Welcome to the published part of my life!

I just got an eMail from a close friend of mine, who got worried because I didn’t post anything after new years and didn’t tell you anything about my return to good old Germany.

Therefore:
I just want to tell you that I’m back in Erfurt at my parents place since last Friday and that I had a wonder-wonder-wonderful trip!

I’ll try to post some more pics of the trip during the next couple of days, but I don’t promise anything… I’m busy as always

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!

^ Chinesische Mauer

^ Birds Nest – Olympia Stadion in Peking (mit Smog)-

^ Terrakotta Soldaten in Xian

^ Grosse Moschee in Xian

^ Reisterassen in Guilin

^ Yangshuo

^Mondberg in Yangshou

^ Das Bauhaus ist auch in Hongkong

^ Alte lustige Strassenbahnen in Hong Kong

^Sonnenaufgang auf Malapascua Island (Philippinen)

^Der Blick aus unserem Bungalow auf Malapascua (Philippinen)

Die zufaellige Begegnung mit dem Praesidentschaftskandidaten der Philippinen

^Mittag mit Jay

^Ich sehe das erste mal wie Ananas waechst

^Indisches Essen (siehe Blogeintrag ueber Singapore)

^Pulau Ubin – Eine Insel vor Singapore

^ SUSHI!

It comes all together here in Singapore: China, Southeast Asia, India, Europe, America….  and all this cultures and people live next to each other creating a very special atmosphere. On the other hand, the government is very strict on basically everything. So the city is super clean and you sometimes even have the feeling, that there is a garbage paranoia in the city, because everything is tidied up every second… But in some way this is a nice retreat to the countries we’ve been to before.

The one week we spent here, was really great (we had to wait so long for our Visa to Myanmar, therefore we’ve been stuck here for so long). Christian was showing me around, we visit his university and spent quality time with the friends of him, who still live here.

What stood out of the week was again the amazing food ( I feel like all my blogs are just about food ). The best experience was the Indian restaurant in Little India, where we where the only non-Indian people and I was the only woman in the whole restaurant. You just ordered some meat at the counter and then you got a banana leaf on your table and the waiters where going around with rice, pratas, all sorts of vegetables and souces and you could just tell them what you want and how much, and they will take a huge spoon an “trow” it onto your leaf. And than you start eating – with your hand… Already this was just so much fun! You where never allowed to eat with your hands as a kid, and now you where allowed to dig in the food as much as you wanted:) And it was sooooooooooo delicious! Amazing!

Other than the food, I also enjoyed seeing the first wild monkeys, snakes and lizards of my life, seeing ridiculous Christmas decoration everywhere, enjoying the view of the skyline and much much more.

Now we are leaving to Kuala Lumpur and afterwards we are flying straight to Myanmar. This is the most “original” country of southeast Asia, where they don’t even have ATMs. So I don’t assume to have ANY internet access over there. We’ll be there for two weeks, so this blog will most probably not been updated during this time. I’m already totally exited for Myanmar… Lets see how it gos

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!