May 16. Oh those rice terraces...

Windows of Yuanyang is a community shop selling handicraft run by the large Christian NGO World Vision. They cannot accept donations of any kind, because of the system the big host ngo imposes on them. I perfectly understand the need to eredicate corruption, but I simply can't deny that I feel the unnecessary burden of bureauracy resting upon my shoulders. Here we are, a small informal ngo, just willing to support one poor family with a scholarship or a means of income generation, and we are being denied. There are not even forms to fill out, no way to cooperate, even though the women at the handicraft shop are very helpful and friendly. The are just not allowed their independence, because World Vision deems it more transparent and effective when all vital decisions are made from behind a desk.
We walk around the pretty town of Yuanyang and have breakfast amidst a group of age Frenchmen. I walk off to the market and take some photos of merchants and children - this place is teeming with life. Since we can't really support the organization actively, we end up buying some of their handicrafts (I try to insist on paying more, but they have to give back the exact change). We bridge a few lazy hours in the small coffee room above the handicraft shop. I have already bought us onward bus tickets.

Then we continue to Lushun. It will take us a few more hours and from the window of our bus we get a glance of the brilliant rice terraces. I understand why people travel here "just" to take photos. We shoot a few, not entirely satisfactory, but hey, we also bought a pack of postcards with really pretty views of that rice paddies.

The guesthouse in Lushun gives us a nice treatment. Very good value you get in southern China. Living like a god in China, it could become a proverb some day.

May 11. The TRIKE.

Lijang offers what we need the next morning. We walk to a grand hotel and feel grand as well, when several employees do their best not only to seat us and offer us a Western breakfast, but also to call a taxis that can take us to a tricycle store. We use their internet for several hours, and look for couchsurfing contacts in Laos, Vietnam, Cambodja, Thailand, Malaysia, and Bali, do our correspondence and leave the place with red eyes eager to DO something.

But what good can we do without ngo's, without language, on a limited budget? I decide to make a dream come true. I always wanted to buy a tricycle (a 3-wheeled cycle-cart for adults), use it to cycle around the countryside and enjoy the view, and then - donating it to someone who needs it. It can considerably enhance the livelihood of an empoverished merchant, let's not forget that. And we don't need to be all professional and statistical all the time. There is no harm in giving a gift to the right people. Yeah, right. But how to find them? Here is how we did it.

April 25. Way high.

Arrive in China with a touch of old-age grandeur, by boat rather than by airplane. We take the big ferry from Incheon to Weihai (pronounced way high) and have a convenient overnight journey sleeping on a mat and munching cup-o-noodles. Upon arrival, we gaze at the diligent cranes and trucks performing the logistic necessities to keep the giant we are about to enter going. Bulky containers are placed on oversized trucks as if they were little toys. As a first impression of China, it might be an adequate one, at least it reinforces the stereotype.

We walk around and find the port city quite similar to Korea. Breakfast in a place that has no English, but eggs with tomato, a staple in this region. We are disoriented and feel stupid because we haven't prepared ourselves for the linguistic vacuum. We try to hitch a truck, the driver smiles, but it is too hard to ask if he could give us a ride to Beijing without any language. So we take a bus to the train station, book a sleeper train to Beijing and have lunch in a kind of food court that serves delicious fresh noodle soup - promising for the remainder of our stay in China.

And so we enjoy our first day here, while our luggages sleeps at the station and wait for our train to take us to the capital.