Mao Mao: TripBlog

ולסיום, סיומת

2006-10-11T23:15:00.000+08:00

זהו. הגיע הזמן לסיים את הטיול. אנחנו כבר בבית, התיקים כבר בארון, וכל השטויות שהבאנו כבר מפוזרות ברחבי הבית, פחות או יותר. שאול אפילו הוריד את הזקן שלו.
מאו החתול החמוד נשאר חמוד, וחוצמזה שאר המציאות היא אותה המציאות, על כל מה שיש בה.
היה לנו טיול נהדר. היה כיף להגשים עוד חלום ישן שכבר חשבנו שלא נגשים.

זהו, אין צורך להרחיב יותר מדי כי באמת כבר כתבנו הכל (חוצממה שהדף לא סובל, והיה לא מעט מזה) ולכן נסתפק בהעלאת תמונות קצרה. בחרנו כמה שנחשפות כאן לראשונה, ושופכות אור בעיקר עלינו. מין רגעים קטנים ופרטיים שלנו, שרצינו לחלוק.

תודה לכל אלה שדאגו לנו והעבירו את זמננו בנעימים בשהותנו בארצות נכר, ותודה לכל מי שקרא ונהנה, או שלא נהנה.

טיולים נעימים לכולנו, וימים טובים שיבואו עלינו.
בלוגטיול נסגר בזאת באופן רשמי, אם כי לא מצער.

לשנה הבאה בסנטיאגו דה-קומפוסטלה!!!

Photo Finish

2006-10-07T23:08:00.000+08:00

Well my darlings, as Bluma Shperling used to say, this is our last post from remote China. Our backpacks our packed and we're waiting for our flight. It's some hours away so we just sit in the hostel till we take a cab to the airport and then we'll sit there for a while.

the last four days were just exhausting - we planed on doing more sightseeing than shopping but somehow it just turned out the other way around. Now we hope not to get overweighted and that we go through the customs back home without any problems (oh yes, we're gonna smuggle some stuff...).

This trip has been amazing, no less. We came to realize that just 10% of it were sightseeing and the rest 90% were a total 5-senses experience. All the things we saw, the cultural differences, the funny people and their customs, the way they live their lives, the landscapes, the art, the roads, the animals (live or cooked and fried), the other travellers, the Israeliada, the holidays (both chinese and ours), being away from home in a strange country for so long (while a mini-war going on), forgetting about the university and work but still keeping it at the back of our heads, and all the very very complicated and hard to explain food struggle, all of these were just amazing, and we probably will cherish a lot of it for many years.

And there's all the neat stuff we bought.

So this is it. It's not a real sum-up because the official one, the post that will lock this TripBlog till the next one will open uo, will appear in a few days, in Hebrew, from the very much loved and missed Jerusalem.

Thank you all for listening, and for talking back, it's been our great pleasure.

p.s
And no, no photoes on the photo-finish because the damn computer doesn't read our USB drive. Oh well.

Shopping

2006-10-05T23:29:00.000+08:00

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This is actually harder than we thought it would be. we've been shopping all day long, and we literarly are falling from our feet. but hey, tomorrow we gonna shop some more, so who cares.

We spent the day at the Silk Market, which has very little silk on sale but lots of other stuff (electronics, clothing and many other things). everything is very cheap, after you bargain like a crazy israeli, and everything is very much fake. They fake everything, they even fake fake things. They will fake their mother if they thought they would be able to sell her.

Anyway, that's all for now. Maybe tomorrow, if we come back in a decent hour we upload some pictures. And maybe not. Tomorrow is EREV SUKOT so we might pay a visit to Beit Chabad's Suka, but we'll see about that.

Take care and HAG SAMEACH!

Is it really the End??

2006-10-03T23:46:00.000+08:00

Well, No. At least, not yet.

We came back to Beijing, our last and really final stop on the trip map. Since we're already paid the city a 5 days visit in the beginning of this voyage, we decided to dedicate the next 4 days just to relaxing, and more important - for SHOPPING!!

We got to Beijing after a 22 hours long train ride, in the least expensive class of the non air-conditioned, very very local-people's train, from Shanghai. It was an educational experience, to spend the "night" in a train full of Chinese people on thier way to their capital to celebrate the nation's birthday week. One can't really grasp the complete meaning of the term "full" untill one gets to China. These people aren't kidding, when they want to fill up a train they do it untill there's no room to get from your seat to the window next to you. Nirit went to the toilet in the middle of the night, almost got lost on the way, and got back after 1 hour. Since it was the slowest train to Beijing it stopped in no less than 20 stops during the trip, most of them during the night, and the people, and their numerous bags, just kept on flowing in. Watching them stand in long lines on the stations' platforms, running as hard as they can, thinking they could get a little space for themselves and their huge bags of potatos or something, we didn't know whether to laugh at them or to cry for them. Since we took the cheapest class, which is called (quite rightfully) "hard seat", a hard seat kind of night is exactly what we got. Let's just say that the phrase "i got a chair's shape" gets a whole new meaning after such a night. They don't even bother to turn off the lights during the night, and instead they just keep selling MANA CHAMA throughout the night. The chinese people, by the way, really like MANA CHAMA and they eat it constantly, usually accompanied by several sorts of porks, especially the looks-like-a-space-food pork, which is a chunk of pork meat vaccumed into a silver wrap.

After this 22 hours ride we got back here, and the it felt great. It's good to come back to a place you already know. It's almost as getting back home (almost). We were thrilled to find out that the weather got much better than 2 months ago, and somebody even made the impossible and turned on the blue sky. It's much less humid now, and a little bit cooler, so we're really glad to come back and have a fine last taste of this city.

Yom Kippur

2006-10-01T11:00:00.000+08:00

Going to see the old Jewish getto today, from the WWII period when some Jewish refugees seeked sanctuary in Shanghai from the Nazis. After that we'll pay a visit to Beit Chabad to the Kol Nidrey service, and just try to have the holiday spirit as much as we can in this on-going-party city. It's always a little bit hard to disconnect yourself from the outside world, especially on a day like this, when you try to focus on dwelling in peace and quite while China is celebrating it's 57 birthday (it's the chinese YOM HA'ATZMAUT today and during this upcoming week).

Gmar Hatima Tova!

Pics from Shanghai

2006-09-29T20:56:00.000+08:00

The amazing skyline of Shanghai's business district, Pudong, which is still on a growth movment. At night it takes on an even more surreal look.

But the city has other sides too...

And this is the top-end 5-star hotel we're staying at, the Peace Hotel. Actually it's not, and you don't really want to see the place we're at (although there have been much worse during this trip...). This magnificant hotel once belonged to an exteremly rich jewish Iraqi opium merchant by the name of Sasoon.

Enjoing ourselves in the best metro system in China (the one in Beijing look worse than London's on a very bad day).

A beautiful young maid in the Yuyuan (Yu Garden) in the heart of the old city of Shanghai.

ShangHai!!

2006-09-26T18:07:00.000+08:00

אז סוף כל סוף הגענו לשנגחאי, הנקודה המזרחית ביותר בטיול שלנו. ציפינו הרבה להגיע הנה, משום ששנגחאי תמיד נתפסה בעינינו כעיר אקזוטית ומסתורית, מלאה באופיום...
אבל לא ציפינו לכזה עושר מנקר עיניים שמנצנץ מולך בכל פינה. כמות עצומה של מכוניות היוקרה בעיר, ובמיוחד ביואיק על שלל דגמיה, חונות בכל פינה ולא נדיר לראות נהג מחכה בפנים עם מנוע דלוק. מגדלי משרדים וקניונים לאלפיון העליון מגרדים את השמיים ועוד ועוד נבנים בכל יום.
המון זרים מציפים את הרחובות, אבל אלה לא אותם תרמילאים פשוטי מראה או דודים שמנמנים (בדרך כלל גם גרמנים) שיצאו לטיול מאורגן לכבוד הפנסיה, שהתרגלנו לראות במקומות אחרים. כאן אלה אירופאים מצוחצחים, בדרך כלל בחליפות פאר, שהכסף כמעט ונשפך להם מהאוזנים (באופן מילולי לגמרי), הממהרים לעוד איזו פגישה עסקית או שבדיוק יצאו מהמסעדה המהודרת ממול. בקיצור, קצת מעל הליגה שלנו.
הכל כאן קצת יותר יקר (או מאוד יקר, תלוי כמה אתה מרשה לעצמך). לא לחינם מכונה האזור הזה "משולש הזהב של היאנג-צה".
אבל אם מסתכלים קצת יותר טוב, ויוצאים מחוץ למרחב הנוצץ של מדרחוב NANJING LU, גם כאן יש סינים רגילים לגמרי, שעובדים במסעדות פועלים, מנקים את הזבל ומנהלים סתם חיים קשי יום, בתקוה להגיע יום אחד, אולי, למעמד אחר.
אנחנו בינתיים נעים על התפר הזה, בין הרחובות הרחבים של טיילת ה-BUND, על שלל הבניינים האירופאים שלה, ובין הרחובות הקטנים האחוריים, שם גם אנחנו נתפסים כסוג של אליטה.
היינו מעלים כמה תמונות אבל משום מה הם דורשים על זה פה תשלום נוסף (אפרופו), אז תאלצו לחכות. העיר מאד יפה, תצטרכו פשוט להאמין לנו.

Things you didn't know about China (Part 3)

2006-09-26T17:36:00.000+08:00

אנחנו נמשיך לחגוג על העברית כל עוד זה אפשרי...

נהגי האוטובוס הסינים מתים על פיסיקה. הם כל כך אוהבים פיסיקה, למעשה, שהם מנסים לאתגר את חוקי הטבע בכל נסיעה מחדש. הם בוחנים, למשל, עד כמה באמת פועל כוח המשיכה על האוטובוס בזמן סיבוב חד במיוחד, או כמה יכול לנסוע האוטובוס בלי מנוע דולק וכו'. התרגיל החביב עליהם במיוחד הוא נסיעה בגשם שוטף במהירות מטורפת בסיבובים חדים עם מטען חורג, הרבה יותר מדי נוסעים ובלי כביש. כן כן, הסינים נוסעים ממקום למקום גם אם אין כביש, זו הרי מדינה ענקית ואי אפשר לצפות שיהיה כביש בכל מקום, פשוט ככה.

סתם בשביל הפרוטוקול: תושבי פ"ת, ראוי שתדעו, הערים SHIBING, TUNXI, JINGDEZHEN ועוד כמה בדרך, הינן פחות ראויות למחיה בהרבה, אז אל תרגישו מקופחים.

בני המיעוטים במחוז GUIZHOU לקחו ברצינות יתרה את המלצתו של דגלס אדאמס להסתובב תמיד עם מגבת. נשות המחוז פשוט הולכות לכל מקום עם מגבת כרוכה על ראשן. המהדרין הולכות גם עם מסרק תקוע בשיער.

בכפרים רבים במחוז GUIZHOU מצוירות כרזות מאירות עיניים שנראות כאילו מישהו שכח להתעדכן. בכרזות הצהובות מתנוסס דגל ברה"מ אדום, על המגל והפטיש שלו, ומתחתיו כתובה ססמה קליטה בסינית: "החיו את המפלגה למען השוויון, אחזו בפוליטיקה למען העם!" (בתרגום חופשי של נירית)

הסינים היו ידועים שנים רבות במטריות שלהם, שנחשבו למלאכת מחשבת עדינה. כיום, התווית MADE IN CHINA מסמלת מיידית מוצר עם איכות ירודה. המטריות שיש לנו בארץ, אלה המצ'וקמקות ב-20 ש"ח, הן עוד מטריות באיכות יצוא לעומת המטריות שיש להם כאן. הן כל כך דפוקות שהן נפתחות, לכיוון השמיים.

הסינים, ואנחנו איתם, נוסעים נסיעות ארוכות ביותר באוטובוסים. בשל סיבה עלומה במיוחד החליט מי שהחליט במשרד התחבורה הסיני שהדרך המיטבית להעביר נסיעות ארוכות אלה הן על ידי הקרנת סרטי קריוקי בלתי פוסקים, רצוי בווליום בלתי בריא. עד שלא נסעתם נסיעה רציפה של 7 שעות באוטובוס מקרקש אפוף עשן סיגריות עם מוסיקה סינית מתקתקה כמו סוכר חום כשברקע סינים מפזמים, לא תוכלו באמת להאמין שטוב שההגה בידיים של אגד. מישהו שפגשנו בדרך הגדיל וסיפר לנו שבנסיעות שלו בויאטנם הם ממש צווחים את השירים...

הנתונים הבאים באדיבות ZHANG MEI, סינית מתוסכלת שישבה איתנו לשיחה בפארק של יאנגשואו:
המשכורת הממוצעת בעיר XIAN היא 300 יואן לחודש.
המשכורות הממוצעות במפעל בעיר מפותחת כמו SHENZHEN (סמוך להונג קונג) היא בערך 1000-3000 יואן לחודש. עובדי פירמות מקבלים שם אפילו עד 5000 יואן לחודש.
2 יואן הם שקל אחד.
ארוחה ממוצעת במקדונלד'ס (לא אכלנו!!! רק נכנסנו לשירותים!) עולה 21 יואן. ברחוב אפשר לאכול ארוחה מינימלית ב-3-8 יואן.
סתם, שתדעו.

The Official Rosh-HaShana post

2006-09-23T22:29:00.000+08:00

וכמובטח, פוסט חגיגי לראש השנה, במהדורה מיוחדת בעברית!!! (סוף סוף מחשב שלא חוסם אתרים שימושיים).

אז נכון שהתפוח לא ממש תפוח, ושלדבש אין ממש טעם של דבש אלא של טעם לוואי של דבק, אבל העיקר הכוונה ורוח החג. שתהיה לכולנו שנה מצוינת, טובה בהרבה מזו שחלפה עלינו. שנתראה כאן כולנו בדיוק בעוד שנה, בבלוגטיול חדש, מזווית אחרת של העולם...

שנה טובה ומתוקה!!

Pictures from the yellow mountain

2006-09-23T21:43:00.000+08:00

As promised, here are some pictures from the magnifisent climb on the magnifisent Huang Shan (the yellow mountain, which actually wasn't that yellow). Have as much fun as we had!

This is what we looked like before... (and what happens when you give a chinese girl a camera)

And this is us 3 sweaty hours later, after a long climb...

Although there are no less than 3 cable-cars that go up the mountain, the chinese use porters to carry up everything that comes to mind the whole 8 KM it takes to climb it. They carry food, construcstion material and even heavy machinery. If you ever wondered what is the worst job in the world, well - this must be it. By the way, and this is not a joke, if you are willing to pay they will carry you too.

The Non-Official Rosh Hashana post

2006-09-22T21:57:00.000+08:00

The official post will come tomorrow, since we're both really tired ater a very long 48 hours.

Having said that, we still wanted to say SHANA TOVA to everyone, and especially to all the dear friends and family members that read our TripBlog dedicatedly and take an active part in it. It wasn't the same without you all.

Tomorrow, so we promise we'll deliever some pictures from the climb on Huang Shan, and some other stuff.

תכלה שנה וקללותיה, תחל שנה וברכותיה

A Birthday Post!!!

2006-09-20T18:57:00.000+08:00

And here it comes again, and this time it's Nirit who is getting older. Actually we planed on cellebrating this special day at the peak of the Huang Shan (the yellow mountain), but since it took us only 26 hours to get here, we'll do it tomorrow.
In the mean time, tea and cookies will do just fine.

There isn't much to tell about the past few days, just that we learnt how to trick the railway system which led to some funny conversations with very bored and curious chinese people of all kinds. The highlight of all this was when one woman asked us if we're allowed in Israel to have more than one child... We were surprised to hear that their impression of Israel is of a very large, strong and wealthy country. Oh well...

We promise to have some new pictures for you in a couple of days.

A short story about how Nirit have saved the day, and one wet chinese raft-driver

2006-09-16T21:18:00.000+08:00

This the 3rd day of our stay at the southern and very much touristic town of YangShuo. It's located just outside famous GuiLin, and too has an amazing scenery of Karst peaks. It's a bit hard to explain, this is why we'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

Yesterday we rented a copule of bikes and rode in the countryside. We climbed to the top of the Moon Hill, from which we could have seen the wonderfull view only if there weren't so many clouds. From there we rode on for another 7 hours or so along the river and the villages aside it. After a day ride we could hardly seat down without problems...

Today we went to yet some more villages, along the Li river (Li Jiang). We saw the local market in Xingping, where they sold a surprisingly big amount of tobacco leaves ready to smoke. We even saw a dog on the market, but it didn't see us...

From the village's dock we took a boat for 2 hours. Well, it wasn't quite a boat, but a tiny bamboo-raft, with a very very MASTUL driver. Our driver knew only one word in English - Hello! With this broad vocabulary he managed to explain us the hisrtory of the river and the karst peaks, and to explain us just why he loves his country so much.

After a short, very peaceful and calm sail, a big Tour-Ship passed us by. In a few moments big waves appeared and our little bamboo started to go up and down. Suddently it began to turn, and as it did we were really surprised to find out our MASTUL driver in the water, waving and screaming funny "Hello!"s at us. The silly guy just flipped over into the water, and now we both were strangeled on a bamboo-thingie, which was spinning over and over, because nobody was holding it's motor and stearing it. While our driver was checking to see if his cell-phone still works, in the water, Nirit leaped to the back of the bamboo-raft and grabbed the motor's stick.

The raft began to go right and left, as fearless Nirit tried to figure it out. Just before another big tour-ship smashes us, and a moment before we crashed on the rocks, she got it together, turned the boat around and even picked up the amused driver on the way. The other passing-by bamboo drivers cheered. Actually we were so busy trying to figure out what to do that we didn't think of taking pics of the entire thing. For the rest of the day our silly driver was amused as hell, telling the story to every collegue he spotted on the way. His cell-phone, by the way still works, even though it was totaly soaked in river water. And to think it was a chinese motorola fake...

These were our little local advantures in YangShuo. Tomorrow we're not doing anything, and that's the way we like it. In a few days we'll leave the south and start heading toward the north-east, going through Huang shan (the yellow mountain) and some cities, on our way to ShangHai. Those of you who actually looked at our interactive map (Michal, we know you did) will ask themselves why aren't we heading toward Hong Kong? Well, let's just say that Issta caused us some visa difficulties which made us give it up and head straight to ShangHai, but it's not a big deal.

Post to you soon.

GuiZhou Province: The Pictures (part 3)

2006-09-12T20:58:00.000+08:00

Scenes from the Dong minority village of ZhaoXing

The hard work at the rice terraces never ends. The rice in each terrace is in a differet phase of growing, and thus the village can have rice all year long. Only the adults work in the terraces. Actually, it seems like the young generation dosen't show any interest in the rice - the main food and source of income of the villages.

There's nothing like waking up on the morning and reading that...

GuiZhou Province: The Pictures (Part 2)

2006-09-12T20:36:00.000+08:00

More pictures from XiJiang's day-life

Don't ask...

GuiZhou Province: The Pictures (Part 1)

2006-09-12T20:10:00.000+08:00

Scenes from XiJiang village and it's endless rice terraces

(this is how rice looks like)

XiJiang's elementary school

One of many English-Chinese signs throughout the school. The half communist-half capitalist messages can be confusing...

Kunming: the Pictures (part 2)

2006-09-12T20:01:00.000+08:00

Yet another beautiful girl in the Shilin park

The night scene in Kunming

Morning work-out in Kunming

This requires an explenation: here and there across the country we saw workers of different working places (in this case, a big resturant) stand up in lines in fron of the entrance and make morning streaches and stuff to a the sounds of an old communist chinese cassette that barks orders at them. Obviously they feel a bit strange, especially when everybody else are watching by, but they still do it. The managers do a sort of a "pep-talk" to encourge them. We couldn't decide if it's a communist left-over that someone forgot to cancel, or they do it in their free will. either way, it's funny as hell.

Leaving Yunnan by train towards the GuiZhou province

Kumning: The Pictures (part 1)

2006-09-12T19:40:00.000+08:00

We know that you have all been waiting, so here it goes: the first pics set is from our 4 days in Kunming and it surroundings. Enjoy!

Nirit gives an English lesson in a small monastery up in the hills near Dali

Scenes from Shilin (the stone forest)

The Bamboo temple near Kunming

Typical English in a yidish accent

Kunming's youth get addicted to the internet caffes

On the road

2006-09-11T19:01:00.000+08:00

For starters, pics will be uploaded soon, that is when there'll be a normal computer for instance.
Second, this will be a good time to sum-up our week at the GuiZhou province. In a nutshell, rice. To be more elaborate, lots of rice. I mean tons of it, loads and loads of rice terraces as far as the horizon. GuiZhou is a very poor province, and it is felt the moment you enter it. You can see the daily struggle on the people faces. This fact turns them, at least most of the people we ran into, to a less welcoming, less friendly. To be more spesific, as michal put it, you can allmost see the $$$ signs light up in their eyes the moment they see us. It comes to the fact that they will always find something to try and sell you when you only ask them how to get to the nearest toilet.

During this week we decided to go underground and try to travel in the northen area of the south-eastern region of GuiZhou. We've been to places where it felt that the locals actually never saw white people before. We've seen towns less good-looking than Petach-tikva, and that is really saying a lot. Actually, we've been toplaces that really looked like Rafiach. In the bottom line, a true anthropological experience. Oh, and they really eat everything, we saw pleanty of roasted dogs and horses. The villagers here sometimes are so poor that they use nylon bags instead of windows, the kids don't always have shoes, people wash in the filthy river because they don't have any bathroom, etc.

We completed our visit here in the small and lovely Dong village named ZhaoXing. Some people will be very sorry to hear that the place have changed entirely since they last visited it 3 three years ago. Nowdays it's almost totally commercial, everything is in English, evrything is really overpriced, and in general it seems that the locals are less friendly than we expected them to be. Oh well.

It's been a hell of a week. A week both of us will take with us. We saw unbelievable things, that are really hard to put in words. The ride has been hard sometime, but eventually it has been worth it.

And besides that, this week we've been 5 years together. Congratulations!

Randomizing

2006-09-06T20:52:00.000+08:00

Hello.
Sorry, but there will be no pictures soon, because we are in a very remote place. We've been 4 days in Kunming. Kunming is yet just another Megalopolis, so we tried to spend as much time outside it as possible. We went to Shilin, a stone forest, and to Xi Shan, the western hills. On those two wonderful days we had, as some people call it, "bad China days". It's hard to explain exactly what that means, but we'll try. It may also satisfy Tzvika's request (Nirit's father) to write also about what our feelings are and not only about our advantures. So here goes:
The Chinese people can be very nice, when they want to. Nevertheless they can be very nasty. They tend to lie, sometimes, when they just don't think it's important to tell you the truth, or when they think they just can take your money without too much harm. Nirit says that they don't really lie, but just don't tell you the whole truth, or just happen to omit very important facts. When you want to go to Shilin, for instance, and you ask how long is the ride, they tell you it's 2 hours. What they don't tell you is that actually it takes 4.5 hours, including 3 stops, one for buying pearls and other jewlary, one for visiting a God-forsaken buddhist temple, and the third one for lunch, 1.5 KM outside the Shilin Park entrance!!! This was the first time that we realy lost our patiance and showed the chinese woman that was in charge what we really had in mind, and it wasn't a pretty site, i'll tell you that.
What we're trying to say is that this trip sometimes can get harder than a regular trip. Sometimes you feel that you need to put some work into things to get what you want. It can be exhausting, but most of the time we try to look at it as if it's just part of the fun, part of the entire experience.

On a more optimistic note, we left the Yunnan province, and its wonderful blue sky, and headed towards the GuiZhou province. Here we feel like the first white men who crossed Africa. It's a very untoured province, which makes things a little more complicated. This province is very poor and is home to a range of minoraties, like the Miao and the Dong. But so far so good - we've been staying for 2 nights at a very small village in the area - the smallest place that we've been to in China yet - and the atmosphere is great. It's an unbelievable experience to see how these people live and how the daylife looks like. We'll post lots of pictures when we'll be able to. In fact, we were really amazed to find out that there is Internet connection here. I guess the globalization hasn't skipped anyone...

That's all for now. We'll be here for about a week and then travel to a far more travelled area - Guilin and YangShuo. Catch up in a week!

Things you didn't know about china (Part 2)

2006-08-31T19:27:00.000+08:00

Many things in china speak, even though you wouldn't expect them to. Calculators speak. The buses here talk. They say many interesting things in Chinese, and then they repeat it in English. For example, they say "please keep your balance, the bus is about to move" or "it's prohibited to put explosives inside the bus". I wonder if that would have worked in Israel also.
In the old town of Dali, which is a very peaceful and pastoralic place, there's a lot of Ganja. In fat, there is so much of it, that the old ladies of the town try to sell it to you in every opportunity they have. You cannot walk the streets without having 3 old ladies, and I mean old, attack you with their discrete whispers: "Do you want to smoki Ganja? Hashish?" and so on and so forth. All this happens, of course, in broad day light in the most crowded streets. The prices are very convenient, by the way. One bag of Ganja, so we've heard, costs around 20 Yuan, which are 10 Israeli Shekels. Someone should alert Gonen Segev.
The people of the Yunnan province tend to omit the ASAROT when they speak or when they tell you the price for something. For example, if making your laundry costs 60 Yuan, they will tell you 6. This, as one should guess, may lead to many awkward situations, that probably will end in very frustrated Chinese woman who thought really worked hard on the laundry because she actually thought she'd get 60 Yuan for the job, but eventually got only 25. Oh well.
The trash-collecting-cars (that is, OTO ZEVEL) here don't come with smelly dirty workers who make noise early in the morning. Rather they play a very pleasant tune when they pass in the streets. The people hear this tune and rush to the street to throw their garbage. It's really funny, I know, but it's such a bizarre thing to see that I felt the need to share it.
The employees of any big working place (like a supermarket or a big department store) have a very distinctive work division. Everyone has their uniform according to his job. There are the women who stand along the tea shelves, and there are the women who stand aside the toilet paper shelves. In the entrance to the store there's a big poster with all the employees' pictures, names and positions in the store. They all look pretty unhappy in these pictures. Also, they have to enter the working place, usually early in the morning, organized in two rows, according to their positions in the working place. In fact, all of this is damn creepy. This and the fact that there is someone beside each and every shelf in the supermarket, and they tend to help you with choosing things you don't really need. Actually we almost winded up buying an exercise machine to strech your hands, when all we needed was glue.

On a personal note

2006-08-31T19:22:00.000+08:00

We thought it would be nice to share with you this mail that Nirit sent to one of her friends that studies with her:

I read your comments at our blog, but I can't answer back through the blog.
first of all, I hope you had fun in Slovenia, and that you finished your exams already.
I just wanted to say about the Chinese thing, I don't want to get your expectations too high.
I manage to talk with them, but most times it's just the basics: where is something, I want to buy a ticket, how much is that and so on.
it happens quite frequently that I try to ask someone something a little more complicated and then he answers a long "bla bla bla" which I absolutely don't understand. So most of the time I back off and say, well, I didn't understand but thanks. Only in a number of times when I feel the other person is more patient, I ask them to say again or try to ask the question differently. It is hard, more than I expected after 3 years of studying. The worst place was at Chengdu, where for some weird reason, they don't pronounce the "H". So they say "si" instead of "shi", "ci "instead of "chi"...etc. It was unbelievable, as if you don't have enough meanings to each word as it is. That way 4 sounds like 10 and you can guess the rest. Horrible!!!
the more south we went, the more they don't understand me well. Although on the smaller places I get along better.
sometimes on the trains people begin talking with me, and if they are really curious we have a very funny, half broken Chinese half broken English, conversations.
yesterday I had an amazing experience. We went to this temple where they teach Kong Fu and Tai Qi by orphan children who live there. We met there an Israeli girl who spent the last two weeks there and she gave the kids some English lessons. When she heard I can speak a little Chinese she asked if I can help her in class. So we gave them the lesson and the kids were really cute and so eager to learn. And I think they were happy to have someone that can speak both Chinese and English so they can communicate better.

wow, that was very long. Sorry about that. Anyway, it's hard but it was worth it all along. So don't give up.

just a small request of our loyal readers

2006-08-31T14:21:00.000+08:00

some of you, family and friends have read and commented our blog (mostly thanks to you dad, Tzvika). we are really excited to read your comments and to know you travel with us a little.
it would be great if you wrote your e-mail address so we can write you back, because we can't answer back personally through the blog.

keep reading and have fun,
US

A little sum-up

2006-08-30T20:52:00.000+08:00

Almost without noticing the 4th week of our trip is about to end. Times does pass slower around here, since everyday is so full of amazing things, places and people, but apparently it does go by.
We changed plans a little bit, but it's a good thing because we adjust ourselves to this crazy place. We gave up going to Honk-Kong because of technical difficulties regarding our visas (nothing important, just never trust ISSTA Mount-Scopus to arrange things for you...), and decided to dedicate more time to Shanghai and it's surroundings. It's been 4 days since we got to Dali, and we were supposed to go on a 2 days tai-chi course in a temple up the mountains, but when we got there today we found out that you can't stay there less than 4 days. That would have been ok but unfortunately we can't begin the course before Saturday, and that doesn't really fit our plan, so we gave it up. Never the less today's visit to the temple, seeing the amazing orphan children that live there and teach KongFu and Tai Chi, the practice itself and all of the spiritual atmosphere in the place, were worth the climb up the mountain. Nirit even took part in an English lesson the kids had, and they really loved the fact that their teacher finally knows chinese.
Anyway, we have 5 more weeks to go. tomorrow we'll extend our visas, get a full-body massage and then leave to Kunming, the Yunnan province capital city.

Countryside pics

2006-08-29T19:04:00.000+08:00

For those of you who asked for it (were there any?), here are some real pics from the real chinese countryside as seen at the southern Yunnan province. Enjoy!

The old city of Lijiang

Villages along Tiger Leaping Gorge

The old town of Dali

Villages around Erhai lake (near Dali)

Zhoucheng Village

Xizhou Village

A brief comment to God: The world does not seem to fully understand that when a man goes on summer vacation, he does not expect it to rain.

Pictures from the dark side...

2006-08-29T18:18:00.000+08:00

Having the bigget lunch ever at ZhongHe Shan (a very high mountain) near Dali

Shaul on the stairway to heaven on the Tiger Leaping Gorge trek

Passage for short chinese people

Nirit is happy that the Tiger trek is finally over...

Great satisfaction after a 2 hour muddy climb on ZhongHe Shan

Riding on a Tuk-Tuk with a crazy chinese woman driver

At our best during the Tiger trek

Nirit doesn't really want to eat corn

Small communists plan to take over the world at ZhouCheng village

Lookout! This woman is about to drive!

Nirit is thinking about finding a new partner for the trip (instead of the current one)

Old people cheating on Ma-Jong remicube (at Dali)

The talles chinese noodels maker alive at Lijiang (he made us some fine spicy noodels...)

Tiger Leaping George

2006-08-26T15:52:00.000+08:00

Finally we got out of the city a little bit. After 2 rainy days in Lijiang we drove to a little village named Qiaotou there we began, together with a bunch of other israelies, the tiger Leaping George trek. it's not really a trek, more like a 2 day trip, but who cares. The path went up the mountains, and after a couple of hours of tough climb we reached the summit. from there we could see the amazing view of the Yang Tze river digging it's magnifisant way through the deep canyon. the view was something out of this world, and the walk was worth it all.

along the path there are many tea houses and guesthouses with many chinese villagers who are dying for some westerns to leave their money at their hands. just before it got dark we arrived the "half-way guest house" were we stayed for the night. all we israelies had a very big and nice friday night dinner and chat about how china is a strange place, and how we miss little things back home. at some point, not surprisingly, we started talking about the army and stuff like that, and had a lot of laughs.

Before we went on the trek we spend some time at Lijiang, which is a really small town, in chinese terms. it's very touristic, but just a pleasent and not too agressive as Beijing. We slept in a very very odd guesthouse called Ma-Ma Naxi, after the bossy mama that runs it. she's a bit crazy, and gives everybody bananas and weird chinese masscouts. the food here was great, and that's not so common in china, and it's full of israelies, so all in all we had a good time.

We are already 3 weeks in china, and i think only now we really got used to the idea that we are here. it's a very different place from what we know. the mentality, the people, the toilets... after the initial shock i think we started to understand how things work around here.

And then some pictures!

2006-08-23T23:13:00.000+08:00

The chinese really like to take pictures with their cell phones

Nirit and waterfalls at the JiuZhaiGou park

One of the many beautiful lakes at the JiuZhaiGou park

That's us at the JiuZhaiGou park

Nirit in front of one of the 9 Tibetian villages at the JiuZhaiGou park

Prayer flags at the tibetian village

Shaul thinks he's a geografical photografer

An old tibetian man with his Yak (from the crosswords!!!)

A list

2006-08-23T22:41:00.000+08:00

This will probably be a little long, so you don't have to read it all.

China's guide to driving a bus:
1. Always honk your horn. the more the better. the louder the better. crazy, long, peace-disturbing horns are recommended.
2. there is no point learning any more rules. there just aren't any. just drive like a madman, and don't forget to horn.
3. If you won't get there first - you won't get there at all! this is why you have to bypass every single vehicle you see, even if it's in a middle of a totally dark tunnel.
China's guide to building a Toilet:
1. Build an avarege size room.
2. dig a narrow long hole in the ground
3. congradulations, you're done!!!!
on the way to JiuZhaiGou park and back, we saw many sights, many people from the kind that we've never seen before. Tiny villages spreaded all over the mountains. Rice terraces and corn fields cover the land. Their lives are so simple, that we can't even understand it from our western point of view. because of this lack of mental capability we sometimes mistake it to be a pittyful life, a life of poverty, despair and want. But it's not necessarily so. from their point of view, maybe, their lives are complete. they have what they wnat. they supply their own needs of food, clothing and shelter. they have their friends. they really don't need much more.
China's guide for riding a bus:
1. spit anywhere you want.
2. you can pee in the trash can.
3. please vomit all over the place, please. oh, and there's no need to clean up after you.
The more we go south things are changing. the people become more simple, more rough. the dialect changes, so Nirit says, and the views, too. High mountains with their heads in the sky, vast valleys covered with rice fields. It looks like nothing have changed in the last couple of centuries. The people still wear their straw hats, and carry their straw-baskets filled with corn or rice or whatever it is they grow. They walk miles and miles till the next town to sell their crop. they don't use heavy machinery but rather the same methods their great grand-fathers used. they still wear Mao suits and Mao hats that looks like they were taken out of the seventies. sometimes it looks as if time has forgotten these people, and they don't seem to bother about it.

We arrived to Lijiang, a small town in the southern Yunnan county. the food is still spicy, but good. It's a little bit difficult for our stomachs, but we'll manage. We'll be here for a couple of days and then go on doing the Tiger Leaping Gorge Trek for a little while. We are glad to leave the big filthy cities and move to small villages of colorful people.

Just some pictures!

2006-08-18T18:17:00.000+08:00

Terra-Cota Warriors near the city of Xi'an

A giant panda in the special breeding center in Chengdu

The small pigglet in our great hostel in Chengdu

Bell tower at the Wen Shu temple in Chengdu

Nirit at the Summer Palace outside Beijing

An old man drawing Chinese Caligraphy in water at the Tian Tan park in Beijing

A Short Break

2006-08-15T21:24:00.000+08:00

It all started the day we left Xi'an: Nirit had caughed her first caugh. it was all downhill from there. very quick, after a really amusing 15-hours-long ride in a train from Xi'an to Chengdu, we both got sick. we had a 1st class tickets, and our room mate was a chinese business man who was just eager to speak with someone. he and Nirit had a very bizzare conversation, half in chinese, half in english and the rest in signs. we found out that he was really a HOVEV ZION, and he just kept on talking about how smart the Israelies are and so on. we didn't have the heart to correct him.

by the time we got to Chenghdu (at 05:30) we both were sick. somehow we managed to get a cold in the middle of this high August heat. we arrived to this beautiful hostel that we are staying at, and spent two days just resting, talking, reading books and drinking jasmin tea. the hostel, as we said, is really great, and there are one and a half piggies that run aroung here. they are very cute, though it's a little bit strange to have lunch with piggies bumping into your legs searching for food.
Chengdu is the capital of the famous Sichuan district (the one from the sichuan style LEKET YERAKOT). beacause we been sick till now we hadn't have the chance to taste it's famous very hot dishes, but we promise we'll do just that when we can. tomorrow we'll go and find out how Chengdu is really like (we just know how the hostel and the little WenShu temple aside it look like), and on thursday we plan on travelling north, to a natural preserve which supposed to be amazing (called JiuZhaiGou) and after that we'll come back here.

Post again soon!

Things you didn't know about China (part 1)

2006-08-12T23:02:00.000+08:00

1. There is no sky around here, only thick, gray, stinky layer of smog.
2. There are no traffic rules. One should drive as he pleases. The more people drive as they please, the less accidents will occure. There are no real diffrences between a red light and a green light - after all, they're only lights.
3. Equality between men and women is important - women too drive buses, trains, taxi cabs, do labour work, lay brciks, sweep the streets, spit, smoke and litter - exactly as men do.
4. The kids have the most efficient dress code - they wear pants without a rear part, which means that they go around town with their asses bear. they just shit all over the place (and we mean ALL OVER THE PLACE, even inside the train station) whenever they like, without any trouble.
5. The chinese people truly believe in the devision of labour - everyone has his tiny, distinguished, job. there's the man that drives the bus and there's the woman who sells the tickets on the bus. there's the man that moves block X from A to B and there's the man that moves it Back to A... One guy is in charge of cleaning the trian's floor and then another guy wipes it with a mop and finally the third guy rolls back the carpet.
6. Anything you didn't ask SPESIFICALLY, no one will bother telling you. For example: in the ticket office for the Terracotta Warriors near Xian there are 10 cashiers. when you ask the first one for student's tickets she will tell you to go to the left. you don't really understand what that means and wonder your way to the leftmost cashier. over there you find out that the student's ticket is founf in cashier no. 6. When you get there you find out that there are no student's tickets at all. You go back yo the woman that sent you there, and then she sais that it's at the cashier next to her. The cashier next to her sits a woman. she amiles but doesn't do anything about it. A chinese kid steps in line in front of you and gets a student's ticket from her. You step right after him, claim the same one, but the answer is negative. WHY???, you demand to know. And the answer is simple - there are student's tickets, of course there are. and they're right there, but they are only for chinese students, not for you. So why couldn't you say so in the first place??? Because you didn't ask...
7. Chiarman Mao Ze-Dong's portrait appears on all kinds of bank notes (cash).

Leaving xian tomorrow on the way to Chengdu. We'll stay there for a week and a half, or so. Promise to upload pictures from the holy mountains as soon as we'll get on their peaks!

Zai Jian (goodbye) Beijing - Nihao (hello) Xian!

2006-08-11T22:26:00.000+08:00

after 5 days in Beijing, and just as we started to feel we're getting the hang of it, we took a train to the next station (no. 2 on our interactive map) - Xian. the city of the famous Terracota Warriors. it was quite a long trip, 15 hours by train. we took a night train and slept with a couple of chinese business men (we would like to think that's what they were...) in a small cabbine. shaul the paranoid slept hugging his backpack, frightened that the fat suspicious looking chinese fellow will grab his it the moment he'll close his eyes, but he was surprised to find out in the morning that everything was fine. everything but the fact that the stupid ticket office didn't have the right tickets for our next ride (in china you have to buy tickets in advanced because they have too many people!!!). finally we managet to buy something, and somehow hooked with a group of Polish guys (they are blond, very tall and say KURVA all time long). we went to the hostel where we are staying at the moment, and KIMBANU great price, like good israelies. so after all something good came out of the Polish people, and because the Jewish people suffered enough...

Xian is great. much better than Beijing. they don't have sky here either, and the air is gray ans smoggy, and it's humid as hell here too. but! the city is much "lighter", more dynamic and fun. the night scene is very peppy - lot's of neon lights, pubs and discos, shopping malls and millions of people on the streets.
I must admit that it's a weird feeling, not a good feeling, to travel while you read about such horrible things back home. be strong, and take care of yourselves. hope we see you all in one piece on October.

a quick note

2006-08-08T22:30:00.000+08:00

just wanted to know that we can read all of your talkbacks, we just can't see our own blog (thanks to the chinese government). so keep talkbacking anyway! btw, you can write in hebrew, because we can read it here.

that's all.

This is a Birthday post

2006-08-08T21:54:00.000+08:00

So we went to see the Great Wall today. What can i say? It is a wall. Its is great indeed. Altogether - it's a great wall. No, seriously, it's really astounding and breath taking. It's so typical that the chinese built it of all people. it's just a very bizzare thing to do - to build an amazingly long, steep and massive wall on the mountains' peaks. so they did it, and it looks great. getting there was a bit of a head-ache, but who cares now. after a tough climb we got to the wall itself, and standing on this wonder was worth every breath. it's a strange feeling to be at such an amazing place that you've heard about since you were a kid and never even dreamt on getting to. too bad that we weren't able to see anything besides the wall itself, because there are no sky here. since we came here we haven't seen the blue skies, or the sun for that matter. the air pollution around here is so heavy, that a permanent dock of filthy smog is covering the earth. but it was still a sight to be seen.
highly recommended, if you happen to be around beijing...
besies that, we ate dumplings today (or jiao zi, as the chinese call them), which turned out to be a really tasty thingies. too bad they made us so many dumplings that after the 70th it started to taste like KNIEDALACH. besides that, the "resturant"'s staff had a good laugh watching us struggleing with those chop sticks. thank god that they were kind enough to bring us forks, after they finished with their laughing business.

so this was shaul's birthday, and it was great, of course, because it didn't have any other option. tomorrow we are going to see the summer palace, though a thunder storm has just begun, so we'll probably have a strange day tomorrow (i wonder if the smog turnes into mudd when it rains here).

btw, it happens to be that the chinese people are not that wise as we all think them to be. otherwise i can't even imagine how to explain the giant BALAGAN that goes around here, especially when it come to do with their driving skills. they're not really driving at all. they're doing something else, which is still not very clear...

WOW

2006-08-06T21:13:00.000+08:00

21:26 Bejing time.
This place is unbelieveable, and that means exactly that. We've just landed this morning.
Tip #1: Never arrive at Bejing Capital Airport at 0400 Am - you'll have to wait for a bur untill 0700. Oh well. we've got to the city very early and we were very very tired. nevertheless we had to get to our hostel since sleeping on the streets didn't seem like a good idea at the time.
Tip #2: Don't go from place to place by foot - it's too damn humid around here!!!
After an hour or so of wandering on the streets we finally found our hostel - it's located not very far from tiananmen square, in a thing whih called a "hutong" which means, niore or less, a really old, crouded and poor neighbourhood. it's so poor that the people don't have their own bathroom in their homes. rather they use a public bathroom, from the kind that is better not to describe. anyway, it's really shocking, to us anyway, to witness all this since it wasn't exactly what we expected form china's capital. it reminds us of old chinese films we saw about the 50's and the 60's in china.
There are milloins of people on the streets and they are all chinese. we fell like in an aquarium, but we are the fish. everybody are staring at us as if they've never seen white people before.
we've travelled through the city just to get it's vibe, and we've got it. it's smoggy, hot, humid, crouded and full of diversities: on the one hand you get to see really poor people and on the other you walk through commercial avenues filled with expensive stores and rich people. we guess that china is, after all, a 3rd world country.

besides all that, Nirit speaks chinese really well! i was surprised to find how well. i feel like a trotal waste - i just follow her and nodd my head as if i understand what she's talking about, while she orders me a nice dish of beef with rice. and by the way - the food was actuallt quite good, but we only ate one time till now. it was pretty spicy - red hot chilly peppers!!!

anyway, it's been a long day and we gonna hit the showers before some stupid americans will occupy them for half an hour.

we'll upload pics soon!

Just before takeoff

2006-08-03T23:13:00.000+08:00

זהו, עכשיו זה באמת כבר תיכף קורה. על אמת. מחר נירית תנעל את הבית ותיסע אל ההורים שלה, ומתישהו במהלך השבוע הבא יכנסו יפתח ואיריס לדירה שלנו למשך חודשיים. אני כבר בפתח תקווה. נפרדתי ממאו בבוקר. היה מוזר. הוא ישב בתוך הארון, כולו מנומנם, ולא נראה כאילו הוא מתרגש מזה שאני הולך. מזה זמן נירית ואני תוהים אם חתולים נקשרים למקום שלהם או נקשרים לבעלים. היום בבוקר מאו נראה בעיקר קשור לארון, אבל אני אסלח לו. הפלנו על עופר ושחר תיק - לתת אנטיביוטיקה למאו (החתול הטיפש שהצליח להפצע בשנית) ואני מקווה שהם לא יצטרכו ללכת לוטרינר בשבוע שעבר ושהפצע יסגר. אבל מה שאני בעיקר מקווה זה שמאו יתרגל במהרה לבעלים החדשים שלו, ולא יעשה להם יותר מדי צרות. הוא נורא חמוד, אבל הוא יודע להיות נודניק של ממש כשהוא רוצה.
זהו, עד כאן בענייני החתול. בינתיים בפתח תקווה חם כמו שרק בפתח תקווה אפשר (שזה אומר חם ולח כמו במרק בית שחי) וכשאני חושב על זה שאני עובר מכאן למקום שיש בו רק יותר אחוזי לחות, מיד מצב הרוח שלי עולה ואני מגיר עוד אגל זיעה בשביל לציין את המעמד. אבל מה אני מקטר? בעוד 48 שעות, בערך, אני כבר אחרי הדיוטיפרי...
אז זהו, ישנם כמה חששות, אבל הן בעיקר חששות לגבי מה שנשאר מאחור ולא מפני מה שעתיד לבוא. אני בעיקר מצפה להביט מן הצד ולהתמוגג בזמן שנירית מקשקשת בסינית עם כל מיני מוכרים זקנים בשוק...
מקווה שתהנו מהבלוג שלנו. מקווה שיהיה ממה להנות.
נתראה באוקטובר.

11 Hours connection in Kiev!!!

2006-07-18T00:33:00.000+08:00

אז זהו, שלא. קיבלנו אישור על הטיסה חזרה מסוכנות הנסיעות - ועכשיו, תודה לאל יש לנו קונקשן של 4 שעות בקייב ולא של 11 שעות! כבר תכננו לצאת לקנות כלה אוקראינית ולמכור אותה בארץ לכל המרבה במחיר, ועכשיו כל מה שנוכל לקנות הם ממתקים אוקראינים בלתי טעימים להביא לנכדים.

חוצמזה, קנינו נגן מפ3 מגניב לאללה (תודה לאבא ואמא) ועכשיו סוף כל סוף יש משהו יותר טוב לעשות מללמוד למחשבה מדינית מודרנית. אם למישהו יש שירים מגניבים במיוחד הוא מוזמן לשלוח במייל...

TripBlog is being launched!

2006-07-02T21:17:00.000+08:00

אהלן!

שלא תגידו שלא ידעתם, הבלוגטיול שלנו יוצא לדרך, בשעה טובה. זה עדיין לא ממש אומר שהטיול שלנו יוצא לדרך, אבל נדמה שבאופן כללי אנחנו בכיוון הנכון.

בקיצור, ההכנות בעיצומן, והן היו אפילו עוד יותר בעיצומן אלמלא תקופת המבחנים. בכל מקרה, אתם יכולים לעשות מנוי לבלוגטיול שלנו ולקבל הודעות באופן קבוע ישר למייל. פשוט רשמו את המייל שלכם במקום המתאים בצד ימין. אחרי שתלחצו על הכפתור יתחיל תהליך הרשמה קצר, תקבלו מייל לתיבת הדוא"ל שלכם ותצטרכו ללחוץ שם על איזה לינק בשביל לאשר את ההרשמה. מאותו רגע, אתם תהיו רשומים כדת וכדין.

הבלוג הזה מתארח באתר BLOGGER ולא באתר ישראלי פשוט שאנחנו מניחים שעניין העברית יהיה מסובך בסין. אבל אין מה להבהל, אנחנו כנראה לא נכתוב כל כך הרבה אלא בעיקר נעלה תמונות. למי שיהיה מוכן להזדיין בסבלנות (כלומר לקרוא באנגלית), התמורה תהיה בידו.

ועוד משהו - עשו טובה ותגיבו, בעיקר כשנהיה בחו"ל. זה ממש גורם לך להרגיש נורא לא פופולרי שמס' התגובות לפוסט האחרון שלך נשאר בעקביות על 0 עד שאתה צריך לפברק לעצמך תגובות...

זהו, שיהיה טיול נחמד (שיהיה טיול...), ושיהיה ביקור נעים בבלוגטיול שלנו.

נירית ושאול

;)

The Amazing Map

2006-07-02T05:34:00.000+08:00

זהו, המפה האינטאראקטיבית המגניבה שלנו (מאמ"ש) מוכנה, לאחר לא מעט זיעה (ראו קישור קבוע מימין וגם פה).

אז נכון, הטקסט לא ממש מיושר לימין, ולפעמים חלק מהתמונות קורסות, אבל לפחות השקענו.

אתם מוזמנים להכנס ולראות את מסלול הטיול שלנו, ולקבל טעימות קטנות מכל המקומות המגניבים שנהיה בהם (הלוואי שכבר נהיה בהם...).

עדכון: הטקסט יושר לימין, התמונות הסוררות חונכו, העסק עוצב מחדש, ואפילו כל הלינקים עובדים ומובילים למקום הנכון.

תבלו.

Getting ready...

2006-06-29T19:42:00.000+08:00

התחלנו להתארגן לקראת הטיול.

כרטיסי טיסה כבר יש, לנירית אפילו ביטוח רפואי, ויזה תהיה באמצע יולי, ואם ירצה השם אפילו יסדרו לנו קונקשן יותר נורמלי בדרך חזור, כך שלא נצטרך להמתין 11 שעות וחצי בשדה התעופה של קייב...

היום הסתמן שאפילו נמצא פתרון לבעית המאו הקלה שהיתה לנו - חברים של נירית מהלימודים כנראה יכנסו לדירה לכל התקופה, אם הכל ילך לפי התכנית. זאת אחרי לא מעט נסיונות מתישים למצוא אנשים שיסכימו לעשות את זה, שהסתיימו, עד היום, במפחי נפש חוזרים ונשנים ובבחור אחד שנשמע חמוד, חבר של חברים, שיכול היה להכנס אבל רק לחלק מהתקופה, ועוד כל מיני כאלה...

בקיצור, מתקדמים עקב בצד אגודל, בתקווה ששום דבר נוראי לא יפול מלמעלה בשום שלב. נחזיק אצבעות.