Travel Rat

Tightropes,bunnies and the heat Photos

2008-04-01T02:13:00.001-07:00

Here are the pictures I promised:

Ketut Liyer, the medicine man

Me and my dad at the tree top adventure place crossing a "bridge"
( see I'm not that big a chicken!)

Some bunnies at a market

A monkey in the monkey forest

A Balinese dancer

My hair after it got braided today

Tightropes,bunnies and the heat

2008-03-31T04:42:00.000-07:00

On friday we left Sanur and headed to Kuta. Our plan was to go to Waterbom , a water park on our way to Ubud. We were dumb though and brought our huge packs. At the entrance the person said yes our back packs would fit in the provided lockers. Some advice: In Asia people often say yes, often just to please you. This was the case in this situation. It turned out the lockers were puny and we couldn't stay because we had nowhere to store our stuff, so we headed to Ubud, hot and mad at Waterbom.

On Saturday we visited some monkeys and a medicine man featured in the book Eat Pray Love, which my mom read and liked a lot. The medicine man predicted we would all live a long,long time but I am convinced i'll die of heatstroke before we leave Bali. The medicine man/fortune teller guy also paints pictures of hindu gods. Today we went and bought one of Saraswati. Today we also hung out in the pool and went to a spa.

Yesterday we went ziplining,well tree top adventuring. I was expecting climbing a ladder up high and swinging through the trees. Aparently that though is not the definition of a tree top adventur park. Within seconds of arival, my mom hurt her knee. Then it was up to me and my dad to do the obstacle courses in the sky. We probablly chose the worst day of our trip to zipline. Beacause of the rain all the swinging bridges /obstacals were slipery. Belive it or not it's hard to cross wire tightropes, climb nets,crawl through tubes and go flying on a cable in the rain.

Eventully after a instructer(not listening to me and forcing me to go on what looked like a suspended skate board) ruined the end of our visit, we went to see some temples. After admiring brick statues for awhile we went to the market for some lunch. Once we had petted some bunnies and ate some soup,corn and fruit(which cost $4to feed us and our driver) we drove to one more temple before coming back to our hotel. Later we went to see some Balinese dancing.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Bali and I hope to get my hair braided before we leave.

Weather report: Tropical rainstorms but unfortunatly still increadably HOT!!!!!!!!!!!

The computer isn't letting us upload photos now but i'll post some later as some evidence that i wasn't a wimp and really did the zipline stuff.

Travel Rat Returns ( dun,dun,dun)

2008-03-27T18:12:00.000-07:00

Travel Rat apologizes for not writing for 672 days ( 1 year 10 months and 2 days) she has been busy doing the things she wanted to doin the last post , playing with her pet rats Lyra & Lili, doing home work, hanging out with friends and recently packing for a trip to Bali.

On Monday ( 3-24-08) we boarded a plane to San Francisco. After the 2 hour flight we waited in the airport for another 4 hours. We then got on a 14 & 1/2 hour flight to Hong Kong on Sinapore air. Singapore air is known for being one of the nicest air lines ever. Unfortanetly I was dissapointed beacause our TV's were broken. Luckily the un-movie watchers behind us agreed to trade rows with us. On our flights I watched 4 movies: High School Musical 2 ( ugh), Enchanted, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and The Bee movie. Once we arived in Hong Kong we waited in the airport for around 2 hours and then got on another 4 hour Sinapore air flight to Singapore.

Not only is Singapore air a nice airline, but Singapore Airport is also really nice. We spent a hour of the 4 hour layover loungeing on chaise lounges. Unfortunatly I discovered the free movie theater and swimming pool too late. We hung around a while and then got on a 2 hour flight to our final destination, Bali.

By the time we got here we had been in an airport or on a plane for 33 hours. As soon as we arived at our hotel( around 8 pm ) we dived into the pool and out of the heat. We then crashed and fell asleep.

Yesterday we shell hunted on the beach, swam in the pool and walked around untill it was so hot I almost fainted (around 10 am.) At around 4 pm we took a cab into Kuta where we bought some hardrock cafe souvineres for Tina ( see London post .)

Today we will probally go back into Kuta to a water park and to get my hair braided. Afterwards we will leave for Ubud.

Dublin Ireland: HOME

2006-05-12T02:02:00.000-07:00

I WANT TO GO HOME. I want my own bed which isn’t rock hard and has springs poking me in the back. I want my friends. I want someone to talk to-- an American kid who speaks English. I want my taco del mar fish taco, I want my Taco Bell seven layer burrito, I want my meal at Milos, I want my sushi from Mio, I want my root beer, I want my three musketeers, I want my good frosting and cake. I want to see the Simpsons every day, I want to see the Amazing Race, I want to go to school, I want to have more stuff than what I have that fits into a backpack.

I want to not have to wear the same pair of pants for 20 weeks in a row. I want to be able to understand people. I want to be able to go to Target or Fred Meyers where they have EVERYTHING!!

Not like some places in the world where all they have in the grocery store is 1500 yen melons. I want my friends Ruby, Sophia, Emma, and Aditi to play with.

I want to be able to walk down the street and not have a million smokers gag me out. I want ice, just cubes of ice. They should not be a luxury in places where the water doesn’t kill you. I want to go to the dentist and get my teeth fixed, this is sad, I mean like going to the dentist or doctor is supposed to be bad, but I want to go there! I want to go to the grocery store and get cheap avacados.

I want to go to my piano lessons. I want to go to the swimming pool and have swimming lessons. I want to not have to wear my stupid tennis shoes that I’ve worn for the past 10 months and make me gag whenever I look at them.

I want to go to a movie that doesn’t cost thousands of dollars and doesn’t come out two years later than they do in the US. I want to read kids magazines like American Girl and National Geographic Kids. I want to see my stuff. I want to see my mom and dad in different clothes because they’ve worn the same ugly stuff for the past ten months and I want to barf when I see their clothes. (no offense mom and dad) I want to go to Portland, I want to go to the US, I want to come home. Please Rescue Me from this trip that goes on and on and on and on and on…………I want to go home!!!

PS It may sound weird missing this stuff, but you have not been on a trip around the world for the past 10 months.

London England: Wizards & Muggles & Rats oh my!

2006-04-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

London England: For Wizards Only

Wizards beware, you are not the only ones who can have a magical time seeing sights in London. Even though I’m a muggle (That’s non witch for you people who are not Harry Potter fans or muggles. If you are a muggle you should not be reading this and skip down to the part just for you), I have enjoyed seeing many things from the Harry Potter movies.

I have been to Kings Cross station where platform 9 ¾ is,

Does this mean I am a wizard??????

I have been to the Leaky Cauldron which looks nothing like it in the movie, but it's five minutes from our apartment. In Oxford I saw the spot in the fourth movie (The Goblet of Fire) where Mad Eye Moody turned Malfoy into a ferret,

and the dining hall

and the staircase where Professor McGonagall greets the first years in the first movie.

Sometime we are going to see the London Zoo where Harry talks to a snake. We have also heard that there is a rat exhibit there. Do you think Scabbers, aka Peter Pettigrew, aka the person who betrayed Harry’s parents lives there? I also peeked in the window of Gringotts bank, which is really the Australia House. We also will go to Ledenhall Market where Diagon Alley is.

Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Heriomine Granger stood here.

London England: For Muggles Only.

A muggle has met us here in London. Her name is Tina and she is my babysitter in Portland.

Me and Tina

She was here for about seven days. While she was here we have seen the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace,

walked across the Millennium Bridge, seen Trafalgar Square, British Museum, Leicester Square, Tower of London (where we rode on a moving sidewalk by the crown jewels), St. Paul’s (where Mary Poppins fed the birds), Tower Bridge, Harrods (very expensive department store. I found out that I’m getting a new cousin when my cousin Sophia called me there), Oxford Street, Notting Hill and Portobello Road.

Tina hung out with me while my parents went out every night, and when they went to Gordon Ramsey for lunch.

I have ridden on a couple double decker dylan buses. I like London, especially because they speak ENGLISH. I love English.

I guess this was where the hamsters from (h)Amsterdam went!

Italy, Switzerland, (h)Amsterdam & Brussels: Catching up with the Rat in Europe

2006-04-15T02:02:00.000-07:00

Travel Rat is sorry she hasn’t written in awhile. It seems like we are ALWAYS on the move.

In Rome we saw St. Peter’s Basilica, a huge church, threw coins in the Trevi fountain where my mom and dad said that if you throw a coin in you return to Rome. They said that they threw one in when they came here before and now they are back.

My mom had her pants sliced next to the pocket by a pickpocketer, but nothing was stolen. She had to sew up the pants because we could not find a seamstress in Rome. After watching her awhile I noticed that she is not the best sewer.

Everyday we get gelato. Sometimes we share a bowl and sometimes I get my own bowl. My favorite flavor is Nutella. The flavors we have tried are strawberry, banana, mint chocolate, chocolate, blackberry, limone and a hundred more flavors. That was my favorite part about Italy, we got to eat gelato twice a day.

We have walked every day here like crazy. We walked from our apartment in Trastevere to the Spanish Steps, we walked from our apartment to the Vatican and then to the Spanish Steps and then home and we walked to the Coliseum, I was very tired!

Florence there was not much to see. I didn’t like our hotel.

In Venice I got one topo shaped mask (which is rat in Italian) and one red and orange feathery mask.

I liked walking around the canals and kicking the pigeons out of my way in San Marco. I was getting revenge for a pigeon pooping on me in Florence.

In Switzerland we just stayed at a friends apartment and my mom cooked. It was really cold here and snowing. We paid 27 Swiss francs for a meal at McDonalds. That is 21 US dollars. Not worth it!

In (h)Amsterdam I was really upset that I didn’t see any hamsters. My mom had promised me that I would see hamsters wearing sweat suits, and gold chains and baseball hats on backwards, crossing their arms and dancing back and forth. I don’t think I’ll believe my mom when she talks about dancing rodents anymore. She told me she had a dream that in Italy she saw rats dancing in medieval costumes.

But we did go to the Anne Frank House. I felt like it would have been really tough to live there for two years and not get to go outside. I also thought that the bookcase opening into a door was kind of cool.

Now we are in Brussels Belgium. We’ve eaten mussels and french fries and I’ve already bought a box with chocolate. I’m collecting a box in every country we go to.

Tomorrow we are going to London. We hope it will be easy to find food, even though it is Easter. On our third day in London Tina arrives. We are shipping her here because we miss babysitters and friends so much. We are asking Tina to bring us some toothpaste, some American magazines and Grand Central Bakery cookies and other stuff we miss from home. I hope to go on the London Eye and see Harry Potter filming sites like platform 9 ¾ and go to Oxford where I want to see things from the Dark Materials books.

Paris France: A Nine Year Old Considers the Bigger Questions in Life

2006-03-19T11:51:00.000-08:00

Would you rather be buried in a pyramid, a catacomb or a graveyard?
Would you rather step in dog poop, have a pigeon poop on your head, or go to the bathroom in the Paris Metro?
These are the questions I have been asking myself while I have been in Paris.
I would prefer to be buried in a pyramid and step in dog poop since the pyramid looks cool and when the pigeon poops in your hair you have to put hand inspection on it, rather than just rubbing your shoes on the grass. The bathrooms in the Paris metro looks really disgusting.

The most important things we have done in Paris include seeing Sacre Cour, (where a pigeon pooped on my mom’s head), Musee D’Orsay, Notre Dame( a huge church),

going to a tea place like Mariage (where I stepped in dog poop—they do not clean up their dogs poop here!) and the Eiffel Tower.

We had my mom’s birthday party and I made her a card with Paris rats on it, and she chose to go to a Mexican restaurant for her birthday dinner. We went the Louve which is huge. There were no rats in the pictures, but my favorite was one with a squirrel.

Went to Disneyland Paris. Space Mountain is no good here. I bumped my head on it 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000 times. We got to design or own roller coaster and then ride on it. It was fun except I should have made it faster and have more sideways loops. We also went on the Rock n Roll Roller coaster.

A few days ago we also went to the catacombs. Bones Bones Bones.
Yesterday was my birthday and I got 20 birthday e cards and a few calls. I had one mini lemon tart, one mini autumn leaves cake, 1 mini opera cake (yuck) and chocolate macaroons for my birthday cake.
I would have liked it more to have spent it with my friends in Portland. Thank you for all of your emails and messages!

Cairo Egypt: Cruising on a Camel

2006-02-20T09:53:00.000-08:00

Today was our first full day in Cairo Egypt and we had a ride on a camel, saw the pyramids and saw the sphinx. The camel ride was fun but freaky, I would much rather ride on an elephant. The camel owner made me stand on the back of a sitting camel. It burped and I thought it was trying to stand and accidentally jumped off!

The pyramids are huge. My dad went inside one but my mom and me chose to go see a 4000 year old boat that they dug up and put together. The Sphinx is also huge. While we were at the Sphinx we saw some pottery pieces that our guide said were once water bottles for the workers at the pyramids.

Before that, we rode the subway to an old Coptic church and a Greek cemetery. The weather here is perfect compared to the places we’ve been since New Zealand. It’s only been three weeks since we’ve left New Zealand, but it seems like a year.

p.s. none of our pictures were photoshopped, we are really here!

Things I’ll remember about Cambodia

2006-02-12T04:56:00.000-08:00

Melting in the heat:
It is way to hot here which means we have to get up at 5:59 and be at the temples by 7:00. And it is HOT by 9:00

Getting grabbed by a monkey, not fun:
Yesterday a monkey grabbed my pants.

Taking trips to various temples, including Angkor Wat:
Cool but still hot

Climbing steep steps:
At some temples you have to climb to get to

Having bad food, except when we ate lunch at the Sofitel:
Much better than are other meals.

Seeing lizards in our hotel room, at the Golden Temple Villa:
Which means not a good hotel

Kids younger than me begging:
Every one is poor

Taking horrible, hhhhhhhoooooorrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiibbbbbblllllllleeeee, HORRIBLE ,HoRrIbLe malaria medication:
To me the temples are not worth it.

Con Chuôt (A Rat) in Viet Nam

2006-02-08T19:44:00.000-08:00

Now we are in Viet Nam. The thing that I do not like is the heat. On February 3, we went on a tour of a tunnel and had to stop halfway through because the heat had made me sick. We are staying at the house that Bay and her family own. Only one room has air conditioning in it. It is amazing they can live so well in this heat, plus sometimes they eat hot soup!

A few days ago I picked fabric and got fitted for an ao dai (pronounced ow yai). An ao dai is the traditional Vietnamese outfit. We won’t be here to pick it up, but our friend Bay will.

We have had good food here,

and we have ridden on motorbikes because the family owns no car.

A few days ago we were in Da Lat. We went to one place called the Crazy House. It is a guest house which will be finished in 2010. Some of the rooms have a fireplace shaped like a kangaroo or uneven bamboo steps. One of the rooms you have to climb a giraffe’s neck to get to. No wonder the locals call it the crazy house!

That was not the only crazy place we went in Da Lat. We went to a monk’s temple where my dad got me into something where I painted a rat for him and the monk painted my picture.

Yesterday we went on a rickshaw. It’s different than the kinds in China or Lhasa because the driver sits in the back and there is only room for one grownup and a kid in each one.

Today we are leaving to go to Cambodia. Because we are going to Cambodia, I have to take malaria pills. Yesterday I didn’t have enough food before I ate one and I threw up the whole morning. Because of that I don’t know if I want to go to Cambodia.

Little Beach, New Zealand: Having Fun With My Grandparents

2006-01-16T20:41:00.000-08:00

Due to popular demand, Travel Rat is writing from New Zealand after a month’s absence. She has been spending much of her time being distracted by her grandparents, Scott & Stormie and Mike & Phyllis, who always seem to want to play with her.

On the first day with Scott and Stormie we went to the Kelly Tarleton Aquarium in Auckland. There were sting rays bigger than me and penguins.

Also in Auckland we found some paua shells. We drove to Rotorua, stopping at Hobbiton, a.k.a. the shire, a.k.a. Matamata, a.k.a. the Lord of the Rings (which I have seen for the first time on this trip) filming site.

My mom and me went zorbing! Zorbing is a BIG ball which they put water into, and they put you in alone or with someone else. And then they push you down a hill. IT IS FUN!!!!!

Later we went to a hangi, a Maori feast. My dad was chosen to be chief of the bus, which meant that he got a free necklace and a front row seat of the show. Lucky. The Maori were making funny faces.
My grandpa stood out from the people on the bus in the picture they took. (p.s. he’s the one with the tongue sticking out in the front row.)

In Wellington we went to the Botanic Gardens, the Te Papa Museum, and lost Scott. We found him later sitting outside a café where he had just had coffee. Later we took the ferry to Picton where we visited a chocolate factory. The day after we went to a beach by Abel Tasman where we found starfish, cockles and sand dollars--all alive.

We drove to Mike and Phyllis’s house where we had Christmas dinner and presents. I wore my Indian outfit.

Since we got here, we have had beach walks,

saw a little blue penguin,

went to a seal colony, made sushi and had a birthday celebration with a rat cake.

Merry Christmas

2005-12-22T00:55:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a Happy New Year from the Koala Kapital of the World.

Love,
Dylan (aka Travel Rat)

Melbourne Australia: Hugging the Koalas

2005-12-13T17:36:00.000-08:00

We’ve been in Australia for two weeks and hugged two koala bears,

saw kangaroos, one with a joey (that’s a baby kangaroo),

held a snake, and watched my dad imitate a gorilla and win a prize.

In Sydney all we did was sit in our room because me and my mom were both sick.

In Brisbane we went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. There we got to feed kangaroos and hold koalas. Then we went to the Gold Coast. We went to Wet and Wild, a big water park. My favorite slide was the speed coaster. Then we came back to Brisbane because the Australia Zoo is next to Brisbane. That is the home of the Crocodile Hunter, that strange guy who always says crikey and has a weird haircut. That’s where my dad imitating a gorilla comes in. He won a free picture with a snake.

And I got another one with a koala.

Now we are in Melbourne. Today we are trying to go to Phillip Island where we can see penguins and maybe seals. All Australian animals are so cute, except for the ten most venomous snakes.

A Geo-Quiz from the Travel Rat

2005-11-29T17:58:00.000-08:00

Here's something fun you might want to do. I've put together a quiz about different things I've seen and done. If you want to take it, e-mail me your answers and I'll let you know how you did. Love Dylan

1) What country does my money come from? (note one country has two different names for its money)

1-Yen
2-Pataca
3-Bhat
4-Won
5-Ringgit
6-AZ dollar
7-Yuan
8-HK dollar
9-Renmenbi

a-China
b-Thailand
c-Japan
d-Hong Kong
e-Macau
f-Australia
g-China
h-Korea
i-Malaysia

2) What animal is not famous in Australia?
a-kangaroo
b-kiwi
c-platypus
d-koala

3) Thirty two (32) degrees Celsius is:
a-really cold
b-quite nice if you are an Eskimo
c-blindingly bloody hot
d-90 degrees Fahrenheit

4)True or False:
Quantas Airlines has a kiwi for its mascot

5)What do Australians call their friends?

6)I'm trying to go to this place that's in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris, California and Florida, what is it?

Movie in Malaysia: A Review of Harry Potter

2005-11-18T22:24:00.000-08:00

Last night I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, sooner than anyone else in the world. It was Friday here and only Thursday in England and America. It is really really fun. Except you need to go to the bathroom five times before so you don't have to go pee during the two and a half hour movie. I think its not scary, but my mom and dad thought it was. Even though we are nowhere near England or America there was a really long line for people to see the movie and almost all the people were Malaysian.

The different thing about movies I've seen in Asia is that we get to reserve our seats before we go in, and they all have subtitles in a different language. The movie here was subtitled in Bahasa Malay and Chinese. Everyone talked during the movie, it was so annoying! Some people brought their two year old, who cried during the whole graveyard scene. And someone was talking on their cellphone during the movie. Amazingly it seems people are quieter watching movies in the US, although my mom thinks people talk a lot there too.

The theatre was underneath the towers of the second tallest building in the world, the Petronas Tower. I hope to go up in them tomorrow.

Bangkok and Chiang Mai Thailand: Elephant-sized fun

2005-11-13T02:56:00.000-08:00

On our first full day in Thailand we went to the Jim Thompson house. In one of the rooms there was an old mouse house. It was like a small doll house in a box with a glass front. You put the mice in the top and then they ran around and it was their TV before TV.

After going back to the condo, we started walking to Carrefour. After walking 15 steps at the most, my mom started running back and screaming. I looked down and noticed that what looked like a vine was a snake. I started screaming and running too. But my dad just stood there like it was a vine, and he got a photo. That was the scariest day on the trip so far.

The day after that we went with Samai and Noel/Norel/Nopel/Romel—we could never get her name right. We went to Rat or Wat Pho--it’s called a Wat but I call it a Rat—and a few other “Rats.” My favorite was Rat Pho, where the longest reclining Buddha is.

The day after that we went to MBK for lunch and a bookstore and Siam Center and Hard Rock Café. One of the days my dad fell asleep and I laid my mom’s swim suit on him and took a photo.

The day after that, it was Halloween. I got 10 pieces of candy, all from my mom and dad because they do not celebrate it here, but still I dressed up. I was a rat! We got most of the supplies for my Halloween costume at an office store. My mom dressed up as a slumber party and my dad was my mom.

On our last day in Bangkok, we went to the floating market where we bought souvenirs and food. We saw a huge snake too, but at least it was in a box. It would be weird to shop there every day.

On the 3rd of November we came to Chiang Mai. On the 4th we went to Masae Elephant Camp where we saw a show where the elephants painted,

played soccer and did tricks.

It was also where we saw a baby elephant that was shorter than me. Two of the elephants wrapped me up in their trunks.

The day after that we went on a 1-day trek which included two villages, a waterfall, elephant riding (fun) and rafting.

It was all fun, especially the elephant riding, until the bamboo raft. The worst, worst, scariest day. The whole ride I was wet up to my neck. Then a group of Thai kids, no driver, lost one of their poles and their boat turned around and blocked the river. We were stuck. Then we had to get out while our driver pulled our raft over. It was a bad day.

On the other days I did not write about, we went to the Night Market and cooking classes. On Thursday we went to Phuket. I hated sitting in the Chiang Mai airport, even though we were just there for an hour, because of an annoying kid, and my mom got so mad because he was trying to take our stuff from the X-ray machine and she told him to knock it off. But if that wasn’t bad enough, we had to stay in the Bangkok airport for five hours. I will write about Phuket after we leave.

Hong Kong: The Best City in China for Kids

2005-10-26T02:58:00.000-07:00

On our first full day in Hong Kong we went to the Flying Pan, a 24 hour breakfast place. And guess what, they had the only root beer I’ve seen since coming to Asia! Then we went to Wattis which was next door. Wattis is a map store that Tom and Andrea said to go to. My mom and dad got three maps. Then we went to Shanghai Tang and an Indian restaurant. On our second full day we went to dim sum and rode the world’s longest escalator. And then we went to an American grocery store. Where they had avocado! Then we saw Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-rabbit, in English! The day after that we had tea at the Peninsula, which my mom says is one of the fanciest hotels in the world.

The day after that we went to Macau for a day. I wasn’t impressed, plus it was hot, so not very fun. It reminded my mom of Hawaii. When we got there we went to a restaurant and I had soup and a hamburger. Then we went to some churches. Boring! Then we went to Starbucks, then we left.

A few days after that we went to Ocean Park, an amusement park. It was fun except I could not go on the tower drop thing or the dragon, the longest roller coaster in Hong Kong. My favorite rides were a log ride and the mine train. Ocean Park is also where they have the world's largest aquarium.

There were sharks, seahorses, pufferfish, goldfish, stingrays, half-shark half-stingrays, fish big enough to eat me and more. It was a fun day.

A few days after that we went to Hong Kong Disneyland. When we got there we went straight to our hotel, the Disney Hollywood Hotel. You could definitely tell that it was a Disneyland Hotel because of the design and because Daisy was in the lobby. Then we went to the park.

The minute the gates opened we went to Space Mountain. We rode on it four times.

The only rides they had were pooh, space mountain, a carousel, buzz lightyear's astro blaster, tea cups and a few shows. After being at the park five hours we went back to the hotel and went to the swimming pool. It was big and shaped like a piano, plus it had a fun waterslide. When we checked out of our hotel, the next day we got a picture of us with our backpacks with Minnie Mouse!

Lhasa Tibet: I want oxygen!

2005-10-15T04:34:00.000-07:00

I want oxygen! On October 6th we came to Tibet. The people are nicer than the chinese, but its up high and it doesn't have oxygen and there's still smokers and there is incense so its really hard to breathe. After being in Tibet 26 hours I had had five bottles of oxygen and two oxygen pillows.

I have been taking pictures of all the people here because they all wear cool outfits, especially the beggers. And the old people are shorter than me. And all the people have interesting hair with lots of strings in little braids. All around the temple there are stalls selling scarves, prayer wheels, prayer flags, food, clothing, buddhas, mandalas, boxes, skins and more.

Here are some pictures I took while we were in Tibet.

beggar

baby in a box

Tibetan woman

Potala Palace

another beggar

Chengdu, China: My Favorite Things in China

2005-10-05T03:36:00.000-07:00

A few days ago we got to Chengdu. On our second day here we went to the panda reserve. It was really fun. The best parts were getting my picture next to a giant panda (my mom got hers too),

seeing a two or three month old panda, and having a red panda sit on my lap.

It cost 400 RMB, or $50 US, to get my picture with the giant panda and 50 RMB, or $6 US, to get my picture with the red panda. Other than Studio Ghibli, it was my favorite day of the trip.

Today we went to People’s Park because they make sugar animals. When we got there, we didn’t know the person we passed was making rats. We only thought she was making birds, dragons, chickens, flowers, dragonflies and butterflies. But a Chinese person came up to my dad and asked him to get his picture with him. So after they got the picture, my dad asked “Where do you get the sugar rats?” and had some trouble explaining it without speaking Chinese. But after a while the led us to it. It ended up being the same place we had seen. Me and my dad got rats and my mom spun the wheel that had a lot of animals on it and got a chicken. My mom and dad finished their sugar animals in minutes but it took me hours. They were really good and tasted a bit like honey.

Xi'an China: Seahorse on a stick

2005-09-29T06:19:00.000-07:00

I have been in China for 20 days and so far I have seen people eating seahorse, spider, scorpion, whole baby birds, fried bugs on a stick, turtles (sorry Emma), eels, snake heads, lamb eyes, and camel’s hoof. I wanted to eat dumplings shaped like bunnies, pigs, penguins, ducks, squashes, leaves, frogs and puffer fishes, but they were all in a meal that cost forty dollars each.

On the 20th we came to Beijing on an overnight soft sleeper train. We bought a whole compartment with four beds instead of three beds and one other person in the other bed. So in our compartment we had two lower beds that could be used as seats, two upper beds, a table, a flower, trashcan, and a mirror. We got to Beijing at 7:30am and we went to our hotel and had breakfast and we went to the Temple of Heaven. It was fun but the main thing was under scaffolding.

The next day we went to the Summer Palace. We didn’t do much because we had to meet up with Don and Nancy and Jakob and Victoria, so all we did was go on a boat ride, and buy a souvenir and eat a sandwich. Boring. I thought it would have been more interesting to look around more. Then we went to the zoo on a boat, the worst zoo I’ve ever been to because all the other ones I’ve been to had more interesting things. By that time me and my mom were starved, so two hours later we finally got to eat.

But the day after that, we went to the Forbidden City and walked a lot around it. And guess what? There’s a Starbucks Coffee there.

The day after that we went to the Lama temple and I barely could breathe because of all the incense. I bought a rat statue with 10 rats on it.

The day after that we went to the Dirt Market which is only open on weekends. My mom and dad bought lots of stuff. I bought a box and got a free cell phone purse.

The day after that we went to the Great Wall. We walked from one chairlift to the alpine slide. Travel Rat came to the wall and she got her picture taken. I made her a shirt that says “I climbed the Great Wall.” At the bottom of the alpine slide we saw 6 bunnies and my dad thought that I was more impressed by them than the wall.

A couple days later we flew to Xi’an. All we’ve really done here is see the Terra Cotta Warriors. It was interesting but not interesting, in the same way.
I love that there are so many rat things here so my collection is getting big. The things I don’t like about China are: smokers, heat in some places, no good American restaurants except Element Fresh in Shanghai by the Ritz Carlton, the smells, crossing the streets because I almost got run over, the taste of the water, people walking too slow, and people not moving for me but making me move for them.

I can’t wait to see the pandas and get a sugar rat made in Chengdu!

Shanghai China: I love air conditioning

2005-09-20T01:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven’t written in days. But since I wrote the most important things are going to Lotte World, an indoor and outdoor amusement park. My favorite parts were the magic donkey, a vending machine where you would put in money and a piece of chocolate would come flying out of the donkeys butt, a roller coaster called the French Revolution, except on the second time my mom bumped her head really hard, and a ride called the swing tree where you ride on fake leaf chairs spinning around on a fake tree. The worst ride was the big loop. A cart where you go around a big loop but when you were upside down it felt like you stopped for minutes. I hated it.

Another small thing we did is that we got dressed up in Korean costumes and got our picture taken.

The other big thing is we came to China. On our first full day we went to Xitang a small small town that has a canal coming through it. In Xitang we walked around, had lunch, went on a boat ride around the canal and bought some things. I bought a statue of a rat and a rat cut out of paper and framed. My mom and dad bought a painting and a fan because everything is so so so so so so so cheap. They only had one bathroom a block.

The next day we went to a huge fabric market. You go to one and pick out a fabric and a style and they make you clothes. My mom got a coat and my dad got a suit.
Then we went to a market where everything was fake. Fake purses, fake watches, fake everything. The vendors would say watch? I’d say “no”. Purse? “no” DVD, gameboy? “NO!!!!” Then we went to the Shanghai acrobats. My favorite act was a woman who put wine glasses and candles on her head then climbed up ladders on a wobbly thing. Then she climbed down and played the flute, with all the stuff still on her head.

The next day we went to the Shanghai museum. The day after that we had what they called Shanghai’s best dumplings. They were good. The next day we just hanged around. The day after that, my half birthday, we spent the day at the pool and went to an Indian restaurant for dinner. And then we ate the cake we brought. They sang happy birthday to me in Chinese.

The day after that we went back to the fabric and fake markets. Weather is hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot , hotter than Japan, hot hot hot hot hot as hot as Korea hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot I miss rain! hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hhhhhhhhhhhhooooooooooooooootttttttttttttttttttttt!

Busan Korea: 500 steps

2005-09-05T21:06:00.000-07:00

On September 2, we got to Busan Korea. The whole time we were in Busan we stayed with Servas people. The first night we stayed with some people who took us out to dinner and to Busan Tower, and we had to walk 500 steps.

On the second day of Christmas (sorry, I have Christmas carols stuck in my head!). On the second day we stayed with some people with an 8 year old daughter. For dinner we made Korean sushi and we walked along the beach and found shells.

On the third night we stayed with some people who had a son who my dad played Uno with and we had a picnic and when we bought popsicles a frog had jumped into the freezer so there was a frozen frog in with the popsicles.

Then we took the train to Seoul. My mom and dad let me have a candy bar and a Coke for breakfast. [Note from Andy: there was no real food available on the train and Dylan hadn't been hungry for the Korean breakfast food that morning.]

Sweating through Japan

2005-09-01T00:54:00.000-07:00

Travel rat is sorry she hasn’t wrote lately, but she has been busy catching up with the grownups who are always walking to museums, momuments or temples. Blah blah blah. Since I wrote we have been to the post office, Shinjuku, a playstructure, Eddie Bauer, Starbucks,and the bathroom. In Kyoto we went to a restaurant called the Taj Mahal because my mom was bored with Japanese food and wanted Indian. Then we went to where some Geishas were. We saw 8. The next day we went to another temple and I found an elephant beetle and my mom thought it was cool, but I didn’t because I stepped up the step and suddenly it was in front of me. We also saw a small black beetle with irridescent red places on its back. We were hot.

We stayed in a Ryokan in Nara. We slept on mats on a tatami floor. It was really comfortable. They served breakfast and dinner. For the kids dinner I had rice, miso, a green rice flower thing with bean paste in it, tempura, a soy milk soup, shirmp, edename, asian pear, and a jello flour thing for dessert.

We also went to Nara park where there are over 1200 deer. But I got scraped by one’s antler because you can feed them and I got hurt really bad. My mom got bit 3 times and my dad got bit once. And I decided I only like Bambis, little deer.

We saw the largest wooden structure-the one on the ten yen piece. Which inside was a HUGE buddha. In the back was a hole in a post of the building that was the size of the buddha’s nostril and if you could fit inside it, you would find enlightenment. I fit.

The next day we walked a lot. It was hot. Then we went to Hiroshima. Basically in Hiroshima you go to a museum about a bomb dropped on Hiroshima and a peace park and bomb things. Hint, don’t go to Hiroshima when you’re 8, it’s boring to me—at least the bomb stuff.

Now we are in Fukuoka. We got here two days ago. For dinner we went to the Ramen Stadium. The ramen stadium is a lot of ramen places in the same area. It’s in canal city, their mall. On the way to ramen stadium’s floor we saw a water show also in canal city. While we were waiting for another show, there was a mime who was doing acts from terminator, jurassic park, titanic, jaws, and shall we dance.

The next day we spent more time at canal city. Today we did something with some people from Servas. So we went to Masatoshi Yoneuaga’s work, who teaches English. We talked about the trip and asked the kids some questions. It was fun. It’s still hot.

Tokyo Japan: What a kid would like in Tokyo

2005-08-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

Tokyo is a good city for kids. There's lots of things that kids would love. My favorites are Studio Ghibli, Disneyland and Kiddyland.

Kiddyland is a six story toy store. Kiddy as in kid with a y, not like hello kitty. I bought a stuffed rat, and rat charm from Spirited Away. In the front was an R2D2 made out of legos. The second time we walked by after we had walked around there was a person dressed up as a weirdo monkey, which everyone seemed to love, except me, my mom and dad. At least we were not crowded around the person taking lots of pictures and almost hugging it. The weather is still hot.

We went to Disneyland, but I am a little sad we didn't go to Tokyo Disney Sea, where there is the Indiana Jones and weather station rides. We didn't get to go because there was lightening. But Disneyland was fun, other than the It's a Small World ride because I do not like the song. But my mom made me go on it for the air conditioning. My favorite ride was Space Mountain and Splash Mountain because they dont have the Matterhorn here, which is my favorite ride at California Disneyland. My mom and dad also liked Space Mountain.

Ears, ears and more ears. Everyone seemed to love one thing. Ears! We saw thousands of people in them. Just imagine, Dumbo, Minnie, Mickey, Pooh and lots of other characters ears, just ears. Everyone was wearing them. Or imagine walking into a bathroom and finding Stitch there to greet you. We went to a tempura place for dinner.

Fun things for kids in Tokyo: Studio Ghibli (but only go if you have watched any Studio Ghibli movies, otherwise some of the stuff might be lost on you) Tokyo Disneyland, Tokyo Disney Sea, Kiddyland, buying gum at the train stations, (because they have the best flavors) and buying all the souveinirs at the market by the Senso-ji temple.

Don't come when it's hot outside. It's hard walking around because there are so many people and I'm walking at the level of their elbows and keep getting hit.

I am learning the word for rat in every country we are in. I can't write the script on the computer because we dont have a Japanese computer, but to say it--it's Nezumi.

Tokyo Japan: Visiting Studio Ghibli

2005-08-20T16:53:00.000-07:00

Last time I wrote, we were going out to dinner with my dad's friends. We went to a really good restaurant where you had to take your shoes off. There was a hole in the floor where you had to put your feet because you sat on cushions on the ground. I had some soba.

Today we went to Studio Ghibli. I loved it! Studio Ghibli is a musuem for movies written by Hayao Miyazake. On the roof garden was a statute of a robot from the movie Castle in the Sky.

In one room was a giant stuffed cat bus from the movie My Neighbor Totoro. In another room was a short animated film based on My Neighbor Totoro. One room had an exhibit about animation. There were more rooms also. There were also some doors where you opened and there were only mirrors. And the doors kept getting smaller until I had to kneel on the way to the bathroom. On the sprial staircase you had to duck unless you would bump you head. On the tickets were pieces of film from the movie when it was in the theaters. At the gift shop I got a deck of cards, a stuffed small totoro on a keychain, 2 pins, a pen, a book and postcards. Now we are at the hotel.

Tokyo Japan: Hot Town Summer in the City

2005-08-19T00:46:00.000-07:00

8/18 2005
Today we went to the Fish Market because I woke up really early. There were fish bigger than me and I almost got ran over by a 3 wheeled cart. Then we got fresh sushi and started walking to Ginza. In Ginza we went to two cafes to stay cool, a HUGE paper shop and the Sony building.

8/19/05
We just finished breakfast. Today we are going to a plastic food place where they sell plastic food of course, a geocache, which we do where we can find one. A geocache is a container you have to find with a GPS. In the container is a few little toys. You leave a toy and you take one. We are also meeting with some people from my dad's work. I do not know what else we are doing.

We just got back to our hotel after going to the geocache and the plastic food store. The geo cache was the hardest one we've ever done. It was close to the golden turd. The golden turd is a thing on top of a building that houses a beer company. It looks like a turd but its golden.

We went to two plastic food places. I liked the one with the sushi clock. We also went to a market by the senso-ji temple where I bought a japanese box, but we were really hot.
Luckily we found a shop that had My Neighbor Totoro stuff so we bought a fan.

Weather so far: hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot, why you still reading this, it just says hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot, Cold, fooled you! Hot hot hot hot hot hot.

Things I'm not looking forward to on the trip.

2005-08-08T19:19:00.000-07:00

Things NOT to look forward to.
1.Head aches in planes,cars and buses.
2.Snakes.
3.A shot in New Zealand.
4.Places where people smoke all the time.
5.squatty potties

Things to look forward to!

2005-07-09T17:41:00.000-07:00

a 1.My birthday in New Zealand with both sets of my grandparents.
2.The rat temple in India.
3.Going to every Disney park.
a 4.Studio Ghibli in Japan.
5.Looking for a favorit popsicle.
a 6.Seeing a panda at the panda reserve in China
a 7.sushi in Japan
8.Meeting up with my friends in diferent places.

Strange countries song

2005-07-05T17:49:00.000-07:00

Strange countries song: by Dylan Wells.
In Greece we'll be sliding around in Grease
In Turkey we'll gobble up some turkey
In Chile we'll eat some chili
In Dehli we'll go to a deli
In Dili we'll find a dill pickle
In Hungary we'll be hungry

Who am I

2005-07-04T20:10:00.000-07:00

I am Dylan Wells. I am 8. And I am going around the world with my mom and dad. I love rats, rock climbing and sugar. My favorite movie is Spirited Away.