Preparing China

Today we bought the Lonely Planet China, new edition, which is a "calhamaco" (portuguese) of thousand pages. We discussed a lot about buying this one, or the old edition (half price) or just print the chapters we wanted. After not finding where to print 300 pages on double face and double page per sheet, we decided for the book. And seeing the with the Olympics alot changed, better to have an edition post-Olympics.

Also we exchange our read books with One Man's Bible from Gao Xingjian, Literature Nobel Prize, exhilated in France. His books are not authorized in China, so we will have to hide it a bit on the backpack. Just as for the Lonely Planet because it lacks to say Taiwan is China.

Last Monday we bought the ferry tickets for tomorrow. It will be a 15hour navigation to Qindao, where we will catch a 5.5hour train to Beijing. Willing to buy Business class tickets, the lady in the port told us that it's men/women separated, so we upgraded to Royal class. It means we get a cabin just for us. Also in the boat, apart from eating, we can sing karaoke and go to public bath and sauna.

In Beijing, Saturday, we will meet our friend Anne, from Geneva (well, she is from South Africa, but as most of our friends, there is origin place and living place... actually, she lives in France with Giovanni, Italian boyfriend).

The Renminbi values about a tenth of a Euro, at 9.71 yuan/euro.

Our plan is to travel South along the East coast of China and go at same point to HongKong and then continue West direction of Vietname or Tibet.