Nín hǎo !
Sorry, it's been a while since you've had news from us, due to the flood of information that fall on us everyday. We try to use every quiet moments to make a sorting of all these information.
Well, we're in China! A lot of things happened. Firstly, we ended up in Seoul, in great form! We enjoyed a quiet week with Jim, a relaxed couchsurfer. Nevertheless, this week has been busy; we have our Vietnamese visa!
The Vietnamese embassy (in any case the one of Seoul) has been a real shock for us compared with the embassy of China or Russia. That was 3 prefabs on a parking with the only thing for the security: a panel with written "no photo". That's less stressful and rather easy since we just had to fill in a paper and fork out the money. And, because in Korea 1 euro is about 1400 Won, when you line up 80 000 Won in a little office, lost on a parking, you have whiffs of mafia with large doses of Italian accent that overrun the place...
Some frights with the tickets for the ferry bound for China. Little free advice that was very useful: always have dollars on you, since they are accepted in every change office. Sometimes the cashpoints don't take the foreign cards and you're stuck without money (that was the case for us in South Korea and in China too, you must find the right cashpoint and that's not always translated into English...)
And now the big info! I don't have real picture but she looks like this:
It's not exactly the same as our Belette* but she looks like. The few differences are on the physic integrality. Ours doesn't have wing mirror. It's not very important because in China people drive very well (BULLSHIT! but it's not very useful because they honk all the time, to say "hey, I'm here and I'm not annoying!"). Ours doesn't have any nerdy stickers! However, she has an eagle in relief on the handles. Her customization is on-going, she's already dirty. Oh! I forgot, she doesn't have right brake handle (so, no front brake) since we had to use it to change the clutch handle... To sum up: Chinese stuff!
Despite the many stops due to technical problems, she had nevertheless engulfed the kilometers between Yantai and Rizhao (where we're currently), with a top speed of 50 km/h, just to not exceed the 7000 rpm.
(Do you believe this: they stick all the wiring in the front headlamp and thus when you turn it on, if you drive too long, the headlamp is too hot, and the cables melt! We had to change all the wiring... and I don't even talk about the rain...)
Her name is Belette* and she's beautiful! We have yellow helmets! And a blue tarp! And she hurts the buttocks! Contrary to what we could heard about China, people are nice and they don't try to bamboozle you all the time (otherwise they are very good) if you have a problem they'll help you. They are just bad drivers (yes I speak about you, the guy who has done a U-turn on a three-lane dual carriageway with a central wall. You wonder how it's possible? It's easy, all you have to do is a U-turn, and drive in the converse direction, what a stupid question!)
Sorry for not having real picture, normally, there is going to be a massive publication of our first photos soon and certainly other notes from our road journal. Sorry if the news are too few, but everyone has a lot of things to do.
We're fine! The winter is coming in China, we'll try to rush towards the south, next city: Hefei !
Sorry, it's been a while since you've had news from us, due to the flood of information that fall on us everyday. We try to use every quiet moments to make a sorting of all these information.
Well, we're in China! A lot of things happened. Firstly, we ended up in Seoul, in great form! We enjoyed a quiet week with Jim, a relaxed couchsurfer. Nevertheless, this week has been busy; we have our Vietnamese visa!
The Vietnamese embassy (in any case the one of Seoul) has been a real shock for us compared with the embassy of China or Russia. That was 3 prefabs on a parking with the only thing for the security: a panel with written "no photo". That's less stressful and rather easy since we just had to fill in a paper and fork out the money. And, because in Korea 1 euro is about 1400 Won, when you line up 80 000 Won in a little office, lost on a parking, you have whiffs of mafia with large doses of Italian accent that overrun the place...
Some frights with the tickets for the ferry bound for China. Little free advice that was very useful: always have dollars on you, since they are accepted in every change office. Sometimes the cashpoints don't take the foreign cards and you're stuck without money (that was the case for us in South Korea and in China too, you must find the right cashpoint and that's not always translated into English...)
And now the big info! I don't have real picture but she looks like this:
It's not exactly the same as our Belette* but she looks like. The few differences are on the physic integrality. Ours doesn't have wing mirror. It's not very important because in China people drive very well (BULLSHIT! but it's not very useful because they honk all the time, to say "hey, I'm here and I'm not annoying!"). Ours doesn't have any nerdy stickers! However, she has an eagle in relief on the handles. Her customization is on-going, she's already dirty. Oh! I forgot, she doesn't have right brake handle (so, no front brake) since we had to use it to change the clutch handle... To sum up: Chinese stuff!
Despite the many stops due to technical problems, she had nevertheless engulfed the kilometers between Yantai and Rizhao (where we're currently), with a top speed of 50 km/h, just to not exceed the 7000 rpm.
(Do you believe this: they stick all the wiring in the front headlamp and thus when you turn it on, if you drive too long, the headlamp is too hot, and the cables melt! We had to change all the wiring... and I don't even talk about the rain...)
Her name is Belette* and she's beautiful! We have yellow helmets! And a blue tarp! And she hurts the buttocks! Contrary to what we could heard about China, people are nice and they don't try to bamboozle you all the time (otherwise they are very good) if you have a problem they'll help you. They are just bad drivers (yes I speak about you, the guy who has done a U-turn on a three-lane dual carriageway with a central wall. You wonder how it's possible? It's easy, all you have to do is a U-turn, and drive in the converse direction, what a stupid question!)
Sorry for not having real picture, normally, there is going to be a massive publication of our first photos soon and certainly other notes from our road journal. Sorry if the news are too few, but everyone has a lot of things to do.
We're fine! The winter is coming in China, we'll try to rush towards the south, next city: Hefei !
Pierre says : Dad, Mom, don't worry, it's not so dangerous as it seems to be! Just we don't know if we'll do it, alive!
Kisses !
*Belette means weasel in English.
Kisses !
*Belette means weasel in English.
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