sábado, 30 de junio de 2018

New life: the Great Wall

The curtain rises and on the stage you can see two Indonesian couples, one British-Chinese couple, a five-member family originally from India but living in San Francisco, a four-member Chinese family living in Tennessee, an Italian girl, a Mexican, a Spaniard and... Yuyu. What is the name of the movie?

The Great Wall: same way up, same way down.

Seven in the morning and no one is showing up at the full-of-marble reception area of my hotel in Beijing. I am supposed to be joining a guided tour to visit one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, but, there I am alone with my brownish-greenish eyes half closed thanks to Morpheus. “ And now?”

After more than thirty minutes waiting, a very tiny and lively Chinese girl with huge black sun glasses -no idea if fake or real, the glasses, not the Chinese girl- holding back her messy hair, comes to me very excitedly and asks me if I was the españolito with whom she had talked last night:

- Hurry up, we are late. One of the other tourists was too late this morning and now we need to catch up.

- Yes, let us go! Let us see who runs faster... “I don’t know why, but I think that your friends from the jade factory and the tea house -also included in the tour- will not suffer from this delay”. While we literally run towards the bus, Dora, a little bit evil-minded, can’t avoid having that thought,

I don’t know where and when was the last time that I hired a guided tour but I recall perfectly saying to myself: never ever again. So, here I am now sitting in a small old Chinese tourist bus full of unknown people. “At least there is air conditioning”.

- Good morning my dear friends, my name is  我也覺得 (Chinese symbols selected randomly to express what I understood) but you can call me: Yuyu.

- “Great, thank you”. I feel like two fingers are trying to pull up both side ends of my lips.

- Today I am going to be your tour guide to the historical and  impressive Great Wall. On the way to the Great Wall we will be visiting the Ming tombs and a jade factory, where, by the way, we will have lunch.

- “I knew it... Have fun!”

- Can you understand my Chinglish ?

- Yes!!! Everybody answering at the same time.

- Good, then let me explain to you a little bit about the history of my beautiful country: China. The first parts of the Great Wall were ordered to be built in 221 BC by King Zheng of Qin, who united China basically by conquering the states of his neighbours, and thus became the first emperor of the Qin dinasty. But the main portion of the Great Wall, what can be seen today, was built in the fourteenth century during the Ming dinasty, in order to protect ourselves from the invaders and rebels from Mongolia.
On the way to the Great Wall, we will visit the Ming tombs, which are at the end of the Sacred Way and aligned with the Fobidden City and the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. Do you know the Feng Shui...? In China, it is very important the harmony of things... The interaction between the five elements: fire, water, wood, metal, earth... The balance of the Yin and the Yang...
The last emperor was Pu Yi from the Qing dinasty until 1912. Don’t confuse with Qin (the first one). Qin, Qing, Qin, Qing... Years later, since China was very poor, the Japanese -bad bad bad- invaded our territory... Mao Zedong finally won the revolution and founded the current People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949... With Mao, China started to recover slowly but we were still very poor because we had to return the money lent by Russia...

After quite a lot of non-stop-fast Chinglish talking from Yuyu, everybody in the bus is already sleeping -the power of Morpheus-, but she does not care and continues with her monologue. I realize that there are two or three heads in the bus still straight up and kind of listening to her, and my not-at-all-small-sized head is of course one of them. Dora is totally absorbed by what the teacher is explaining. I feel like one of those good students at school sitting in the first row with the hand continuesly up.

- Mrs. Yuyu, Mrs. Yuyu, I have a question: were the Mongolian really the bad guys of the movie?

Anyway, at one in the afternoon -six hours after departure- we finally arrive to the Great Wall -main objective of the tour- and Yuyu says:

- My dear friends, now you have two hours to walk along the Great Wall, remember that we still need to visit a tea house on the way back to Beijing, so I recommend that you take the cable car up to the top of the mountain -170 Chinese Yuan- to optimize your time. And the most important thing: don’t go to Mongolia. Remember always to walk same way up and same way down. Repeat with me: same way up, same way down...

In summary, and now seriously, the Great Wall is an impressive and breathtaking experience. Over 8000km of wall built by persons? There we were, my new really nice friends from the guided tour and this españolito, finally taking pictures like kids, as if there would be no tomorrow, which can indeed be dangerous, because some stretches of the Great Wall are actually quite steep. What a memorable fun day!

Please have a look and I see you all very soon, my dearest surreal readers, in Shanghai.

To be continued




Ming

Ming tombs

miércoles, 27 de junio de 2018

New life: Beijing_Ming_Qing

- The train is arriving to Dengshikou station. Doors will open on the right side. Please mind the gap with the platform. The recorded voice of a nice Chinese girl -who knows if she is really nice- repeats with a perfect English accent what, I assume, she said before in perfect unintelligible Chinese.

After thirteen hours flying and an eternity, minus X hours multiplied by the factor of exaggeration, waiting at the airport of Beijing to go through the police immigration control, there we are, my traveling team, my bags, my tennis racket and myself, surrounded squeezed in a train full of Chinese people. My face stands out in the crowd with a developing-brown-burnt skin color and my sixth sense, or seventh (I lost count), suddenly perceives some eyes on me.

- “If someone really thinks that I am from here, that one is completely wrong”.  I pretend to be ignoring the curious eyes and I just stay next to the doors, on the right side, studying the metro map of Beijing. “I look so much forward to laying on the bed of whatever my new hotel is”.

The doors of the train open and suddenly an avalanche of people sends me back to the wagon from where I actually wanted to get off. I understand immediately the rules of the game, so I decide to use the world-wide known rugby technique: to push forward.

- “Oh my God! What was that? Welcome to Beijing... and now?

The web page of my hotel was theoretically quite clear: take exit C at Dengshikou station, turn left and then left again, and after five minutes walking you will see our hotel.

- “I have been walking already fifteen minutes in the darkness of unknown streets in Beijing and this humidity is making me sweat like an Iberico pork, so maybe you better ask someone”. Google map and other American web pages do not work in China, because it seems that the owners of those pages do not want to provide the information of their users, and this is something the Chinese government does not accept at all if you want to do business in their territory. At a later point of time, I would learn what the Chinese people use instead of google map: bing dot com (bingo!)

After some good advices from, this time yes, for certain nice Chinese people, I finally get to my hotel and I jump onto my bed with an overwhelming mix of feelings: relief, happiness, tiredness, excitement... “Get some sleep and tomorrow you can discover the city”.

Dionysus is not being particularly friendly with me lately and keeps kicking me out of his paradise before scheduled. “Anyway, let us use this extra time given unilaterally by him to plan the day”:

- Forbidden City. I think, there was a sort of demonstration that day at the former Chinese imperial residential palace, because tens of thousands of people decided to get together at the same place and at the same time, talking to each other very loudly.

The Forbidden City is really impressive, once you manage to get in there after unlimited number of police controls, and it is full of history: the Ming and the Qing dynasties lived there from 1420 to 1912. First was the Ming dynasty who moved into this celestial complex, and two hundred and something years later, the Qing family redecorated the house by force; well, the almost thousand houses with 9999 rooms -according to the legend- that there are inside this little palace. Mao Zedong won the revolution and founded the current People’s Republic of China in 1949. In between those years, some battles took place. Unfortunately, like anywhere else in the world, it is all about money...


- Tiananmen square: like “plaza España” but hundred times bigger and hotter.


- Temple of heaven: place where the emperors did the offerings to their Gods for good harvests: wheat and... wheat.


- Summer palace: place where the emperors, empresses, concubines and the rest of the olympic team spent their weekends and summers. Here some clouds and blue sky reminded me that we were out of Beijing city; they have a serious pollution problem.


All this in one day: Day 10.  I am sure that my dearest surreal readers, clever by nature, have realized the existing date mismatch of the blog... but we are catching up. Tomorrow we will visit one the seven wonders of the world: The Great Wall.

To be continued 


martes, 26 de junio de 2018

New life: San Francisco 2

Sorry my dearest surreal readers but it seems to be totally impossible to keep the rythm of writing a post daily. I don’t know what Chispa & Dora were thinking about when they initially thought that a daily update would be possible. Anyway, I will for sure keep the blog updated regularly, as long as Mrs. WiFiXiLing allows me to do so...

The first week in USA is over and here I am right now (Day 8) with my mind full of great memories waiting for a flight that will take my team, my bags, my racket and myself to China. Next stop: Beijing.

The weekend in San Francisco has been awesome, fantastic, hilarious, wonderful... I am really thankful to my dear childhood friend, with whom, by the way, I lost the tennis match. All the way from Germany to San Francisco with the tennis racket on my swimmer shoulder to finally play a really poor US Open final. No excuses at all. I guess there was a sort of short circuit between Dora and my everything-but-muscled body, or maybe it was just that my friend played better...

Anyway, it is so special, after so many years, to still be able to play tennis with each other no matter where we are in the world and how older we are... He has more grey hair than me though.

San Francisco is a fascinating city. Since it is difficult to pick just one story or anecdote for the blog, let me please use again the old classic writing style of sharing the best pictures seen by my with-the-sun-always-greener eyes. I know I will never win a Nobel Prize in Literature with this writing style, but as my dear XXL-heart niece would say: it does not matter.

I just hope that these pictures or these few sentences can help you guys, my dearest surreal readers, wherever you are in the world, to at least recharge your respective body cells with positive energy: plus, plus...

This crazy round-the-world trip goes on and although this españolito has suffered some first symptoms of tiredness, we will just have a glass of wine and we will continue looking forward to the unknown.

China, be prepared for this españolito... or the other way around.

To be continued.














lunes, 18 de junio de 2018

New life: San Francisco 1

With more than one hour delay -a part of the aircraft had to be fixed in L.A.- we finally landed in San Francisco and I run directly to the arms of my dearest childhood friend:

- Welcome to San Francisco!
- Thank you! You look thinner! Dora had nothing better to think about than his physical condition.
- Yes, I have been training so hard for our tennis match.
- “You see, I knew it... Don’t worry, he is just trying to put pressure on you”. 
- But THE match is tomorrow, now let us have dinner in a very nice Japanish restaurant.

On the way to the restaurant, we can’t stop talking about Nadal and Federer. My friend is a kind of #vamosrafa guy and I am more into Federer: two kids defending vehemently their respective idols. When we arrive at the restaurant we forget about tennis and focus our entire energy on the sushi bar: a true feast for the senses.

- Wow! 

We start ordering with anxiety, sometimes not even knowing what we were asking for: Salmon, Otoro, Chutoro, Ebi, Ikura, Aji, Aka Yagara...

A crazy and very experienced looking Japanese chef -originally from the moon- answers hai to everything we say, while I am sure he is thinking: money, money, money...

After a while eating, drinking and talking, we suffered a full-of-tears laughing attack during a hilarious moment, in which there was really no way to understand anything. Suddenly, everyone in the restaurant seemed to be shouting -mix of American and Japanish unintelligible words in the air- and our crazy and very experienced looking Japanese chef was like the orquestra director having the situation totally out of control. There we were the three of us trying to figure out what we were eating. 

- This is Aka Yagara -accent on the ya and many exclamations at the end-, a very expensive fish with an ugly dragon head. There he was, the out-of-control orquestra director with a fish in his hands.
- We were astonished. At least he had just clarified one of the many questions in the air. The Aka Yagara, alias cornet fish, was really delicious and that piece together with the Otoro -best self-melting part of the tuna- left our respective taste buds singing and dancing. 

At the end, after so much chaotic laughing, I had the maybe-wrong impression that the chef was a little bit tired of us. I guess it must be exhausting to have every day all kind of people in front of you, with higher or lower level of euphoria, asking the same stereotyped questions about Japan and pretending that they are the best sushi experts of the world.

He gave the bill to a very sweet Japanish waiter and I am sure he said to her in perfect japanish: charge double. But maybe it was only my imagination. The Omega-3 level of Chispa & Dora goes up and down, and when they are tired, as they are right now because of the overdose of jetlag, their perfomance can be seriously affected. I definitely need to renegotiate with Morpheus the contract conditions.

Anyway, very happy to be in San Francisco.

To be continued.

Aka Yagara
Otoro




sábado, 16 de junio de 2018

New life: Venice Beach

Wow! What a wonderful day! Day 4, with Dora’s agreement, will always stay in my mind.

The feeling of freedom while e-skateboarding along the Pacific Ocean with a very special person, with whom one has spent so many important and fun moments, is priceless.

Venice Beach is a little bit over the top -anything is possible here, like people breaking your window in the middle of the night- but I am definitely very happy that I decided to make a stop here. For me doing this crazy round-the-world trip was not about the places I wanted to visit, that also, but about the moments that I wanted to share: and yesterday was definitely one of those magic moments.

Needless to say that running from Venice Beach to Santa Monica early in the morning is something everyone should do at least once in their life: there is no need to take my statements too seriously, at least this spontaneous exaltation of running.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, today let me just share with you guys, my dearest surreal readers, not only one picture, but some of the nicest moments seen by my almost-green brown eyes. Venice Beach, see skateboard you again soon.

Next stop: San Francisco. My tennis racket, which I am taking care of like gold in cloth (treasure), is about to make its debut. Please wish me good luck, because I will need it. My dearest Spanish friend, with whom I grew up playing tennis, is waiting for me in San Francisco and I am sure he has been training day and night over the last weeks just to beat me. I will need to stretch my limbs properly before our match -THE match- because at my age, I am discovering every day new muscular chemical reactions never noticed before...

To be continued







jueves, 14 de junio de 2018

New life: Miami 2

Gloria Estefan did not show up for our appointment. Too bad for her... How could I ever thought that I would meet her just by going to her restaurant? “Dreamer”. Well, at least I tried the empanadas from her grand mother Consuelo García, who emigrated from Cuba to Miami in 1962. And based on what I have seen in Miami, I assume -the unlimited power of suspicion- that Consuelo was not the only person from that seems-to-be wonderful Caribbean island looking for a better life.

Larios on the beach
Mojito (in case you were wondering, the long thing with the Cuban flag on top is sugar plant)
Miami South Beach: nightlife

I really loved Miami -expectations fulfilled- but the round-the-world trip needed to go on: this españolito is definitely more impatient than Willy Fog and his beautiful lioness girlfriend. I hope one day I can improve that skill: patience

During Day 3, my racket and myself managed to get to the next stop: Venice Beach (Los Angeles), where Murphy had prepared a nice surprise for me.


A new member of the trip that I forgot to mention: my tennis racket. Everything has a meaning in life -we just need to find it- but you guys, my dearest surreal readers, will at least understand very soon the reason for travelling with my tennis racket.

But back to Murphy. I have no words to describe him... We arrived last night to Venice Beach, as planned, and everything was initially perfect. I really like Venice Beach a lot. It is a wonderful natural place with a mix of multicolored people, who have one thing in common: live life to the fullest. 

Lovely sunsets, amazing beaches, nice people, cool shops and restaurants... But it is also fair to say that Venice is a little bit over the top: homeless people and drunk/drug addicts are present.

I was quite happy with my apartment but my everything-but-muscled body was a bit confused and did not know anymore, when it was time to go to sleep. Miami is six hours behind the time of my still city of residence in Germany and the local time in Venice Beach is three additional hours behind... Wow! I have just realized that I am almost one day younger!! Anyway...The fact is that I was so tired that I went automatically to sleep. 

Morpheus accepted me very quickly in his paradise, as always, with his little angels and stuff around... but suddenly something happened. Morpheus kicked me out of his cloud very abruptly!! Somebody broke the window of my apartment in the middle of the night and the noise was so loud that I moved from Morpheus’ paradise to a state of shock in cero coma seconds.

- Oh my God! What was that? Hello? There I was in the middle of the night shouting surprisingly in English -the power of integration into the environment- without knowing what to do. 
- Na toll!! German expression that comes out of my mouth senselessly while thinking. 

I decide to call the police and the owner of the apartment. Dora can only remember the number 911. 

- Police: Lock the doors and don’t get out of the house! If somebody tries to get in, please call us again. 
- Doors are locked. The window has bars outside and I will not go anywhere. Thanks. 
- Owner: Don’t worry, it is normal in Venice Beach that some drunk people brake windows from time to time. It happens once a year.
- “Great. He has a statistical study”. 

At the end nothing happened. The police arrived one hour later with their lantern -I was already on the way back from the status of shock to Morpheus’ paradise- and actually they were quite friendly.  They just confirmed the statistical study from the owner and filled a report called: vandalism. 

One of the police men was from San Francisco and before they left, he even gave me some recommendations for my next stop in this crazy but so far fantastic Willy-Fog trip: San Francisco. I almost felt like inviting them for a gintonic.





miércoles, 13 de junio de 2018

New life: Miami 1


Miami is, in two words, fascinating. How could I describe it? It is pretty much like in “Miami Vice”. People from my still very young-looking generation will understand it perfectly: the art deco style of the buildings in South Beach, the luxury sport cars, the skateboarders, the sculptured girls and muscled guys, or viceversa -remember my theory of the order of factors altering the product-, the palms, the boats, the skyscrapers, the mansions of celebrities and millionaires.

Day 2 has been... exhausting, no, the next level of exhaustion. On top of that, my skin has got a darker tone of a kind of brown color. Well, since I am a little bit colorblind, maybe it is not brown and is red instead. Who knows...

Anyway, in order to finish the day properly, I have decided to have dinner at the restaurant of Gloria & Emilio Stefan: Larios on the beach. I am a big fan of Gloria Estefan. Actually, I have also seen today their houses: the family house and the recording studio. Yes, I admit it, I am one of those tourists, who pays 28$ to take a boat tour with a very self-motivated guide, just to see the houses of millionaires.

The boat was quite full and, as always, in order to go unnoticed among the audience, I decide to sit down at the stern of the boat: last row of chairs. Two Chinese girls take seat next to me and automatically they start taking pictures like ones possessed. The guide -from Puerto Rico- seems to have unlimited experience as animator and starts trying to get people involved with typical questions and jokes -exactly what I hate immensely- and suddenly he asks: 

- And who is from Europe?!
- “It can not be true”

There I was at the last row, behind my colorful sunglasses, being the only one raising the hand with a kind of yuhuu-smile on my face.

- And where in Europe? Germany?
- “Do I really look like German?” No, I am from Spain.

After shouting Spain three times from the back of the boat, and with the support of a nice American woman who had louder voice than me, the animator reacts:

- Ah! Spain! España! R.Madrid or Barcelona? 
- “Well, actually I don’t care about football”. Madrid!!! 
- And on the left side you can see the house of Al Capone before he moved to another more exclusive island in Alcatraz...
- “Was that a joke?”

My neighbours at the stern of the boat, the Chinese girls, who until then had only been taking pictures as if there would be no tomorrow, suddenly start talking to me:

- So, you are from Spain? Nice country.
- Yes, very nice. Have you been there...?

Fola and Wendy were their names or at least that is what I understood. Let us say, that the conversation between the three of us was not very fluid: and one of them, Wendy, lives in L.A!!!

Fola -initially I understood Flora- was from Beijing and did not speak much English but since I am going to be in her country next week, I wanted to get some recommendations. Basically, I was interested in getting a name of a good restaurant in Beijing: just one restaurant.

After some let-us-completely-ignore-the-guide shoutings between Fola and Wendy, with some breathing breaks to show me unintelligible Chinese symbols on their mobiles -“this is going nowhere”-, Fola finally showed me her final recommendation in perfectly translated English:

- Roasted duck
- Is that food or a restaurant?
- Food.
- Wonderful! Thank you! “Direction nowhere is confirmed”.
- Do you like duck?
- Yes, I do. At the same time, I could hear in the background the loquacious guide talking about the houses from Ricky Martin, Julio Iglesias and David Beckham...

They did finally gave me a name of a restaurant in Beijing but, honestly writing, I gave up trying to understand the spelling. I just noted down quickly what I phonetically understood. The boat was arriving back at the port of Miami and the guide was already asking for tips: money, money, money...

Both Wendy and Fola were very nice and smily -which I love it- and actually the boat tour was worth it, but it was time to say goodbye. Gloria Estefan was waiting for me... 

To be continued












martes, 12 de junio de 2018

New life: Day 1

Today is the first day of my new life.

Well, actually it is not exactly the first day, it is already the eleventh day (same as Nadal’s victories in Roland Garros) but, as my niece would say, it does not matter. The truth is that it is the beginning of a new life, indeed, and I am overexcited and scared in equal measure; also no precision needed with this measurement.

Ups, am I writing in English? Yes, I am. I guess, my two brain cells are too affected by the events of the last months, or maybe it is just the fact that we want to broaden our horizons and reach the whole world with our crazy adventures. Whatever the case is -I would bet for the second one-, please accept in advance my apologies for the grammatical failures you may will find.

Passion moves the world, right? So, my dearest surreal readers, after eighteen years working for the same company, a couple of months ago I decided to quit my job and to explore new paths in my life with a clear single goal: to look for passion and positive energy.

It sounds strange but it is real. For some time now, there were too many signals in the air and, at the end, it was like... white and in a bottle. What is it? (milk). I said to myself: now or never. Decision taken and moving forward like the citizens from Alicante. Non-Spanish speakers, please do not try to understand this last sentence.

And what a better way to start a new life than travelling around the world? That, travelling around the world and meeting new cultures and people, was always one of my dreams, so once the milk was found, which was not easy, there was no way back: “Españolito” lost in the world. 

So here we are right now the five of us in Miami. Yes, the five of us. For those of you, who don’t know well this “españolito”, let me introduce you some lovely characters micro organisms, who always travel with me, whether I like it or not, anywhere I go:

- Chispa & Dora: my two brain cells. They are sisters. The first one controls unpredictively the level of irony in the atmosphere, and the other one, Dora, uncontrols very selectively my memory. Both are getting older and concerningly dangerous in their respective responsibilities.
- Lola: the crystal ball that, with worse or better precision -the order of factors alters the product-, has the ability to see somehow the future.
- Murphy: the “cabrón” friend always placing stones on the road or just trying to make the journey more challenging (?).

Anyway, here we are in Miami: Move to Miami...” 

In the following days I will try to share with you all, my dearest surreal readers, in a kind of regular basis, details and anecdotes of this particular Willy-Fog trip. But we just landed a few hours ago in Miami and, while Trump is shaking hands with Kim-Jong-un (Dionysus help us), Morpheus is giving me a hug.

Sleep well my dears... Zzzzzzz

To be continued