(EDIT: Publication avec 3 jours de retard, du a des problemes de copier-coller dans le logiciel de marde de blogspot. La veritable date est le 29 janvier.)
Bon, je suis de retour sur le Mainland, a Guangzhou, et ceci est mon dernier RFTR. En effet, demain j'embarque pour une ride de train de 20 heures environ qui me ramene jusqu'a la province de Henan, ensuite je vais relaxer jusqu'au debut des classes a la mi-fevrier.
Je m'ennuie deja de KL, c'est fou comment cette ville m'a marqué。Apres mon dernier message, je suis encore sorti avec John (from Aruba) et Joni (le Finlandais). On est d’abord allés au Reggae bar, ou un enorme nombre de backpackers se rassemble en soiree. On a bu une biere avant d'aller sur Asian Heritage Street (ou on etait allé le premier soir) car Joni voulait aller rejoindre ses chums Finlandais. Il nous a appris un mot finnois (que j’ai oublié depuis) a dire au bouncer pour entrer gratis. Le seul probleme est que Joni a oublié le nom de la place, et que cette rue doit ben avoir 40 clubs, lounges ou cafés… Apres un certain moment d’indecision, il spot une de ses amies sur le point d’entrer dans un taxi et après un court echange on trouve la place… seul probleme, il est 2h30, le bar ferme a 3, et ils demandent un exorbitant cover charge… apparemment la clause “les Finlandais entrent gratis” c’etait avant minuit… Faque on est allé au bar voisin, nommé le Rupee bar. La bar est paqueté d’Indiens, et HOLY SHIT que les Indiens savent c’est quoi un party! Pour eux, un dance floor c’est pas juste un endroit ou les gens brassent leurs hanches doucement au son d’une musique de marde, mais plutot un defouloir total. Mes chums etaient restés dehors a chiller sur la terrasse, je retournais parfois y remplir mon bock et respirer un peu avant de retourner sauter partout avec les bonhommes bruns. Ensuite, chus allé fumer du shisha (le tabac parfumé arabe) jusqu’a ce que je devienne aveugle woooooo y est temps j’aille me coucher moé la.
Le lendemain j’etais pas si pire… comparé a mes deux comparses qui ont été a un after party et qui sont pas revenus avant 7 heures du matin. Je suis allé prendre une marche en ville avec Maria, est pas mal comique. On a discuté de plein de sujets, dont les Scheiβefetischiste, et en vertu de sa nationalité allemande, elle possede une connaissance plutot exhaustive en la matiere. On est allé manger de la bouffe indienne (ce dont je m’ennuie en esti rendu en Chine), puis faire un tour au Merdeka (Independence square, avec le plus haut mat de drapeau au monde) et aux Petronas Towers. Un WO KAO bien sonore est sorti de ma bouche des que je suis sorti du metro et que j’ai apercu les deux gigantesques tours jumelles drette au dessus de moi. C’est indescriptible a quell point elles sont enormes! Voir ces deux gargantuesques structures d’acier et de verre (et faut avouer qu’elles sont pas mal plus belles que la majorité des gratte-ciel, avec leurs formes arrondies) fait reflechir quant aux capacités de l’etre humain. J’ai jamais rien vu d’aussi gros, et je pense que le seul moyen est d’aller a Dubai ou alors a Taiwan voir le Taipei 101.
Les heures/jours suivants sont indignes de mention… prendre le bus jusqu’a Singapore, dormer a l’aeroport, arriver trop tard a Hong Kong pour voir la parade du Nouvel An… J’ai pas fait tant grand chose a Hong Kong, j’ai juste chillé avec Ryan et Julie avant-hier (mes collegues de Gongyi qui etaient en ville) et ensuite avec Tony et sa famille. J’ai mange de la bouffe mexicaine, vu les feux d’artifices du Nouvel An, insulté des mormons, vu le plus gros Bouddha au monde et mangé de la bouffe cantonaise crissement trop sucrée. Ca resume mon sejour dans la tres tres britannique ville de Hong Kong.
Hier j’ai traverse la frontiere pour revenir au pays du beton. J’ai contacté Wang Ying Ying, une amie d’un ami d’un ami, est venue me rejoindre et m’a aidé a trouver un hotel. Elle voulait chiller avec moi aujourd’hui, mais quand je l’ai appelée elle avait un gros rhume. Damn… J’etais donc “on my own” pour trouver une ride de train pour aller jusqu’a province de Henan. J’etais plutot nerveux, mais serieux, mon chinois doit etre rendu pas pire du tout parce que j’ai reussi a booker un siege Guangzhou-Nanyang pour demain, comme si de rien etait. Fallait donc que je me rende a Guangzhou… easy as pie, y a des trains rapides chaque 10 minutes. Une heure plus tard, je suis de retour dans la metropole cantonaise. J’ai un peu moins de 24 heures a tuer, je decide donc de prendre le metro jusque chez Paul, Russy et Alex, les ames charitables qui m’avaient recu il y a 12 jours de cela, question de dire allo. Donc Paul… avais-je mentioné que c’est un party animal? Il etait 2 heures de l’apres-midi, et il etait encore dans son litte (d’ailleurs la il est rendu 6 heures et il y est encore). Il a accepté gracieusement que j’utilise le couch, ce qui est pas mal cool de sa part, et m'a promis mer et monde de beuverie pour la soiree qui vient. Et d'ici la, puisque il semi-pleut et fait frisquet dehors, ca me tente pas de rien faire d’autre que d’ecrire ce long message. Voila. Faque bon nouvel an (chinois) a tout le monde!
jeudi 29 janvier 2009
samedi 24 janvier 2009
Report from the road 4: Live from KL
Bon, en França, passe ça me tente.
Kuala Lumpur est une ville geniale. Si c'etait pas de la chaleur comparable a un four a pain et le prix eleve de la biere, je demenagerais ici dans la seconde qui suit. De tous les 23 pays ou je suis alle dans ma vie, celui ou les gens sont le plus gentils c'est la Malaisie, et de loin. Je veux dire, en 2 jours complets y a personne qui m'a fait chier!!! Imbattable. Ah en fait, y a quelques personnes que j'ai eu le gout de frapper, mais c'est des Chinois et des Thais, ca compte pas. C'est fou comment les Malais et les Indiens sont gentils et que j'ai constamment envie de hugger tout le monde! Bon, faut dire qu'ils parlent tous anglais, ce qui aide a la communication de beaucoup, mais BON, reste qu'ils sont naturellement tous souriants et gentils!
Je suis arrive jeudi apres-midi en bus et j'ai rejoint mon hotesse allemande Maria, son coloc Finlandais Joni et l'autre couchsurfer, John, originaire d'Aruba dans les Caraibes. Apres avoir bouffe du thai, on est alle dans un club quelconque (je sais pas de quelle crosse y s'agit mais on est entre gratis), y a plein de ginos pis de blondasses partout et la meme musique qui joue par che nous. J'aime pas les clubs. Mes trois bieres de l'apres-midi etaient loin, alors j'etais dangereusement sobre et j'avais nullement envie de payer un prix de mongol, alors je me resignais. Ca, c'est jusqu'a ce que je passe pres de Maria (qui est plutot jolie) ainsi que le Malais qui voulait lui payer des drinks. Il voulait tant lui donner a boire que j'ai ete pris malgre moi dans le champ gravitationnel du donnaboirage et que dans l'espace de trois temps de Planck et quart je me ramasse avec un gros verre de Johnny Walker&Coke dans la main droite. Croyez-moi, la perception de la soiree change quand on a un petit bonhomme brun qui arrete pas de verser du whisky dans ton verre! Soudainement l'idee de danser comme un mongol paraissait enviable au point qu'un gros bouncer moustachu me descende du top d'une table.
Je me souviens pus trop de ce qui s'est passe, tout ce que je sais c'est qu'a 4 heures du matin je suis dans une chambre d'hotel pleine de Finlandais. Joni et moi on retourne a l'appart pendant que Maria essaie de reveiller John. A notre grande surprise, a notre arrivee (10 minutes a pied et 2 offres de "hey man, sex with young girls 20 ringets"), ils sont deja la, John etant trop scrap pour marcher ils ont pris un taxi.
Partyer est bien amusant, surtout quand c'est gratis, mais ca scrap l'horaire de tourisme un peu... disons que je me suis pas leve tot hier. Ca m'a pas empeche de me promener longuement avec Maria (est en vacances elle aussi, c'est cool d'avoir quelqu'un avec qui se balader). Chus pas alle aux grosses tours jumelles encore, ca va etre pour demain. Aujourd'hui on est alle dans la ville voisine nommee Klang et j'ai visite la premiere mosquee de ma vie. Demain je retourne a Singapore, je chill a l'aeroport et je me dirige vers Hong Kong.
Ah c'est vrai, Singapore... ben c'est plutot riche et moderne, et par consequent un peu cher, mais interessant. Tout est annonce en 4 langues (angla, chinois, malais et tamil) a cause de la fantastique variete ethnique. Partout dans la ville, on voit une harmonie de peaux noires, blanches, ambrees, et toutes les teintes possibles de brun. Et parlant de peau, SHIZAM, je sais pas si c'est parce que j'ai passe trop de temps la ou y fait froid, mais j'hallucinais. La temperature de Singapore est crissement trop chaude, faque les filles sont habillees en consequence, et par "consequence" je veux dire jupes crissement courtes! Je me sentais comme Rampage apres sa deuxieme rencontre avec Wanderlei, a me faire frapper de tous bords tous cotes par ces jambes. Sinngapore en gros c'est cool, mais pas autant que KL.
C'est ca qui est ca. Ma connexion internet acheve, faut j'aille payer. Sala!
Kuala Lumpur est une ville geniale. Si c'etait pas de la chaleur comparable a un four a pain et le prix eleve de la biere, je demenagerais ici dans la seconde qui suit. De tous les 23 pays ou je suis alle dans ma vie, celui ou les gens sont le plus gentils c'est la Malaisie, et de loin. Je veux dire, en 2 jours complets y a personne qui m'a fait chier!!! Imbattable. Ah en fait, y a quelques personnes que j'ai eu le gout de frapper, mais c'est des Chinois et des Thais, ca compte pas. C'est fou comment les Malais et les Indiens sont gentils et que j'ai constamment envie de hugger tout le monde! Bon, faut dire qu'ils parlent tous anglais, ce qui aide a la communication de beaucoup, mais BON, reste qu'ils sont naturellement tous souriants et gentils!
Je suis arrive jeudi apres-midi en bus et j'ai rejoint mon hotesse allemande Maria, son coloc Finlandais Joni et l'autre couchsurfer, John, originaire d'Aruba dans les Caraibes. Apres avoir bouffe du thai, on est alle dans un club quelconque (je sais pas de quelle crosse y s'agit mais on est entre gratis), y a plein de ginos pis de blondasses partout et la meme musique qui joue par che nous. J'aime pas les clubs. Mes trois bieres de l'apres-midi etaient loin, alors j'etais dangereusement sobre et j'avais nullement envie de payer un prix de mongol, alors je me resignais. Ca, c'est jusqu'a ce que je passe pres de Maria (qui est plutot jolie) ainsi que le Malais qui voulait lui payer des drinks. Il voulait tant lui donner a boire que j'ai ete pris malgre moi dans le champ gravitationnel du donnaboirage et que dans l'espace de trois temps de Planck et quart je me ramasse avec un gros verre de Johnny Walker&Coke dans la main droite. Croyez-moi, la perception de la soiree change quand on a un petit bonhomme brun qui arrete pas de verser du whisky dans ton verre! Soudainement l'idee de danser comme un mongol paraissait enviable au point qu'un gros bouncer moustachu me descende du top d'une table.
Je me souviens pus trop de ce qui s'est passe, tout ce que je sais c'est qu'a 4 heures du matin je suis dans une chambre d'hotel pleine de Finlandais. Joni et moi on retourne a l'appart pendant que Maria essaie de reveiller John. A notre grande surprise, a notre arrivee (10 minutes a pied et 2 offres de "hey man, sex with young girls 20 ringets"), ils sont deja la, John etant trop scrap pour marcher ils ont pris un taxi.
Partyer est bien amusant, surtout quand c'est gratis, mais ca scrap l'horaire de tourisme un peu... disons que je me suis pas leve tot hier. Ca m'a pas empeche de me promener longuement avec Maria (est en vacances elle aussi, c'est cool d'avoir quelqu'un avec qui se balader). Chus pas alle aux grosses tours jumelles encore, ca va etre pour demain. Aujourd'hui on est alle dans la ville voisine nommee Klang et j'ai visite la premiere mosquee de ma vie. Demain je retourne a Singapore, je chill a l'aeroport et je me dirige vers Hong Kong.
Ah c'est vrai, Singapore... ben c'est plutot riche et moderne, et par consequent un peu cher, mais interessant. Tout est annonce en 4 langues (angla, chinois, malais et tamil) a cause de la fantastique variete ethnique. Partout dans la ville, on voit une harmonie de peaux noires, blanches, ambrees, et toutes les teintes possibles de brun. Et parlant de peau, SHIZAM, je sais pas si c'est parce que j'ai passe trop de temps la ou y fait froid, mais j'hallucinais. La temperature de Singapore est crissement trop chaude, faque les filles sont habillees en consequence, et par "consequence" je veux dire jupes crissement courtes! Je me sentais comme Rampage apres sa deuxieme rencontre avec Wanderlei, a me faire frapper de tous bords tous cotes par ces jambes. Sinngapore en gros c'est cool, mais pas autant que KL.
C'est ca qui est ca. Ma connexion internet acheve, faut j'aille payer. Sala!
dimanche 18 janvier 2009
Report from the road 3: Live from Macau
OK, so where was I?
Last time I wrote was Friday... while I was still in an ethylic coma, Davey left to hit Shenzhen (on the east of GZ, bordering Hong Kong) then take a bus the same day to go to Zhuhai (on the west side of GZ, bordering Macau). I was suppose to go meet him there, but I left Guangzhou a bit too late and underestimated the length of the ride. Davey was already at his friend's place, in the outskirts, and I was stuck downtown, with no buses available. I tried to ask for taxis, but they all gave me ridiculous prices so I was starting to consider my options... Accepting ride offers from the sketchy dudes hanging around the terminal saying "Taxi Taxi!" is a no go, and I don't want to spend 400 on a room in the hotels surrounding the area. I could wander in the small streets until I find a ghetto hotel, but chances are I wouln't be Chinese enough to rent it and also, the streets of Guangdong province are not as safe as those of Henan at night.
Then, I remembered from my time in Harbin that the massage places allow you to stay overnight... Hmmm... After asking, I found out I was right! And DON'T look at me like this you bunch of pervs, it was one of those well-lit places located on a large street, and with windows in the doors of each room. And the girl was fully dressed, with pants, a blouse, and blah blah. So for waaaay less than I would have paid to stay even in a decent mid-range hotel, I got a 2 hour full body massage, some sleep, a long shower, and even breakfast. All that, thanks to my knowledge of the environment and my supreme Chinese speaking skillz!
I called Davey (with the massage place's phone, of course, no way I'm gonna pay) then took a bus to the university where his buddy is staying. The bus ride was more than one hour, and it is then I realized that the taxi drivers I asked the price to the night before were actually right, and not trying to rip me off... I kinda felt bad, as I said some really bad shit to some of them, in English, French or Chinese. So if you are a Zhuhai City cab driver and you read this, I'm sincerely sorry.
There isn't even a superlative word that would describe how much nicer the campus from Ji Lin University is from Cheng Gong College. Large space between buildings, large streets, palm trees... And the MOFACKING SEA just in front! So we spent most of the day just eating, drinking, riding bicycles along the sea shore (3 dudes, 2 bikes), and eating more. Guangdong food is... pretty sub-par compared to the other regional cuisines of China. It's either bland, or way too sweet. Actually, you can compare it to the chinese food you eat in Canada or whatever, since most oversea Chineses are from this part of the country. That should give you a bit of an idear.
So this morning, I said goodbye to my Chinese homies, caught a bus downtown, then went to the customs. Easy as pie, and a few minutes later I was walking the streets of the former Portuguese colony. There are no Portuguese there anymore, and nobody speaks or understands it, but every sign is bilingual. It is quite convenient when looking for a street, as remembering Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro is far easier than 亞美打利庇盧大馬路. Oh, and that leads to my next point: Macau people use traditional characters instead of the simplified ones, and speak goddamn Cantonese. I don't know a single word in Cantonese, so I kinda feel like the crappy tourist who is always asking with a nasal voice "Do you speak Engliiiiiiissssh?". I caught a taxi, the driver didn't know any English except "Okay", and knew just as much Mandarin as I do, and with a huge fuckin Guangdong accent. It was a funny conversation! It reminded me the time when I was sharing a room in Croatia with a 50-year old Bosnian and we spoke German.
Macau, I now nicknamed it Wacau (Wo kao = tabarnak in Chinese) due to the abundant number of times this word came out of my mouth when looking at the price for things. Yep, Macau is expensive for a Chinese on a budget like yours truly (wow, j'viens tu vraiment d'utiliser yours truly dans une phrase moé la, sacrez-moi un coup de sandale que'qu'un). They have their own currency, the Pecketa or whatever, but every damn place also accepts Chinese yuans and Hong Kong dollars, which are all exactly at the same rate! I mean, I paid a pastry with coins from each of the three currencies, I don't know why they even bother... Another weird thing about the "one country two systems" I guess. Food is pretty expensive... the snack food scene sucks, but there are tons of varied restaurants. I had Indian for lunch and Thai for dinner, yeeeaaah it's so cool to be able to finally make a choice between something else than Northern Chinese and Northwestern Chinese.
The weather in Macau... OK, I have never been to a tropical area at this time of the year so I didn't know much, but I expected... you know, a tiny bit of cold at least? Guess again, it is HOT, like, ball-sweating hot. Even at night. Well, maybe not that crazy, but I wouldn't want to come here in summer time for sure. But then, heat means short skirts (nice), which allow to see how crazy anorexic some of these girls are (the opposite of nice... -nice). HEY Xiao Mei, when your knees touch but there's still space between your thighs, maybe it's time to double your portion of rice! I hope this symptom of the Westernization is present in the South only (I haven't seen my students' legs for a damn long time... since Nov. 1st, when they all put on their longjohns).
I've been writing this shit for one hour now, but I can't write anything about Macau without mentioning its finest and most visted attractions... no, it's not the seaside. Not the Portuguese buildings either. The Casinos! From the huge ass that uses as much electricity as Bangladesh, to the sketchy dark alley Russian mob owned, there are dozens of casinos in Macau. Pretty much all of the tourist industry is centered around these cash flow institutions that bring hundreds of laowais and thousands of Hong Kong people everyday to test their chance. I went to play roulette in the Grand Lisboa casino, and over the course of a few small bets, earned 100 HKD. Gambling is awesome!
So that's what's up. Next message, probably live from Singapore.
Last time I wrote was Friday... while I was still in an ethylic coma, Davey left to hit Shenzhen (on the east of GZ, bordering Hong Kong) then take a bus the same day to go to Zhuhai (on the west side of GZ, bordering Macau). I was suppose to go meet him there, but I left Guangzhou a bit too late and underestimated the length of the ride. Davey was already at his friend's place, in the outskirts, and I was stuck downtown, with no buses available. I tried to ask for taxis, but they all gave me ridiculous prices so I was starting to consider my options... Accepting ride offers from the sketchy dudes hanging around the terminal saying "Taxi Taxi!" is a no go, and I don't want to spend 400 on a room in the hotels surrounding the area. I could wander in the small streets until I find a ghetto hotel, but chances are I wouln't be Chinese enough to rent it and also, the streets of Guangdong province are not as safe as those of Henan at night.
Then, I remembered from my time in Harbin that the massage places allow you to stay overnight... Hmmm... After asking, I found out I was right! And DON'T look at me like this you bunch of pervs, it was one of those well-lit places located on a large street, and with windows in the doors of each room. And the girl was fully dressed, with pants, a blouse, and blah blah. So for waaaay less than I would have paid to stay even in a decent mid-range hotel, I got a 2 hour full body massage, some sleep, a long shower, and even breakfast. All that, thanks to my knowledge of the environment and my supreme Chinese speaking skillz!
I called Davey (with the massage place's phone, of course, no way I'm gonna pay) then took a bus to the university where his buddy is staying. The bus ride was more than one hour, and it is then I realized that the taxi drivers I asked the price to the night before were actually right, and not trying to rip me off... I kinda felt bad, as I said some really bad shit to some of them, in English, French or Chinese. So if you are a Zhuhai City cab driver and you read this, I'm sincerely sorry.
There isn't even a superlative word that would describe how much nicer the campus from Ji Lin University is from Cheng Gong College. Large space between buildings, large streets, palm trees... And the MOFACKING SEA just in front! So we spent most of the day just eating, drinking, riding bicycles along the sea shore (3 dudes, 2 bikes), and eating more. Guangdong food is... pretty sub-par compared to the other regional cuisines of China. It's either bland, or way too sweet. Actually, you can compare it to the chinese food you eat in Canada or whatever, since most oversea Chineses are from this part of the country. That should give you a bit of an idear.
So this morning, I said goodbye to my Chinese homies, caught a bus downtown, then went to the customs. Easy as pie, and a few minutes later I was walking the streets of the former Portuguese colony. There are no Portuguese there anymore, and nobody speaks or understands it, but every sign is bilingual. It is quite convenient when looking for a street, as remembering Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro is far easier than 亞美打利庇盧大馬路. Oh, and that leads to my next point: Macau people use traditional characters instead of the simplified ones, and speak goddamn Cantonese. I don't know a single word in Cantonese, so I kinda feel like the crappy tourist who is always asking with a nasal voice "Do you speak Engliiiiiiissssh?". I caught a taxi, the driver didn't know any English except "Okay", and knew just as much Mandarin as I do, and with a huge fuckin Guangdong accent. It was a funny conversation! It reminded me the time when I was sharing a room in Croatia with a 50-year old Bosnian and we spoke German.
Macau, I now nicknamed it Wacau (Wo kao = tabarnak in Chinese) due to the abundant number of times this word came out of my mouth when looking at the price for things. Yep, Macau is expensive for a Chinese on a budget like yours truly (wow, j'viens tu vraiment d'utiliser yours truly dans une phrase moé la, sacrez-moi un coup de sandale que'qu'un). They have their own currency, the Pecketa or whatever, but every damn place also accepts Chinese yuans and Hong Kong dollars, which are all exactly at the same rate! I mean, I paid a pastry with coins from each of the three currencies, I don't know why they even bother... Another weird thing about the "one country two systems" I guess. Food is pretty expensive... the snack food scene sucks, but there are tons of varied restaurants. I had Indian for lunch and Thai for dinner, yeeeaaah it's so cool to be able to finally make a choice between something else than Northern Chinese and Northwestern Chinese.
The weather in Macau... OK, I have never been to a tropical area at this time of the year so I didn't know much, but I expected... you know, a tiny bit of cold at least? Guess again, it is HOT, like, ball-sweating hot. Even at night. Well, maybe not that crazy, but I wouldn't want to come here in summer time for sure. But then, heat means short skirts (nice), which allow to see how crazy anorexic some of these girls are (the opposite of nice... -nice). HEY Xiao Mei, when your knees touch but there's still space between your thighs, maybe it's time to double your portion of rice! I hope this symptom of the Westernization is present in the South only (I haven't seen my students' legs for a damn long time... since Nov. 1st, when they all put on their longjohns).
I've been writing this shit for one hour now, but I can't write anything about Macau without mentioning its finest and most visted attractions... no, it's not the seaside. Not the Portuguese buildings either. The Casinos! From the huge ass that uses as much electricity as Bangladesh, to the sketchy dark alley Russian mob owned, there are dozens of casinos in Macau. Pretty much all of the tourist industry is centered around these cash flow institutions that bring hundreds of laowais and thousands of Hong Kong people everyday to test their chance. I went to play roulette in the Grand Lisboa casino, and over the course of a few small bets, earned 100 HKD. Gambling is awesome!
So that's what's up. Next message, probably live from Singapore.
vendredi 16 janvier 2009
Report from the road 2: Live from GZ
OK I don't have much time as I'm leaving for Zhuhai, then Macao, in a few minutes, but I still think about you!
Right now I am in Guangzhou, at the very south of China. 15 million people. Taking the subway train at peak hours is a lotta fun! The weather is infinitely warmer than all the places I've been yet, it's pretty cool to walk around in a light sweatshirt in mid-January!
I woke up with a massive hangfuckingover, as I abused the booze a bit yesterday. I had beers at Paul's place (my couchsurfing host), then we went to a bar with live music, free foosball and cheap gin tonic, and then to a club packed with Russians. We finished the night at a pizza place, I was so drunk I could barely speak. I ordered a family size salmon pizza with every meat topping possible, cost me an arm but it was one of the best pizzas I've ever had, not just in China but in my whole life. Badass. Paul is a crazy bloke, well-travelled (or well-traveled, should I say, as he is English) and a party animal. His roommates are super cool too. I get this occasion to once again say how much couchsurfing.com is one of the most awesome things ever, seriously anybody who doesn't consider this while travelling is a retard.
I also found hosts for Macao, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, should be interesting! I'll let ya know!
Right now I am in Guangzhou, at the very south of China. 15 million people. Taking the subway train at peak hours is a lotta fun! The weather is infinitely warmer than all the places I've been yet, it's pretty cool to walk around in a light sweatshirt in mid-January!
I woke up with a massive hangfuckingover, as I abused the booze a bit yesterday. I had beers at Paul's place (my couchsurfing host), then we went to a bar with live music, free foosball and cheap gin tonic, and then to a club packed with Russians. We finished the night at a pizza place, I was so drunk I could barely speak. I ordered a family size salmon pizza with every meat topping possible, cost me an arm but it was one of the best pizzas I've ever had, not just in China but in my whole life. Badass. Paul is a crazy bloke, well-travelled (or well-traveled, should I say, as he is English) and a party animal. His roommates are super cool too. I get this occasion to once again say how much couchsurfing.com is one of the most awesome things ever, seriously anybody who doesn't consider this while travelling is a retard.
I also found hosts for Macao, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, should be interesting! I'll let ya know!
lundi 12 janvier 2009
Report from the road 1 - Live from 长沙
Yo yo yo!
Right now I am in Changsha, Hunan province. Long story short:
We left Gongyi at 2 AM Saturday for the crappiest 7 hours I've ever spent in a train. We didn't have seats, so for the first hour we stood in the small space between the crowded cars, freezing our testicles off. Then, in Zhengzhou, some people came out, so we were able to move towards the center of a car. Still painful, but warmer. Good thing I brought my Creative Zen mp3 player and my foldable chair to keep me company. Then, somewhere in south Henan, we finally got seats, but I didn't sleep more than two consecutive seconds. Anyway... faut souffrir pour etre belle.
Oh yeah... the train was actually sold out, but wiseass Davey bought some tickets for the 13th and just changed the date to the 10th with a lead pencil. We didn't have trouble to hop on, but once in Wuhan, our first destination, a train station security guy said "HEY!" and took Davey away when he saw his semi-fraudulent ticket. Davey came back 2 minutes later, so I wasn't on my own.
Then what, walking around Wuhan, eating deliciurs snack food, taking a ferry-boat full of Chineses, going to a huuuuge market, before meeting our couchsurfing host Ben, a nice Texan, at 7. We went for some dongbei food, then headed to his place to drink pijiu (beer). We also met some other laowais, some of Ben's friends, and drank more and played hand pong. I thought it'd be awkward (I won't tell the details) but it was pretty cool.
Ben woke us up Sunday with a "dejeuner au lit", some deliciurs Wuhan style re gan mian! What a nice host! Then we took the sky train, wandered around more, before hopping on the train to
Changsha. It was a sleeper train converted into a normal passenger train, so it was weird a bit.
And now, just to re-state the obvious: not all Chinese people are like this stupid bitch from Harbin or the other vermin that you encounter sometimes. 99% of Chinese people are super nice, and on average, a nice Chinese person will be 4.2651989 times nicer than a nice Westerner.
So yeah, in the train I was doing my exercise in my Russian for beginners book (I got it in Beijing; I'm like on page 8, so don't expect me to be fluent yet) when Davey pointed out to me that (one of) the cute Chinese girl in front of me speaks Russian. For half an hour or so, she tutored me and helped me out. Nice!
Of course, Li Li (her name) is super nice, but not as nice as Huang Jin, (one of) the other hot girl in our train cubicle. As she's a Changsha resident, Davey asked her if she knows some good cheap hotels we could crash at. She didn't only say yes, but she agreed to lead us there! So when we reached the Hunan metropolis, we hopped in a cab. After finding a ghetto, but comfortable place (my kind of thing), we had some food, then helped her carry her bags to her place. She lives with three other girls in an unheated one bedroom appartment, but she wears D&G high heeled boots, I guess it's a question of priorities. We goodbye'd her then went to sleep for 12 hours. I was still exhausted from the sleepless night two days before and it's not the beer I ingurgitated at Ben's place that will help me recuperate, plus I had a cold.
So today, Huang Jin, being the super cool awesome girl she is, got the two of us to eat lunch with all the people she works with. I don't know what the best part was: her nice smile and pink cheeks, the deliciurs Hunan cuisine, or the fact that her boss paid the entire bill, but anyway it was awesome. She wants to hang out tonight also, so I'm waiting for her call. It sucks that she has a boyfriend already, but it seems that every fine Chinese girl has one, goddamn one-child law. :(
Oh and I saw a badass pub alley not so far from our hotel. I'll check it out for sure! I miss the British finest's on tap... And they seem to have tons of Belgian stuff too! It's pretty unusual in China.
I'm sure I forgot tons of details... anyway bottom line is, I'm having tons of fun and I hope you do too! A prochaine!
Right now I am in Changsha, Hunan province. Long story short:
We left Gongyi at 2 AM Saturday for the crappiest 7 hours I've ever spent in a train. We didn't have seats, so for the first hour we stood in the small space between the crowded cars, freezing our testicles off. Then, in Zhengzhou, some people came out, so we were able to move towards the center of a car. Still painful, but warmer. Good thing I brought my Creative Zen mp3 player and my foldable chair to keep me company. Then, somewhere in south Henan, we finally got seats, but I didn't sleep more than two consecutive seconds. Anyway... faut souffrir pour etre belle.
Oh yeah... the train was actually sold out, but wiseass Davey bought some tickets for the 13th and just changed the date to the 10th with a lead pencil. We didn't have trouble to hop on, but once in Wuhan, our first destination, a train station security guy said "HEY!" and took Davey away when he saw his semi-fraudulent ticket. Davey came back 2 minutes later, so I wasn't on my own.
Then what, walking around Wuhan, eating deliciurs snack food, taking a ferry-boat full of Chineses, going to a huuuuge market, before meeting our couchsurfing host Ben, a nice Texan, at 7. We went for some dongbei food, then headed to his place to drink pijiu (beer). We also met some other laowais, some of Ben's friends, and drank more and played hand pong. I thought it'd be awkward (I won't tell the details) but it was pretty cool.
Ben woke us up Sunday with a "dejeuner au lit", some deliciurs Wuhan style re gan mian! What a nice host! Then we took the sky train, wandered around more, before hopping on the train to
Changsha. It was a sleeper train converted into a normal passenger train, so it was weird a bit.
And now, just to re-state the obvious: not all Chinese people are like this stupid bitch from Harbin or the other vermin that you encounter sometimes. 99% of Chinese people are super nice, and on average, a nice Chinese person will be 4.2651989 times nicer than a nice Westerner.
So yeah, in the train I was doing my exercise in my Russian for beginners book (I got it in Beijing; I'm like on page 8, so don't expect me to be fluent yet) when Davey pointed out to me that (one of) the cute Chinese girl in front of me speaks Russian. For half an hour or so, she tutored me and helped me out. Nice!
Of course, Li Li (her name) is super nice, but not as nice as Huang Jin, (one of) the other hot girl in our train cubicle. As she's a Changsha resident, Davey asked her if she knows some good cheap hotels we could crash at. She didn't only say yes, but she agreed to lead us there! So when we reached the Hunan metropolis, we hopped in a cab. After finding a ghetto, but comfortable place (my kind of thing), we had some food, then helped her carry her bags to her place. She lives with three other girls in an unheated one bedroom appartment, but she wears D&G high heeled boots, I guess it's a question of priorities. We goodbye'd her then went to sleep for 12 hours. I was still exhausted from the sleepless night two days before and it's not the beer I ingurgitated at Ben's place that will help me recuperate, plus I had a cold.
So today, Huang Jin, being the super cool awesome girl she is, got the two of us to eat lunch with all the people she works with. I don't know what the best part was: her nice smile and pink cheeks, the deliciurs Hunan cuisine, or the fact that her boss paid the entire bill, but anyway it was awesome. She wants to hang out tonight also, so I'm waiting for her call. It sucks that she has a boyfriend already, but it seems that every fine Chinese girl has one, goddamn one-child law. :(
Oh and I saw a badass pub alley not so far from our hotel. I'll check it out for sure! I miss the British finest's on tap... And they seem to have tons of Belgian stuff too! It's pretty unusual in China.
I'm sure I forgot tons of details... anyway bottom line is, I'm having tons of fun and I hope you do too! A prochaine!
vendredi 9 janvier 2009
Good times in Harbin
"It's not very nice to throw poop at people, Felix. Perhaps you shouldn't do that."
We told her already five times that we didn't want to cross the river on her horse sleigh. That it was too expensive and tacky. She said that we are not allowed to cross the river on foot. We said that there are people doing it at this very moment. She said it would take an hour at least. We laughed and said it would take at most 15 minutes, judging by the distance separating us from the north shore. She pointed at a different price on her sheet, then bargained down despite the fact that we just wanted to walk. She first blocked Brendan's way with her body, then as he was going past her, she grabbed him by the forearm. Three times. Don't tell me she wasn't going after it!
There was also the fat bitch who reached to take my money out of my wallet as I was bargaining to buy a badass russian fur hat, then struggled as I was taking my money back out of her hands. I finally had to push her so hard that she almost fell on the ice, so she replied with an insult in dongbeihua (northeastern dialect). This game can go both ways, so I shouted my best insults in kueibeikehua. I still bought the hat, she should be glad.
Or the girl who was pointing at a different price for our (already massively overpriced) hot cocoa. "Hey, I can read Chinese, and THIS is the price we owe you!" said Brendan, before giving her the exact change. She was then trying to take the rest of his money from his wallet, while her ripoffmate was blocking the door. A 103-pound Chinese girl is not the hardest thing to move out of the way, but still, that shit is frustrating. If we add to that the taxi drivers giving you false directions, the incompetent train station ticket clerks and the human scumbags found in tourist areas, it's not hard to feel that sometimes China sucks. Bad.
BUT of course, you also meet some super nice people, much more than the vermin listed above. These people make the overall experience enjoyable, while the bad ones make good anecdotes to start a blog entry with a punch sentence. Hihihihi.
One of those nice people is Mr. Ji Chun An, that we met on the long ass train ride Zhengzhou-Harbin. 25 hours on a Chinese train may seem totally unenjoyable to some people and I fully understand why, but for a guy whose primary goal is to interact with the local populace, you can't really get better than being locked in a train car with nothing else to do but talk to them! Brendan and I were ready for the ride, with our 24-pack of beer and our 2 kg of peanuts (we only left empty shells and empty cans behind). We had assigned seats, but past Tianjin ultramodern space station-like central train hub, as the train progressed through Chinese Siberia and its desolate plains, some seats got empty and therefore people invited us with "Hello! Hello! Laowai! Sit!". Brendan was of course basking in attention more than me, with his fluent Chinese, but I still managed to hold some semi-decent conversations. I'm cool. So yeah, Mr. Ji, he was quite a cool man, and he had actually been to Canada (he showed me his visa) to do "business"... when Brendan asked, he just said an evasive answer and didn't want to disclose what business it was. As soon as we got to Harbin, he got his boss to pick all three of us up in his Jeep to go have dinner, and then again he didn't say why he didn't want us to tell his boss we met on the train (we had to pretend I had met him when he came to Canada). The dinner took place in a semi-fancy place, with four large middle-aged Chinese men smoking cigarettes and hardly eating, and two foreigners forced to gorge themselves with the dumplings, the fish, the beef and the beer brought endlessly in front of them. The "boss" was a particularly mean-looking man with hands as thick as car doors and eyebrows permanently expressing anger, and he wasn't very talkative either. But hey, he treated us to a gargantuan feast of free food and found us a super cheap but nice, clean and heated hotel where we slipped in a coma from 9 PM till 9 AM, full of food, slightly drunk and exhausted from the long ass train ride.
This time we had more time to see Harbin. This city is quite off the tourist path of China, due to its distant northern location, but still there were many people in town for the snow and ice festival. The whole city center was full of nice ice sculptures, such as a Maneken Pis, a Beethoven, a Venus de Milo, a functional piano, and countless others. Impressive. The city itself is a bit like other Chinese cities, but with tons of Russian influences. Russian signs, Russian people walking around, and even a huge Russian cathedral. We went to a Russian restaurant (we were wondering what the hell is PECTOPAH before figuring out is it "restaurant" in cyrillic script) and had an AWESOME meal. Soup, brown bread with butter, breaded beef cutlets, salmon, grilled mutton (they call it shashlik), pickles, and half a liter of Водка. It was so good! Most of the patrons were Russian, and it was pretty cool to see the Chinese waiters speaking fluent Russian.
We then hung out a bit with an old Australian man we met there. His name is Bill and he works in the potato business, he has lived in China for 4 years but knows about 3 mandarin words... you meet people like that sometimes. We just chatted, had a few beers at a local bar then called it a day. We kept walking in the streets of Harbin, got lost in unlit streets, but finally made our way to the hotel. Neither of us had thought about memorizing the street the hotel was on...
The next day we went to the snow sculpture festival with two Belgian (Flemish side) dudes. It was pretty cool. Nothing much to say there. At night, we didn't go back to our small hotel but went to one of the "bath houses" instead. I had read on the internet that there are tons of shower houses like that in town, where you can shower and stay for the night, and sometimes even have food or massages. Well, most of these places have a side business that starts with a P and ends in Rostitution, but for those not interested in that kind of stuff, they also provide a nice bed (in a dorm with snoring Chinese men) and a hot shower for 18 kuai. Unbeatable price if you ask me.
The following day we walked across the river again, until we reached a military zone and had to come back. We also went to a place eloquiently called Big Pizza, where you can get an all-you-can-eat pizza (and other unhealthy things) for a decent price. We then wandered around until finally came the time to hop on the overnight train to Beijing.
We spent two wonderful days in Beijing, mostly thanks to our couchsurfing host Nan. The full story will come later, because right now, I have been back in Gongyi for less than twelve hours and already I'm back on the road! I'll let you know!
We told her already five times that we didn't want to cross the river on her horse sleigh. That it was too expensive and tacky. She said that we are not allowed to cross the river on foot. We said that there are people doing it at this very moment. She said it would take an hour at least. We laughed and said it would take at most 15 minutes, judging by the distance separating us from the north shore. She pointed at a different price on her sheet, then bargained down despite the fact that we just wanted to walk. She first blocked Brendan's way with her body, then as he was going past her, she grabbed him by the forearm. Three times. Don't tell me she wasn't going after it!
There was also the fat bitch who reached to take my money out of my wallet as I was bargaining to buy a badass russian fur hat, then struggled as I was taking my money back out of her hands. I finally had to push her so hard that she almost fell on the ice, so she replied with an insult in dongbeihua (northeastern dialect). This game can go both ways, so I shouted my best insults in kueibeikehua. I still bought the hat, she should be glad.
Or the girl who was pointing at a different price for our (already massively overpriced) hot cocoa. "Hey, I can read Chinese, and THIS is the price we owe you!" said Brendan, before giving her the exact change. She was then trying to take the rest of his money from his wallet, while her ripoffmate was blocking the door. A 103-pound Chinese girl is not the hardest thing to move out of the way, but still, that shit is frustrating. If we add to that the taxi drivers giving you false directions, the incompetent train station ticket clerks and the human scumbags found in tourist areas, it's not hard to feel that sometimes China sucks. Bad.
BUT of course, you also meet some super nice people, much more than the vermin listed above. These people make the overall experience enjoyable, while the bad ones make good anecdotes to start a blog entry with a punch sentence. Hihihihi.
One of those nice people is Mr. Ji Chun An, that we met on the long ass train ride Zhengzhou-Harbin. 25 hours on a Chinese train may seem totally unenjoyable to some people and I fully understand why, but for a guy whose primary goal is to interact with the local populace, you can't really get better than being locked in a train car with nothing else to do but talk to them! Brendan and I were ready for the ride, with our 24-pack of beer and our 2 kg of peanuts (we only left empty shells and empty cans behind). We had assigned seats, but past Tianjin ultramodern space station-like central train hub, as the train progressed through Chinese Siberia and its desolate plains, some seats got empty and therefore people invited us with "Hello! Hello! Laowai! Sit!". Brendan was of course basking in attention more than me, with his fluent Chinese, but I still managed to hold some semi-decent conversations. I'm cool. So yeah, Mr. Ji, he was quite a cool man, and he had actually been to Canada (he showed me his visa) to do "business"... when Brendan asked, he just said an evasive answer and didn't want to disclose what business it was. As soon as we got to Harbin, he got his boss to pick all three of us up in his Jeep to go have dinner, and then again he didn't say why he didn't want us to tell his boss we met on the train (we had to pretend I had met him when he came to Canada). The dinner took place in a semi-fancy place, with four large middle-aged Chinese men smoking cigarettes and hardly eating, and two foreigners forced to gorge themselves with the dumplings, the fish, the beef and the beer brought endlessly in front of them. The "boss" was a particularly mean-looking man with hands as thick as car doors and eyebrows permanently expressing anger, and he wasn't very talkative either. But hey, he treated us to a gargantuan feast of free food and found us a super cheap but nice, clean and heated hotel where we slipped in a coma from 9 PM till 9 AM, full of food, slightly drunk and exhausted from the long ass train ride.
This time we had more time to see Harbin. This city is quite off the tourist path of China, due to its distant northern location, but still there were many people in town for the snow and ice festival. The whole city center was full of nice ice sculptures, such as a Maneken Pis, a Beethoven, a Venus de Milo, a functional piano, and countless others. Impressive. The city itself is a bit like other Chinese cities, but with tons of Russian influences. Russian signs, Russian people walking around, and even a huge Russian cathedral. We went to a Russian restaurant (we were wondering what the hell is PECTOPAH before figuring out is it "restaurant" in cyrillic script) and had an AWESOME meal. Soup, brown bread with butter, breaded beef cutlets, salmon, grilled mutton (they call it shashlik), pickles, and half a liter of Водка. It was so good! Most of the patrons were Russian, and it was pretty cool to see the Chinese waiters speaking fluent Russian.
We then hung out a bit with an old Australian man we met there. His name is Bill and he works in the potato business, he has lived in China for 4 years but knows about 3 mandarin words... you meet people like that sometimes. We just chatted, had a few beers at a local bar then called it a day. We kept walking in the streets of Harbin, got lost in unlit streets, but finally made our way to the hotel. Neither of us had thought about memorizing the street the hotel was on...
The next day we went to the snow sculpture festival with two Belgian (Flemish side) dudes. It was pretty cool. Nothing much to say there. At night, we didn't go back to our small hotel but went to one of the "bath houses" instead. I had read on the internet that there are tons of shower houses like that in town, where you can shower and stay for the night, and sometimes even have food or massages. Well, most of these places have a side business that starts with a P and ends in Rostitution, but for those not interested in that kind of stuff, they also provide a nice bed (in a dorm with snoring Chinese men) and a hot shower for 18 kuai. Unbeatable price if you ask me.
The following day we walked across the river again, until we reached a military zone and had to come back. We also went to a place eloquiently called Big Pizza, where you can get an all-you-can-eat pizza (and other unhealthy things) for a decent price. We then wandered around until finally came the time to hop on the overnight train to Beijing.
We spent two wonderful days in Beijing, mostly thanks to our couchsurfing host Nan. The full story will come later, because right now, I have been back in Gongyi for less than twelve hours and already I'm back on the road! I'll let you know!
jeudi 1 janvier 2009
Bonne année gang de mongols!
Merci à tous pour vos vœux de Fêtes, c’est bien apprécié!
Bon, un autre petit update rapide, peut-être bien le dernier avant un petit bout. En effet, ce serait pas mal irresponsable de m’attarder à écrire longtemps, puisque je suis dans le jus comme on dit… la fin de session c’est éprouvant des deux côtés de la clôture! Ma pile d’examens à corriger diminue, il ne me reste que quelques heures de travail! Mes collegues ont pas mal tous fini, mais moi je travaille encore... Mais bon, tout ça c’est un peu du ‘self-inflicted wound’ vu que j’ai collé mes congés de Noël ensemble pour me faire une longue fin de semaine et aller à Shanghai et donc j'ai pris du retard.
Que dire de Shanghai? C’est CALISSEMENT GROS. Non mais je veux dire, vraiment VRAIMENT IMMENSE. Moderne, cosmopolite, ouverte, disons que c’est le nouveau visage de la Chine, pas celui auquel je suis habitué! À Henan, j’ai l’impression d’être 40 ans dans le passé, mais à Shanghai on aurait dit que j’étais passé dans une machine à voyager 10 ans dans le futur. J’ai passé quelques heures au musée de la planification urbaine, et dedans il y a une maquette de la ville au complet. C’en est sérieusement effarant. De plus, puisque Shanghai est l’hôte de l’Expo 2010 (coudon a roule la Chine, après Beijing en 2008) y a de la construction partout pour les pavillons internationaux.
J’en ai profité surtout pour faire des choses impossibles à faire à Gongyi, comme manger des burritos, de la pizza, des burgers, de la bouffe japonaise, boire de la Guiness, aller dans des librairies pas juste chinoises, etc. J’ai ben dû marcher 100 km en deux jours, juste Shanghai c’est vraiment un endroit fascinant et peut-être que j’en ferai le review complet (version censurée) un jour.
Sinon, dès mon arrivée au collège, j’ai vu qu’on s’est fait CROSSER encore une fois par l’administration déficiente. Il s’adonne que la semaine 18, celle ou on s’est fait dire (lors d’un meeting tenu la semaine 16) qu’on est obligés de travailler, ben en fait c’est une semaine d’étude ou de quoi du genre et tous les profs chinois sont pas là. De plus, les étudiants ont congé jeudi et vendredi (et je l’ai appris 3 jours avant… oui oui). En gros, j’ai juste supprimé à la dernière minute des cases horaires complètes et tout chamboulé mon horaire d’examens en plus d’avoir à courir partout pour trouver mes étudiants et leur annoncer. Ça me mettrait vraiment en tabarnak SI et seulement SI justement mon 6 semaines de vacances était pas déjà là en train de me regarder avec un air pervers. Rendu à ce point, pus rien peut m’arrêter!
Là on a nos billets de train Brendan et moi, demain on s’en va à Harbin! Capitale de la province de Heilongjiang et grosse ville la plus nordique de Chine, son climat est plus froid que Montréal, va falloir que je mette mes combines! Mais outre le froid (ou grâce à lui), la ville est pleine d’attractions badass que j’ai bien hâte de voir et de faire!
http://wikitravel.org/en/Harbin
A la prochaine!
Bon, un autre petit update rapide, peut-être bien le dernier avant un petit bout. En effet, ce serait pas mal irresponsable de m’attarder à écrire longtemps, puisque je suis dans le jus comme on dit… la fin de session c’est éprouvant des deux côtés de la clôture! Ma pile d’examens à corriger diminue, il ne me reste que quelques heures de travail! Mes collegues ont pas mal tous fini, mais moi je travaille encore... Mais bon, tout ça c’est un peu du ‘self-inflicted wound’ vu que j’ai collé mes congés de Noël ensemble pour me faire une longue fin de semaine et aller à Shanghai et donc j'ai pris du retard.
Que dire de Shanghai? C’est CALISSEMENT GROS. Non mais je veux dire, vraiment VRAIMENT IMMENSE. Moderne, cosmopolite, ouverte, disons que c’est le nouveau visage de la Chine, pas celui auquel je suis habitué! À Henan, j’ai l’impression d’être 40 ans dans le passé, mais à Shanghai on aurait dit que j’étais passé dans une machine à voyager 10 ans dans le futur. J’ai passé quelques heures au musée de la planification urbaine, et dedans il y a une maquette de la ville au complet. C’en est sérieusement effarant. De plus, puisque Shanghai est l’hôte de l’Expo 2010 (coudon a roule la Chine, après Beijing en 2008) y a de la construction partout pour les pavillons internationaux.
J’en ai profité surtout pour faire des choses impossibles à faire à Gongyi, comme manger des burritos, de la pizza, des burgers, de la bouffe japonaise, boire de la Guiness, aller dans des librairies pas juste chinoises, etc. J’ai ben dû marcher 100 km en deux jours, juste Shanghai c’est vraiment un endroit fascinant et peut-être que j’en ferai le review complet (version censurée) un jour.
Sinon, dès mon arrivée au collège, j’ai vu qu’on s’est fait CROSSER encore une fois par l’administration déficiente. Il s’adonne que la semaine 18, celle ou on s’est fait dire (lors d’un meeting tenu la semaine 16) qu’on est obligés de travailler, ben en fait c’est une semaine d’étude ou de quoi du genre et tous les profs chinois sont pas là. De plus, les étudiants ont congé jeudi et vendredi (et je l’ai appris 3 jours avant… oui oui). En gros, j’ai juste supprimé à la dernière minute des cases horaires complètes et tout chamboulé mon horaire d’examens en plus d’avoir à courir partout pour trouver mes étudiants et leur annoncer. Ça me mettrait vraiment en tabarnak SI et seulement SI justement mon 6 semaines de vacances était pas déjà là en train de me regarder avec un air pervers. Rendu à ce point, pus rien peut m’arrêter!
Là on a nos billets de train Brendan et moi, demain on s’en va à Harbin! Capitale de la province de Heilongjiang et grosse ville la plus nordique de Chine, son climat est plus froid que Montréal, va falloir que je mette mes combines! Mais outre le froid (ou grâce à lui), la ville est pleine d’attractions badass que j’ai bien hâte de voir et de faire!
http://wikitravel.org/en/Harbin
A la prochaine!
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