Pour ceux qui ont des problèmes avec l'anglais...

J'ai rajouté un petit onglet à droite qui permet de traduire le blog en français... Évidemment, la traduction n'est pas parfaite, mais c'est déjà pas mal... :-) Ils sont forts chez Google!

Milestones!

We are currently planning our trip with a bit more detail, getting a rough idea of where we might go and when. So far, the list looks like this:

- Cusco
- Macchu Picchu
- (second's world highest train)
- Lake Titicaca
- La Paz
- National Park Noel Kempff Mercado (work at the farm...)
- Belo Horizonte
- Rio de Janeiro
- Florianópolis
- Itaipu Dam
- Iguacu Waterfalls
- Rosario
- Buenos Aires
- Montevideo
- Puerto Madryn
- El Calafate
- Ushuaia

Ok, ok, the list is quite long... But it is indeed not the final cut! Please help us getting this list longer/shorter. Any (useful) comment is welcome :-). As you can see, we also updated the map with the corresponding places (yes, we worked hard tonight!).

Interview in Madrid...

Today I got a little bit closer of knowing what I want to do next year. So I had an interview at the CIEMAT in Madrid. I think it went pretty well, especially for the two days preceeding the interview, that I also spent in Madrid, at Isabel's (which once was an erasmus student in Stockholm, snif snif).

Intensive Preparation to the interview...

Map updated!

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Sunrise session #2, Great Wall...

Sunrise session at the Yellow mountains...

You've seen the pictures of the sunrise on the great wall a few posts ago... But not as good as expected. So we went again for another early sunrise session : on the top of the yellow mountains, one of the most famous touristic areas in China.
After a long ascension, exclusively on steps, we slept at the top. As you can see, the weather was not perfect, but the landscape is still great.





Getting up at 3am, then walking to the best spot is part of the touristic tour. Everybody got up, and nobody regretted it (not that I've heard of anyway).

And since  there are 1,3 billion people in China, there  has to be lots everywhere, even in the mountains,  at 4am. Do not believe we were alone, it is definitely  not true...

Chinese Wedding - part 2

There we are... on the wedding day! As we say in France, "mariage pluvieux, mariage heureux". In fact, this day must have been the most rainy day of all. The chinese wedding tradition is quite different from ours. Hopefully, Yannick had had a few days to brief us on the  behaviors to adopt/ban (especially when eating/drinking).

So... about the tradition : this day is special because Yannick comes to take his wife from her parents' place (not so different so far...). BUT : he cannot get into Lina's home, because her cousins are guarding the place. Yannick will have to bribe them to get rid of them (with actual cash...).

When bribed, the guards let go the door, and Yannick has then to face Lina's girlfriends. They make him promise all sorts of things, and even sing a song (better performance than at the Karaoke, hopefully)

Now Yannick can see his beautiful bribe. Unfortunately, she misses one shoe (high-heeled, which make it impossible to go on without it). Everybody on Yannick's side will help to find the hidden  shoe (maybe Lina's family thought this would stop Yannick).

 

Everything is ready now... Yannick has to take Lina to his place. But he has to carry her to his place (no wonder  why americans have a different ritual).

Yannick's dad and uncles can help!

Once Yannick earned the reward, speeches, lunch, and dance show!!! I promise I upload the pictures as soon as I get them. As the bestman, I had some unexpected duty to do (like getting the key to Yannick&Lina's car -  whose driver was nowhere to be found -  the speech of Yannick being locked inside). In the afternoon, a long march throughout the village is organized. The path is indicated with thousand of firecrackers - no  picture for now unfortunately :-(. Apocalypse Now!!!

Chinese Wedding - part 1

After a good night  of sleep  in the train, we arrived in Hubei province (at Wuhan). Then, took the bus to Xiantao, the  closest town to Lina's family village - Sanfutan. On the first day there, we visited Lina's family. It is part of the tradition to pay a visit to all the members of the bride's family the day before the wedding. We visited 11 houses in the village (her parents', grand parents, uncles, etc...). 

Lina's grand parents place - she's been living there  until she turned 5.

The thing is, there is a tremendous gap between the two families. Especially in terms of wealth. I have some funny pics of the french guests walking in the mud in fancy shoes  :-), but I do not anybody to be mad at me, so I wont give anybody away!

An extremely provocative picture (10/10 for the sexual connotation in China)

After a dinner, and a dance show at Lina's primary school, the chinese proved their expertise at fireworks (you'll see that they did that on the wedding's day as well...).

Shanghai

On July 7th, Yannick and I flew to Shanghai to pick up the rigolos' group at the airport. Synchronization would have been perfect if their flight did not get there 2 hours late...
Anyway, 7 minutes of transportation later (30 kms, at 430 km/h), we finally made it to downtown Shanghai, China's capital for Economy.
Shanghai is very different from Beijing. There is a law in Beijing saying that the highest monument downtown cannot be higher than 18m. I got the impression that this law is not applied in Shanghai. Let's see the next picture for example :

You think that's a skyscraper? Then you're right. But you may not have noticed that the picture was taken from a 420m-high skyscraper...

sunset...

News Express

Yannick has planned everything down to every hour, so I have not had so much time to post so far.
On July 4th, we have visited two magnificent buddhist temple, one of which is the exact replica of the dalai lama palace in Lhasa.
The next day we went to Yannick's graduation, which was very much like in american universities. In the afternoon, we drove to a small village next to the great wall, where we had dinner, and a short night of sleep.
Yannick, his cousin and I woke up at 4am to climb up to the great wall, and had a great view of the sunrise over the great wall. After a 7-hour walk on a non-renovated section of the great wall, we met up with Yannick's family.

Tomorrow, Yannick and I are getting up at 4am to get our filght to Shanghai, where we shall meet with other friends of Yannick. We will then directly go to Hubei province, where the wedding will take place.
It means I probably wont give any news for a while, and wont be able to post for a while. I hope I will have time to upload many pic

Beijing surroundings...

After having fetched Yannick folk on Friday morning, we went directly on a one-day excursion to Chengde to visit two nice temples, one of which is a replica of the Dalai Lama's temple in Lhassa.
On saturday afternoon, we head north to a small village next to the Great Wall. After a very short night of sleep, Yannick, Benoit - Yannick's cousin - and I climbed up to the mountain top. We managed to make it to the Great Wall before the sunrise (4.45), which was, as the pictures show, highly rewarding...
Then we walked on the Great Wall until noon, and met the other members of the group (which had not shown as much 'bravitude').

Tsinghua University

Yannick's magnificent bike... I should keep the picture of me on Lina's bike for later... I don't want to ruin the surprise. Let's just say Lina's bike is smaller than Yannick's.

Yannick's class... Some do not look that happy to graduate.

One of the numerous place in the university where you can just forget you're in Beijing...

China!

Here is a map where you can locate the different parts of the trip. I should stay in Beijing until the end of the week, (Yannick has of course planned some excursions, to the great wall for exemple). I will try to update it regularly.

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