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Today we went to the Buddhist temple where they had a thousand little mini Buddhas and 3 huge Buddhas. They also had a cave where a monk showed me and my brother Lucas how to pray to the huge Buddha statue like Buddhists do. He helped me light a candle and stick it with a whole bunch of other candles in front of the Buddha statue. Then we lit incense and stuck them in a pot filled with gravel. We also went in the big temple where there was a 200 foot Buddha. Lots of people there were praying to the big Buddha statue.

We went by bus to Yann Dang Shan for the weekend, and it is very different then Hangzhou and Shanghai. Our hotel isn’t exactly perfect nor very good. Our room has two floors with stairs leading up to the second floor. My brother and I got the bottom floor and our beds are like metal. We went to a huge mountain one day and spent three quarters of the day climbing up and then back down. I felt like my knees were going to break. At the top we got to a little hut on a ledge of the mountain, and me and my Mom and Dad waited there while my mom’s students went up to the top of the mountain. Twenty minutes later they came back with 3 or 4 bags full of tea leaves they bought from a couple who ran a tea farm and hotel at the top. Then we hiked back down the mountain and met our bus at the start of the trail and he drove us back to the hotel. That night we ate dinner at a ‘fancy’ restaurant in town. It was the best restaurant in the town, even though the town was the poorest town we were going to visit on our whole China trip. So we had dinner there and I tried snake meat, snake skin, eel, and dried seaweed. It was all really good, especially the seaweed and the snake. Can’t wait to get home and see my dog and my friends, Thomas.

We just stayed in Hangzhou for a few days - it was an awesome place. We stayed in a cool hotel that had a swimming pool, and we swam in the pool twice during our time there. We had some awesome dinners too. One was at Pizza Haven. It wasn’t the best pizza I’ve tried, but it was ok.

 We also went on a bike ride around this awesome lake. Our bikes were really cool looking too. I loved speeding down the hills on the long walkways across the lake. Most people in China don’t ride bikes very fast so everyone was surprised how fast I was going. The bike also had suspension so I went off some speed bumps and got some pretty sweet air. Other than walking and biking and eating we didn’t really do much in Hangzhou.

Yesterday we went to Changfeng Park where they had a go cart racing track! It was awesome!!! I raced on the track twice. Once vs. my Dad and once vs. my Mom. You go very fast, and it’s kind of hard to turn on such a twisty turny track. On the first race I spun out of control on a sharp turn. I beat my Mom on the second race.  There were these two other kids driving on the track who were completely crazy. They slammed me against the side of the track. I hope to go again with my mom’s college students so I can race and beat them too!

Well, I’m  sorry you couldn’t be with me on the race track, Thomas.

We visited the Suzhou Silk Factory and I learned how silk is made. First the workers collect and feed leaves to a bunch of silk spinning caterpillars (see pictures 1 and 2 below). Then they wait for the caterpillars to spin a cocoon in a bamboo rack. Once the caterpillar’s cocoons have been completed they give the completed cocoons to another worker. This worker first soaks the cocoon in water and then opens it up and takes the butterfly larva out of the cocoon. Then the worker takes the silk cocoon and stretches it over a bamboo piece that has been bent over into the shape of a bridge. The worker keeps draping more and more stretched cocoons over the bamboo piece, as many as she can fit. Then she takes all of the stretched cocoon silk pieces to the next group of people and they hang it out to dry. Once the silk has dried 5 people grab a side of the silk piece and stretch it out and then drape it over a bed sized board to create a silk blanket that the factory sells to stores, and then the stores sell the silk blankets to custumers.

Thomas here - the other day we went to Suzhou Gardens. It was a very hot day. Lots of people there wanted to take photos with me and my brother Lucas. The coolest thing we did was go through these big rock caves. It was pretty cool. There was also a big pagoda my family and a few of my moms students rested in for about 10 minutes. Near the end of the trip we got to a bonzi garden with little trees that looked like full grown trees. We also found a shop where some of the students got some photos of the garden and a refreshment shop where me and my brother got a coke each. When we finally got out of the garden and into a taxi cab the cool air conditioning felt like heaven.

We did it! This morning, even before we had breakfast, we adventured to Bosco and Skeeter’s home, a task we’ve been planning since we arrived in Shanghai. Bosco and Skeeter are two big German Shepherd dogs who live in a pen on the roof of a building that we can see from our hotel room window.

We began our perilous mission by going to a store that is in the same building. We went in and found some stairs leading to the rooftop. We got to the roof and as far as a closed gate and then the owner of Bosco and Skeeter saw us, came over and smiled at us and (we think) asked what we were doing. We handed him a note our Chinese babysitter wrote for us that said: ‘Hi, we’re spending 2 weeks in that hotel right there and our room looks out at your building. We have a dog like your two dogs and we fell in love with them, and we came to see if we could meet them and take some pictures’. He read our note and let us in. Bosco and Skeeter were a bit scared at first. Bosco stayed inside most of the time but Skeeter stayed out in the pen where we could see him.

We got so many great cute pictures of both of them. I think it was the best day of our trip!

Thomas here again - the other day we went to Dino beach water-park. It was pretty cool. We went on the wave pool which happens to be the second largest wave pool in the world. The waves were like real ocean waves. One girl who was in an inner tube going over a huge wave got flipped over and her head crashed into mine. I felt like I was having a concussion.

We also went on the big inner-tube water slide, but it wasn’t very long ride. They also had this little pool that had floating rubber lily pads and you had to cross the pool by walking across them while holding onto a rope. It was kind of hard to cross because they kept tipping over. There was also this big Tiki tower with a barrel at the top that would fill up with a whole bunch of water and then dump on you if you’re under it.

Yesterday we went on a boat trip in a little six person sampan boat in Rivertown. Then after a while the boat driver dropped us off at a little part of the town that had a ‘shopping street’. Only this town’s idea of a ‘shopping street’ was my idea of little huts along an old cement road with people selling all kinds of stuff. Most of it was either junk or stuff that had prices that were not worth the quality of the item. Also this was the first place I’ve been to that allows you to haggle prices down to an amount you and the shop keeper agree on. So we walked around the place just for the heck of it.

 Hi it’s Thomas again. Yesterday (Friday) we went to the Science & Technology museum. It was awesome! They had a robot show where robots dressed in Chinese clothes would dance to music played by other robots. They did some pretty cool moves too!  We went to the human body exhibit where they had a whole bunch of things to do. You could play table tennis where a machine on one side spit out ping pong balls at random times in random directions and you had to hit it back to its side. Then they had a soccer goalie thing where you would kick a soccer ball at a wall projected goal and a projection of a goalie would dive and try to save it. Then we went and saw our very first 4D movie.

We saw Lego Racers 4d in a huge ball-shaped theatre. It was awesome. In the race when the two main race cars went into an ice cave the seat in front of us squirted us with water. And also when the evil racer changed the terrain to snow it started to snow in the theater and we got kinda cold. They also had a huge fan that would blow us with wind when the race cars were going really fast. Also when the main character flies off the side of the track and crashes our seats lifted into the air and jiggled. And then at the end of the movie when the main character wins the race (which is how all racing movies end of course) and they shoot fireworks all over the place, confetti starts dropping from the theatre ceiling. And finally we went and got some lunch where we ate shrimp balls and French fries (yum yum) and then finished lunch with Hagen Das ice cream bars (super yum yum).