PICTURES FROM MY CHINA TRIP. I took many more pictures but these are some interesting ones for you! Below all of the pictures is my story about my trip if you are interested and intend to make China your next holiday perhaps....

Dear All (sorry, only English version, not German)

 

I am back from China and Hong Kong and well. I wrote a lot of post cards, which will probably still be on its way to you.

I have created an I think nice selection of pictures to give you an impression of Shanghai and Bejing and also Hong Kong

They can be found on the Centre website, link for China next to tree.

 

My travel experiences:

 

SHANGHAI

Shanghai was my first destination. It's off course a huge city. Jade is sold everywhere here as a stone for the country, lovely people everywhere, lots of humor as well! Already in the plane, somebody told me that there will be an 11 day bank holiday which scared me as I know how it is in the UK (I never really travel on bank holidays in the UK any more unless I have a reservation...). So I knew that my plans to travel with perhaps buses or planes (inland flights) might be difficult. So I decided the next morning to find a travel agency. The hotel I had booked over the phone off course did not have my reservation but luckily had a room for 4 nights, so that was ok, then the Expo started there and all was booked out in the whole of Shanghai I think. I asked them for a travel agency and they told me it's right and then right again, it really was 5 streets right and then another 6 streets and right again (quite far). Anyway, I found it, huge office with about 25 people sitting at desks. I told them I wanted to book a ticket, they said No, not here. I said that I needed to book today and that I am not leaving without another address to go to at least. So we sat opposite each other for good 10 minutes peacefully (my body told me not to move) and then suddenly, she picked up the phone and dialed Spring Travel and even asked me when I wanted to fly and all this and gave me prices. She had their phone number all along! Interesting, he? I then had to take the metro to go there - it was quite far out of the town centre but I got there and they booked the inland flights to a resonable price for me. I then thought I better also book a hotel in Bejing for later on as it was falling into this bank holiday and that was fine, too. They were only able to book 3 star for around £35 each night, I did the booking and was glad to have a definate reservation this time. Then he also offered some guided private tours and I booked two days in Shanghai and 3 days in Bejing which turned out to be a blessing with very nice ladies, English speaking.

 

The place I stayed in Shanghai had no stars as a hotel but was very good quality. I paid about £25 per night and the breakfast was included. Typically Chinese, noodles, dumplings, soup, etc. for breakfast. I loved it. I must say in all my 18 days of travel I found excellent vegetarian food throughout and tried to lots of deserts, too!!

Shanghai is a big city and I say all that there was to see in 4 days - for tourists like me at least (pearl tower, market place, the Bund, French concession, going to a village and go in a boat through the water canals outside town, going through all the shopping streets with all the brands). I also went for massages and reflexology which are very cheap. £10 for foot massage, £16 for a full body massage (clothes are kept on during the massage by the way, they do it above the clothes and lots of people are in the same room). In fact the place I went to allowed smoking!! And generally during the massage, the lady might shout commands out for people downstairs...it was very good treatment with some strange environments, I got used to it though. No Enlish was spoken in most places by the way. I had to even demonstrate that I wanted to go to the toilet when the word toilet did not get mey anywhere...(very embarrassing but they understood). Also saw a very nice acrobatic show.

 

I did my kundalini yoga morning and evening and feel really great for it. Was also good to do it because I really ate a lot of food to try out and still lots was not discovered on this level.

 

HONG KONG

I then flew to Hong Kong and stayed with a friends boyfriend (she was in the UK at the time) who had his flat very much in the Centre, I could even take this long escalator that ran from the bottom of the town all the way up, before 10 am it would go down, after that only up until late at night (longest escalator in the worlds). Along the escalator were lots of nice trendy bars and restaurants for breakfast, etc.  - very expensive food there.

Hong Kong is a crazy city, alls skyscrapers really close next to each other. I went to the peak tower and saw it all at night from the top of the city with all the lights. It was interesting and not like anything I have seen before. In fact on this holiday I have taken a lot of pictures mainly from buildings and food (foto of picture in menu or real food)! They eat chicken feet and snakes here (dogs only in winter but gladly it was not in menu). They eat all sorts of seafood which looks strange and was unknown to me. One day I bought a fruit that looked like a big grapefruit. The guy took the outside layer off for me and demonstrated with a knife if I wanted pieces to be cut, I said no, tried to eat it and with all the force that I had,  I could not separate the parts it was like concrete, I went back and he DID cut if for me with a smile!!
Lots of fruits that were unkown, I did not try lots out on that level but not all could be fully pealed, I don't eat fruit that needs only washing in far away countries.

So, it was impressing to see all the many buildings, how grand they looked, some were just big! Hong Kong was easy to get around by underground or boat trips to the nearby islands, everybody spoke English. Food seemed to be very expensive, more than UK prices I would say. I was glad I did not have to pay for accomodation there!

 

I took a boat to two different islands around Hong Kong, did lots of walking on one, saw nice beaches, the main one overlooked a huge powerstation  which had to be ignored off course. There were no cars on Lammas Island which was great.

 

On Lantau was the biggest outside bronze Buddha in the world high up with lots of stairs. It was very nice with a monastry next to it with monks chanting. Later on I found it was a CD that played on loudspeakers..I bought a ticket with food in the monastry and they gave me really plenty of food which was very good (surprising for me how many different things I got for about £5, all veggie off course).

 

BEJING (back in China)
Was picked up from my tour guide from the airport, Great! They really don't speak any English in Bejing!!! 

I was thirsty and wanted to get some drink in the water, it had a list in English saying if you want any of these drinks listed, just ring this number and they will bring it. I did ring, but the person did not understand me, after about 5 minutes, two people came up, looked into my fridge and disappeared again, no English, no drink came at all in 30 minutes so I gave up and went out. I was a bit unbalanced after the flight and was not careful and banged my head on one of the columns at the hotel which had the top bit sticking out quite a lot. It was a real blow to my head and I stood on the streets a few minutes to collect myself, a few people stopped and waited until I continued walking. It swelled up quite a bit but was completely gone the next day, however, when I press there now, after my holiday 8 days later, it still hurts there a bit. Also the pavements were extremely high in Bejing,compared with the other places I went to and I did nearly fell twice because of it that night. This was the only time I went out without feeling balanced.  I did manage to buy a drink in the end and return to the hotel. this was really the only thing that happened due to me not being balanced when I left the hotel.

 

The next 3 days I saw a lot of well known buildings like the Summer Palace (we even took a nice boot trip), Chinese Great Wall (really wanted to see this - my guide said that it was 6000 km long, now about 3000 km left in reasonable condition, the guidebooks say 670 km length??), Forbidden City, Tempel of Heaven, and the birdsnest and watercube (was built for the olypics). Was all very interesting. I had two remaining days without guide and as the hotel only gave me a streetmap  in Chinese letters and I was in the middle of huge complexes and not in easy reach of anything really, I decided to take it easy. The guide who showed me Bejing was also very nice and I ended up giving her a Reiki I course. It all started when we walked up the Chinese Wall and she did not want to climb up the hill any more as she felt dizzy. I ask her if she wanted me to do something, so we sat there in the middle of all the tourists on the wall and in 30 seconds she was free of it with some healing, she opened her eyes and her vision was totally clear (very different  how it was a few seconds before and all dizziness disappeared and had not come back all day). On the day of her Reiki training, she told me that she was surprised that she was very awake right until late with no dizziness at all and very energetic. She was very happy, we took a cap and drove to her area and she treated me to a very nice massage for me and dinner.

 

By the way taxi drivers can only read Chinese letters (hotel name etc. must be in Chinese, people sometimes asked my guide to put their hotel name on paper as they found it impossible to get home otherwise..), I also saw a very good kung fui (sorry, just cannot think right now how to spell this). Ants are very big in China - 25 x bigger than in Europe!

 

Then I had one day left and just stayed in the hotel, I had discovered that my 3 star hotel (with often no English speaking shifts by the way), had a fantastic cafe with absolutely devine deserts (which was served to royalty), I tried out about 4 different in my remaining time and sat all my last day for hours reading a whole book from start to finish and because of all the kunalini yoga and mediations that I did not feel mentally challenged by reading a whole book in one go without break!

 

Chinese people are by the way prosecuted or killed when they are trying to talk negatively about the government, all emails sent are checked for clues...noone is free and the government is really like the Emperor, kills when it suits them....fingers crossed, the Berlin wall fell, why not the governement in China...the poor people are getting poorer and poorer and they make up 70 per cent (info from my guide).

 

I had by the way sunshine all through my holiday, even if it had been raining the days before and all flights went well (when I asked my travel agent to book tickets, he got the dates wrong by almost a week. This mistake helped me to actually being able to fly later on as only 2 days before my flight the airport allowed flights again!

Other than this..

My brother had a tripple heart attack,they tried 1 1/2 hours to save him with all sorts of machines just 3 weeks before I went to China and I have spoken to him today for the first time on the phone and he is totally ok in my opinion (on the phone) and back home next week. He first thought he was a taxi driver when he woke up out of articifical koma (job he did when he was 20) but his memory has come back now. It was an event that had to happen and was very transformational for my brother and my whole family - withh all this, in our heart, we felt all was going to be fine. H is now working on getting to live in Spain to fulfill his hearts desire and my familiy supports him inthis.

 

My Alexandria Healing Centre website has got pictures of my holidays... (link next to tree, it's worth checking out I think).

 

By the way the kundalini yoga 10-week course is starting this Monday and Tuesday (see website for dates and times) if you still want to join.

Lots of love

Sandra