S: new year in west, still the old one in east

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So, we left Tokyo, stayed one night in the mountains of Japan - arriving in the evening it was so beautiful, and next day we realised waking up in the middle of a golfing field (what a dissapointment!), came to Kyoto - had a much better time there than last time, and even saw Yoko Ono live (!!), and then we left with the ferry again, this time heading for Shanghai, China.

On the ferry I thought the same thought as so many times before on this trip: how happy I am not to fly, and how sad it is for the people that travel by flying - they miss so much, so many wonderful ferrytrips (over whole oceans!) and traintravels (trough big forests, open deserts, high mountains and small villages).

Coming to Shanghai, we decided to leave almost right away - it was only two days before Christmas, and we didn't want to spend it in the big city. So we left for Guilin, and from there to Yangshou, since we heard this is a really beautiful area. And it was, really beautiful - but full of backpackers!! and cold everywhere... so, christmas wasn't really a big hit. However, we had a nice biking tour on the christmas day, and christmas eve we spent in a nice restaurant with a interesting book in our hands... (as you probably already saw on the pictures)

A bit depressed over all the backpackers, and the fact that we somehow also belong to them, we decided to leave just after a few days and headed for Changsa. Our friend from Beijing, Nan, worked there as a teacher for a group of students who wants to enter a media-college (where she studied herself) and the experience there was a totally different from the one in Yangshou - no mountains, no beautiful sceneries, but also (ah!) no backpackers and salesmen following us and wanting us to buy things all the time. The few days in Changsa we spent mostly at the school where Nan was teaching, and in the end we even ended up at a "propaganda-poster" for the school with the text "foreign teachers"... 😊 New years eve we spent in the hotel room where we stayed with Nan and Yuang, looking at the fireworks - like all of the days (mornings, evenings, yes - all the time) in Changsa - we happend to live right across of a fireworks-factory!

Right now we are staying in Lijang, another backpacker-hell, but it doesnt feel as bad since here is hardly any foreign tourist right now. We are staying with a man from new Zealand who is living here (in a traditional naxi-house), and helping him to renovate his house and grow some vegetables + will also make some interwievs here.

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