September 2008 Archives

Hello everybody! After Xi'an we went to go see pandas at the zoo in a big city called Chongqing. We started off seeing red pandas and after that, the zookeeper brought out a little one-year old panda. When they brought him out, they put it on the ground and had it follow some bamboo, so it could get some exercise. Then, the zookeeper left and the baby panda started to try to get the bamboo off of the trees. After we watched the baby panda play for a while, we went to go see some of the adult pandas.   

Later, we got on cruise, traveling down the Yangtze River and through The Three Gorges. In The Three Gorges, we saw these things called hanging coffins, which were in caves along the cliffs of the Yangtze River. The hanging coffins were put there 2000 years ago. Native tribes would lower the coffins down from the top of the cliffs and put them inside of the caves. They used to bury people high up on the cliff so the dead could be closer to heaven.

When we got off of the boat, we went to the city of Shanghai, which is one of the most modern cities in China. From Shanghai, we drove two hours to go to the old town of Xitang that was built around miniature canals. The town is famous because Tom Cruise shot the third Mission Impossible movie there, which is funny. Also in the town, we went to a button factory where we learned how people make buttons out of oyster shells. Stefan and I even got to make our own.

When we were in Shanghai, we went to a place called the Bund, which is a famous street that goes along the river.  We also went to an acrobatic show in Shanghai. There were people riding motorcycles around a giant, circular cage. There was also a man who juggled huge, heavy, ceramic pots and balanced them on his head.  They also did things like hoop jumping, gymnastics, and swung through the air from wires.     

Since it's our last day in China, we thought it would be fun to make a list of things that are different in China, compared to America. Here's the list Stefan and I came up with:

1. No blond hair. We got our pictures taken A LOT!
2. Squat toilets.
3. Chinese characters, not letters. Our guide told us that most people know around 2,000 to 3,000 characters.
4. Chinese people only eat with chopsticks.
5. We didn't see many kids our age because in China, they have really long school days. They even go on Saturdays!
6. Some of the food was really strange to us, especially the scorpions, starfish, and seahorses served on sticks. We saw a lot weird food in a Beijing market.
7. There were lots of vendors selling stuff on the streets and in many stores, you bargained for it. If they wanted 10 RMB, you would offer five. They'd say "no," but when you would walk away, they would come after you and offer it for seven.
8. Most people are only allowed to have one child.
9. People eat lots of noodles.
10. Most Chinese people are Buddhist.

We had a great time in China meeting new friends and especially going on a National Geographic Expedition. Now we're off to Japan and are going to have a great time there too. BTW, if you're wondering what I'm holding up, it's a painting I did on rice paper. Read Stefan's post to find out more.

Hi everybody! This is my last post from China. I've been having a great time! My favorite part of this week was seeing a baby panda!  This was only my second favorite part of our three weeks in China. My very favorite part was visiting the terracotta warriors that I've already written about. Anyway, back to the pandas ...
                                                                                                                                 
When we got to the zoo, there were all these people who were trying to sell us stuff. If you ever go to China and people try to sell you something you don't want, you just say "boo yow,"which means, "I don't want." Once we got into the zoo, the first pandas we saw were red pandas, which look a little like raccoons. The second panda we saw was amazing and cute. It was still a baby! Actually, for 14 months old, it wasn't THAT small. The panda can go inside a little house with air conditioning when it gets too humid out. Pandas can get sick in the heat. The zookeeper carried the panda out of the house and was playing with him. It was so cute! I took around 37 pictures of one panda in 15 minutes and this video.

Hello everyone. I want to tell you all about the newest adventures from my journey. After the Paralympics, we went to a hotel in Beijing to meet the people who are joining us on the National Geographic Expedition tour. After everyone got acquainted the next morning, we went to a place called the Forbidden City, which was used in ancient times as a place where the emperor and his court lived (picture of his throne to the right).

Later, we went to the outskirts of Beijing to see the Great Wall of China. When we got there, we were followed by local farmers acting as guides. At the end of the tour, they tried to sell us stuff, like books and t-shirts so they could earn some extra money. The part of the wall we walked on was over 500 years old and was built during the Ming Dynasty. It was really huge and curvy and this was just a small part of it. The whole wall is actually thousands of miles long!

This is our second week in China, and I am with a National Geographic Expeditions tour. We are traveling with other people from America, which is good since we don't have to be alone. We also have an expert on China with us named Diane and she is our guide.
                                                                                                                 
We went to the Forbidden City, where the emperor used to live. In the Forbidden City, there are huge doors that each have nine, big, gold knobs on them, which Tyler and I rubbed for good luck. Diane told us that nine is a very lucky number in China. There were also nine animals on the ends of the roofs. The Forbidden City was the only place in China allowed to have these nine animals on the roof because that's where the emperor lived.

The next day, we went to the Lama Temple. There are a lot of different Buddha statues there, and the last one is gigantic. It is about 75 feet tall and was in the Guinness Book of World Records! If you wanted to see the top of it, you had to lean your head all the way back to see the face. We didn't get any pictures of the giant Buddha because we weren't allowed to take photos inside the temple. I got good pictures of the Confucian Temple, which is where we went next. It housed a big statue of Confucius who was a very important Chinese teacher.

After we left Hawaii, we traveled all the way to China, where we'll be for three weeks.  On the flight, I was nervous because everyone else on the plane was Chinese and I was worried that people would speak to me and I wouldn't be able to answer them. It made me feel much better when we met our new friend, Mon, at the airport in Beijing. Mon is a friend of a friend of my Dad's and she speaks English! She has two kids around our ages named Lauren and Lanson. We got to play with them the next day when they got home from school. We played cops and robbers on bikes in their neighborhood.
                                                                                                                                      We stayed with them for two days before we left to go to the grasslands in Inner Mongolia.Wes tayed in something called a yurt (image on the right), which is a tiny house that's round with a cone-like roof. While we stayed there, we went horseback riding. That was a little scary because Tyler's horse bucked up and kicked my Mom's horse, but they were both fine. At lunch that day, we sat at a table with just the four of us. The waiters were serving food like crazy. They kept bringing more and more food out until the whole table was covered with all kinds of Chinese food. We thought it was funny. Most of the food was very strange to us, but some of it I really liked, like the soup, rice, noodles and the dumplings. I love dumplings.

Hello everyone. This past week we went overseas for the first time on the trip: China! So, I guess I should really say, "ni hao," which is how you say hello in Chinese (it's pronounced "nee how"). Our first stop was Beijing, where we were met by our new friend, Mon. She was nice enough to guide us around the city and showed us some of her favorite places and restaurants.

Beijing is all cleaned up because they just hosted the Olympics. There are all new subways and they even rebuilt the airport. All over the city, there are signs with the Olympic mascots and the motto, "One World, One Dream." They also have lots of topiaries that are shaped like the Great Wall, pandas and more.

We just spent the last week in Maui and Honolulu, Hawaii. We went with our friends, Jake and Justin, and their parents, Ken and Jill, from back home. It was our last stop in America before we head off to China.

I did some snorkeling in Maui and it was really fun. On our first stop, I actually got to see a sea turtle up close. Then, on our second stop, I saw so many cool fish, all different sizes and colors. On our last stop, we went to a broken-down pier that was like visiting a shipwreck. I saw these huge trumpet fish with Tyler. My favorite part was swimming with the sea turtle.

Our hotel had an enormous pool that was in an area the size of three football fields. It had a water slide that we went down a lot. The pool area also had a swim-through cave with a waterfall and a pirate ship. We spent a lot of time playing in the pool with our friends.

The highlight of the trip to Hawaii was learning how to surf. I did great on my first try! I caught so many waves!

Hello everybody. Let me tell you all about Hawaii. We finally got on a plane in San Francisco and flew to Honolulu. From there, we went to Maui, where we met up with our friends, Ken and Jill, and their kids, Jake and Justin, who live in New Jersey. One of the first things we did was take surfing lessons. During the lesson, our instructor, Nick, taught us how to get on the board and stand up on it, so when we got out in the water it wouldn't be so hard. It was actually pretty easy because the waves were not too big.

Speaking of water, another thing we did was go snorkeling. We went out on a zodiac boat to all these cool places with amazing fish, like trumpet fish, puffer fish and even a sea turtle. The ride on the zodiac was probably just as much fun as the snorkeling, since the waves were pretty rough.

One of the best things we did in Maui was drive to the Road to Hana, where we did all types of cool things like play in waterfalls, see tropical plants and visit a beach with black sand!