China


Harlan and I left Melbourne at 1:20 AM on March 21st. That is very early in the morning, or very late at night. Whatever way you choose to look at it, it was late for us to be up! We tried to sleep on the plane. It is always hard because you have to sleep sitting up, but I dozed a bit. Once I lifted the curtain to look out the window which I could do this time because I had a window seat. It was nighttime and so so beautiful. The stars were out and if felt like we were in the middle of them. The sky so clear and bright and there were so many, many stars. I saw the Milky Way and several constellations that I recognized. I also saw some islands, way down below the plane…just really the few lights on some islands. I don’t know which ones they were.

We flew all night and got into Hong Kong nine hours later. It was foggy and rainy so I didn’t get to see Hong Kong from the air or from the airport. We had to stay at the airport since we were catching another flight in just a couple of hours. We went on an airline called Dragon Air. We had a three hour flight to Qingdao, China. It was cold and rainy when we got there at 2 in the afternoon. In our taxi ride from the airport we saw many high rise apartment houses. There are over 6 million people in the city of Qingdao, that’s a lot more than in the whole state of Maine.

Our hotel is very nice. We are on the twenty-third floor. From my window I look out on the city. I can see the Yellow Sea. I can also see where the 2008 Olympics were. They held the sailing events here.





Harlan and I and two friends went for a walk along the sea our first afternoon. It was really chilly. There is a lovely walking path with many vendors selling goods. They have a lot of necklaces with pearls and many interesting items made out of shells. Harlan and I decided not to buy any of the shell pictures because they are a bit heavy and fragile. We still have a long way to go on our trip and we don’t want to get our suitcases too full!


After our walk, we came back to hotel. Harlan and I were so tired(since we had been on an overnight flight) that we went to sleep at 8:00.(Of course, that was 11pm Melbourne time.) We were even too tired to go down to dinner!

We have changed time zones and hemispheres. Now I am exactly 12 hours different from you all in Maine. And I am back in the northern hemisphere which means I am now in spring just like you.

Sunday was a free day for Harlan. We joined a group of eight people to have a guided tour of Qingdao. But the guide didn’t speak English! Luckily, one of our group was originally from China and he became our translator. Here are some pictures of the sights we saw.


Sometimes Harlan and I were tourist attractions. We look different than the people of China and some people wanted to have their picture taken with us as a souvenir to show their friends. Here I am on a boat ride getting my picture taken.


So the food here is excellent! One day I went to a restaurant for dumplings! I had six different kinds and they were all great! At the hotel we had a buffet for all our meals. So many different kinds of food, wontons, dumplings, wonderful stir fries…. Every meal I have vegetables…my favorites are baby bok choy, chard, and spinach. Harlan doesn’t care for green veggies at breakfast but I ate huge helpings. My favorite dish was spicy bean curd(tofu). I also had different kinds of teas with every meal. Chinese tea is fabulous, I am fond of both green teas and oolong teas and I drank tons of both kinds. I was very happy eating and drinking in Qingdao.


I am on the continent of Asia. I have now been on 6 out of the 7 continents, the only one I haven’t been on is Antarctica. To tell the truth, I really am not wild about going there. It’s a little too cold for me! So I might never go. However, you never know where life will take you. Can you name the other 6 continents? Here’s a map to help you.