West Lake

3/14/2009

Today I had my first breakfast in China. I had egg rice, noodles and fried fortune looking things that had chicken and vegetables in them. After breakfast we met Samantha and Mark who were going to be our guides for the day. They both work for Uncle Malcolm's boss Mr. Sun. (Pronounced Soon)

We went to the bank and exchanged our American Dollars for Chinese Yuan. While I was there I met a little boy who was wearing split pants. These are pants that babies wear when they are potting training. He was afraid of me because he had not seen many Americans before so I gave him a package of peanut butter crackers.

After we left the bank we went to West Lake. It is a big lake in Hangzhou. We went with our guides Samantha and Mark. Mom gave me a 100 yuan bill. I will use it wisely.

We met Uncle Malcolm, Mr. Sun, Mr Li, Mrs. Li, NuNu, and some other friends at a fancy Tea Room on the lake. There was squid, shrimp with eyes and shell and tail, pork, meat, and Emperor's wine. I drank orange juice. Emperor's wine is a wine that was made especially for the emperor and no one else could drink it. I tasted it, only one sip, but I got a little woozy. It made me feel dizzy. I didn't like it. I played with NuNu. She doesn't speak english, but I shared my toys with her and we found ways to communicate. We fished with a rod that I made out of a stick, grass for the string, and algae for bait. I used the algae for glue too. We could have survived alone in the wild with our rod.

Next we went on a boat ride on West Lake. The boat was made out of wood with a cloth tent above it. It was small and carried 2 sofas, but was small. We went all around the lake. There was an oarman on it who helped us. Cool. It was fun,.

See the National Geographic picture of the day!