I was feeling relieved too early.

Sunday, while travelling in Henan province, I had another relapse. It again went up to the point, where I could not even keep water in my system and thus completely dehydrated. After I arrived in Beijing early Monday morning, I decided to finally go see a doctor. The diagnosis was acute enteritis coming close to being chronic.
Good thing, I went.
After a three hour infusion of antibiotics and hydrating solution at the hospital, I was dead tired and went home to sleep. I am now taking more antibiotics and medicine against diarrhea.

I am exhausted.

Besides that, my weekend trip was great. Fantastic weather and some amazing places. See the pictures.

Other than sleeping a lot and not going to class a lot, I am trying to prepare my trips in summer a little bit. It is rather difficult, because there is such an endless choice of amazing places to go to in China. I simply do not have time to visit them all. While checking on trains, flights, and places to go, I realized something:

Since I am in China I have already travelled more than 7000 km on just 3 weekends and one 5 days trip. Amazing, no?

Henan province.

Martial Arts students training on the grounds of Shaolin Temple.

Inside the temple itself.

Forest of Pagodas. Gravesite for Shaolin Monks.

At Luoyang Longmen Caves, UNESCO World Heritage.

Waking up in Zhengzhou, another of those Chinese Cities. Population: A good six million.

Really now?

Visiting the Yellow River with a hovercraft boat. James Bond feeling.

. - Tuesday, I finally got over my digestive problems, after a really rough week and a rather horrible relapse on Saturday. I am both extremely relieved and a bit exhausted.

. - Sunday, I saw
达芬奇密码. dā fēn jī mì mă. The Da Vinci Code.
in the local
五道口工人俱乐部. wŭ dào kǒu gōng rén jù lè bù. Wu Dao Kou Worker’s Club Cinema.
That was quite an experience, as it was all in Chinese; no subtitles. Imagine Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou speaking Mandarin.

. - Tomorrow night, I will attend an AFS night at the Beijing University for Foreign Affairs. Each of the exchange students will present their own country. They have lived here in Beijing since last August and lots of stories to tell. - Memories.

. - Friday night, I will leave Beijing on a overnight train to visit Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, Luoyang and the Shaolin Temple in Henan Province. I will be back Monday morning.

. - With temperatures up to 32 degrees it feels like summer here. Unfortunately humidity starts to kick in, too.

. - And last but certainly not least: Today in class: “罗纳尔多. luó nà’ ěr duō. Ronaldo, a famous Brazilian football player.” Ha.

Downtown.

The sea.

At the beach: Toilet. ?!.

At the beach: Mansion. ?!.

Certainly the …ehm most interesting KFC, I have ever seen.

Contrasts.

Pool.

Utopia.

. - I spent last weekend in Dalian. A city at the coast, east of Beijing. The flight there turned out to be just as incredibly adventurous as it was cheap. The air was fantastic. So was sitting at the beach at midnight with the full moon reflecting in the sea. Dalian is very rich, with skycrapers downtown, lightshows at night, a KFC, built as a church, incredibly clean streets and large parks.

. - Tuesday, I had Korean BBQ for dinner. This was followed by a complete emptying of my digestive system over the next couple days. Eating and even drinking was impossible. I still have not been able to eat anything since then. Tonight, that should hopefully change. Also Tuesday night, it was raining mud again. As we left the restaurant, all the cars were covered with dirt splashes. Imagine a 4WD after a wet offroad tour.

. - As a consequence, I only attended 6 hours of classes this week. Next week will be horror. I resumed doing Tai Ji in the morning. I now learn the 42 Tai Ji forms. It is not easy, but a great change and doing it feels really good.

. - This week we had temperatures over 30 degrees celcius, and at times the pollution level reached tenfold of the Swiss limits [’Feinstaub-Grenzwerte’]. I made use of my air-conditioning the first time and was very glad to find out, that everything seems to work just fine.

Just got back from a trip to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
Impressive.
Beautiful landscapes, amazing people and a lot of insight into ‘the real China’.