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Published: October 13th 2009
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Hello everybody!
Today, we went for a wander around the CBD today, around where Kate works. It's pretty cool, a few skyscrapers are going up now, one that is so huge it's incredible, and of course, the rather ridiculous CCTV Building. If you look at it from the right angle there's a building you can see through it that was built at about the same time, but apparently, when they were celebrating the opening of the CCTV building, there was a stray firecracker that flew into the neighbouring building (that was about a month away from completion), and burnt it out! That's the official story. The more likely story is that the guy ran out of money so he burned it down for the insurance. Very cynical, I know.
The main road that runs through is the same road that runs between Tienanmen and the Forbidden City, if you walked long enough you'd end up there, looking at all the floats from the celebrations. We didn't walk that far, because for better or for worse, the Silk Street markets are also on that road - so that's where we went.
Awesome place - I think we wrote about
CCTV Building
Pretty cool building the the Pearl Markets a little while ago. This is pretty similar, just as busy and just as packed, but probably more focussed on tourists. I won't go into too much detail because otherwise it will show you that the presents we bought were REALLY cheap and you'll be disappointed, but it's fun. I'm getting better at bargaining, still not good, but getting better. Actually I was a bit too good today and walked too far away when he was shouting out prices so I couldn't hear him anymore, and it wasn't very cool to turn back and find out what he was offering! We bought a fair bit of stuff here, good prices and an exiting environment - if you don't mind actually being grabbed by the arm and dragged into the shop, or having the offering price at more than 10 times what you should actually pay - I wonder if any people actually pay the first price!!!???
After that we checked out Ritan park - to the East of the Forbidden City - it used to be an altar that the Emperors used, but they've pretty much converted it into just a recreational park - there's still an altar in the middle but nobody seems to care too much about it! One of the really cool bits of the park is that you can go fishing for goldfish in the pond. We spent about 20 minutes just watching all the little kids with their fishing poles waiting for a bite. We didn't actually see any of the catching anything - but most of them had quite a few fish in their little buckets - so it must work. There was also a few table tennis tables a bit further into the park and there was an old couple playing - I thought they were probably just playing to pass the time away, but they were actually really, really good players, it was fantastic!!!
After that we went back to the Pearl Market because Susie wanted to buy some pearls and it's better with Kate because she has some contacts so you get real pearls without getting ripped off - you can get a whole string of pearls for about $3.00 Australian - pretty cheap!
That's about all we did today - an awful lot of walking, so bed is the best option!
I'm thinking of forming a black-face comedy troupe and touring the country - Kamahl and Harry Connick Jr have confirmed they will be in the group - anybody else want to join? It should be great.
Shame on you all!!! :-)
Hope everybody's doing great - SEND US MESSAGES!!!
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Mark
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hey guys! well something really funny happened the other day and i thought "i have to tell ray and sue about this. they will laugh so hard ray will grow an ab. yes an ab." and now i have forgotten. just imagine something particularly humorous (and intellectual - as our humour usually resides on that level) and laugh suitably. so when are you guys coming back??