaining Phillipino  band and 'Ali Baba' with the relaxed student pub atmosphere, yet going out for parties is just not enough in the long term. I decided to plan small trips and find nice places - which is not that easy in this area!!

Huan Ya Guan - the remote Great Wall

In its north, Tianjin municipally touches a mountain range and also domiciles a small section of the Great Wall, the Great Wall at Yellow Cliff Pass – Huan Ya Guan. Due to its distance to Beijing  (even from Tianjin it is a good 2 ½ hours drive) the section is not too popular and usually not mentioned in the guidebooks that promote the sections in Badaling, Mutianyu and Simatai. Last weekend Wolfgangs wife Christines visit made a food opportunity to check it out. Nobody could tell if the place is worth the visit, but …it definitely was. It is a nice section and it is not too restricted so I could walk as far as I wanted (or time allowed) and not as far as the guards allow. It was enough for a good view (as far as the foggy / smog air allows) and enough for a moderate muscle ache the next day.

Dong Li Hu – the spooky lake

Last weekend was sunny and quite hot. I asked my Chinese teacher ‘Angel’ about nice places in the vicinity of Tianjin. “What do you mean?”….”I mean nice places- when it is sunny like that we, back home, use to go to a nice lake for swimming and relaxing or to a place with good nature…” Hard to explain…and also hard to find! We finally agreed that Dong Li Hu, a lake east of Tianjin might be what I am looking for. I went with Koben (my true friend here). The first thing we found were two holiday villages next to a small unspectacular lake. The villages were mediterranean style – the way we Europeans like it. All costly and luxurious. But although it looked like construction had already finished some time ago most people running around were gardeners and service stuff – it looked like not too many houses have been sold. After lunch before going back I wanted to walk. After half an hour we found ….the real Dong Li Hu, a big lake were you could hardly see the other shore in the hazy air. A good place to walk – no cars and, what surprise, no people. We walked and walked, passed lots of abandoned villas (what happened? I asked Koben … a nuclear accident??) The only people we passed: some fishermen every half hour. This is really strange: whole ugly Tianjin is full of people, even the worst and dirtiest places. Here they have one really quite nice place and then …nobody there. A sign gave a small hint: no swimming, no barbecue, no walking in the grass …what is allowed here?? But still it does not explain why there are no pedestrians. Strange Chinese! Unluckily no people meant, also the usually omnipresent street vendors were not there. After two hours walking in the burning sunshine we were dying of thirst. After turning back and one more hour, at a busy intersection we were finally put out of our misery. First there were people selling coconuts from Hainan Island and also soft drinks. Second, after half an hour more a bus picked us up for the return to Tianjin.

Pan Shan – the mountain without foreigners

Today, after some difficulties in waking up that resulted in a RMB 500 ( 50 Euros) taxi ride instead of the planned train travel, I went out for the mountain experience: Pan Shan, a ‘holy mountain’ located in the Jixian district, not far away from the Great Wall at Yellow Cliff pass I  described before. It was a nice trip, the area is scenic and the ascend to the 857 m hill took 2 ½ hours after all. Yet there were lots of Chinese, no single foreigner the whole day. A bit too crowded for my taste and with extensive infrastructure, not as natural as I would have preferred. Yet this also came with an advantage: for the descend I got company of two Chinese girls. “Why did you came here?” I asked. “We hate Tianjin…” told one of the girls that are originally from Harbin up in the far north.  “….we wanted to leave at least for the weekend.”

After it looked like that Tianjin cannot attract any of my friends, now 4 visitors came at one time: my mum, my sister Christina, my aunt and uncle Inge and Waldemar. Wow! I was a bit concerned at first - the North of China is NOT especially beautiful – but we found a nice program for the week:

- 3 days Beijing, including a visit of the Great Wall at Huanghuacheng and a Monday which they organised themselves,

- travel to Yangcun with an introduction to the construction site of Jing-jin intercity railway, travel to Tianjin, stay in my apartment,

- 3 days in Shanghai, one of them a daytrip to the water village Zhouzhuang

The Great Wall trip started with some difficulties. Although the driver assured many times that he is familiar with the place we wanted to go, the approach got longer than expected ...and finally ended at a park where you could see the Great Wall but not climb...what a disappointment - small irritations among our tourgroup. Luckily we had gotten up early and, after another 20 minutes drive, we finally arrived at the Great Wall at Huanghuacheng. Second small irritation: to reach the planned section we had to cross a dam with ab. 30m height and no handrail and for the ascend to the Great Wall manage an adventurous ladder… scary - but after the ladder did also resist Waldemars 100 kg we were all quite relieved to stand on top of the Great Wall.

In Shanghai we checked-in into ‘East Asia Inn’ which was a lucky choice. For the back entrance where we arrived we had to pass a dirty and run down backyard, but only because the taxi could not stop at the front entrance, which is at Nanjing Donglu – Shanghai No. 1 shopping street. Leaving the hotel through the front door we were in the middle of sparkling neon lights and masses of people strolling around.

The next day city tours highlight: Jin Mao tower, 421m, at present No. 5 of the highest buildings in the world (http://www.stabi.hs-bremerhaven.de/dss/Jinmao.html). The view from the tower gives an idea about the dimension of Shanghai (ab. 18 million: 13.5 million people with residence permits and 4.5 million migrants). Right next to Jin Mao tower construction for the Shanghai Financial Center is going on. It should finish in 2008 and will culminate at 491m, 71m more than the Jin Mao tower!