Travelog for: Penny

After we saw the postcrossers we went to the graveyard Melaten. It is a really old graveyard in Cologne.

I will just post some photos here, without telling a lot, as we didn't find good informations online. Maybe we will find some later and add them then!


That is the gate of the graveyard.













That was a nice walk. What a cool day.

Today we went around in Essen a little bit. First we saw a nice church in Kupferdreh (a part of Essen).





And then we went on a hill where we could see the Baldeneysee from above. What a wonderful view.





wow...after that we were tired and went to bed.

Today we drove to Blankenstein, a little village near BlackCats hometown. We drove there for seeing the castle they have there.

But first we took a walk in the small village.


That is the catholic church of Blankenstein.








An old street sign .


Another church in Blankenstein.


The mailbox of the castle !


The castle from another street in the village.


Wow, we are getting closer.


There we are.


The view from the castle wall.












There you can see a part of Blankenstein. Really nice village, or?


My next update will be from our holiday destination where we will fly on Thursday ! I am so excited about it. I hope we can show you some nice photos.

Hello !

What a surprise...since today I know where we will fly. First we will fly to Dubai and make a break there and then we will fly to Shanghai in China ! Oh my god. I am so excited.


Here we are still at the airport of Düsseldorf. Other airplanes are getting ready for take off.





Then we went into our airplane. We had a desktop in front of us where we could see where we are and such things.






And we watched a movie called Ratatouille. That was so funny.

That was so funny ! And then we landed in Dubai. Really cool thing !

Penny

Hello !

Wow, I arrived in Dubai now ! We have 5 hours at the airport here, so we explored it a bit.

They have nature inside the airport here (but I guess it is plastic).


And a nice fountain is here as well.



There you can give some money for a foundation. We didn't put money in, as we had none.


That is the small car that the police is using at the airport. It is really fast and cute.


Just a view so that you can see how it looks.

We even found a German friend:

Cool, or?


Some autumn decoration !

They even sold toys there:



And of course: Postcards! Really cheap ones (BlackCat bought 30 postcards for 3 Euros).

Then we were hungry and tried the food of Burger King at the airport.

Do you see the fries on Karis hat? BlackCats brother was making that Joke.

So, and then we had to go into the next airplane to our final destination!

Love,
Penny

Hello !

Here is my story from our flight to Shanghai.


As you can see it was light when we started at the Dubai airport to our last flight for that day to China.

We were all so excited. BlackCat was watching the map thing again on her board computer.


Not even in China...


Getting closer...


Finally above China.

When we looked out of the window we saw this wonderful sunset.



It was a really nice flight. We had a lot of fun !

Love,
Penny

Hello from Shanghai,

we always say Ni hao here !

We walked around the town today, just for some fun. It was really cool to see some difference to Germany.


There is a church between some skyscrapers. Looks really funny, doesn't it?


Just some skyscrapers !


Here we went into a park and made photos with the skyscrapers in the background and nature in front of us. Looks really cool, I think.


A sign in the park.


That is Lotus !

Then we went to a Japanese restaurant (and that in China xD) but we weren't allowed to make photos there (the table was soooo full). After the long day we felt into bed like stones.

Love,
Penny

Hello,

today was a long and very nice day. We went out really early in the morning and decided to go to a temple. First we went to Yu Garden where you can see a lot nice small shops before you come to the temple (which entrance price is way too high, so we didn't went in).
But I have a lot photos for you of the area around the temple itself:


A lion is watching the temple






A turtle dragon !












Can you see? in the background there is one of the skyskrapers...it is so unreal to be in such an old place and see all the skyskrapers around you!


That is the oldest tea house in Shanghai. It looks really nice, or?


Do you know why this bridge is not straight? The Chinese believe that bad ghosts can't walk around corners, so they try to make it as difficult for them as possible.

When we were ready at Yu Garden we went around for shopping a bit. BlackCat bought so much stuff and I was just watching her. She didn't made photos inside the shops, as she wanted to look herself.

But then we went to Jing'an temple. There the entrance price was really cheap, so we went inside the temple area.




In the middle the little tower is a place where you throw money at. You try to hit one of the windows in the tower. If you hit it, the money will fall down in the middle again and you will have luck. If you don't hit it (like BlackCat did xD) it does mean you just don't have more luck then now. On the right side of it, you can see a place where the Chinese people put incense sticks to pray to their god that everything will be alright and that the death people feel well. It is like the candle in a German church, I guess (not sure).










There you can see where the money gets out when you throw it at the tower !


Making a break !




That is inside the temple.








Look at the decoration of the doors...wonderful, or?


The temple with a skyscraper behind it !








BlackCats brother likes us !






In the evening (it was just 7p.m. when we made this pic) we went to the river and made some photos of the skyline ! This is my pic with the skyline =)! Nice, or?

What a long day again. Tomorrow we will fly to Beijing for 4 days. We are not sure if we have internet there. But we will update as soon as possible.

Hey !

Today we arrived in our hotel in Peking. It is in an old chinese style and we were really surprised how beautiful it is.
I have some photos for you from it.


That's us on BlackCats bed. Wow, or?




Our view !


The bed of BlackCats brother.


That was a fountain in our garden. It looks really nice, or?

I love the new hotel. So now we are in Beijing for 4 days and then we will go back to Shanghai. But you will see that !

Love,
Penny

Wow...after an one hour drive we arrived somewhere, where a lot people were. We asked us, what is happening here and BlackCat said, that there is the Great Wall. Why should we look at a Great Wall? BlackCat said it is a real sight and everybody would like to see it. She said it is one of the new seven world wonders and an UNESCO world heritage site. So I decided to take a look at it.



BlackCat told us, that the normal Great Wall is 8,851.8 km long. But not so much kilometres are still good for visiting. 513 km are still in a good condition.







BlackCat told us, that there is a chinese quote which says: A human is only a human when he climbed the Great Wall. So congratulation, BlackCats family are humans now !

After that we went back to the bus and drove back to Beijing again, for another sight visit.

We drove for a long time again and arrived at Summer Palace!

The Summer Palace or Yihe yuan is a palace in Beijing, China. The Summer Palace is mainly dominated by Longevity Hill (60 meters high) and the Kunming Lake. It covers an expanse of 2.9 square kilometers, three quarters of which is water. The central Kunming Lake covering 2.2 square kilometers was entirely man made and the excavated soil was used to build Longevity Hill. In the Summer Palace, one finds a variety of palaces, gardens, and other classical-style architectural structures.









In December 1998, UNESCO included the Summer Palace on its World Heritage List. It declared the Summer Palace "a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design. The natural landscape of hills and open water is combined with artificial features such as pavilions, halls, palaces, temples and bridges to form a harmonious ensemble of outstanding aesthetic value." It is a popular tourist destination but also serves as a recreational park.





What a nice day.

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the Emperor and his household, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government.

Today we went to the Forbidden City.









Built from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 720,000 m². The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.























A card of the Forbidden city

I really loved the time at the Forbidden City.

Back in Shanghai we looked at the Oriental Pearl Tower.



It is a really nice Tower, or?

Today is our last day in Shanghai. Tomorrow we will finally fly back to Germany.
So today BlackCat went into a park with us. It was not a long walk, as she has a cold, but it was nice.



Parks are normal in China. The chinese People use it for relax, play, sleep and such stuff. Really funny thing.

First we are sorry for having no new Update earlier. The problem is, that BlackCat has some stress with her mum and now she doesn't have so much time for us. But she promised to do some things with us in the next days.

Today we went to Venlo in the Netherlands for shopping. Halloween is nothing really special here in Germany, so BlackCat decided not to celebrate it and just enjoy a nice Saturday.


Can you see us? That is art...I don't know why a big ear is art, but okay.



We went on a small place where this nice fountain was:


Then we saw a shop which was decorated for Halloween.

It was making noises when you walked there.

And we found two small statues of guys which we looked at.




It was a nice day in Venlo ! Soon we will update from Essen again, I hope !