Really not much to see in lanzhou but the city got its fame around china for its lanzhou noodles ( 兰州面 ), a moderately spicy noodle (delicious 拉面 ) soup with beef . we went to see the huang river ( 黄江 also called 母亲江 - mother river, because of the colour), and walked along its side. there are interesting, massive water mills ins

So it is now 9pm, about 20h after typhoon fanapi landed on xiamen. despite going to bed around 3am last night (too excited to sleep), i woke up around 6 in the morning, partially because of the excitement, partially because of the noise of the wind outside. after looking outside and taking some pictures from the balcony, i decided to go on the roof

Hey everyone, here again, i will share useful trip informations about my 20 day-long summer trip in 2011, which covered 8000 kms, by train, bus and foot ! the idea behind this crazy intinary was to get my z visa in hong kong before starting the real funny trip gansu-xinjiang. through 20 days, my girlfriend and i went from the very south-east of chi

À peine entrés, nous étions ébahis par les singes qui se baladaient sur les bords du sentier ! et moi, j’ai particulièrement beaucoup apprécié ce panneau ci-dessus: les hommes devraient coexister avec la nature. l’exploitation devrait être en phase avec la protection. voilà de la vraie sagesse comme on n’en voit peu dans les lieux to

An arabic flavor in china i naan bread ! traditional milk tea (salty, with butter/cheese in it!) despite all the warnings from our han friends and relatives, we chose to live in the uyghur area, south of urumqi. there is a huge difference between north and south in the city. people, clothes, culture, religion, food, housing, stores, language, every

It started raining pretty heavily. i put back inside all the clothes still hanging on the balcony, fearing the wind would blow them away or the rain get them soaked. same goes for the 2 cardboard boxes i had spared from the recent moving. left outside, they would become drenched paper...

Ce weekend, c’etait le festival de qing ming (清明, prononcez tching ming) en chine. traditionnellement, les chinois observent durant ce jour des rites de commémoration à l’égard des anciens disparus. c’est un peu notre toussaint. durant ce jour de recueillement, les familles vont visiter les tombes, honorer leur proches disparus, et net

Sur le trajet vers le parc (1h de route en bus), mère bonne fortune était une fois de plus à nos côtés, puisque nous avons fait la connaissance de deux étudiantes de guangzhou (dans la province de guangdong) avec qui nous avons passé le reste de ce séjour touristique ! lulu et baobao (j’ai raccourci leur noms pour éviter les maux de têt

It all started from xiamen, my new hometown (for 2 years now). taking the bus to shenzhen is, in 2011, the only option left since no train is making the connection between the two cities anymore. hopefully soon finished to be be built, the new bullet train line will make this trip more enjoyable. as for now, it’s a 7 to 9 hrs trip (7hrs on the ro

The city is a major tourist spot in china, due to its well preserved ancient buddhist caves on the old silk road. it is surrounded by desert dunes and desert plains and the arrival at the train station offers a gorgeous feeling of emptiness. the city is not big but gives a nice relaxed feeling, with one tourist night market, one food market and a n