We Felt Very Welcomed

Unfortunately the Dutch team is out of the EK. I never thought the Orange Party would be much better than the game, the feeling of “all for one” was great and the Ukrainians were also all wearing Orange on the day Holland played Portugal. Now that the Dutch team is out we continued to support the Ukrainian team.

We went to Kiev – the capital of Ukraine - after driving for 4 hours in a very modern Express Train. We were fetched     by Oleh and Sash who loved history

 and gave us a guided tour and told us some history of Kiev. The people we were staying with were Alina, Oleh, their daughter Sofia of 4 years old and Salma (the dog). They made us feel very welcome. Mom & Dad slept on the couch. I slept in Sofia’s bed and Steven slept the first night with me because when we wanted to pump up the mattress we found a pair wedding shoes of Alina’s mother in the box. It was late but we all had to laugh over that!

Their house was very central. Right side Kindergarten, left side shopping mall and straight metro station/subway. The fridge was full. Alina bought breakfast, yoghurts, berries, milk and ice cream......YUMM!!!  

Alina was born in Uzbekistan. She studied in Odessa and then moved to Kyiv. For the Euro 2012 the news reported  that the hotels were over expensive for the tourists and a lot of private people were renting their place out for high prices. Alina thought it was unfair for the tourists to come to see the soccer and Ukraine and pay so much money. Therefore Alina and her family wanted to be nice to the tourists and offer free accommodation.

We first wanted to stay for 2 days in Kiev, but because of the Swedish football matches the train was fully booked. Alina took 2 days off from work to be with us and to show us Kiev. We saw the old center with many beautiful old buildings, the Olympic stadium which was re-built and where the final of Euro 2012 will be played. Some streets were very old with round stones and there were many many churches with golden domes. We went to visit 2 museums about history. One was about the history of Ukraine/Kiev and the other was a military museum about the WWII (1940-1945) and a exhibition about soldiers in Afghanistan. Some things we had seen before because Ukraine was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union and this history was also in the museum in Moscow. In 1991 Ukraine was no longer part of the USSR but became its own country. 

The weather in Kyiv was NOT cold..... NOT....warm...BUT HOT!!!!!!!!! EXTREMELY HOT and we were happy to be back 'home' again. We fetched Sofia from kindergarten and took Salma for a walk. We always played with Sofia, singing, guitar, playing shop-shop, dolls etc. We also cooked a Dutch meal for them and we bought real Beluga caviar to try how it tastes. Caviar is eggs from the beluga sturgeon (a fish) which is found in only a few places - one of them is in the Black Sea in the south of Ukraine. In Ukraine it is eaten just with white bread and butter and some people eat it on toast with cream cheese , egg and onion. Later I read about caviar on internet and saw that the fish is endangered,although it tasted nice I will not eat the caviar again.

The home stay was very cozy and Alina and Oleh were very kind and helpful. When we left to go to the train station Oleh came with us to help with our suitcases and find the right platform for the train to Poland. 

Ukraine was great and we had a wonderful time.! Thank you Alina, Oleh, Sofia and Salma. We hope one day we can show you how beautiful South Africa is.

Loes

Moscow + Only Orange

MOSCOW
So, we arrived in Europe, Russia, Moscow. When we arrived at the train station, we were going to get fetched by the owners of the apartment, but they could not find us and where not at the platform as promised. They also did not call us (we had a Russian Sim-card) or maybe they didn't want to find us but anyway we stood there waiting for 2 hrs. So we had a good impression of the Russian people who are travelling on Friday afternoon. A lot of them had beer or other drinks in their hands. We had a Central located apartment opposite Starbucks, a luxury grocery shop and a delicious ice-cream salon. We had 4 days in the city and they went fast, every day was different. My father found that Moscow had not changed a lot, like Beijing or Buenos Aires. But still not a lot of people speak English, no English signs in the Metro, not helpful to assist. The city is beautiful with great history, many statue, different types of buildings (old new - red, blue, gold, green, pink) and museums. We went to many sight seeings such as Arbat street where we saw a lot of graffiti on walls

The prices were like in Australia, R15 (Euro 1,5) for an apple and a jar of jam costs 200 Russian Roebel 200 (E 40/R 40). The weather was sunny but sometimes it rained for 3-5 hrs and then it was sunny again. We went to the Red Square, the St Basil's Cathedral, but because of the holidays on the 12 of June the main square was closed for preparations and rehearsals of a play. We were planning to go to see the change of the Guards and we had 1 hour from to take only 3 stops incl 1 swap of underground line, but this was not enough. We reached the first station, where we had to change lines, we asked people, but nearly nobody speaks English and everything on the sign boards is in Russian script (Cyrillic), it was rather challenging. Some people pointed out to take the escalator and than we were standing outside iso on the platform for line 1. We had to go in again and pay again and came via 3 other platforms again at the exit and were standing outside again. Because of all the in and out into the underground racing against the time, we did not have time enough to look at the beautiful ceilings, the old sculptures and the many big statues in the subway. It was almost like a museum.

When we only had 15 minutes left till 12.00 o'clock we decided to take a Taxi. On the street you only have to stand there and many cars will stop for you and ask where we want to go. These were illegal people who drive around to make some money. No English either, but "Kremlin" they understood.
We arrived 2 minutes too late at the change of the guards, but some American tourists said it was not so 'dramatic' as described in the guide-book. We also went to see the St. Basel's Cathedral. It was a beautiful, big, tall, colorful cathedral. We walked a lot to see as much as possible of Moscow and besides that the metro/subway was not for us with all the difficult writing. Most of the people we met on the streets in Moscow were not very helpful. Only the younger students could speak English and wanted to help us. The other spectacular thing we did is taking a river cruise around Moscow and we past old building, beautiful parks and the Cathedral and Kremlin again. Now we saw it from the other side. But most interesting of all was the historical Museum of Russia. The museum had many rooms with displays of the old history of Russia, the Tsar, the Russian Revolution, the WWI and II and many other things. Because the rooms were full of interesting statues, paintings, old furniture, weapons, flags, guns, dresses etc we had not enough time to see everthing. Also there were no visitors in the museum, we were the only ones!?????

The last day we were in Moscow we saw the first European soccer game Netherlands - Denmark in the Manhatten Restaurant with all the Dutchies living in Moscow. Unfortunately there was no party afterwards because we lost. We were ready to support them live in Ukraine........

ONLY ORANGE

We got on the train (by Metro and this time it went smoothly). There were more Dutch supporters going to Kharkov which is close to the Russian border. We slept in the train and arrived the next morning in Kharkov, UKRAINE!!! While we were driving to the apartment the owners -two builders- showed us the cosy center of the nice town with 1.5 million people. We arrived at our apartment, which was not really a normal apartment, but very dark and with a massage table in the middle and mirrors around. The paintings were with romantic couples on it and the curtains were made from see-through satin. We had a strange feeling, but the owners where very friendly and went out of their way to make us feel welcome. All with a translator, because English again was not spoken. It was also very central so after leaving our suitcases there we went to the FanZone to prepare ourselves for the game Holland - Germany. Slowly the whole city turned into Orange and everywhere there were Dutch Orange fans. There was even a snackbar on the market with 'broodje kroket' (a Dutch traditional snack). Soon the Fan Zone was crowded and after the performance of the famous DJ Armin van Buuren we walked for more than an hour in the Orange Mars to the Stadium. It was a big happening and the Ukrainians all came to see us and take photographs of all the crazy Dutch fans. We sang many Dutch songs and we walked with the drummer and a trompet player. This way we could not loose eachother in the crowd and it was also much fun. Every 15 minutes everyone kneeled on the ground with their right hand on their chest and the trumpet player (Lucien Vroomen) and the Drummer (Herman Coenen) played the National Anthem of Ukraine. Many people in the audience started singing and many of them started crying hearing their Song and appreciating the Dutch fans playing it for them. It was like we thanked them for organizing the game and being the host of the games. In the stadium the party was on....we could stand next to the famous Orange Indian and the man with the Cup. Everyone around us was cheering and singing and the fans were going crazy. But on the field it went wrong. Steven was in tears of  course and on the way back a lot of the Orange fans supported and comforted him because there were not many kids in the stadium. We arrived late and slept long to forget the scores.

Steven and dad tired of the game

After 2 days we went to the Orange Camping. It is really an orange camping with many orange tents where all the 1000 fans sleep. We thought we would get a small orange tent but luckily we got a large family tent where all the suitcases fitted inside. There are many many things to do and my favourite was on the small beach going into the lake.


THANX

You don't just see zebras's in Africa

Loes

6 days in a "choo - choo"

6 days in the Trans Siberian express ( choo - choo ) form Beijing to Moscow.

I cannot believe it is June already. This means we are half way through our World Trip.  It has gone so fast! We   have left Asia and arrived in Europe - Russia/Moscow.  

 We have been in China for 2 months and remember this was my fathers choice, but I am certainly coming back to Beijing to learn more Chinese and to enjoy the fast and confusing life. The Chinese are so kind and helpful. There are many things to do and to discover. We have already done so much, but we're not finished. We loved eating noodles with chopsticks and with the locals. We felt very safe, never a moment of
unsafety. I will also miss all the sports we did, every early morning exercising with Steven and to see the people doing tai chi Mom will miss her weekly Pilates class on Wednesday and I miss playing hockey with my friend Sean. Before he left for London to go and study he lived in the same complex as us. Steven will miss playing soccer with Sunny who also became a friend he visited to play and ate Chinese traditional food (cooked by his Sunny's grandmother). By the way..the Chinese also play a different type of soccer; it is a small heavy piece of rubber with feathers on top. You stand in a circle and without running you keep the feathers in the air and 'pass' on to the other players. And then we had our last lessons of Ping Pong. We have improved a lot!! I LOVE PING PONG. Thank you Teacher Chen!.

Thank you everyone in Beijing for helping us and to make us feel  Welcome. Xie Xie to Sunny, Lihaiyan and Haipeng, Daya and WTP, Audrey , Mei and Jean Pierre and of course Juune and Pieter. 

The 2nd June came fast and we left Beijing with the Manchurian Trans Siberian Train- K19.

We have been in this train for 6 days non stop. It was a special experience to sit in a train for so long en see so many different landscapes passing. The total distance between Beijing and Moscow is almost 9000km and we are passing 7 time zones. Luckily the time in the train was always the same on Moscow time. Every day I wrote something about my highlight of that day.

2012-06-02 / Saturday


We were very excited to go on the train, but we were more scared if they would weigh our baggage. Readers don’t forget we are on a WORLD TRIP!! and therefore have 4  big suitcases, 1 hand luggage each and 3 bags of food for 6 days. For a  minute we freaked out that we had to leave luggage behind or hand in our food. What a luck..........YAAAAAAAAAAAH the scale WAS BROKEN and we could pass.  We had 2 rooms with each 2 beds, a little table, storage for our things and a large mirror.  We had no shower, but a bucket and a sponge. At every end of the corridor there was a toilet and a kettle of hot water . After three corridors you had a restaurant where you could eat and drink.
Steven and I were very quick in organizing our little house, cleaning, unpacking and hanging our Map up on the wall ready for school. We fell asleep very quickly because of the rocking/moving of the train.


2012-06-03 / Sunday 


We met some interesting travelers on the train who were going to different places in Russia. 2 Auzzies from Melbourne (and what a coincidence that I was wearing my Melbourne T-Shirt), 3 Belgiums , 2 Austrians and Adele from Beijing. It was fun to hang out with them and hear their stories and adventures, their thoughts about the China and about the Russians. 

 2012-06-04 / Monday - Crossing the border with China and Russia.

We were woken up by 2 strict Russians who where knocking on our door very loud. They had to see our faces, because they were checking to see if it was the same person as 
in our passports. They checked our luggage too. We had to change quickly into our clothes and were sent outside for 4 hours like all the other passengers on the train. The reason was that they were swapping the wheels for much bigger wheels, because in Russia the train tracks are wider then in China and the train's Restaurant  was swapped for a Russian restaurant. Meanwhile we went to the old Russian village, bought some bread and fresh fruit and had a nice get together with our friends from the train. 

 

2012-06-05 / Tuesday

This morning we didn’t have mom teaching us, but Mr Peter, one of the Belgium friends we met on the train. He taught us about World War I,II & the Cold War. It was very interesting (learned a lot). Unfortunately they left the train in Irkutsk. In the afternoons we read a lot and when we stopped at a station (max for 23 minutes) Steven and I quickly cleaned the windows of the train so we could see and take pictures. At one station we were halfway doing the window when a Russian woman snatched the newspapers from our hands and took the bucket of water out of Steven’s hand. Cannot believe it;  The lady just snatched it away from us!!!!!!!!   I still don’t really know what she said because she was talking half English half Russian but I think she said:

“No,Njiet....(Russian)....not....do.....(Russian)....in....go.....of....train....now.....no....are...stupid (Russian).

She nearly pushed me off the ladder, I . was very cross. Steven said I looked as red  as a tomato. I also felt that way. 

2012-06-06 /  Wednesday

There were many people going off the train, we were the only ones in  the corridor (a corridor has 9 compartments). Our view had changed from rice fields to mountains with snowy top and large forests with pine trees. Then we saw green grass with bright  yellow flowers and a enormous lake - Lake Baikal, the biggest sweat water lake.

Sometimes we past a village with a lot of small wooden houses and also we went over 2 long bridges. We heard that the poor people from Russia live here in concrete houses and the rich lived in wooden houses. 

2012-06-07 / Thursday

We finished all the bits of food we still had left. I read a lot out of my book, Jane Eyre. I am nearly finished with my book. Mom and I know how to read in Russian by now having seen all the posters and billboards in Cyrillic letters. They don’t have 26 letters in the alphabet but 32. Not all the letters are the same, for instance the "P" is an "R" and the "H" is an "N". That night we ate in the restaurant of the train and it looked old fashioned but now again in fashion. I had a delicious salad, so the food was not old fashioned. Meanwhile we looked outside and saw a beautiful church in shiny gold and blue. Also we saw a grave yard with blue fences around the grave yard and many blue crosses. The blue stands for heaven.

2012-06-08 / Friday

Last day in the train. It was cozy in the train since it was now raining for the first time since we left Beijing. Unfortunately the six days went by very quickly. We had school in the mornings, reading in the afternoons, we chatted and made friends, we shopped in the little stores on the platform, prepared small meals for the family and listened to music and saw a movie on my laptop. Black Butterfly -about the story of Ingrid Jonker (a writer of poems during the Apartheid in South Africa). First I thought it would take very long on the train, but it went by very fast and we could have stayed a few more days enjoying the moments in the train. Our first impression of Moscow was high flats and lots of graffiti.

до свидания [desvidanja]
Good bye (for now)


Loes

Terracotta Warriors

Finally we went to see my mother's highlight ............ Xian (Terracotta Warriors).

Early morning we went to the train station, 1 1/2 hours earlier than our departure. This was a good thing since there were many many many people waiting for the same train. Steven and I stood quickly at the check-gate waiting for the gate to open and it became more hot, sticky, noisy and when one hour was over there was a loooong line of about 1000 people. WE WERE THE FIRST IN THE LINE. Then the train staff game to open up and check all the tickets and they opened not our gate, but the gate NEXT TO US?!?!?!!? Anyway, the train took only 3 hours till Taiyuan (500km south of Beijing). A friend of ours Mr Penterman picked us up and we went straight to a steak house. Mr  Penterman ordered for us, lovely Chinese tomato-soup for starters and for main we had DONKEY steak!!! Steven and I didn't know what it was until Steven finished his plate. I did not eat a lot (luckily) because I am not such a big meat eater. The next day we visited a very old and nice Chinese town Ping Yao. Here we cycled through the little streets and visited old houses and shops. This is what my mom remembered from her visits in China in the 90ties. I now also understand what she was telling me all the time about how Beijing had changed. It was lovely seeing a town riding on a bike, saying Ni Hao to all the people.
In the evening we took the night train to Xian where we had our first experience sleeping in a train.
It was nice, but dusty and the toilets were (again) just a hole in the floor with a terrible smell. Dad didn't sleep well because he has hay fever, we loved the motion and the bunk-beds.
In Xian station there was a lady with a sign with Steven's name on it. She did not know Steven was a boy of only 12 years old (Steven made the booking with the Guest House via internet) and she had to laugh....smart boy!! Smart boy!!

Steven was picked up

                                                         Diningroom in train Xian to Beijing

He booked us in a great  guest-house with lots of sun and very central with very colourful curtains and tables. (They also had 2 files of MOVIES!!)  But we first went  to the Terracotta Warriors, because that was our reason to visit Xian. The Terracotta Warriors is an army of guards made of clay (terra) backed in a hot oven (cotta). The First Emperor Qin Shi Huang of the an important Qin Dynasty had them made to protect him in his grave (210-209 Bc) so the army could protect him in his afterlife. It was only discovered in 1974 by a local farmer who was digging a well to water his crops. And guess what..............WE MET HIM!!!. He only visits the museum some times because he is now old. After he discovered the Army the government took over his farmland and gave him money every month for it. He is only getting rmb3000 per month and that is very little if you see all the visitors and shops and all the money they make. The Warriors were also very interesting and ALL DIFFERENT, some where from the north of China and were tall and slim, others were short from other areas of China. There are more than 8000 warriors and there are many more soldiers still to dig up. The place where the Emperor himself was buried is not yet open and they did not dig him up yet. So, many treasures still to be discovered. Our guide said that there will be work for another 100 years to find everything which is still buried. The visit was very exciting especially for MOM she loved  it!!

The man in the middle is the local farmer who
discovered the Terracotta Army

That night Mom and I went to a beautiful  Music and Dancing Show while eating Dumplings. The food was very tasty and the music and dances were all from the Tang Dynasty. The dances were very colorful and the music was soft and slowly played with instruments that were very old and Chinese. All was about the nature, animals, birds, blue skies and trees. But if you look now China doesn't have many blue skies and trees are not easy to find in the cities. So also not many birds and the animals in the Zoo look very unhappy. The next day we went cycling on the old wall of Xian. It was 13 km cycling(4km cycling without rain and 9km cycling in the pouring rain). We could see the houses and how the people in Xian lived. That night we had to go back to Beijing and hopped in the night-train again and fell asleep straight away. The next morning we nearly overslept, because we thought we were arriving at 9:00, but instead we arrived at 7:00. there was someone who woke us up 10 before 7:00. So we quickly got ready in time.

On Friday 1st June it was Children's Day!! The Chinese celebrate that, but we didn't really celebrate it, because my mom says "Every day is Children's Day" it is true. Steven went to a party with his friend from soccer.

On Saturday 2nd June we are leaving with the Transiberian Train to Moscow. We are in the train for 6 days and than arrive in Moscow. Staying in Moscow for a few days and leaving with the train again to Ukraine and than to ..............

Xie Xie and Tai tien (good bye)

Loes