Category Archives: Asia

Asia

The Plum Rain of Shanghai

Seeing today’s weather I was on the brink of just staying at the hotel. Luckily a shopping center with Starbucks, Coffee Bean, and a lot of restaurants is attached πŸ˜‰ But then I thought…maybe rain is a chance for some great shots and set out to the Bund to catch some tourists. It worked out. And pretty quickly. The Plum Rain is not heavy, but so fine that it blows everywhere. An umbrella is fairly useless. There is just 6 minutes between the first and the last photos shown here. Add 10 minutes on either side to get from a subway to the Bund and back and you have a good estimate of my time spent outside today πŸ˜‰ Continue reading The Plum Rain of Shanghai

Expo 2010 – Gigantism Redefined

Today, eventually, was my first day at the Expo. My plan was to start in the late morning on the PuXi side, which supposingly was less crowded, and move over to the PuDong side only in the late afternoon, hoping that in the evening pavillion queues get shorter. Basically, I followed the area letters in reverse order, starting with E and planning to move all the way to A. The pavillions with the longest queues are all in A – Asia, which I would reach in the evening only. Than plan was good and I would recommend it again. I only spent a bit too much time in E and D, the PuXi side. Next time I switch over earlier. Continue reading Expo 2010 – Gigantism Redefined

Along the Shopping Routes

While I’ve never been much into shopping I have so much time that I can afford also checking out changes along the major tourist shopping routes, NanJing Lu and HuaiHai Lu. Only on my way back I learned from the news monitors on the metro that today there were “only” some 380.000 visitors to the Expo. So it would have been a good day for visiting the Expo, despite (or because?) it being a holiday. Now it’s too late…I will go tomorrow morning. Continue reading Along the Shopping Routes

Pudong Revisited

Wanted to see what it now looks like where I had lived some years ago. So I headed for Pudong, exiting the Metro at LuJiaZui, i.e. in the shadow of the tallest towers and all the fininancial high rises. Difficult to say if there are more of them now than back in 2007 πŸ˜‰ But the still very educating collection of yearly fish-eye photos from the top of Oriental Pearl Tower, which are arranged and displayed under the sail-like tent in the LuJiaZui Park told me: There are! But in fact…I wasn’t so much interested in them in detail. I walked around to check out the details. Continue reading Pudong Revisited

Shanghai cleaned up

Shanghai…finally…I’m back again in this city I’ve lived in for 2,5 years. I’ve longed to see Shanghai again. And now that I’m back I have the odd feeling of not having been away too long. Maybe that’s due to wrong expectations: Friends said Shanghai has changed dramatically. So I had expected not to recognize much any longer. But in my eyes it’s not that bad: While there definitely is a lot of changes these changes are “under the hood” (actually mostly underground ;)). True…there are certainly some new buildings, but I don’t see them as a radical change: There had been a lot of high rises. And now there are a few more. Continue reading Shanghai cleaned up

Vientian – Capital City

Along Laos’ highways are milestones marking the distance to the next places. The actual place may vary–the next village, or a major place further afar. When trying to make out the distance to Vientiane while on the bus I could never find “Vientiane” on the milestones…until one time we hat slowed down sufficiently for me to read one of the milestones saying “Capital City”. Apparently this is what Laos would like visitors to think of it. Reminds me of old pre-reunification signposts on Eastern Germany’s highways, reading “Berlin, Hauptstadt der DDR”.

We’ve planned two and a half days in Vientiane, fairly many given our generally tight schedule–it’s about as much as we had in Hanoi. We thought it would be worth it. It wasn’t. But there are good coffee bars… Continue reading Vientian – Capital City

Phonsavan – Plain of Jars

We knew it before arrival: Phonsavan is not the most beautiful of cities. We couldn’t know that it would be so boring that the first thing we looked for was the fastest way out…and even accepted yet another night bus, simply because the next flight out of this incarnation of boredom was two days later only. In our original itinerary Phonsavan occupied three days: One day of bus travel from Luang Prabang to get there (that still took place on 30-AUG), one day for visiting the Plain of Jars (the main and for most tourists only reason you get here at all, 31-AUG), and one day to travel on to Vientiane. With the night bus option we could save that travel day and made it instead a travel night. Continue reading Phonsavan – Plain of Jars