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.