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Hi all

This week was dedicated to 2 things.

The first was making our way from Kashgar in the south-west of china to Beijing in the north-

east a total of over 5000 km!


The second thing was learning about the history of China. Went to 2 good museums in

Urumqi and Xian and we now know all the Chinese dynasties from 500BC to the last emperor

in the 20th century by heart. we saw archeological sites in Xian the historical capital of China

till about the 10th century and saw endless Confucian and Taos temples in Pingyao - one of

the riches cities in China till the 19th century when it went bankrupted and did not have the

money to modernize in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Beeing a Celeb

Everywhere we go people say "hello" to us and expect us to be friendly. when we wake up in

the train after getting little sleep because of the noise - small kids are told to go play with us.

Although it was their parants who deprived us of sleep due to noise and the smell of the food

they make we are still expected to play along. even after a long day of walking in the sun and

sweating, chinese tourist want to take our photograph and we still need to look our best and

be polite. We now know how it feels to be a celebrity star.

The world is round!

Traveling hours by train makes one think but not necessarily important things. On one of the

rides I noticed that on the volume control of my IPOD earphones it says " CHINA". I bought

these earphones in Dallas through the Internet and they arrived there from California.

Bringing them to China via Israel made them travel around the world!


Most people think that Magellan was the first man to travel round the earth but actually he

died on the way back on his voyage. you might mistakenly think that one of his Spanish

crewmates was the first to circumvent the earth but actually the first man to do so was

Enrique- An Filipino slave that traveled to Spain and joined (some say by force) Magellan's

voyage. When he returned home to the Philippines - 6 months before Magellan's ship arrived

back to Spain - he was the first to circle the earth. Just like my headphones.



Speaking of a round earth - China has only one time zone. The sun sets at 22:30 in Kashgar

but sets at 19:50 in Beijing. Guess we traveled a lot this week :)

The list

The longest train ride this week was 41hr ride from Urumqi to Xian. Leaving a big city on a

train ride is fun for us because we go ahead of time to the supermarket and buy food so we

do not need to eat the cafeteria food on the train.



Supermarkets in large cities are nothing like the markets around china. in the supermarkets

you can truly get anything you want and not just what has grown in season locally.



This is what we brought to the long train ride:



4 bananas

3 kiwis from Chile

2 oranges from California

600gr plums

500gr apricots

3 tomatoes

4 cucumbers

1 big melon

1/2kg cherry tomatoes

2 red apples from new-Zealand

2 green apples from Chile

1 Cheerios box - A real treat our first cereal breakfast since leaving home.

1 "Chips-Ahoy" chocolate and peanuts cookie box

1 spreadable cheese with paprika and cucumber imported for Germany - traveling around the world made us realize that the real contribution the Israeli kitchen to world food is good cheese. the cheese we were able to by was to fatty and smelly like most cheeses in the globe. it also cost 15 percent of the whole buy!

2 500ml coke bottles

2 500ml diet coke bottles

1 red bull

2 canned coffee drinks - sweet and good to help Yaron wake up

1/2 kg pistachio nuts

1/4 kg black seeds (GARINIM SHCKORIM)

1/4kg peanuts

2 boxes of Kraft crackers

2 snicker bars

400 gr SHIBOLET SHUAL - For Hagits Breakfasts.

500 gr yogurt

1 chocolate milk box(AMID)

1 milk boxes (AMID)

1 corn can

1 tuna can

3 litter of water


most suprising is the fact that we eat ALL of the above in 1 1/2 days and 2 nights

although we ate a big KFC meal right befor and right after the ride

BTW - the whole basket cost less then 20USD

Adrenaline rush.

we stay clear of dangerous sports on this trip. so the biggest adrenaline rush to date was a
random sequence of songs we got in the IPOD during a train ride:


1. Let me Entertain You - Robbi Willimas

2. God is a DJ - Faitless

3. Ein Makom Acher - Mashina

4. Break me out (to the other side) - the Doors

Yaron couldn't rest for hours after that.

actually the random feature of the IPOD is useful but there are song that get chosen

more "randomly" then others. the are usually either one of Coldplay's 3 albums (thanks to

Ohados) or one of the 3 CD from the "4 in the Afternoon" collection from GALATZ's 16:00 in the

afternoon radio program (thanks to Mirit). and when we want to feel like home one of the Dag-Nachash CDs

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