Coming Home

After more than eight months, our trip is finally coming to an end.  There are some things that I'll miss about traveling, but I'm mostly looking forward to going home. Here are five things that I'll miss about our sabbatical, and five things that I am looking forward to at home:

Things that I will miss:

Trying new foods

Not going to school everyday

Meeting new people

Meeting new animals

Having a lot of time to relax

Things that I am looking forward to:

Seeing friends

Eating bagels

Seeing family

Speaking English to everyone

Having my own room

Asia

We've been in Asia for a couple of months now, and the time has gone by so quickly.  I remember that when we were in Hong Kong, home seemed like so far away.  Now, we'll be home in just a couple of weeks.  We're trying not to think of home now, though.  We're on the beach in Thailand right now, snorkeling and swimming. 

My favorite parts in Asia have been: swimming, seeing relatives in China, going to the beach, and surfing.  Swimming is just fun like it always is.  Who can resist going for a swim in high humidity and heat?  I'd been looking forward to seeing relatives for the whole trip, so of course that was a highlight.  And going to the beach has always been one of my favorite activities. Last of all, even though I just learned how to surf, it's so fun, and I love the feel of standing at the top of the waves, approaching the shore.

Even though we're almost home, going to Asia for the first time has been amazing.

Week in Hunan

A few weeks ago, we spent five days with relatives in Hunan, China.  All of the relatives were so open and friendly, it was as if we had known them forever. The week consisted of banquets, spicy food, sports, and karaoke.  I'm so glad that we got to meet relatives and see where our family was originally from. The week went by quickly, but we did a lot in a few days.

The relatives that we met seemed to be good at everything.  The first night at karaoke, some of them sang like professionals.  The next day we played badminton and ping pong.  Two of my uncles (my mom's first cousins), were playing in a city tournament of badminton, and we went to cheer them on.  The family's also very athletic.  One of the uncles who was competing in the badminton competition is also one of the best swimmers in China.  

All of the relatives have good connections, so they managed to have someone open a huge pool for us, get us into the "Governors" karaoke room, and more.  It was so nice of them to take their whole week off and hang out with us!

Although we did a lot that week, my favorite things were probably going swimming in a river off of a boat, seeing the place where Avatar was filmed, and all the good food we ate.    

Hong Kong!

Yesterday we arrived in Hong Kong after a long night on the plane. Being in Hong Kong is so exciting ! Hong Kong is so upbeat and alive. We got here around noon and found our apartment.  Our family is here for three days before more relatives arrive, so we are the only ones in the apartment now.  Even though there's just four of us in the apartment, it seems small and cramped.  Space in Hong Kong is limited, and when everyone else arrives, it'll be hard to fit nine people in this apartment.  One of the rooms is basically just a bed without any other space.  

The weather here is pretty uncomfortable.  It's humid and hot like New York in the summer. Compared to South Africa and the dry weather that we had, the humidity takes some getting used to.

After we had unpacked in the apartment, we set off for a walk.  We took a small historic walk in the neighborhood. The walk was guided by just our Ipad, but still interesting. After the walk and a stop to go to the squat toilet, we went to a small place for bubble tea.  I got a milk tea with tapioca balls, which was very good.  

Today we woke up at ten and left the apartment at eleven.  We had a brunch of dumpling and noodle soups at a small restaurant. The dumpling soup that I had was tasty and filling.  After that, we walked over to the mall and did our summer clothes shopping. When we were in Chile, we tried to get summer clothes, but it was out of season there. It was great to finally get that out of the way. When we were done with that, everyone was pretty tired.  We went to a small place for lunch close to home.  Now,  I'm writing this blogpost on the computer while drinking my bubble tea.

Me and my bubble tea

Safari

We recently went on a Safari in South Africa.  The Safari was in Kruger National Park. My favorite parts were the elephants, zebras, and hippos.

When you see an elephant in a photograph, it looks big.  Maybe the size of a car.  But, when you see an elephant standing six feet away from you…well, the older ones are easily twice the size of a car.  Our guide, Chris, told us about the horrors of elephants.  Say that someone walked into a restaurant and just came and sat at your table.  You don't know them.  So you don't want them there.  Elephants are sort of like that.  If you go to close to an elephant, they WILL flip your car over and smash it like you smash a small soda can.  It was really interesting, though, to see the elephants up close.

Before coming to Africa, I had only seen zebras in photographs, films, zoos, and those charts in classrooms with all the letters of the alphabet.  We saw lots of zebras on the safari, which I enjoyed.  When you look close at zebras, they actually have some brown in them, as well as black and white.  It was great seeing zebras, even if they were far away.

Hippos are the animals that have killed the most people in Africa.  I'm not saying this to scare anyone. I'm just stating the fact.  The few times we passed hippos, they didn't seem too dangerous. They did have HUGE pink jaws. They were really fat and heavy. But, they didn't seem too threatening.  In the daytime, hippos mostly slept in the water.  In the night, however, they were eating up on land.  I guess I expected hippos to seem mellow and small.  They were huge roaring animals, though.  Fun to see in real life… as long as you're not too close.

 

Leaving South America

We've been in South America for six months now.  Today we fly from São Paolo, Brazil, to South Africa.  Even though it will be sad to leave South America, I'm super excited to go to South Africa and Hong Kong.  Here are my top ten things that I will always remember from South America:

1.  Our river rafting trip on the Futaleufú river in Patagonia, Chile.  All of the extreme sports were so exciting, and that was definitely a highlight of South America.

2.  Machu Picchu, Perú.  Machu Picchu was so interesting.  We got to see so many cool Inca ruins.  Even though around Cusco, we saw other ruins, Machu Picchu was the greatest. 

3.  The Galapagos Islands in Ecuador.  The Galapagos was one of the places where it seemed like the fight to conserve the environment was actually winning.  There were so many exotic animals, I can't name all of them. It was so cool to just see a bird land two feet away from you, and not have them being scared of you.

4.  Torres del Paine, Patagonia, Chile.  This national park is at the end of South America, and we spent five days there, hiking.  Even though it was cold at points, the hiking was amazing.

5.  The Salt Flats of Uyuni, Bolivia.  These salt flats were AMAZING.   You had to wear sunglasses because the ground was so shiny and white.  All you could see for miles, was white salt and more salt.

6.  Climbing Volcán Villarica in Chile.  Climbing a Volcano is something that people dream of doing.  I'm so glad that I got a chance to, a d that we found a company that would take eleven year olds up to the crater.

7.  The violin workshop in Buenos Aires.  When we stayed in Buenos Aires for two weeks, my mom and I went to a violin workshop in Spanish.  It was a bit difficult to speak Spanish all the time, but it was a great experience.  I hope that sometime, I can go back for another workshop.

8.  Our four day biking tour in Ecuador.  This biking tour was hard at parts, but overall exciting and fun.  It gave us a way to see non- touristy places in Ecuador, while biking.

9.  The Otavalo animal market in Ecuador.  I didn't blog about this, but the animal market was so exciting, and I figured out that I need a pet pig.

10.  Being in all of the big cities in South America.  I loved all of the cities in South America, and will miss them.  We visited Quito, Santiago, Lima, Buenas Aires, and more.

Looking back to when we were in Ecuador, it seems like so long ago.  I hope to come back to South America sometime.

Violin in Spanish

Recently, my mom and I went to a four day violin workshop in Buenas Aires. The workshop was for teachers to learn how to teach book seven of Suzuki.  Since I'm not a violin teacher, I was one of the students in the master class and group classes.  

There were people in the class from Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, and of course from New York.  I thought that the class would seem totally different from ones in New York, but it really wasn't.  Of course we talked in Spanish, but everyone knew all of the pieces in the Suzuki books.

The first day was a bit overwhelming.  I had a lesson in Spanish in front of eleven teachers, all taking notes.  Oh, and one more detail, people in Argentina speak VERY fast.  It was helpful, though, to have a lesson.

The second day, I got to the studio earlier, to practice with the other students.  We played fiddle pieces and more.  We also all had the same pieces memorized, which we played together.

The same day, we all had lunch together, which was fun even though it was hard to know what everyone was saying.  We also had a group class that day, where we played Suzuki songs and our duet pieces again. When that day was over, I was already looking forward to the next group class day.

The third day was basically same as the first.  I had a lesson again which was slightly easier than the first.  I was able to understand what was said, by a mixture of Spanish and what was being played on the violin.

The last day, I only got to the studio half an hour early, to rehearse the same duet pieces.  After that half hour, we played in the same group class, and duets. My favorite duet was the one called "Cripple Creek" which was a really fun fiddle piece.

If someone asked me what the highlights were of the workshop, I would say meeting new people and having a violin lesson again.