Auckland

After another 11 hours I am getting a bit tired as I could not really sleep this time. Arriving at 06.00, trying to get through customs with my Cheese from Amsterdam. This is rather difficult to get in, aswith any other food, did not realise that before. They checked my sealed Cheese and allowed it although it was not packaged the right way. They were very friendly though ....

I am in, getting the bus to the rental company. They are not open yet, so one of the cleaners let me in. One hour later they brought me to the airport again as there was the car :-(.

It is a small but very new car. It is the first time I drive on the left side and I needed to get into the city at 08.00 in the morning, so it was rather crowded. It's not so hectic as in Amsterdam though and I managed to find the hotel in the middle of the town. My first impression is rather different from Shangai. I mean especially the people are very different. Many Asians though, but less friendly. Again most workers here are from Asian origin and also speak bad English. The hotel itself is OK. As I could not go into the room I had to do something until 13.00. Having a harbour boat trip is one of my favorite past times, so I took the 1,5 hour one. Auckland is beautifully located and the trip was worth the money, but not very spectacular.

From Wikipedia:

The Auckland metropolitan area or Greater Auckland, in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country, with around 1.3 million residents, over a quarter of the country's population. Demographic trends indicate that it will continue to grow faster than the rest of the country. Increasingly cosmopolitan, Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world.

It is a conurbation, made up of Auckland City (excluding the Hauraki Gulf islands), North Shore City, and the urban parts of Waitakere and Manukau cities, along with Papakura District and some nearby urban parts of Rodney and Franklin Districts. In Māori its name is Tāmaki-makau-rau, or the transliterated version of Auckland, Ākarana.

Auckland lies between the Hauraki Gulf of the Pacific Ocean to the east, the low Hunua Ranges to the south-east, the Manukau Harbour to the south-west, and the Waitakere Ranges and smaller ranges to the west and north-west. The central part of the urban area occupies a narrow isthmus between the Manukau Harbour on the Tasman Sea and the Waitemata Harbour on the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the few cities in the world to have harbours on two separate major bodies of water.



I am not sure but it is less overwhelming then I expected. Maybe it is because it is wintertime (15 degrees C), but cities like Boston, Oslo and Vancouver which I visited and which are comparable located are to my opinion much nicer. I also think that people leave from the harbour itself to the many islands in the bay for the weekend and parties. Driving up to the city gave some spectacular views though already of the surrounding areas with the sun coming up.

It is a rather relaxed city, you see this especially in how people drive, not in how they walk, they tend to walk very fast.

After flying for over 23 hours I took the liberty to sleep some hours in the afternoon and now I an writing this entry from an Internet bar.

I think tomorrow my real adventure will begin with driving along the coast and afterwards ending up with my friends where I will stay for two days. I hope to be posting everyday, next stop Rotorua.

Shanghai

What a city; big, dirty, hectic, scenic, in one word overwhelming. As written we took a taxi from the airport. I have had scary drivers before, but here they are all equal, there are no rules, not for them nor for pedestrians. Amazing I did not see any accidents. There are also many mopeds, electrical, so you do not hear them and they all tend to use no lights at night, so again very terrifying ....

It took some time to find the hotel, located in the heart of the city.

I was not tired at all, so I said to myself, use the day and got out right again. I asked what to see and especially the Bund with the river Huangpu (Shanghai sits on the Yangtze River Delta) and the Yuyuan Garden.

The Yuyuan Garden is a special "silent" part in the City. Well silent because there are no cars, but there hundreds of visitors. This is the case in the complete city, everywhere it is hectic. There are more then 1 B Chinese, well officially here only 20 M, but seems to be muich more ....

From Wikipedia about Yuyuan Garden:

Yuyuan Garden (Simplified Chinese: 豫园; Traditional Chinese: 豫園; Pinyin: Yùyuán), located in the center of the Old City in Shanghai, China, is considered one of the four finest Chinese gardens.

The garden was reportedly first established in 1559 as a private garden created by Pan Yunduan, who spent almost 20 years building a garden to please his father Pan En, a high-ranking official in the Ming Dynasty, during his father's old age. Over the years, the gardens fell into disrepair until about 1760 when bought by merchants, then suffered extensive damage in the 19th century. In 1842, during the Opium Wars, the British army occupied the Town God Temple for five days. During the Taiping Rebellion the gardens were occupied by imperial troops, and damaged again by the Japanese in 1942. They were repaired by the Shanghai government from 1956-1961, opened to the public in 1961, and declared a national monument in 1982.

The tempels are very nice, also the many fish (Gold Fish) in the pools are amazing. I will add pictures later in the official blog www.hpkok.com.



What about these Chinese .... well most do not speak English, in the hotel some words, but still difficult to understand. The taxi drivers do NOT speak English nor can read a map, so you have to show them the name in Chinese. Eventually you get there :-).

After my first stop I went to the Bund.

From Wikipedia:

The word "Bund" means an embankment or an embanked quay, and comes from the Urdu word band, meaning an embankment, levee or dam (a cognate of English terms, bind and band, German term, bund, etc.). "Bund" is pronounced to rhyme with "fund". The term was brought to India (where it came to be pronounced as "bund") by either the Mughals in at the beginning of the 16th century, or possibly, by the Baghdadi Jews like the family of David Sassoon, and thence to Shanghai by the family of Victor Sassoon. There are many "bands" to be found in Baghdad, even today. There are numerous sites in India, China, and Japan which are called "bunds". However, "The Bund" as a proper noun almost invariably refers to this stretch of embanked riverfront in Shanghai.

There are not a lot of tourists, so I am asked many times to buy, from Postcards to toys and other "stupid" stuff. So they get me so far to buy a trip on the river. That was something I wanted to do anyway, so no harm done. It is a rather humid day, so viewing the Skylline from the windy boat is a welcome change. On the boat I am the only foreigner. Chinese are rather outspoken, especially in groups, so it is not really quiet, but still cosey and it gives me an atmosphere of being for the first time of my life in a "new" country, I have seen many though.

Wandering around after the boat trip is bringing me to several interesting outdoor markets places. I did not see any dog nor cat, but here you see all kinds of animals, from small snakes, frogs, strange fish and some other animals I have never seen before. And yes those are not for keeping at home, it's all for eating. The skin of many is stripped at the market place itself, you want it fresh, you get it fresh :-).



Eating out is also something special, you smell the food from far, some smell is unbearable ... I still smell it now typing this entry.
The taste (not from the above) is though very good and I tried several smaller dishes, from pastry, bread, to meat and fish. It's is really an outdoor life, everything you can get on the streets. I also bough me a special flute for my sister, not so sure it will live my travel though, as qaulity seems not so good.

The city and the people are divided into poor and rich, also in the shops, from the exquisity Swarowsky to a one table restaurant, where to eat for a few cents it's all there, sitting almost aside each other. Srange but interesting atmosphere. There are also many beggars, mostly very young kids sent by their parents. Difficult to not give, or to get rid of them. Seems almost no one is giving money.

I had an arrangment with this Norwegian guy later that evening
and went out again at 22.00. I checked the street he mentioned. Many bars, many females, I was asked for a massage several times, so I left if fast ... the guy did not call me, so he might have been busy after all .... I ended up in a nice Blues bar.

The next morning I had a coffee at one of the many coffe bars. Why is this still not starting really in Amsterdam, we do have many coffee shops, but you do not go there to get a good cup of coffee.

After the coffee I took me a taxi again to the Pudong international airport. Again the taxi driver did not speak any English and I thought he took the wrong road and I behaved a bit angry, it helped and he stopped the meter 10 Km before the airport. Paying even less then going into town, so it worked :-).

Up to another 11 hours flight ... New Zealand here I come.

Flight

The flight was ok 11 hours. I met a nice Norwegian businessman. Together with him I took a taxi to the hotel a 40 m drive. He invited me for a drink in the evening. About that later.

The route and distance

The distance for a direct flight would have been around 18.000+ Km, now all together around 22.000 Km.

Ready to go

A few more hours and I am off. All presents, well most of it anyway, arranged. First stop Sjanghai, China.
It's a short stop, but I hope to see some stuff, like The Bund and Xintiandi.

The Bund (simplified Chinese: 外滩; traditional Chinese: 外灘; pinyin: Wàitān) is an area of Huangpu District in Shanghai, People's Republic of China. The area centres on a section of Zhongshan Road (East-1 Zhongshan Road) within the former Shanghai International Settlement, which runs along the western bank of the Huangpu River, facing Pudong, in the eastern part of Huangpu District. The Bund usually refers to the buildings and wharves on this section of the road, as well as some adjacent areas. The Bund is one of the most famous tourist destinations in Shanghai. Building heights are restricted in this area.

Xintiandi (Chinese: 新天地; pinyin: xīn tiān dì) is a car-free shopping, eating and entertainment area of Shanghai, China. It is composed of an area of restored traditional shikumen ("stone gate") houses on narrow alleys, a modern shopping mall with a cinema complex, and some ad joining houses which now serve as book stores, cafes and restaurants. Most of the cafes and restaurants feature both indoor and outdoor seatings. Xintiandi has an active nightlife on weekdays as well as weekends, though romantic settings are more common than loud music and dance places. Xintiandi means "New Heaven and Earth", and is considered one of the first lifestyle centers in China.
Xintiandi is near the site of the First Conference of the Communist Party of China.
The area was developed by the Shui On Group during the re-development of the surrounding area, when similar shikumen houses were demolished wholesale. The houses in Xintiandi were then restored, and now house an art gallery, cafes, and restaurants. The marketing of xintiandi is mainly targeted towards overseas visitors, especially visitors from Hong Kong, who seek to experience the romanticised atmosphere of old Shanghai. As a result, prices in this area are high, even by international standards. Eating or shopping in this area is seen as a status symbol by affluent local residents. Many tour groups both domestic and from abroad also visit Xintiandi as one of the main attractions in Shanghai.

Chinese Yuan

For one day I need to have at least some Chinese yuan or renminbi.

The yuan is, in the Chinese language, the base unit of a number of modern Chinese currencies. The same character is used to refer to the cognate currency units of Korea and Japan, and is used to translate the currency unit "dollar"; for example, the US dollar is called Meiyuan (美元), or "American yuan", in Chinese. When used in English in the context of the modern foreign exchange market, the "Yuan" or "Chinese yuan" most commonly refers to the renminbi (CNY).
One yuan is divided into 10 jiao (角) or colloquially "feathers" (mao) (毛). One jiao is divided into 10 fen (分). In Cantonese, widely spoken in Hong Kong and Macau, jiao and fen are called ho (毫) and sin (仙). "Sin" is a word borrowed into Cantonese from the English "cent".

Few more days

Only a few more busy days and I am off to New Zealand. I will be visiting Shanghai first and I almost forgot to get me a visa. To not loose several days to to to the Embassy itself I used my travel agency and "Het Visum Bureau" in Amsterdam. Last Friday I got my visa, just in time.

I will need to take some extra weight as my friends in New Zealand "need" some typical Dutch stuff, like liquorice (Drop in Dutch).

Well I think I am almost ready, but main issues are handled, like ticket, vouchers and the visa. Maybe one more entry from Amsterdam, next one will be from the trip itself.

That is strict

Today I got my visum for China, so I am allowed to stay 1 night in Shanghai. Actually I have to be there before the 16th of July and if I am in the country I have to leave within 3 days. So that is an additional 70 euro's for 1 night, so an expensive visit :-).
But this was my last serious issue to arrange before leaving, except all the usual stuff of course. So almost set to go next week ....

Visual route

This is my new planned route, now visual.