the story of Our new scooter

Buying a scooter:

Yesterday me and Wijb made decision to get an electric scooter. He would prefer to have a gas one, but as new regulations in big cities in china we can’t ride a gas, petrol scooter inside the city, out skirt possible.
In recent years, service outsourcing industry in Xi'an has maintained robust growth. The outstanding contractor enterprises, rich human resources and preferential policies have paved a solid foundation for Xi'an to becoming a capital for service outsourcing.

Anyhow after seeing one of colleague’s scooter had been taken away by police, WIJB GOT CONVNICED TO GET ELECTRIC ONE. Well I went with him as we always share everything ,like nice old couples( it has been just a year we are together0,MOREOVER I AM SO CAREFUL OF CHOOSING THINGS AND BARGAINING.
Our Chinese is not that much advance to go through mechanical words, therefore we took one Chinese with us. We met a new American teacher though ,but she was hesitated to get one and we were being lead to another out skirt area. There were just 2 shops and so limited and prices were so high in comparison’s we have one hour rush hour in Chinese cities between 4 to 5 and shifting taxies, so we were standing for half an hour and then finally got one, by the time we arrived to the destination it was 5.30 anyhow we realized new brands are insanely expensive ,so I agreed we get a good second hand.

In fact when we were in taxi I once again realized how much a middle size city as Xian has robust in economy and city size ,when you are sitting in car you have chance to look carefully around. there are enormous changes happening in each Chinese cities, constructions, skyscrapers, highways which have their own advantage and disadvantage though.
Anyhow, the one we got it is just used 6 months and they gave us a good battery, we are not looking for race ,so we considered mostly for battery ‘s life on the road.

As they claimed it take 80 KM for one and half for 2 passengers on the road till recharged. We had to wait one hour in dust and dirt and pollution to received a charged battery, but the point is we asked for something additional for free, as for second hand they should be happy just to sell .
The point of view is, that Chinese talking for an hour to them to negotiate and finally we got nothing, we could always bluff and run away. they mentioned this type can’t add this or that.. blablaaa..
Now it is on our shoulder to get more stuff for it, but I am happy at least we have one now.I am going to add a photo of scooter as well. our first scooter !

Xian and shanghai in glance

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Shanghai has a rich collection of buildings and structures of various architectural styles. The Bund, located by the bank of the Huangpu River, contains a rich collection of early 20th century architecture, ranging in style from neoclassical HSBC Building to the art deco Sassoon House.
A number of areas in the former foreign concessions are also well preserved, most notably the French Concession. Despite rampant redevelopment, the old city still retains some buildings of a traditional style, such as the Yuyuan Garden, an elaborate traditional garden in the Jiangnan style.


The lights of the Bund and Puxi skyscrapers at night.
In recent years, a large number of architecturally distinctive, even eccentric, skyscrapers have sprung up throughout Shanghai. Notable examples of contemporary architecture include the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai Grand Theatre in the People's Square precinct and Shanghai Oriental Arts Center.



Shanghai has couple of great museums which are worth visiting and a nice aquarium as well. Podong and Pushi area are completely vast and make the two side of city completely far and isolated from each other.

In fact in this trip as we were there for business we couldn’t be bother to go around the city for all we have seen before .

When we were back I was comparing Xian as an old cultural and historical city with Shanghai, which is commercial and industrial .shanghai is located on east the Chinese sea and absorbing too many tourists and business people from all around the world.



The traffic is horrible there and without Metro line you are crippled. Cost of life is almost as twice as Xian which is located on the North West of China.



The interesting part of Xi'an itself is the area inside the city wall. This is the old part of town and inside are the Bell and Drum Towers, huge Ming-era towers built to house the city's bell and drum. The Muslim quarter is just west of the Bell Tower. You can easily spend a day inside this area: rent bikes and ride along the walls peering down onto daily Xi'an life, wander around the towers and then stroll into the Muslim quarter, snack on street food and find yourself a bargain in the markets. There's lots to see in the surrounding area too, not to mention the Army of the Terracotta Warriors.

City Walls:
The walls were built on the foundation of the Tang Dynasty's imperial residence in Chang'an (read more about Xi'an's History). While most ancient Chinese cities had walls, most have been knocked down to make way for modern-day roads. Fortunately for you, the Ming-era walls are still mostly intact. Take a few hours to climb up and rent bikes at the top. It's a great way to see Xi'an.

Temples & Such:
Xi'an has some lovely temples to visit.

* Big Goose Pagoda, Dayan Ta - originally built in 648 by a Tang prince, this temple compound has been beautifully restored. Its buildings and gardens offer a park-like atmosphere in which to wander. The pagoda was built to store sutras brought back from India by a Chinese monk.
* Small Goose Pagoda, Xiaoyan Ta - was originally built in 684 in honor of Tang emperor Gaozong.
* Great Mosque, Daqingzhen Si - one of the largest mosques in China. Just five minutes from the Drum Tower in central Xi'an, the courtyard can be visited by non-Muslims.
* Temple of Eight Immortals, Baxian An - Xi'an's largest Taoist temple.
* Forest of Steles Museum (former Confucius Temple), Beilin Bowuguan - largely a collection Silk Road history, the museum has some English labels and the area around the museum has been renovated in Ming-era style so is interesting in itself.

Ban Po Neolithic Village:
Many tours to Xi'an will include a stop at this "village" which is basically a museum housing the pits where the remains of this village have been unearthed. A few interesting artifacts are inside the museum, but it's not terribly interesting unless you happen to be a big fan of Neolithic Man.

The Army of the Terracotta Warriors:
The Qin Shi Huang Terracotta Warriors & Horses Museum is by far the top reason people visit Xi'an. The museum is just a half hour outside Xi'an by car or bus. Read more about visiting the Army of the Terracotta Warriors.

There are so many big malls and brands from west there. people are not traditional anymore. Everybody is so busy ,running and rushing to work place and time is too essential as nobody care for anything else.

It is good sometimes to have a trip to Eat coast of China and see how much are the differences in life style between east and west in one country.

I DO LOVE TO BE THERE FOR SHOPPING AND STROLLING IN BIG MALLS AND ENJOY MY TIME CHOOSING DIFFERENT INTERNATIONAL CUISINES BUT NOT MORE THAN THAT.

Ecstatic ,trip to Shanghai:

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Ecstatic ,trip to Shanghai:

We are back from special trip to shanghai .I say “special” cause it was a hectic ,annoying, tiring , insane, but successful trip at the end. We spent 3 days in shanghai and 2 days on the round train between Xian and shanghai. We had the last document left, which had to be received from our embassies in China related to our marital status in China and our residency in China, which should have been certified by our embassies in order to be presented as well.

Well these days for me traveling is not very special anymore. I have been traveling for 6 years ,all around Asia and East Asia and started traveling to Europe as well.
I do love traveling but, sitting on the plane or train for such a long time and specially for business trip is another story itself.

We arrived Shanghai in the morning and after being 15 hours on the train with a quick shower started our racing game to hop the metro and reach my embassy and all those papers issued and had to jump to the bank miles away to get the embassy fee there.
I am wondering why my embassy in China so weird ,I have been to Berlin and Hagge, both places are so organized and had accepted credit cards ,anyhow we are in CHINA!.WWOWOW! and after 2hours stuff sorted out and we had nice lunch ,but we the speed of jet craft, due to lack of time.

Then rushed to Dutch embassy and suddenly realized we need another creepy documents ,cause wijb had lived in Ireland for a year and need to prove he was single too. Oh my goodness !~


I am so happy we are back .
This morning we were so active and we got some nice shopping for home decoration’s stuff and I had some other shopping as well. well thing somehow done.

Chinese food affect in my health and our trip to Shanghai

Today was one of those horrible days for me. I have hardly ever had, serious problems with food and stomach ache, but I think after living with Wijb for a year his stomach weakness transfer to me as well. Well beside kidding ,the problem is Chinese food.

I have been living in China for over than 5 years. I remember the first couple of month while I was teaching IN Chinese schools in Wenzhou, I had 2 colleagues from Canada and every other day they were running to the hospital.

I have had some minor problems with stomach once arriving to China.
Anyhow after Wijb got better from last night till now, over 24 hours I am spinning around with pain and simply I don’t know what has happened.

The reality is that is easy to get sick cause the dish are not that much hygiene in fact.
Well beside that has happened to me we are hopefully heading to Shanghai, after waiting for more than a week to get an appointment with Iran consulate in Shanghai as who are in charge of my case are back from summer vacation.
I wish I had a job like that.!

Anyhow ,I am hopping after spending so much money on the phone calling ,stress out and troubling my parents mentally plus ,consuming so much time for documents to get ready and post them to China ,with this one could be the last paper ,which we need for our marriage in Holland .
Well this is just the first step ,if we go through Iranian marriage law to get a certificate from embassy ,then we need to get some more stuff around. I am hopping things will be done be the end of Jan-Feb. next year..
Although with all these ,I am lucky that my job at University starts next week and hopefully by that time we will have done these paper works.

Then we will be back from trip ,we are planning to look for a scooter ( Wijb loves it)and get a few more things for our new apartment, after wards I must confess I will be too tired after 3 months vacation to go back to work.!
Wijb will have another 2 weeks off ,but this term I have more classes than him, no complain anyhow It is fine schedule.

Learning Dutch and my progess

Today I was in a refreshing mood .It’s been almost 20 days we are back home .I have decided seriously to study Dutch. I don’t when exactly we will be able to live in Holland ,but for sure it will happen. Wijbren has difficulties to get a job outside of the country due to the recruitment agency requires applicants to be inside the country and available for interview anytime.

When it comes to languages I can speak Persian and English as native level and my native language helps me to understand a bit Turkish and Arabic. I learned English when I was so little and the root of indo European languages are so similar.

I know a bit French and it was hard in grammar ,but now Dutch seems to be easy after knowing English well, cause the root of all European languages are the same. Even though I have no chances to speak Dutch here .Although I have a Dutch boyfriend, but we speak fluently English and it is much easier to communicate ,moreover I am not in Dutch environment yet.
So today I was amazed that after spending only one hour after 2 days not touching books I could remember and red and write a bit Dutch. I am so happy with my fast progress,even so I am not practicing speaking nor being in Dutch environment.

The fact is when it comes to Chinese language ,it becomes a night mare. I have been living here for 5 years and I can understand what they say and can read and write a good enough ,but it is freaking hard this language.

Learning the characters are night mare and each single character comes with another one and the combination make totally another meaning. when it goes to intermediate and upper levels, you need to distinguish what exactly people mean not just knowing single character is enough. We can’t watch Chinese movies cause there is no subtitle and if it has if there is a new character there is no way to read it and you are lost.

Other languages like Persian( indo European language) or Latin ( German, other European languages) whenever you learn the alphabet and pronunciation at least you read and easier you find out the meaning comparing to English or any other languages you know.

Game time and secret movie shot taken from me

Anyhow after coming back from Holland Wijb has changed a bit for good sake.I am happy about it. Cause I feel now he can distinguish between proper thing and right time doing them.
Wijb always like playing Ps2 games and it is understandable in a certain level. but sometimes as woman It works on my nerves .We have other things to do and so many plans for future and could be extra work for instance

.

Anyhow back to the point ,he said one day:” I reached a milestone in my nerdiness yesterday when I finally finished downloading the PS2 game 'SSX 3'. For the past couple of months I've scoured the internet for people's opinions on what the best games for the console are and subsequently downloaded those games if there were enough people sharing those opinions.:
But now what is happening is I am getting addicted. Luckily I can control myself ,during these 2 weeks back to the routine life I was playing hard and meanwhile I was studying my Chinese and Dutch.
I have learner from childhood never loose chances and never let it go as time flies. I know sometimes I am hard to Wijb but it is for us and future though.
In fact today when I was enjoying my favorite “underground 2”which is a racing games and hot and deep inside it. He took a creepy movie of my action which I found it nice and we all laughed about it I would like share it with other friends.

Our friendly surrounding

Our friendly surrounding:

It’s been almost a week by now ,living in this neighborhood .Wijbren adore it. With no exception he finds some excuses to get out of home ,for instance:in order to get some breakfast or what ,then he jumps out for a walk every morning .

Most evenings, we stroll under the shade of trees, under heavy shrubs listening to crackers and grasshoppers singing to find mates, or hop to our small playground. Adapting yourself with a new place and surrounding is another compromising with nature which make life much easier and more colorful.

This morning I woke up with children noises and scream.
First I taught something is wrong ,but then realized that playground in front of us, is specialized for kid’s and this morning I saw parents are running on the track. There are plenty of swings, slides and other toys for kid’s.


Our friendly surrounding:

As we are living in China we are familiar with small parks or any small wood area, which government sets some public exercise- tools for retired people or anyone has time to spend outside in the day time and does some free exercise. In fact our small playground is not an exception at all.
Even everything is close by we are thinking to buy a scooter, for our own sake to make our life more colorful.



These days are hectic. First of all we got disappointed from my consulate in order to get some documents and transfer to embassy which we need for marriage process and nobody basically is back to work to answer us.

Corruption is something which is needed to be consider .In a lot of societies exist ,but in my country more obvious and tangible. They don’t work and with stupid excuses throw the customer form one office to another .

For instance with my simple certification which basically my passport needed to be certified that I live in China which I need to Dutch marriage in Holland .

For our marriage documents I need to go to consulate and then pay and send my personal information to embassy to do their job which means 4 times traveling, meanwhile I have high responsibility in my current job and distance here is like traveling between countries in Europe.


Then it comes to our crappy schedule for this semester at university which we need to handle.

Sometimes I think I need to inspire to myself to be more canny and shrewd, how that works when the massive milestones in life in a period of time stumble and you need to throw them away otherwise you will be eaten by harsh nature and society. the anxiety that appears is hard to handle sometimes and I feel I am lost. Now I Am gutted but try to heal as we need to keep our love and happiness in China to survive .

Moreover Wijb is thinking to get extra part time job for couple of hours at EF in Xian which I am encouraging him .which make him busy rather than rest of day time play with ps2 games and we can save more money if we need to move on to Europe one day.
Now we are waiting to get our schedule and then organize our daily life for fall 2009 here.