November 2008 Archives

Hello everybody! In this blog, I'm going to tell you all about our adventures in our campervan. One thing you should know about our campervan is that we named it "Tourtelvis" for a few reasons:
                                                                                  

1. Our campervan has an area above the cab that looks like a pompadour or Elvis' hair.
2. When you walk in Tourtelvis, he rocks from side to side and when he drives, he rolls.
3. When we are in Tourtelvis, we are touring around.
   

The first place we drove to was a town called Omarua, where they were on the last day of a five-day Victorian festival. Everybody was dressed in Victorian clothes. We saw a bunch of old-fashioned things like funny looking bicycles called penny-farthings, people juggling on stilts, and log-sawing competitions. Also in Omarua , we saw penguins come up to the shore at sunset and go tend to their babies in their nests. When we saw them coming out of the water, we were surprised to see them in such large groups and how fast they got out of the water.

We went to see the glowworm caves in Te Anau, which was amazing. Glowworms are tiny worms that live in caves and have a glowing tail to attract insects like moths or sand flies. The caves are filled with these tiny guys. There was one area with a bunch of them all over the walls and ceiling. You can go around in a boat in the pitch black to get a really close look at them.  

Now for our latest activity ... jet boating! A jet boat is not like the average boat because the engine is inside and the water shoots out of jets in the back, so it can go in really shallow water and has lots of power to make quick turns. We were able to go right up to rocks and turn at the last second. We even spun around in full 360 degree turns, which was really fun because the water sprayed all over the place and got us all really wet.

Living in Tourtelvis has been interesting too, especially the way it can turn from a living area to a bedroom, not to mention eating in your car is something you have to get used to. So far it's been great and we still have another week to go in our moving home. 'Till next blog!

Hello, nice people. This is our first week in a campervan that we named Tourtelvis. My family and I have been waiting so long for this and now that we finally got it, we are so excited. Tourtelvis is a campervan that can sleep six people, or in our case, four people and all of our luggage for a year! It has a kitchen, three beds, and a bathroom. One of the three beds is up above where the driver sits. We call it the pompadour because it looks all puffy from the outside. Tyler and I love it up there. It is fun to hang out there. Tourtelvis also has a TV and DVD player, so Tyler and I can watch movies. At night it is cold in Tourtelvis, but we have warm blankets, so it's okay.

Happy Birthday to me! I spent my ninth birthday in Tourtelvis. Tyler's birthday present to me was to decorate the campervan, so I woke up with streamers and balloons everywhere. One of my birthday presents was a Camelback, a backpack that holds water which you can drink from out of an attached hose. I love my Camelback and I wore it when we hiked to a waterfall on my birthday.

We also went to a petrified forest that day, which was cool because the old trees looked like rocks. We encountered a surprise there, when we saw an endangered yellow-eyed penguin really close up. He was just standing there in front of a bush and Tyler and I walked right by him as we were exploring the forest. I loved seeing it so close and I had a great birthday.

Another big day we'll be celebrating in Tourtelvis is Thanksgiving. We won't be cooking a big feast because the kitchen is really small, but we have lots to be thankful for, even if we won't be eating a turkey (we're planning to eat chicken). I'm thankful that nobody got sick in Asia. I'm thankful for going on this trip and learning a lot of cool new stuff. I'm thankful that all my friends and family at home still remember me and miss me so much. I'm thankful that I get to spend this whole year with my family--the only time we're not together is when we're in the bathroom, haha.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Hello everybody and welcome to New Zealand! We just left Asia. We love that people in New Zealand speak English and eat Western food. It feels like a vacation from our year-long trip.
 
Although New Zealand feels like America with British accents, there's a lot here that you can't find in America, like the Maori culture. The Maori are a Polynesian tribe that lived in New Zealand before English settlers came. We got to learn about them at the Auckland Museum. At the Auckland Museum we learned about Maori culture and weapons like the "patu," a war club made out of rock, bone, or wood, and the "taiaha," which is a long wooden spear.

I'm in New Zealand, where it's a little chilly and really fun. The plane ride to New Zealand was 11 (!!!) hours from Thailand and a six hour time difference--oh boy! I had jet lag and couldn't get used to the new time zone, so it was really hard to fall asleep, but now I'm better. This is the farthest away from home we're going to be. There's and 18-hour time difference between here and New York!
 
When we got to New Zealand, we were so happy to have western food (YEAH!!!!). I missed it so much. I was also really happy to have salad since we couldn't eat the raw vegetables in all those places in many places in Asia (except Japan).
 
New Zealand is made out of volcanoes. It is two islands: the North Island and the South Island. Two different islands, but one country ... cool.
 
My family and I went to a redwood forest on the North Island. On the trail, my Dad, Tyler, and I played rugby with our new rugby ball. The redwood trees are big, really big! My Dad couldn't even put his arms around the trunk of them. Redwood trees are also found in California.

Hello everybody. We saw elephants five out of 16 days while we were in Thailand. The theme of Thailand was elephants ... elephants, elephants, elephants!  

1. We saw elephants for the first time at FantaSea, which is a theme park about Thailand. We took a ride on a big elephant. Then, we saw a spectacular show with lots of elephants in it. The elephants were my favorite part of the show.

2. The second time was at a nice hotel called Marina Phuket. A small, three-year-old elephant came in during the mornings. He was so cute! Tyler and I got to feed him little bananas. We also took rides on him. The trainer made the elephant bend his leg so I could hop on and sit on his neck. The elephant's name was Nimone and he was our favorite.

3. The next time we saw elephants was on Halloween, when we got soaked. I told you about that in my last blog.

4. My family and I went to the Thailand Elephant Conservation Center, where they train elephants and teach people about elephants. We saw a show about how they used elephants for pulling logs in the forest. That is also where we got a picture of an elephant mommy and baby. The really cool thing about the picture is that it was painted by an elephant and we watched her do it! The artist was a really cute four-year-old elephant. We thought she was the cutest elephant there.

Hello, everybody! I'm going to tell you about the Thailand you haven't heard about yet. Here are the five highlights of our Thailand trip, starting with the best.

Coming in first place, is the bat cave we visited before Halloween. The bats flew around and squeaked. The cave also had cool rock formations and stalagmites, the big pointy rocks on the ceiling of the cave. We were guided through this cave by gas torch and floated down the rivers on bamboo rafts.

Coming in second, is our boat trip in the canals outside of Bangkok. We went around in a boat. It was a strange trip because merchants grab boats with their canes to display their stock.

In third place, comes the Bangkok Traditional Puppet Theater, where we saw "The Birth of Ganesha." The show was about how the god, Ganesha, got his elephant head and saved heaven from the demons.  From then on, Ganesha became one of the most famous gods in Thailand -- the God of Wisdom.
 
Coming in fourth place, I chose the temple ruins in Sukothai, where we went to see all of the old city ruins. Sukothai used to be the capital of Bangkok, dating back to the 1200s. Although the city is in ruins, some of the Buddhas and temples remain. Many Buddhas were repaired because they are considered sacred items.
 And last, but not least, in fifth place, comes the reclining Buddha at Wat Poh temple in Bangkok. Laying down, the Buddha was 45 meters long (135 feet ... about half of the size of a football field). The entire Buddha was painted in gold leaf except the bottom, which is black and has 108 scenes carved from mother-of-pearl. It was cool on the way out of the temple because people would put tiny coins into metal pots, so all you hear is the soft clang of the coins landing in the pots.

So, there are my highlights from Thailand (and all the elephants of course).



Now, we're off to New Zealand!