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[mbernath]

Day 16 I ran outside the morn to say goodbye to yangshuo mountain retreat thinking I'd catch sunrise over the river. It wasn't quite sunrise, but definitely a breathtaking view with perfect light for amazing pics (Gella taught me:). We're not sure why Helen made us leave so early but we ended up sitting at the train station for 2 whole hours. Gella was calling out "excuse me" to all the passer byes to help her connect to wifi or even to take a pic and was wondering why no one turned around. We settled in for a 3 hour bullet train ride, this time in 2nd class:( thanks to 'Gella Leah', and we're off for the last leg of our trip!!! It was quite a sight to see us trying to hustle through the train station up and down escalators juggling 7 pieces of luggage!!! Just when Roch announced 'I wish someone could help us' two Chinese malachim came to the rescue and one even rolled our suitcase all the way across the station (completely out of his way) to meet our driver. We then drove another 'TWO HOURS' and crossed the border into a whole new world. Huge bridges ... Skyscrapers... Department stores ... Ports ... Welcome to the Manhattan of Asia .. Hong Kong here we come!! We checked into the Shangri la Hotel with a beautiful harbor view. Roch got us into the Hong Kong spirit pretty fast when she tracked down a notable tailor to make a dress!! Gella was given a free drink while I tried to help Roch with the design, material, and of course played the bargaining game. It sounds promising... so exciting! We ended the evening with a yummy hot fresh fleishig meal at the sfardi restaurant right next to our hotel (we'll be eating there Shabbos as well) and ease dropped on all the business men. To quote Gella.. Today was a little bit of a strange day basically a total travel day .. But gotta leave room for those too:) latish wake up tomorrow (woo hoo) and then off to scout the town. Keep you posted, mirb

[mbernath]

[mbernath]

[mbernath]

[mbernath]

Day 2&3 Argentian shabbos: Hola to all. To be honest my Spanish does not exist and .. the charades aren’t quite cutting it. So we arrived in Buenos Aires/Argentina late Thursday night to find out that our hotel (which we literally booked a min b-4 takeoff .. Long story .. Ye I take the blame Gella:) can not have 3 in a room and the guy wanted to charge us for a second room (luckily @50% off). Gella volunteered to take the room alone and boy did we all sleep.. We had a slow morning since it was so overcast and finally headed out to catch the hop on hop off bus ..(which we never found;) followed a lady to change $.. almost got arrested for having our cell phones out in the bank..dodged hundreds of dogs (go brave Rochel) and where told by a guy selling water that Gella better put away her camera and I better hide my cell phone. ‘Luba’ caffe was awesome (or maybe we were just really hungry). But the cutest Chabad girl served us ( and thank Gd she spoke English). We showered .. Got ready for shabbos .. And set off to go meet our Friday night host in shul (or so we thought … that’s when the trbl began!!?!?) we had the address but didn’t really know the number and thought it would be simple to find the local synagogue but after circling around (Rochel clonking in 4’ heels) falling into a 'reform’ shull and not one yamulka in sight we came back to our hotel. Fredrico our hotel receptionist was our saving grace. He tried everything to help us as we sat in our plastic colorful ponchos. We were hoping the ppl wld come to pick us up but no such luck. We hinted to Ferdrico to look up the address which he did and that sent us on another hike (Rochel still clonking in heels which even I gave up) but no family 'Weil’. You should have seen the face of Ferdrico when we returned and hour later. We ended up making kidush on matzah and pathetically dipped into our bag of tuna and peanut butter. Thanks to Rochel we did manage to have a gourmet dessert. We had no idea what shabbos morning would bring since we were supposed to meet these people and eat with them in their shul ??? I remembered someone mentioned to me that there is a R’ Oppenheimer who has a big shul we decided to find out where it is and just head there. The min we walked in two women came running to us to welcome us and then somehow one of them said oh my you are the 3 Am girls .. She knew out host and said they were so worried about us!!! They walked us out and showed us his to find the shul we were originally supposed to go to. You should have seen theirs faces when we walked in!!! Long story short they were the nicest ppl!! We had an amazing ’S'fardic’ lunch and then they invited us back for Shala Shudis. It was definitely an Argentinian experience.. But they convinced us that our exp isn’t over until we taste the official Argentinian meat in restaurant 'Asian’.. Fleishik Melava Maka ?! It was really yum and a cool place. We finished off the night with a walk along puerto madero… skipped the drinks and ran back to pack up for a big day tomorrow .. Ahhh two hours until we hav to get up. catch u all later. Mirb:)