UTAH here we come

This evening we returned from China. We left the Hong Kong airport at 5:00 P.M. When we got to San Fransisco, the time was 4:00 P.M. the same day! The plain flight lasted 12 hrs. On the plain flight I slept 5 hrs.

Today we are leaving. Grandma, Grandpa and Shaunie are picking us up from the airport. I hope that Shaunie brings me a Meat Sandwich, Grandma some Gummy Bears, and Grandpa some M&M's. I hope that they will bring at least some of those.

Hong Kong

Isabel

October 24 2009

Hong Kong

Victoria Peak and tram

We went to the Victoria Peak and tram. The tram took us to the Victoria Peak. The tram was about 6 min. There was a very big shopping place. It had a few viewing places.

Jade Market

We went to a place called the Jade Market. It had a lot of jade jewelry. I bought a pair of earrings for one of my friends. It was indoors, well kind of. It was a bunch of little shops. I bought a bracelet. It was made out of little jade rings. I had a lot of fun bargaining.

Goldfish Market

We walked past a large Goldfish market. It had all sorts of colors of fish, red, neon green, yellow, blue.

Bei jin huan yin ning!

Bei jin huan yin ning!

A few days ago, we went to Beijing. It is the capital of China. We went to the Forbidden City. It is called the Forbidden City because: the king his family and staff would all live in the Forbidden City. If anybody else would come in they would be killed. It was a very big place.

The next morning, we went to the Great Wall. It took us a very long time to get to the Wall. There were a lot of little shops while we were climbing to the great wall. Jacek was in front of us the whole time. When we were actually on the great wall, Jacek got lost. We all had bought panda hats to keep us warm. Mom and dad went looking for him, which left Sofia and me all alone. We didn’t have anything to do. Finally we saw a white bobbing hat. “Hey Sofia,” I yelled, “That’s him.”

“What, where?”

“I see his bobbing hat.”

We ran to find dad. He ran after him. A while later, dad found Jacek. He called mom and told her that we found him. We kept on going through towers and stairs. We reached the alpine sledding place. At one of the turrets, Jacek fell off a steep, metal ladder. Thankfully, all he got was a scrape. We kept going. We went as far as we could go. We ate lunch. I got a piece of dirt in my eye; I couldn’t get it out. We headed back to the alpine sledding place. Thankfully, I got to be in my own sled. I would pull towards me to brake, and to go fast I would pull the lever away from me. It was so exiting.

The next day we went to see Mao's body. There was a very, very, very, very, very long line. When I finally caught up Sofia and Jacek, it was all knees and elbows. We were supposed to show our ID’s (even if you don’t have one), we just didn’t look at the guards. We got past them. Other people needed to make sure that we had ID’s but they just put us in groups. Mao looked like he was made out of wax.

Jian zi

Guang Zhou

October 11, 2009

A couple of days ago we took a train to the city of Guangzhou. It was only one hour from Shenzhen (the train went over 200 kilometers an hour). The first thing we did when we got there is check into the China Hotel. Then we went on a walk around a lake in a city park. When we got to one side there were paddle boats. We rented a paddle boat. When we started out I was steering and peddling (which at the same time is hard), everyone else was peddling. After a while Sofia got a turn to steer. We thought we had rented the boat for 14 min. but it was actually 40 (details are important!). So we got off early. We walked by a little theme park. Jacek and I went on a paddle car to see everything that was there. Dad and Sofia played jien zi (ancient Chinese hackysack) with a bunch of people. Click on the movie to see them playing Jien zi.

We went to a live seafood restaurant. The people brought us to a place with a Lazy Susan. That evening visited markets, mostly clothes markets. Nobody would bargain (surprising). We went to our hotel rooms because we weren’t that hungry. I got ready for bed and got in the really comfy bed and read some.

The next morning we went to a place called flea markets. They sell all sorts of stuff. The only problem is that there were mostly shoes—hundreds of shoe stores. We ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant. We had a very big meal. So we skipped lunch and dinner was at 8:00.

The next day we ate a “dim sum” breakfast at the hotel restaurant.

We went to the Zhenhia tower in Yeuxiao Park. That is where the Chinese had tried to fight off the British during the opium war.

When we went shopping the next day, I bought a pair of shoes. They were Chinese and had a gold line down the middle. The heels tipped down sort of weird. I bargained it down. The price started at 65. I bargained in Chinese. I bargained the price down to 50. I also bargained for 2 scarves and reduced the price in half.

We had a small meal, skipped lunch and had dinner at 7:00. This time we ate dinner sooner because we had to catch a train. We tried to catch an express train, but we aren’t sure if we did. We got a taxi, went to our apartment, ate a yogurt and went to bed. When I went to bed I felt exhausted. It felt so good to be back to a bed in Shenzhen. I can’t wait if we are going to Beijing, China’s capital city.

Macau

Yesterday, we were in Macau. Macau is a Portuguese speaking place. Macao is a place that if you are on the sidewalk and cars are coming, the cars would stop. In China, if you are on the sidewalk and cars are coming, the cars won’t stop. They will just honk and keep going. If you speak Spanish, Portuguese, or Chinese I would suggest a trip to Macao. The night before yesterday, we went to a restaurant. It was called La Lorca. It was an all sorts of food place. I had the best pasta in my life. The sauce had meat. The next day, we went to a market that sells clothes. I would say that they are actually stalls. We found some clothes that we really liked. The price for all the clothes was 230 patacas. My sister tried bargaining down but what ever she tried the woman said no. We went and found a shop that had the exact same clothes. The woman that we first met came and said that the clothes were the same price. Then she told the lady of the shop that we were in something like “don’t let them bargain” in Chinese. We had no luck there. Then we found a Chinese clothes place. We bought me a dress there. It was black and made out of silk.

Yesterday I went around the world in three hours. The place I went to was called Window of the World. It took a while to get to the Window because we had to go on a bus. When we got there we found a place that said Tickets. My brother had an interesting conversation with a Chinese lady. I am always half the price here. The tickets were each 120 Yuan. But for me it was sixty. That is 17 US dollars for my mom and brother, and about 8 dollars for me. Well anyways when we got inside we went to the place that was the Asian section. When we got there we looked at little sculptures of places in Asia. I always had a camera with me so I took a lot of pictures. We didn’t always know the sections that we were in. We went down a path of a picture of fat lady cheeks. When we went down the stairs the first thing we saw were koi. Koi are a type of fish. They have beautiful patterns. We followed another path which lead us to a lot of singing Chinese women. My brother and me went on bridges instead of watching them. We found some fake lotus flowers. We picked them up and started a cross the bridges. My mom said that we couldn’t take them home. We had to drop them. There was a swing next to a big puddle of water. It wasn’t the type of swing that you sit on. It was hard to rock and it felt like I was going to fall the swing. We went to an Indian place. To get to the Indian place we went down stairs in to pitch black. We kept walking strait and light came to us. When we got out there was a camel in front of us. My brother got on the camel and lead it around to let us take pictures. When he got off it was my turn. The camel smelt a lot. He started shaking his head. My mother said that he was spitting. “A very common thing” I said. People spit a lot here. My brother wanted to go on a ride that would get him wet because we were very hot. First he went by himself, then with me. They gave us ponchos to help us stay dry. We were the only ones on the boat. It was pretty steep. When we had gone down the steep part I took my hood of. My brother started screaming, ”No put your hood back on”. The second after he said that, boom. I was soaking wet. After that we decided to keep moving. There was a dinosaurs place. We went in to it. There was a monkey swing, I thought that it was random because we were in the dinosaurs section. I found a place that you could get in to pterodactyl feet and wings, you were the bird. After that we went to the “Alps.” It was a snow boarding, ice skating and skiing. We didn’t do any of that stuff. We went to the Eiffel Tower. We went up a part of it by climbing. My brother and I took a elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower. It felt like we were on top of the world. There were two other people at the top. Like all Chinese do, they asked to take a picture with us. They took a picture with my brother and me, then they took a picture with just me. That was all we really did. The bus ride back was very tiring.

This is a picture at the entrance of Windows of the World.

Safari Park

This is a bear that wanted apples.

A bird that looks like a dinosaras.

Please start at Safari Park in Shenzhen: Part One

Safari Park in Shenzhen: Part Two

I had really wanted to see a great panda. When mom and I went back to get water,horse drawn carrige, I got a big bottle and drank it all with out taking my mouth off to breathe. Next we went and saw tigers. Jacek and I fed them with meat. When we did that we went back to see the baby cubs. You could actually hold the cubs. Jacek went first. The baby cub was very heavy. Next went Sofia. When I went at first my arms felt like they would break. They were heavier than my baby cousin who weighs a lot. After the tigers we went and saw some bears. I know you think "Wow what an adventure" (sarcastically) but anyways. I got two buckets of apples. We all shared the apples. I would throw the food at at the bears when they stood up. One of the bears would raise his hand as if asking,( I want some). Another of them would not do anything if the apple landed a foot away. Next we would get an apple on a long stick. Then we would hang the stick near there face and when they jumped to get it you would jerk it up. But the one I was trying to tease would not jump. When my bear got the apple we kept moving. Then it started pouring. I got really wet and am still wet now. Next we went to the very top of a pagoda. It was very tall. After that we decided to leave. Well first before we left we went on a bridge. It looked like it would shake a lot but it didn’t. after that we started our way down. When we got home I started writing this.

Safari Park in Shenzhen: Part One

Today I went to the Safari Park. There were a lot of animals. The first species of animals that we saw were birds. One of the birds we saw had all sorts of colors on it. It looked like a dinosaur. There were Chinese pheasants. I didn’t think that they were very interesting. There were some birds that looked as colorful as toucans but with out the big beak. They had little standing hairs. The next birds we saw were peacocks. We have some of those at our cabin so they weren’t that interesting. Well there are zebras in Utah so that was not the best. Next we saw, well, we didn’t see but we did. There were hamster wheels in the water. First Jacek went in one. Then Sofia went in. Then I went in. We all went in separate ones. We all started running. I could have fallen out 'cause I had a hole. I did not fall as much as Sofia did. If you did somersaults you would almost get to the top of the hamster wheel. When Sofia and my wheels almost collided two birds swam between us. After that we saw hundreds and hundreds of gigantic goldfish. When we fed them they flopped over each other and tried to get the food. We went and saw red pandas. They were so small. The first one we saw was really cute. The next one we saw went swimming. The one that actually kind of looked like a panda was the third one we saw.

This is a picture of the Forbidden Kingdom. This is were the Emperor, staff and his family(thousands of members) would live. Why it is called the Forbidden Kingdom is because if any one else came in that part of his kingdom they would be executed.

This is a picture of my brother in front of the birds nest.(The Olympic oval.)

Oval

This is a picture of some people boating in front of the birds nest.

China

This is the Great Wall of China. My dad took this picture while he was in China.

This is a picture of my brother fishing.
He is fishing on the Merrimicack River (near where it opens into the Atlantic Ocean) near Boston.

Somehow this was part of his Chinese Camp this summer. The Chinese word for fish is yu and is hard to pronounce.

This is a picture of
a fallen down half burnt tree

Shenzhen

I am leaving for China a week from Tuesday. If you are wondering what Bing qi ling means, it means ice cream. I chose ice cream for my blog because I love eating it.
We are going to China because my mom is going to work there. We are staying in dorms.

I am going to show a little bit of Chinese hakie sack.