Author: oceannut

My Trip To China- Augie

In China, I stayed in a hotel in Beijing. I got to China by plane from  Japan. Since it was day time in China, me and my family went to the New world shopping mall. The mall had 8 floors. Someone let me have free soft serve Ice-cream. The ice cream was really good. My favorite floor was the floor with all the toys. The toys were surprisingly expensive compared to the U.S.A. I thought that it’d be less expensive because everything is made in China.

After the mall, we went back to our hotel and ate dinner. We ate dinner at a western-style restaurant. I loved the fried rice. After we stuffed ourselves we went to our room and slept.

The next day, we went to the jade factory. At the jade factory, a tour guide there showed us the people who carved the jade. He also showed us some very nice jade pieces. They ranged from dragons to bracelets, to pendants from earnings. The guide taught us that the older it is, the Jade will turn greener and more expensive. Then he said we were free to look around and buy things. We looked around for about a hour, then my dad finally bought a jade statue of Pi xiu which is said to bring good health, wealth and good fortune.

After that, we went to the Great Wall of China. The Great Wall of China was one of the things I liked most. We walk up the steep side. Since I love hiking, I loved climbing the Great Wall. We climbed very high, but I wanted to reach the tower. The rest of my family wanted to come back down, so we had to come back down.

We ate lunch, and then we went to a tea ceremony at a bell tower. Our tea guide let us taste all different kinds of tea. Mine and my brother’s favorite kind was a cold fruit tea. In fact, we liked it so much we bought some to take home.

The dinner at the hotel today was the same as yesterday. However, we ate different things. My mom liked the spicy cauliflower and I liked the noodles. After dinner, we went to room and went to sleep.

Next day was probably the busiest day in China. The first place that we visiwas the forbidden city. The forbidden city has 9,999 and a half rooms in it. The forbidden city was home to the emperor until the early 1900’s which was when warlords drove the emperor out of the forbidden city. In the mid 1900’s, the country decided to make it a museum. We walked for two miles then we saw the living quarters of one of the strongest political lady’s in the modern history of China…

Xuxi (pronounced shu-shee) Xuxi was the daughter of someone who worked for the emperor. The emperor thought Xuxi was beautiful so he told her to to work for him as a maid. He still thought she was beautiful so he moved up her rank. But then, while the emperor was on a trip, he died of disease. The emperors son became the emperor. Then, Xuxi killed the new emperor wife by poison. Then the emperor died of disease and Xuxis son became the emperor. Good story, right?

Next, we went to the pearl market. A “pearl market guide” showed us the freshwater clams. She asked us to guess how many pearls were in the freshwater clam that we chose. I said 7, my brother said 2, my mom said 4, and my dad said 3. But guess how many were in the clam? There were 20 pearls!!! Isn’t that crazy!!! We then went to the shop and bought a lot of jewelry for my mom. Since we bought a lot, the manager let me and my brother get 10 pearls each!

After the pearl market, we went back to the hotel and ate dinner at the same place as yesterday and the day before. But after we ate there, my dad saw a restaurant that sold eel. He said we HAD to try it before we left China because eels are delicacy in China. So we ate the eel (even though it tasted horrible). Then we slept.

Today we left to go back home. My trip is over. I hope you liked my journal about my trip to China. I love my trip to China. I hope in the future I can come to China again.

Hi- this my encounter, Augie, of my trip to Japan!

Tokyo was they first city that we went to on this trip. Tokyo is in Japan.

We got there late at night. We were trying  to deal with the jet lag. The only thing we did was eat a late dinner and then went to sleep. My mom woke up several times during the night because of the jet lag. I didn’t even wake up once during that night.

The first thing we did the next day was go to Tokyo Tower. Tokyo tower was AWESOME!!! My favorite part was when I looked down through this glass window on the top floor. My mom was too scared to sit on it like I did.

Next, we went to the Akasaka Kannon Temple. It was a Buddhist temple. Buddhism in Japan is about afterlife and death. We saw a gigantic lantern that was awesome. It was close to the Nakamise Shopping, so we went there next.

In Japan, there are huge markets that are like lines of little stores; Nakamise Shopping is one of them.  We walked a lot and got a lot of little souvenirs like keychains.   Nakamise shopping has a history of over 400 years.   After that we went to our hotel, ate dinner, and went to bed.

Next morning, we ate breakfast at the hotel and then went to the bus station to catch our tour bus. On the bus,  we took a 3 hour trip to Mount Fuji. We were very lucky that there not a lot of clouds that day. Mount Fuji is actually a dormant volcano. Did you know that?

We took a few pictures and then we went to lake Ashi to take a cruise. The cruise didn’t take that long but it was really cool. We took the cruise on a tugboat. We had a perfect view of Mount Fuji so we took lots of pictures.

The last thing we did that day was to take a cable car ride- gondola. The gondola ride was to the Mount Fuji station. The ride up was claustrophobic because there were lots of people in a tiny gondola with no ventilation. When we got up, it was so misty that we could barely see and it was really, REALLY windy, so we went down after one minute.

After, we went back to the hotel, ate at this really good place, and slept.

The following day, we ate at this AWESOME Hawaiian coffee place where I got a donut. Then we took a bullet train to Kyoto. The bullet train that we took was the fastest train in the world. It took two hours to arrive to Kyoto. In Kyoto we got to are hotel, then we took a long walk to this very famous market that was over 500 years old. It had lots of fish. We went to a coffee shop and I got a chocolate croissant.

After that exhausting day, we ate an average dinner went to our new hotel and dozed off.

The next day we joined a group tour. The first place we visited was Nijo Castle. Nijo Castle was built in 1603. The best thing there was that it had deer all over the area. We got to pet them. But it was not just like any ordinary deer petting zoo, the deer were roaming around freely! There were no gates separating the deer from the people.

There was also the biggest Buddha statue in the world!!! Then we went ta the temple of the gold pavilion. There we visited a three story building made out of pure gold. Since gold isn’t that hard, they put something under the gold to help it. Guess what? It turns out that the thing they put under the gold was actually more expensive then the gold itself!!!

After that, we went to the Imperial palace. The Imperial palace was home to the Imperial family until 1868, when the capital moved from Kyoto to Tokyo. We walked around a little and went back to the hotel. That night we did not eat at the hotel, we ate a tan Italian place. FINALLY, something not Japanese!

Today was very exiting, because we got to go to a monkey park! Before the monkey park, though, we went through the bamboo walk. The bamboo walk was very cool. The bamboo there was gigantic!!! Since I LOVE pandas and the color green, I must love Bamboo to because it’s green, AND pandas eat bamboo as there main course.

The Monkey park was right next to the bamboo walk so that was pretty convenient. We had to take a hike up the mountain to get to were the monkeys were. That hike helped me decide that really liked hiking. On the way up, there was this playground with a mini zip line. That was really fun. Then we hike the rest of the way. My favorite part though was when we got up… THE MONKEYS!!! They monkeys were really cute. Me and my brother got to feed the monkeys. My favorite monkey was this cute little baby monkey. After that, we hiked back down and went back to the hotel.

The next day we left to go to China. So I guess that’s it for this time! I hope you read about my next journal, my trip to China. My trip to Japan was very fun.  Thanks for reading , bye!