And off we go...

A little post in English to all my readers, German or English (or whatever language) speaking...

I wanted to announce this way earlier, but with the earthquake in Japan and a nuclear meltdown in sight I wasn't even sure if I would go on a trip in any eastly direction.

But now it's decided and everything's settled: I'm going to go on a trip to China from Sunday on...

Woah... this is going to be so weird...

Being a proud banana, I don't know any Chinese at all (Vietnamese wouldn't help anyways). The even weirder fact is that my friend phl87 (you might know him from blog entries like this one or his own blog), German as can be, will act as my interpreter and tourist guide. I'm looking so much forward to awkward situations, lost-in-translations and cultural shocks... not.

But the thought of going to a place that's bubbling with hopes of prosperity, change, economic progress and optimism seems quite appealing to me. (Escaping the German Angst and anxiety, you know...)

My first stop will be Shanghai. To illustrate the change thing I'll show you two pictures of Shanghai. Both images show the same location, yet they seem to be completely different.

This was Shanghai in 1990 (click to enlarge):

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/shanghai-1990-vs-2010-2010-6

Shanghai in 2010:

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/shanghai-1990-vs-2010-2010-6

The only thing that seems identical in those two pictures is the river.

I'm curious.

Oh, and another thing: Blogspot is not accessible from China, so posting will get a bit complicated. However, I'll try to post as often as I can by sending icassop (a trusted reader of this blog) my entries by e-mail. Icassop will then post them on my blog. I'll try to keep everything in English...

So, see you soon!