By now, most of you will know it, but I think its still worth a post.
On Monday I will start to work as a research assistance in Berlin with Joerg Raisch and hopefully produce some useful staff to get a PhD degree somehow, sometime (probably not so soon 
). So if you stick around our capital city during the next years, give me a call and I will be happy to host you 
I know its a bit to late for the first wish, but the second one comes still in time So I hope you had a wonderful Christmas time with your loved ones and will have an awesome celebration to welcome the new year. All the best for 2010!
And I just wanted to leave a short note that we are back from Myanmar, that we had an amazing time and that we are still fine and busy with travelling. After a short visit in Bangkok we are now on Puket and we will fly out to Sydney tomorrow. I hope I find some time soon, to tell you more about Myanmar!
We flew into Singapore today and left the Philippines behind. And yes, we where kind of sad, since we had a great time there!
The first day after arriving at the Philippines we spent in Cebu, the second largest city of the Philippine Islands. And it was a very, lets say interesting, experience. We where walking around the town, it was raining, all the wast and water was running down the streets. It was dirty everywhere. We bought a lot of food just of the street in China, but in Cebu you had the feeling of getting sick just by walking though the streets. It was really bad, way worse than we expected!
But I don’t think it was a wasted day, even though it was the worst of our trip so far. It kind of helped to put the following days into the right light.
The plan was to go to Malapascua Island after visiting Cebu city to do some diving. And this island was nothing like Cebu City, it was just beautiful! Palm trees everywhere, long sandy beaches, blue sky, blue water, sleeping in a little hut right at the beach and enjoying a very relaxing life with not many tourist joining us. It was just what you imagine a holiday beach in the Philippines looks like.
While we where there I took my Open Water Dive Certificate and Christian was diving all day long. Diving felt quite wired at first, but after I got used to all this heavy gear and the strange feeling of breathing under water, it was just awesome! You are totally weightless under water, just floating around, looking at fish, snakes, corals, snales,… And I even saw sharks on my last dive! So crazy those creatures!
After we spend 4 (too short) days on this little island, we took a flight to Manila to meet a Philippine friend of Christian in Manila. And it was so worth it! Jay met us in Manila and spent three wonderful days with us! It is so awesome to have a local friend showing you around, bringing you to the local eateries and pubs, showing you how buying fresh seafood and fish at the market and getting it cooked by a local eatery works, driving you to the most random places nobody else would ever find. You can’t pay that off with anything! We had the best food ever on the trip (even if Philippine food is not very famous, we liked it a lot), we got invited for diner to a Philippine families house, we went to remote hot springs in the jungle,… It was just fantastic.
So we where all a bit sad to say good bye yesterday, especially when you know, we won’t see each other again so soon.
Apart from that we are now in Singapore, Chistians temporary home a couple of years ago. So I got the best local information just right from him Lets see what this city has to offer!
… is a wonderful hostel in the countryside outside Yangshuo, which is run by a Dutch couple and is a wonderful place to stay at! We where lucky enough to find it and decided immediately to stay longer than we intended.
Since our travel plans changed in Xian (Trains where booked out forever) we decided to go to the south of China (Guilin) immediately. Unfortunately the weather was quite bad during the last couple of days, so it was getting really cold down here and it was raining a lot.
But I guess this “cleaned out” all the tourists from this region, and we were nearly alone today when the sun came out. The landscape around Yangshuo is just breathtaking! And when you go with your worn out rented bicycle over those bumpy dirt roads trough those little, tiny villages along the river and through the rice and vegetable fields, along Pomelo- and Orange trees, you can not imagine that there is a more beautiful place in China. The peak mountains around are just gorgeous and the sun was pleasing us the whole day! Fortunately we have time to stay here for another four days.
So if you ever visit China, make sure to stop by the Giggling Tree in Yangshou. They have a restaurant with the best Chinese food I’ve eaten so far (even better than dumplings), it really feels like home far away from home and the landscape is unbelievably scenic. And make sure that the weather had been bad the days before you come, so you can enjoy the whole scenery all by yourself!
Last weekend, Astid invited me to her Diploma- and belated Birthday-Party. Even though the train connection to Magdeburg from Dresden is quite bad on holidays, I took the time to go there and it was definitely worth it! I really enjoyed the party and all the amazing food!
And since also a couple of other people came to the party we used the occasion to also consecrate Christian and Astid who successfully defended her thesis last week. New funny tasks, new creative solutions and two trophies at the end.
Congrats again for both of you!