Photoblog

About Muslim quarter As the name implies, the Xi’an Muslim quarter is the area were the Muslim community of Xi’an is concentrated. It is located just north of the Drum Tower in the city center; the quarter covers several blocks and it is inhabited by over 20,000 Muslims. There are about 10 mosques in this area with Great Mosque in the Huajue Lane being the most famous and popular. But the area is not so popular among the tourists because it is the hub of the Chinese Muslim community in Xi’an, but because is a well known food and souvenir market. The main street, Beiyuanmen Muslim Street, about 500m long, is a really charming place; the street paved with dark colour stone has restaurants, stores and stands on both sides and all the owners are Muslim. A bit of history: In the old days, Beiyuanmen Muslim Street was the place for diplomats and merchants. Gradually, the population increase and the descendants of those immigrants are the today inhabitants...

We started the trip to Japan with a long flight from Copenhagen: 11 hours with Scandinavian Airlines. We were not really in holiday mood due to all the stress with moving in the new apartment and especially the scares caused by Carmen’s strong allergic reactions. But we were rewarded with an amazing Aurora Borealis sight during our flight over Siberia. The scouting process was also rather quick, done in rush, started when we got the ok from the doctor to travel. But we were ready to have fun as much as possible during these two weeks, to enjoy a new culture and to explore exciting places. We arrived on Narita the next morning, quite tired after not being able to sleep in the plane. The immigration and customs check went rather fast, we collected our luggage and we picked up the rental mini wifi modem and sim card. We decided to rent both a sim card and a mini wifi modem, but in the end it turned out that the sim could have been enough to have internet on t...