Mom, Dad and I had a few fantastic happy weeks......... but
not Steven, he had a sad/horrible few weeks..and this last week was not his best week at all. As
you all know Steven was lost in Beijing a few weeks ago, well read further because it has gotten
worse!!!!
STEVEN......LOST.......DAD'S.....BRAND NEW.........PHONE.......
IN...........THE.....................................................................................................................
TAXI !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In Argentina my dad put his phone in his bag through the scanner of the Casa Rosada and when it came out on the other side it was missing from the bag.
....Here is what happened......:
On a sunny morning Da Ya - a friend of ours here in Beijing - organised an interview for us with a local Magazine. This time it was not us interviewing them, but they wanted to interview us about our journey (totally exciting!!!!). The interview was in Chinese and Da Ya translated everything. They made it into a great party with milkshakes and delicious fruit teas. When we came back from the interview, we went with the taxi back to Beijing and Steven was playing games. We paid the driver, got out and when Steven paid he forgot to give back dad's phone. I was the last one out of the taxi and checked, but there was
nothing on the seats. So our theory is that Steven must have dropped dad's phone on the floor. We always get the slip from the taxi driver, but not this time and therefore could not phone him. Off we went again to the local police station to report the lost phone. The officers did not speak English, but where all very nice and helpful.
Meeting friends.
While we where waiting at the police station I met a friend who
worked at the Silk Market. A market where they sell everything (clothes, glasses, shoes, watches etc) and you bargain
till 1/3 of the price.While I was chatting to her she taught me how to
bargain and gave me very good bargaining tips!. She was at the police station, because a customer wanted a product of
her shop and she said " NO " because the price was too low. The
customer pushed her and this she reported to the police. For her and for the Chinese it is a big thing to be attacked like that because there is not a lot of crime here in China. The punishment for crime here is very big so people won't do anything wrong.
So, 2 days later I visited her at the Silk Market to test my bargaining skills and bought a lucky golden kitten (which all the shops have in the windows). Also Steven needed new shoes, since with all the walking we did, his shoes had many holes under his feet.
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Panjiayuang Market.
We also went to another interesting market where Audrey took us (a friend of us who lived in South Africa). Now it was much fun, because
I knew how to Bargain. First I bought my first 'glasses'. The specs are with glass and are very much in fashion here. Some girl are even wearing glasses without glass, just a frame. Afterwards we walked over the big market where they sold products from old Chinese coins to Buddha
statues to big Chinese cupboards and when walking back we saw someone trying to put
a Chinese cupboard in a
Riksja. It was very nice to see how all the different shopkeepers organised their own little stores and at the end they loaded all their statues and items on their little bikes and went home.
Great Wall of China
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| The Kreeften on Great Wall at Mutianyu - China |
...and YESSSSSSS, we finally went to the Great Wall of China. I was so excited to finally get up the wall which I only looked at in books or Wikipedia but in REAL!!!.
We took the public bus to Mutianyu where the Great Wall is not so touristic. We had to get up very early and the drive took 2 hours. Then I saw the mountains and the wall. Of course we did not take the cable car but climbed the steps up to the top.
I was the first one up, first I was running up the stairs, but after half an hour I was starting to get exhausted and walked the steps. Steven was the last one up, because of his ankle. He got an injury the day before during soccer training. We found a nice spot to have our picnic on one of the 1000 watch towers the Wall used to have. The view was
not very clear, because of the smog (also here in the mountains) but you could see mainly trees and mountains. When there was danger the guards used to make a fire to warn the Emperor in the city. While
we were having the picnic I gave my family a presentation about the Great Wall of what I
researched. The Great wall was built more then 2000 years ago, was 6400 km long and 4-5 meters wide with steps and watch towers. There used to be 1 million guards keeping the Empire save from enemies coming from the north and the west of China. After we had the picnic we walked some time over the Wall and guess how we went down again? There was a giant SLIDE all the way through the forest down into the valley where we started the walk up. Weeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhh back down in 15 minutes only. Our bus was already there and we hopped and slept on the way back for 2 hours.
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| Haha look at dad flying through the curves " GO DAD " |
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| Ready, steady GO!! down the slopes of the Wall. |
Next week Xi'an and the Terracotta warriors
(Thank you Marga for the tip on blogging)
