The Dutch Invasion
Be warned: I write a lot and I don't expect you to read everything... But this blog is also like a diary to myself you know, so I just blurt everything out...
In the past week it seems like the Dutch are invading Hong Kong. I have had 'visits' from some friends from Delft, which was really fun.
First of all, students from my faculty arrived in Hong Kong on Sunday, for a study trip organised by Students Association i.d. This is the same trip I organised myself 4 years ago; we went to Japan then.
On Monday I met the students, in the evening, on Hong Kong Island. I was going to have dinner with them, but I was watching Superman: The Movie on dvd at Yoyo's house, so by the time I got to the restaurant, they were already finished. From there I accompanied the Delft students to the Peak. Being a bit of a HK guy by now, they could use me as their guide, showing the wat to the Peak :). The view was beautiful; clear sky, so I made some nice pictures again.
Also, on Tuesday and Wednesday I joined the group to their company visits, which I really liked. If they read this: thanks guys! Having experienced a similar trip to another Asian trip, it brought back a lot of nice memories of Japan2002... Wearing your suit in the really hot weather, waiting at the train stations, almost falling asleep during the lectures at the companies... Actually, I didn't really have the last problem, but many of the Dutch students did have some difficulty keeping their energy level up. Lastly, I gave them a little gift... When I was in Japan, we had a small 'gossip book', which we called 'The Pink Bible'. This was a blank notebook with a hard cover that could be used by all the participants to write down any kind of gossip, jokes and other kind of nonsense, to entertain ourselves during the trip. By chance, I had brought an empty notebook to HK, but didn't use it, so I gave it to them. I didn't need to explain much about how to make a gossip book... the pages immediately filled themselves almost. Great fun, I'm very curious to browse through the book after their trip.
So, about the company visits: on Monday, we visited GoldPeak, a company manufacturing batteries and light switches, which was really much interesting than it may sound. In the afternoon, we visited a very familiar place for me; the School of Design (SD) at the PolyU, where I spent 6 weeks for the IDO project, of course. I ran into Nicole, Roger, Peter and Sheila (tutors) and also my group mate Angela, later that day, by chance. It was very nice to see them again. At the SD we got some presentations and later we went to the Industrial Centre, which I had already visited during the IDO project; it's a facility for students where they have any manufacturing technique imaginable, to produce prototypes and such. In the evening I had dinner with the group in a nice Chinese restaurant. After that, I went with Joost (one of the organising students) to Mong Kok, to walk around and do some shopping. Later Yoyo joined us, as she had just watched a movie nearby.
On Tuesday, in the morning, we went to Philips Design, which is situated in the Science and Technology Park; a brand new and really high tech park where more and more R+D companies are settling. We first took a train from Tsim Sha Tsui to another train station, and from there, because we were a little late, we took taxis! A whole row of taxi's was lined up to bring a group of more than 30 people to the company... so luxurious! At Philips, we met some designers who gave interesting lectures about their way of designing. Very nice visit, but unfortunately time was too short to have a tour around the design office. After consuming the very nice lunch that was provided by Philips, we went to the Hong Kong Design Centre (again by taxi!), where we had some presentations about HK wanting to become the design hub of Asia.
I then said goodbye to the group and met with Yoyo and her friends in the evening, to enjoy a nice 'hot pot' dinner in a restaurant near my hotel.
On Friday, I met Trieu, my friend from Delft and former internship mentor. He owns a small strategic design agency in Delft, where I did my internship earlier this year. The day before, Trieu emailed me that he would be in HK for one night, on his way to Taiwan. He travels to Asia a few times per year for business. So of course we had to meet. Friday night I had just come back from Macau (see other post), so we met late in the evening at his hotel, Langham Place in Mong Kok. First, we went to the really bad 'Cyber' disco on Nathan road; hiphop and some 'gabber' type of music... nice, but REALLY LOUD. After a while we went to a place a bit more quiet; we took a taxi to Lan Kwai Fong on Hong Kong Island; the nightlife area where all the foreigners (and Chinese women looking for foreigners to hook up with) go. Drank some beers and enjoyed a nice live band.
It was kind of strange but ofcourse also a lot of fun meeting all these people that I know well in Hong Kong. I wish them a pleasant stay in Asia...
Back in HK
Well... I'm back in Hong Kong. I got here on Sunday night. Had a good flight, slept most of the time. I'm now staying at the Goodrich Hotel on Woosung street in Jordan. It's a budget hotel, but really good. My personal travel agent Yoyo arranged it for me, so good... Jordan is right in the center of Kowloon, and the hotel is just around the corner from the MTR station, so it's very easy to get around from here.
Metropolis / Sydney
As you may know, the city where Superman/Clark Kent lives is called Metropolis. This is actually a fictional city, conceived by Superman's creators Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel. But believe it or not, I am now really in Metropolis! For the movie Superman Returns,
Sydney was used as a stand-in for Metropolis. Most of the movie was shot on-set, at Fox Studios Australia, but some of the scenes were shot on various locations in the city, some of which I have already encountered by chance (
look here). Walking through
Sydney is really like walking through Superman's city... So
here are some pictures of the cityscape of Metropolis/Sydney.
Walking around in Sydney
One of the first things I did when I arrived in Sydney was buying a ‘Red Travelpass’ allowing me to use most of the public transport for one week unlimited. But my hostel is so centrally located, that I can just walk everywhere! Don’t really need the pass…
After getting up much too late, I walked from the hostel on Pitt Street to Darling Harbour. From there I walked up north, to the Harbour bridge and over it, to the other side of the water. Incredible view on Sydney’s skyline + the famous Opera House. Walked around there through some posh residential neighborhood, trying to find a ferry harbour to go back to the other side but didn’t find it. Took a train back instead to Circular Quay and ate some fish ‘n chips in a nice restaurant looking out on the Harbour bridge.
AN OVERVIEW OF ALL MY PHOTOS HERE
I Love \S/
When I was 7 (that's 19 years ago), my father took me to the cinema for the first time in my life. We went to see Superman IV, the last Superman movie with the late and great Christopher Reeve. It was just me and my dad, my sisters stayed home with my mother, they were to little at the time I guess, but just to avoid any jealousy, I remember ducking beneath car window when we drove off, so it would seem my dad was leaving alone.
I don't remember how he or we chose to go that particular movie, and even though Superman IV was the worst in the series, back then I thought it was to coolest thing I ever saw. From that moment on I have been a huge Superman fan. I love Superheroes in general, but Superman is The Greatest Superhero.
This Sunday was another memorable day for me, Superman-wise. The moment I have been waiting for since I saw Superman IV... the first Superman movie in 19 years. For years I have been following the development of this film on the internet and now it is finally here. I originally wanted to go to LA to checkout the big premiere in Hollywood and catch a glimps of all the stars. But then I went to Hong Kong, so I chose Sydney instead, because when you're coming from Holland, HK is already half way to Australia. But the more important reason is that Superman Returns, as the new movie is called, was shot in Sydney. Most of it at Fox Studios Australia, but some of the scenes were shot right in the city. When I read and saw this on the internet, I knew I had to go there. I would have loved to have come to Sydney on June 28 already and see the premiere with other Superman fans, but the IDO workshop didn't end until June 30.
So I went to Sydney on July 1 and arrived here on July 2. Last week I already bought the movie ticket online, because I wanted to make sure I wouldn't waste a minute to see the movie as soon as possible.
On Sunday night I took a bus to Entertainment Quarters, which is right next to Fox Studios! Appropiate place to see Superman Returns for the first time (this is also were all the online Superman geeks went for the premiere). Online I had booked a ticket for the 8:30 pm screening, but I was there early, so I changed my ticket to the 7:30 show. I walked around the area, ate some noodles, bought a 'Superman cup' at the cinema (silly promotional cola cup) and some popcorn and waited for the doors to the theatre to open... I chose a seat right in the middle.
Then I saw the movie.
After the movie I decided to walk back to the hostel. I like to be able to know my way around without looking at a map. Because I had already looked up where the hostel and the cinema were on the map earlier, I just walked back to the hostel on instinct. Coincidence or not, I suddenly recognized a place that I saw in the movie! It was Martin Place, where a scene involving Superman rescueing a car was shot. I was actually standing at the spot where Superman stood, just two hours after seeing that scene! Soooo cool... In fact, this place is on Pitt Street, the street where my hostel is.
But it appeared that having reached Martin Place, I walked too far north and had to walk back south to the hostel. But it also meant that I stumbled upon one of the shooting locations unintentionally. Couldn't have been a coincidence...
Of course you want to know what I thought about the movie...
It was FANTASTIC. It's what every Superman fan has been waiting for and I can't wait to see it again... many times. And to see it right next door to the studio where it was shot and walking on the place where a scene was shot later that evening... that's something to never forget. But there was only one thing missing this day... my dad. I would have loved to see this movie with my dad as I am a Superman fan because of him. I'm sure it's no coincidence that I love Superman so much. I hope to see it with him when I get back to Holland.
Photos of me arriving in Sydney, the cinema where I saw Superman Returns, here
Final two weeks of the IDO project
PHOTOS & VIDEO HEREI'm already in
Sydney now, but last week I was so busy, I didn't have time to post any new messages. So here’s what I did for the past two weeks in HK.
Working, working, working…
Basically, during the last two weeks of the IDO project, we all worked our asses off. We had to finish the final prototypes, report and commercial for the final presentation, so we really made long hours and saw little daylight. We survived on McDonald’s food and cup noodles. For the last few days, I barely left the building… The last two nights I worked all night long at the PolyU and lay down on the floor for an hour or so. After the first night I did go back to the hotel to sleep a few hours in the morning… when everyone was getting up to go to the PolyU I came back to sleep…
But the last day was really exhausting. Again, I worked all night long (and wasn’t even the only one!) to finish the damn commercial for the final presentation on Thursday afternoon. As always, it was last minute work to get it finished, so I really needed that last night’s work.
Even though we worked most of the time, there were some moments where our work could be pleasantly interrupted:
I saw Jackie Chan!
Week 5. We were working in the studio, it was lunch time. Suddenly someone walks into the room and says: “Hey, you wanna see Jackie Chan? He’s upstairs now!”
I didn’t really understand what she meant, but being curious, I walked out to see what was going on. It was the ‘Grad Show’ of the PolyU School of Design; a happening where the graduating students are … And apparently, Jackie Chan was a guest! At first, I walked straight passed him. Then suddenly I recognized him; it was the guy with all the cameras flashing at him. So cool! Normally I wouldn’t act like this when seeing a celebrity, but with so many people already there taking pictures of him, I didn’t need to feel embarrassed joining the crowd of ‘papparazzi’. I took a lot of pictures and videos of him; there’s a selection at the link below. Also check out the video compilation I made.
More photos of Jackie Chan HERE.
Birthdays
Andreas (from Germany) and Marije (from Holland) both had their birthday in the same week. All the students chipped in 20 HK dollars each and packed it nicely to give to Andreas and Marije. And we ate cake too, of course.
Photos start
here
Midnight swimming and BBQ at Shek O beach At the end of week 5, on Friday, Peter Dean (one of the HK tutors) had organized a really nice get-together at Shek O beach. We all went there around 6 pm to have a BBQ at one of the barbecues sites at the beach and do some ‘midnight swimming’ in the dark. The BBQ was so great. I learned from Yoyo that HK people grill more than just hot dogs, like I did the last time. So together with her I bought some great HK BBQ food at a shop at the beach: chicken wings, beef steaks, fish balls, pork, marshmellows… delicious! (too bad some cats stole one of my steaks… that was my favorite meat!) We had so much... when the rest was already long finished grilling there sausages, we were still going strong, barbecuing like real HK people do. In between preparing the food I went swimming in the sea. It was almost pitch dark, just the light of the stars. The water was still quite warm… such a special experience to be in the water in such a beautiful place, I won’t forget that easily.
Photos start here
Me and Yoyo at Ocean Park The IDO project has been a great experience… not just design-wise. I’m also lucky to have met Yoyo, one of the HK students. Boy meets girl… boy likes girl, girl likes boy… you can imagine what happens… as I said before, I’m crazy… about Yoyo.
In the weekend between week 5 and 6, we went to Ocean Park on Sunday. This is a famous amusement park in Hong Kong, built in two parts, on both sides of a mountain, connected by a cable car. It was extremely hot that day and we weren’t the only ones with the great idea of going there… it was also extremely crowded. But we had a lot of fun, going in the splash ride, watching the dolphin and sea lion show, sitting in the Ferris wheel and standing in line for more than 2 hours for Ocean Park’s newest attraction: a Jelly fish aquarium. Apparently this attraction is brand new, so everybody wanted to see it. But to wait 2 hours in the burning sun for this… that was a bit long. It’s just some freaking jellyfish! Very nicely lit, though.
Photos start here.
My room
Just so you can see where I lived for the past 6 weeks, here are two photos of me and Alex’s messy room.
Photos start here
The final presentation
On Thursday afternoon, each group had 30 minutes to show their work, in front of a small audience. All the students and tutors of course, plus some invited guests from the PolyU. There were some unexpected Dutch guests as well. Apparently Pieter Desmet (associate professor at my faculty at TU Delft) and Jeroen van Erp (co-founder of well-known Dutch design agency Fabrique) were in HK and Mathieu (Dutch tutor) invited them to come. All went well. Everyone worked really hard and that paid off: all the results were very nice, beyond expectations even. We can all be proud of ourselves. So now the IDO workshop has really ended. It has gone by so quickly, it’s incredible. I’d like to thank all the students and tutors for a great and very experience.
Photos start here
Boat trip
As a celebration of the ending of the IDO project, the tutors organized a really nice boat trip for the whole group. On the last Friday, we went to Sai Kung, where we boarded a rented boat and went out on the sea for the whole day. After less than an hour, the boat anchored near a very nice and empty beach. We had this place completely for ourselves. We jumped off the boat, swam to the beach and around the boat, relaxed in the sun… in short, we had a lof of fun in the sun. The weather couldn’t have been better and I couldn’t have imagined a nicer concluding trip to the IDO workshop.
Photos start here
In the evening we went to the Irish pub to see the Germany-Argentina soccer match with our German friends. Very exciting match! Congrats to the Germans.
And now my real vacation starts!
I'm crazy...
... for working two nights in a row at the PolyU last week, getting hardly any sleep at all (does lying under the desk and closing your eyes count?) to finish the product commercial for the workshop's final presentation last thursday. But it all ended well, each group has done great work. On friday we celebrated the ending of the project with a fantastic boat trip. Anyway, the project is now finished, which means my vacation has now officially started!
... for travelling to Sydney for one week to see Superman Returns, because it was shot there. Yes... surprise surprise... I'm now on my way to Australia! I'm typing this message from a free internet computer at Singapore, waiting for my connecting flight. Tomorrow night I'm going the see the movie I've been waiting for most of my life! I already bought the ticket online, can't wait...
... about Yoyo. I miss her already. Good that I'll be back next week.
> More about all this tomorrow hopefully...
Here comes the sun
PHOTOS & VIDEOS HERE(I had to delete some photos from last week in order to put up new ones... apparently I can only host 10 videos at a time)Didn't do anything really special last week, except working on the project. Had a good weekend though. With the clouds finally making place for the bright Asian sun, the feeling of vacation is starting to grow... On friday we went to The Peak with the whole group and had a very nice BBQ there. In HK you can find many BBQ sites, so you only need to bring your own coals, food and drinks. Very nice atmosphere, with only the fire as our light. And the view... close to the BBQ site we could look down onto the other side of HK; the ship harbour and lots of high buildings of course. So beautiful... I keep saying to the Chinese: 'we don't have this in Holland...'
BBQ with the whole group
Beautiful HK by nightOn saturday the weather was really great. With Marije and Annet I went to Stanley; a part of HK which is on the southern side of HK Island. It's famous for its market and the beach. Really funny, when you get there (by bus), it's like you've arrived in some kind of mediterranean village... so different from the hectic city life. We went to a nice little beach which was not too busy, just getting a tan and cooling off in the bay every now and then. Visited the - very touristic but nice - Stanley market and went back to the city, where we had dinner in a nice Italian restaurant in SoHo. I notice that my appetite for Western food is growing after 4 weeks... McDonald's is earning more money on me lately... also because they're so cheap; only about half of the Western prices.
Yeah baby, it's vacation!On sunday I spend the entire day in school (open here every day 24h), to work on some drawings... earn some money. Too bad for the sunny day, but luckily I could ignore that as there are on windows in the school studio. I posted a 'panoramic video' of our studio
here, have a look and see where I spend most of my time in HK.
This week things are starting to get a bit stressful... We only have 1 week left to finish our final presentation, which is always more work than you anticipate. So I'm prepared for making very long days, and seeing very little sunlight... actually I'm now still in school, at 11:3o pm, again, all alone... maybe I should go now...
Weekend
Last weekend:
CHECK THE PHOTOS HERE (AND VIDEOS!)Saturday:- Hong Kong Museum of History
- Shopping
- Eat with the group: most students and the Dutch tutors Stella (leaving) and Mathieu (arriving). Because of this dinner with the Dutch tutors, I thought I'd give the group some Dutch treats... Bought some real Gouda cheese and had it sliced into cubes. Stella brought the flags from Holland.
- Icecream at Haagen Dazs
- Drink some beers at a bar
Sunday- Went to Lantau Island to some nature finally, with Marije, Annet (Dutch girls), Sanna and Heini (Finnish girls).
- Seeing the Big Buddha... you guessed it, a really large Buddha statue.
- Walking along the 'Wisdom path' to some religious wooden poles
- We met Mathieu there and then Annet and I hiked with him along a trail for almost hours, while the others went to see a monestary. The hike was really nice, check out the pictures and videos!
- In the evening we watched the soccer game of Holland vs Serbia-Montenegro in an Irish pub. Expected there to be more Dutch people, but we seemed to be the only ones. It was a lot of fun though, watching the game. I dressed up in an orange shirt and wore an orange cap of course... 1-0 for Holland, great game!
Halfway...
I've been here for three weeks now already... Time flies when your having fun. The IDO project lasts six weeks, so we're halfway already.
Last weekend I was quite tired from the trip to China, so I didnt really do much then...
Walked around, visited a temple, sat in a park, took the escalators up to the mid-levels, saw X-Men 3 and did a bit of shopping.
This week, we have been working hard on developing ideas and concepts for the project. This morning each group gave a 15 minute presentation about this. In the afternoon, we heard there was a 'black rainstorm alert (with black being the highest, red medium and yellow lowest), which meant that all schools and shops close, so we could go home early. Soon after we left the school the rain stopped though, and the shops never closed, so the rain alert was no big deal. This evening however there was quite some thunder and heavy rain, so I was glad to be indoors. That's a bit of a pity; the weather here in HK hasn't been great since we're here. Mostly cloudy and rainy and the forecast for the coming week is the same. Hope to see some sun while I'm here, so I can go and checkout the nature around here.
To give you an impression of what we're doing here, I've posted some pictures of the school. We all work every day in our own room, with 4 tables for each group. In this room, we get lectures, we do brainstorms, draw, work on the computer, have group discussions, presentations, everything. Unfortunately it has no windows, so we don't see much sunlight during the day.
So let me describe a typical day for me in HK:
- Alarm clock rings around 7:30, or 8:00. I hit snooze a couple of times before I actually get up...
- Take a shower (good showers here).
- Breakfast: in the first week I had breakfast at the hostel restaurant, and ate toast with eggs everyday, but to protect my cholesterol level (and to save some time), I now stop by a bakery across the street to get some orangje juice and croissants to go.
- We then take the bus to the school, takes about 25 minutes. We start at 10 am, but I like to be a bit earlier, relax and check my email first.
- Around 12:3o we go out to have lunch, at a different place each day. One time this week I went with some of the HK students to a 'K-lunch', a Karaokebar where you can have lunch and sing at the same time! We had a long break that day, so we really enjoyed ourselves. It's a typical karaoke place, where you have your own room with a karaoke set, and you just order some food which they bring to the room. Quite cheap too, actually.
- After lunch we work on until about 18:00 or sometimes later. Really depends on the amount of work we need to do. If we have a presentation the next day, we might stay at the school until very late, even though yesterday my group finished really early, around 17:30, while most of the other groups worked very late.
- After school, I go and have dinner with some people at a restaurant. Food here is quite cheap. You can eat very well for only 3 or 4 euro.
- Usually get back to the hotel quite late. There's a basketball field next to the building, where we sometimes shoot some hoops at night. Good to get some exercise. The sweat makes you take another shower though.
- Bedtime...
Mondays and wednesdays are working days, so we can plan our day ourselves and do as we like. Tuesdays and thursdays we have meetings with our tutors and lectures (e.g. about presenting).
Each friday we present the results of the week, like we did today. My group's presentation went quite well. We all had to rate eachother, and our group scored highest, together with another group.
I also saw The Da Vinci Code this week. It was okay, entertaining. It was exactly like the book, which of course is better...
To see more photos,
go here.
Me and a temple
Me and the skyline
Me and some crazy Chinese students
The Real China
(Today I'm starting to post English for a change, so my foreign friends can read it too)
Well, it's been quite a week... (talking about last week - it took me a few days to create this post)
The short version: last week, from Monday to Friday, we went to the Yunnan province in China and visited the capital city Kunming and a small rural village called Keyi, to do research on the people and their environment.
If you wanna skip right to the pictures… I have put them on a different website. To see them, go here: http://temporaryexpatrick.myphotoalbum.com/ I got some video as well! Below you will only find a few images.
And now the long version...
On Monday, we departed from the beautiful Hong Kong International Airport (voted Best Airport in the World for 5 years in a row!) to Kunming, the capital city of the province Yunnan, in China. I expected to fly in a really small and old airplane, but it was actually quite modern and not so small. Food wasn't great, though.
A few hours later we arrived at Kunming Int'l Airport. Maybe you've never heard of Kunming (I hadn't, before I started this project), but it's actually a huge city! It has about 5 million inhabitants. Yunnan in total has around 43 million! A small bus brought us to the city, first to drop off the tutors at their hotel. You should have seen this place... it was probably the most luxurious and expensive hotel in the city!
How different from the hotel where the students were staying... Well, actually it wasn't bad at all... In fact, the Kunming University Hotel was a pretty good hotel, better than the one we are staying at in HK. We had our own bathroom! After settling there, we visited the school of design at the Kunming University, where they teach all kinds of design except industrial design. Still, I was surprised about the good facilities they have there... One roomed was completely filled with a lot of Mac workstations, G4 I think. Not bad.
Next morning we drove to the village of Keyi by the same bus, took about 2.5 hours. The roads weren't as bad as I though they would be. A bit bumpy sometimes though, especially the last part. On arrival near Keyi we were welcomed at the village gate by the villagers, dressed in traditional clothing. We had to participate in their ritual, meaning we jumped over a small fire, during which the woman were singing in their native language while men were performing some kind of dance... very special.
OK, at this rate I'm gonna write a whole book, so I'll speed things up a bit.
So, in the village we stayed in someone's home for two nights, it was very nice and tidy, much less primitive than I expected, though the toilet was a hole in the ground, in a small 'building' outside... interesting if you have to go in the middle of the night. The purpose of our stay in the village was to study the people and their culture; their products, their customs, traditions, skills, etcetera, so that now we can develop products for them that they can produce themselves and sell for export, such as textiles or wooden handicraft.
We interviewed people (with the Chinese students as translators), observed everything; took a lot of photos and video. My group went out to the fields to see what kinds of crops the people grow their. It was mainly tobacco, which Yunnan is well known for. About 90 percent of the village families grow tobacco, which is mostly sold to a Chinese cigarette company. Every day we ate in the village 'central building' at small tables and low seats. Everything we ate was locally grown, like the meat from the pigs, brown beans, walnuts, vegetables, eggs, potatoes. It was quite tasty. During each meal, the villagers would come up to each table, dressed in traditional clothing and bring out a toast to us, drinking their locally brewed 'firewater' (some sort of very alcoholic ricewine), after which they sang beautifully in their native language (not Chinese). They did this three times at each meal, for each table!
Some photos of the village:
For more, go here
All the houses in the village were very simple and poor buildings but surprisingly they had a very large and relatively new primary school building. Apparently that was sponsored by some rich guy. On the basketball field outside the school we played a basketball game against the villagers. It was a big event, all the school children came to watch and there were even a reporter and photographer from the local press to witness! You would think that the tall Europeans would easily beat those short Chinese, but nothing was less true! They were really good! Great fun, nonetheless.
On the last night, the villagers gave us a big show, with singing, dancing and music, which was so cool to see. Also, in return, we had to perform something. We (the Dutch group) sang Sinterklaas songs to them. Really silly of course, but I think they liked it. The big finale was a fire ritual, where we would all dance together with the villagers in a large circle around a big fire, with music and singing. That was unique, I will never forget. We just kept dancing around the fire till it was almost out.
The next day, on thursday, we drove back to Kunming via a touristic place called 'The Stone Forest', which is a natural wonder; very typically shaped stones, very beautiful. Finally the weather got nice that day, before it was all cloudy and rainy (but also a bit cool, so you dont sweat too much, which is good, cause we couldn't take showers in the village) Before we went back to the hotel in Kunming, we stopped by some shop selling silk products. We didn't really wanted to go there, but we had no choice, because we had a tour guide with us, who joined us at the Stone Forest, and she insisted that we take a look in the shop. I guess that's the way it goes in a communist country... After this short stop we went to a museum in Kunming, where we saw all kinds of traditional clothing and artifacts of the people of Yunnan, for our research. On the last night in Kunming we bought some souvenirs and had dinner in a restaurant, where we ate and drank for only 10 yuan (= 1 euro) per person! Amazingly cheap and the food was pretty good. Afterwards we went to a bar, where we were served big bottles of Chinese beer with tiny glasses! Apparently they didn’t have enough regular glasses for the whole group, so they just gave everyone a shot glass. To finish this great week, some of us went to a karaoke bar where we had great fun singing. I did 'End of the Road' of Boyz II Men of course...
Next day (friday) we flew back to a rainy Hong Kong.
In the weekend I did some relaxing, walking through the city and saw a movie (X-Men 3, pretty cool).
And that was my week…
