Indonesia, Balikpapan…somewhere in the middle

Did I mention in previous post that I miss China. Now I miss it more. Long story short, we left Kuala lumpur and after 3h flight landed in…Balikpapan. Yes, you read it right. I’ve never hear about this place before, although to get to Bali, its happened to be cheapest thru this small city and after that one more on our way to Bali- Surabaya. We thought that its even good and we can see more of Indonesia. Beaten paths are not always so excited and we avoided flight thru Jakarta due to flood happened there two weeks before. Anyway we are here in Balikpapan and after obtaining our visas on arrival-25$ each or 250000 idr. Ok, we have slightly problem with converting this currency to Chinese RMB, finally figured it out 1$ equal to 10000idr which means 1550 idr. We thought we got it but, couldn’t be more wrong, we still have in mind, 7000idr for water? Do they cheat on us?
Currency here is crazy but anyway, after paying for visa, we spent around 1h to immigration. Immigration officer nicely pasted visa into my passport and we went thru luggage check up. On the airplane flight attendant inform s that we don’t have to fill out declaration form if we don’t have anything to declare. She was wrong. We had to and because we didn’t have it and also maybe because we were last ones they decided to check our luggage. I’ve got scared a little, not like I carry drugs or something but I read those stupid stories, how old British woman is in ten jail coz somebody ask her to carry marihuana. Anyway after check all and everything in our bags they let us go. I like china though. They don’t do that, sometimes after immigrations they will check your luggage, especially when you are flying form Moscow;) but they don’t go inside your luggage. But anyway Asia is ok if it comes to airport immigration. They don’t ask you to take off your shoes, you don’t need to take out your liquids. There is not so much people in the line. In China they don’t ask you why you are here, where you are staying etc. simple, easy.
We are here in Balikpapan. We wanted to take some bus to city center but could find any and had no choice. Taxis are cheap. Trip to the city center, don’t get scared-45000 idr- 5$. Very nice.
Taxi driver dropped us off next to the shopping mall, and guess what? This small city has even Starbucks. Ok, but we need to find hotel. Here it is, beautiful big, 4 stars hotel. Price 500000idr, it took a while to calculate but yes price is nice. Lets take it. After paying we needed to take lift for employees as for guest was broken. It’s ok but when we get to the floor, no it cannot be true, carpet, doors disaster, maybe room will be good. Nope, smell like cigarettes, old furnitures, disgusting. We went down stairs , R throw the key on the counter and said that we are not staying and want our money back, how they get those 4 stars anyways?
Surprising but they’ve give our money back. Lesson learnt, never ever trust to the hotels stars in Asia. Here hotels can have 5 starts but standard is usually really bad. Go with franchisers, in which you can trust. Those are usually cheaper than in Europe and standard is the same like in Europe.
After living our stuff we went to the city. The thing surprised us, drive thru ATM. Ok, I used them in States, but never ever seen them in Poland or even in China and here we go another shock in Balikpapan.
Street stalls. Yeap, we needed to try local food. The problem was, nobody can speak English, we try to show, point explain. Nothing worked out. Finally we left. Situation repeat from china. People stare, people don’t speak English. I think it’s normal for small cities. People stare coz its not common for small cities to have foreigners, people don’t speak English, because they don’t need it. Different in Kuala Lumpur, everybody could speak English, but 60km away, at airport for cheap airlines, people don’t speak English! We had problem even in ordering food. China is not so different in this point.
Ok, but lets try to have some local food. We saw that nice restaurant in the corner. It was simple dining with local food. Waitress couldn’t speak English as well but they had at least menu in English so we just pointed what we want. Food what amazing. Served really nice, like in nice restaurant and taste- awesome. And at the end, we paid, 50000idr- 5 $. Even in China in the cheapest stall on the street you wouldn’t find food so cheap and most important, so good!
Indonesia I love you!

What to say I love you Indonesia.

Chinatown in Malaysia

It’s 2 in the morning and we are landing at the Malaysian airport. This Spring Festival we decided to spend in Malaysia and Indonesia. I would love to be by that time in China but it was chance for us to go and travel.
So here we are in Malaysia, its night it’s warm and its busy. I’ve never seen airport full of people as I saw now. Restaurants open, people are sleeping everywhere or waiting till the morning to take a bus to hotel or take a flight early morning. We also, decide to wait at the airport before we will go to the hotel and do check in. We stayed there for 3h and afterwards took air asia bus to the city. We were lucky and they didn’t ask us to pay. Our hotel, located in china town, didn’t have any problems for early check in. Uffff. Actually for almost 6h we were sleeping. Then we went to see what city has to offer. There is free bus which goes to different part of city also from china town.
It’s called “go kl”. This way we went do butik bintang- the commercial center of kl.
Malaysia is Muslim country so you will feel the difference between China and Malaysia. In china Muslim Chinese don’t dress clothes like for example women here. In Malaysia the women cover all the body including face or only face is uncover. In china usually Muslim Chinese women cover body but by wearing regular clothes and of course covers the head.
Also in Malaysia you will find trains divided by coaches only for women and coeducational one.
We’ve tried to find some Malaysia restaurant but its so difficult and Malaysia food is actually Indian food or Chinese food or even mix of both those kinds. There is a lot of indians and Chinese in this country, so actually I don’t know how Malaysians look like.
As I said we are staying in china town, yes we came from chin to stay in china town in Malaysia. They say that Kuala Lumpur and china town here never sleeps. Well actually stalls after 11 pm are closed and dinings the same. But china town is interesting on its own. It looks like china but smaller. There is a lot of fakes and you can do nice shopping here for cheap clothes and accessories.
In comparing to china, Malaysia is expensive. The hotels are more expensive, food is more expensive and actually everything is more expensive. But for western people, ok I’m from Europe but live in China for a while already that I can say China is cheaper but Thailand the cheapest.
Today we went to see batu caves. It takes around 30 minutes from china town and only 1 myr.
Batu caves is really nice spot to go out of the city. You need to climb 250 steps to get there and it would be nicer view to see if its cleaner but monkeys just make big trash dump with this place. One monkey actually attacked our backpack and took out can of red bull. When we’ve done we decide to taste South Indian food which is vegetarian and really tasty.

Its one day left here in Kuala Lumpur but so far I like mix of the culture here, and I always have sympathy to the Muslim countries which I adore. But Malaysia is not only Muslim country, its country full of indians, Chinese, whites, and many other who live here, travel here or just stay for sometime. Everybody can speak English here, totally different than in China. Maybe because its mo touristic place. In china you won’t find so many tourist and you won’t find people speak English. People don’t look at you or stare at you because sure here they see a lot of tourists.
Also compare. To China people here are so nice, helpful and smile at you when they are helping you. The most positive people I’ve ever seen so far.
But be honest I miss a little my China.

Resident permit in China

Christmas wasn’t as I expected. Actually Christmas Eve we spent in polish restaurant in Foshan near Guangzhou. I was really excited to go there. Only one polish restaurant in south of China and it Christmas, has to be somehow close to polish celebration. Actually it wasn’t. But anyway after few shots of zoladkowa Gorzka we left. Outside it was big nice celebration, parades and a lot of fun. Pictures unfortunately are missing as we accidentally lost the phone somewhere on our way.
On the second day of Christmas we decided- yes we are going to Poland. I’ve had mix feelings about that. One part of me wanted to sty in nice and warm China, the other wanted to go and meet with the family.
In Poland we spent 3 weeks. 3 long boring weeks. Yes, there is not too much to do during the winter there. We shuffle the driveway off the snow, we slept at 5 in the evening we the most important enjoyed polish food.
But another thing we finally proceed my working visa for China.
It’s not easy to actually do it, especially if you try to get all the documents by your own.
The most difficult part is to obtain employment license from Labour Ministry. You need to fill in thousand of forms and wait until they tell you something is missing but yeah, in my situation as I’ve got already my employee ID I didn’t need employment license but we thought lets do it in the case.
Embassies also require invitation letter from duly authorize unit. This document is totally difficult to get and actually we didn’t even try to do it. We checked with my Embassy and somehow they didn’t require that kind of invitation. Lucky me!
The last thing is health check up, as I did it already in China on the official form I didn’t have to do it in Poland.
With those documents I applied for visa and here we go after few they I’ve got my working visa. What a beautiful day!
Long weeks in Poland passed away and we are back in China. First thing we went to do it was work permit which require a lot of paperwork again but we went thru it and after one day we’ve had my work permit. I finally received my resident permit. The happiest day in this year.

About Chinese. again

Chinese are very loud when it comes to conversation on the phone. Especially if you are traveling you will realize what it means. Ok, they talk not only on the bus, in the cafe or on the street. Its not the problem they talk but they talk so loud that if you even would like to rest on your way on the bus you cannot. There worst thing they will pick up the phone and talk during yoga class and they don’t care you came here to focus one thing only. If you say something they will look at you with big surprise on their face. Chinese usually don’t say sorry or please. They will say: ” go there”, “come”, ” do this”. They won’t say “could you…”, ” please help me” etc. they are usually not so polite.
Last time we were witnesses at the cafe. There was that couple, they come to the cafe and the girl with small girl voice said that she doesn’t want to stay here. They left but after 5 minutes they come back. The girl with madness at her face don’t want to seat there and here. Chinese have world for that: sa jiao. The girl actually act like little girl, and expect guy to take care of her, all the things even if she can deal with all the things herself. She acts like little girl when she cannot get what she wants. I read it’s really common for Chinese girls, the most surprising things what I saw here is when guy carrying girl’s pierce. It often happens that guy carries girlfriends bag on the shoulder like his own. It makes smile on my face. Its really helpful when your bag is heavy and big but when it’s small little pierce, there is something which not supposed to happen.
For me another surprising thing in Chinese is when people, especially girls say to you how beautiful you are. It doesn’t in my country. Girls don’t say to each other, hey you are so beautiful!
Here it’s really common and girls dont have any problems to say that. Today some people come to see apartment we are renting, and women who was one of those people, instead of looking at the apartment, she was looking at me and saying how beautiful I’m. If you are really white, but you cannot be tanned and your skin have to be purely white, you are beautiful. It’s western countries usually people try to get tan and more tan they are more better it looks, they think. Here is opposite.
We are on our way to Poland. Christmas are gone but we decide to go as we probably won’t find time to go in near future. Change 17 C degrees into -5. We will see.

Few word about Chinese habits

Western and Asian courtiers are not only two totally different worlds but also two totally different places with different people and their habits.

When I was coming to China at first place all I knew about Chinese that they speak…Chinese they eat rice and burping for them as normal as for polish saying excuse me. But eating rice every day, reading and listening in Chinese and burping were not only things I have to use to while living in China.
Chinese frequently speed out, in the car, on the bus, on the street or at the airport. They don’t care if it’s nice restaurant or dirty bus station. They take stuff into their throat and speed all the way out, no matter where. So you better be careful when you driving bike and suddenly somebody spread out on you from standing or driving next to you car.
The another thing, which not so often but happens also in Poland. I’m talking about taking over your place in the line. For example, you are waiting in the line to buy bus ticket, pay for groceries or just catch the taxi and there will be at least 5 Chinese, coming from nowhere, taking your place and having your taxi, buying last ticket to place you were about to go or submitting documents while you are still waiting because you didn’t have enough time to react. Ok, Chinese seems to be rats race. If you are not first somebody else will be there before you, so all you can do is just fight, to be first. Here the is no time to wait, time is money, or maybe Chinese just don’t want to wait, yeah like all of us. This thing I learn to react, either by shouting at somebody in English as I cannot speak Chinese, and that person just look at me like he/she doesn’t realize it wasn’t polite to do, or just stepping in from of person who’s took my place and giving to cashier my stuff or my documents to be submitted first. This is how I’ve taken my first lesson of been not polite but this is only way to survive in this country. Some people would say, you have to wait, you have to realize its not your country and you should let it go, but I just can’t.
Anyway, one more thing which surprise me is kids peeing on the street or even more. Yes, you didn’t read it wrong. I guess people here thing that is not healthy for kids t keep it on hold when they need to use toilet and took it so serious that you will see and don’t be shocked when see kids peeing in the street, in front of shopping mall, in the subway or into airport’s thrash bin.
During the lunch break, between 12 and 3 in the afternoon, Chinese like to take small nap. I like this habit here and use it as much as can but usually in my own bed. People in china don’t use only bed to take a nap, but any place which can be convenient for that. For example, bench in the park, shopping mall, or grass in the park. Sometimes there is no time to get back home, or it’s just to far. In that case any bench will be the option.
People here really are scare of getting tan. For that reason they carry with themselves umbrella. It’s sunny, rainy or cloudy but umbrella is the must. I’ve been asked a lot of time where is my umbrella and if I don’t scare to get tan. Hell, I wish to get tan but sun doesn’t work for me. I can say in this situation, lucky me. More you white, more you are beautiful in China.
In south part of China there is no central heating system in the apartments. It’s getting colder but not so cold as it is in Shanghai, Beijing or even Hunan. But if it gets colder, it can be around 15 C degrees in the apartments. There is no other way but live in the coat, which includes wear the coat in your house, go and seat in the jacket at work and sleep in the coat, sometimes:) but for this also solution can be found, drinking Chinese baiju or go for public exercise in the park. It will definitely warm you up.

Japanese Chinese issue

I woke up in the morning, sorry I was wake up in the morning by wind blowing trees around. Ok, not like it’s not normal, but well I’m crazy scared of typhoon here. First thing I do when I see big wing is run and close all the windows.
No typhoon happens in yangjiang in years only storms. But anyway like with weather today is stormy and tomorrow we will see sun, hopefully… Anyway we went to Japanese restaurant as we love sushi. Need to be mention for about one month we were only costumers there. Yes, since Japanese – Chinese conflict for island Chinese stopped eat sushi. It was small demonstration in yangjiang against Japan and since that one Japanese restaurant, I have to mention the best in the city was closed. I was hoping it is just temporary and they will reopen in shortly. Nothing like that happened, actually today they sold this place. I am not sure what happened as it was the best place in town and they’ve had costumers, so it’s not like business went bad. The another restaurant, not so good, didn’t have costumers as well but they decided to wait and they were right as now over month after costumers came back. So for one month we were only costumers of one of the Japanese restaurants in yangjiang but it didn’t happen only in here. The same in Dongguan I guess as we went there only once and what a surprise, happened to be only costumers as well. Dongguan in the nice city well developed with bunch of the Japanese restaurants. We found Guangzhou different. There Japanese restaurants still were occupied. I guess people weren’t touch so much about what’s going on in politics.
I hope it will stay that way, otherwise I have to learn how to deal with Japanese-Chinese conflict in my own kitchen.

Christmas is coming to town

Christmas is definitely not Chinese thing but no worries, Christmas will find you even in Here.
We live in Yangjiang, small city in south china. In Europe definitely you wouldn’t say is small city but here if you wanna see “real chin” you have to visit one of those places. yangjiang is small but nice city with a lot of rich people. If you think china is poor you are so wrong. People even don’t drive Chinese cars but buy overseas to keep “face”.
What funny thing about yangjiang is there is a lot of cafe shops here, one next to another, which can be surprising as Chinese don’t drink to much coffee but milk tea or hot water. But yes, there is 5 cafe shops within 50 meter length.only one is quite busy. What with rest I don’t know.
But back to christmas time, we were about to go to Poland to celebrate Christmas with my family. Things happend, mostly visa things, which probably make us stay in China. There is 20 Celsius degrees outside and most of all first cHristmas without any snow. In supermarkets we are able to here Christmas carols, there is few poor Christmas trees in the stores but you won’t feel that atmosphere you will find in west countries. If you ask me if I miss it, I will say hell yeah, I even got myself lights to hang in the house, no tree though as I couldn’t find one I liked. But ok, if I have to celebrate Christmas here I will do it. We are about to move to Shenzhen, as we kind of tired of small cities already. I really hope it will happen before Christmas.
Last week we went to Guangzhou, and what surprising and also reliving, there is bunch of Christmas trees, beautiful Christmas tree, everywhere! I was impressed, even in Poland you won’t find it. For that reson I hope my Christmas here we will spend in big cities so we will get some of desire atmosphere. Maybe it’s me who is crazy about as rick is Muslim and don’t care too much about Christmas but also were excited about are Christmas in Poland.
For now we don’t know what is our next move but hope we will figure it out soon.

Chinese food and dining

There is no other food Chinese would eat with every meal during the day. All of us know that is called rice. And if you think that you will find all kinds of rice in China, you are definitely wrong. Rice here is expensive and usually you can find few kinds of rice only in the supermarket. Brown, basmati, yasmine…if you like them, you’d better find them online. Yes, china not only doesn’t have too many choices of rice but also has to import from another countries to support such a big consumption of it.
Ok, I am not a big fun of rice but when I’ve had to eat rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner i had to say stop. I am from Poland but we don’t eat potatoes in different form for each and every meal.
Here in the morning it will be porridge and one bowl of rice for lunch and dinner. In Guangdong province it’s famous t eat soup with every meal. During the day you have to also drink a lot of hot water and I think that’s why in this part of china is so difficult to find fat people.
The other thing which surprised me is tea. Chinese drink tea, they have nice sets of pots and cups to brew the tea which you can find in each house or office but again there is not to much kinds of tea you can find in the houses or even in the stores. The are store only with tea but there are not too much occupied as I would expect.
Chinese love dining. In small city you will find a lot of BBQ places on the street. There are cheap and serve usually kebabs, grilled veggies like eggplants, or porridge, noddles etc. you can find also sushi, yes is kind f surprising but they can m sushi for you. with every dining or KTV time comes dices with is the major entertain for Chinese. They eat they drink and play dices.
All foreigners would ask, how about dogs? Do they eat dogs. Unfortunately yes, they do eat dogs. Few weeks ago I still wasn’t confident that is true until my trip to the dirty market for some fruit shopping. I saw big dog, yes it was killed dog for sell and the other thing for food. Not all Chinese eat dogs but it’s not anything embarrassing or weird to eat dog. They eat snake, turtles, birds, cockroaches, bugs and a lot of things I scare to even look at.
But the most important things – there is polish vodka in supermarket so at least some beverage I can enjoy here. And in big cities you will find all food you can only image.

Not only Bangkok

Here we are, after 3 hours spent in the line to Macau border, two and half hour flight, we finally landed in Bangkok. In Thailand you can apply for visa on arrival and as we planned this trip two days before and we didn’t have one, it was our plan too. First surprise which happened, I don’t have to apply for visa, just need a stamp in my passport. Wow! It’ awesome! Rick, as he holds Indian passport, needed to apply for visa. It took around five minutes and1000 bht. That’s it, we’re all done. Now we can just explore!!
I expected Bangkok to be more rushy, more wild and more unorganized than China. But what was my surprise- we saw long the line for taxi and thought, man, let’s take subway but know we gave a try. Ok, it didn’t take more than 10 minutes till we sat in the cab. First you have to tell the attendant where you want to go, which is going to be written on the receipt then you will get your piece of paper with the destination, price list and give it to the taxi. Everything’s smooth and organized. It remained me about our way to Poland, when after over 8 hours on bus, plane and train we finally made it to the Beijing and was trying to get taxi. It took around 1h waiting in the line to get one.
The other thing is the price. In China it can take about 100 rmb to get from the airport to the hotel in the city center, here it was 280 bht which is half of the Chinese price. great! What I can say not only taxi but clothes, items, Food- Thailand is cheap!
First thing we were dreaming about to do after leaving our staff in the hotel was to try original Thai food. We’ve had Thai soup which I can called my favorite now, but after dinner we couldn’t miss to have some drinks.
Ok, what they say about Bangkok it’s true. It’s place for lonely old… And young guys looking for ” adventure”. Nobody hights, nobody pretends. Streets full with ” white” men in company of Thai girls is common. Sukhumvit Road Soi 4 is the largest in the world sex complex and consider as red light district. Ok, but for us it was the best street for having drinks, bbq on the street ( you have to try!) and spending nice time in company of my fiancé.

About bbq in Bangkok – it similar to Chinese bbq places. On the street people selling food,   gathering, siting at the tables. Chinese and obviously Thai love to eat and gathering especially at night. I haven’t seen anybody playing dices as it happens in China but it this care everybody enjoying time in the bars.

Taxis. You can choose tuk tuk, taxi or bike. All of them are extremely cheap and you can make half of the price, its ok. But remember sure you can have a ride for 50 bht with tuk tuk but they will take you to the tailor, jewelry store or any kind of place they have deal with. Those places belongs to their sponsor and for bringing costumers there they get 5 liter of gas/for each. Good deal for them and for travelers who want to save some money on the transportation.

First day we went to the The Grand Palace but as we didn’t wear proper ( actually we were inform about that by some man standing in front off Palace) clothes we decide to come back here later. It was no need as those people try to fool you, you have to wear long pants, and cover your shoulders but you don’t need to wear socks of totally cover your feet. Anyway, it was awesome inside but really crowded, so after 1h we’ve enough of this place and went to China Town. Yes, we live in China but still I really wanted to compere China Town to China Towns in other cities and for sure to China.

Frankly, it’s crowded like China, it’s full of stalls like China, restaurants are like those in China. Ok, Thai China Town looks kind of China Town in NYC or like China in general. No surprises. We get out from there as soon as we found tuk tuk.

Tuk tuk drivers are fast and I would say crazy, but not as crazy as one taxi driver who after long over one hour ride in the traffic and 100 but we bargained, took as to hotel and didn’t say a word just hit steering wheel, shout loudly and drive away…<ups> I guess he realized afterwards it wasn’t worth to take us for such a small money, but well he did…

We totally felt in love in Bangkok. It’s cleaner, more organized, cheaper, fun and more that China is. Rick says: If you wanna do business – it would be Shanghai, for traveling, living an fun Bangkok is better. I cannot say more than agreed but cannot wait to move to Shanghai. One is sure you won’t see as many foreigners in China, even Shanghai, as you see in Bangkok.

Bangkok at night

Tuk tuk ride

Sa-wat-dee kraup

Mid fall fest.

It’s been over 8 months since I moved to China. Ok, I moved 2 months ago but my story in this beautiful? Country had started 8 months ago.
A lot of things happened during these 8 months, too much to go into details but here I’m live here, try to work here and learn how to be a little bit Chinese.
I tell you, it’s not so easy to actually live here. Language, culture, people’s behave is something I still don’t get or maybe don’t want to get but starting to understand.
Maybe I’m not supposed to complain too much because here it is, my amazing fiancé, who can speak perfect Chinese as he lives here for 8 years already and frankly is probably more Chinese than Indian. I don’t have anything to worry about as he is there for me to translate to deal with each and everything but I will work it out anyway to bit more that a piece of this language.
It’s Chinese holidays started 3 days ago and after we finally get back home, ok we spent 3 days to figure it out how to get there since all bus tickets were sold out for the next 3 days, we made it, and again on our way to celebrate Chinese Mid Fall festival, not in China but in…Thailand.
I’m so excited since Thailand is in my mind from few months. Ok, this time is going to be Bangkok only, but next time, hopefully I will make it there to Krabi to do nice rock climbing. For now just relaxing, shopping and see sighting.
Our flight is tomorrow from Macau so finally I will also be able to see this country. Macau is on the border with Chinese Zhuhai where we are staying overnight and so far could find even Indian restaurant. It’s really easy to find Indian restaurants in China, none of polish ever found but will work on it too.
After our amazing trip in Europe, again we are going for traveling – next stop Thailand.