Hey guys! It’s been a while since I wrote to you, and I’ve done A LOT! I just got back from India, and tomorrow I will be in Penang, Malaysia. I’ll write to you about Malaysia a little later; for right now, let’s talk about what I saw in India!
India has more people than anywhere in the world, except for China. I could really tell while I was there, because it is crowded all the time! People are always walking around or driving their cars and riding their motorcycles or bicycles, no matter what time of day.
One of the coolest things I got to see in India was the Taj Mahal. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Taj Mahal, but it is a very famous building made completely of white marble. “Taj Mahal” means “White Palace,” and a king built it for his wife a very long time ago. The queen had 14 kids, and the king built her a palace as a present because he loved her so much (and she asked for one). The building is all bright white stone, with different colored stones in flower and swirly patterns all over it. It is one of the most famous buildings in the world, and I’m very happy I got to see it.
I also got to go to Varanasi, which is the most holy city in India. Most people in India are a religion called Hindu, and Varanasi is a very special place for them. Varanasi is home to the Ganges River, which is the reason the city is so holy. Hindu people pray at different temples all along the side of the river. These places to pray are called “ghats,” and each ghat lets people pray a different way. I got to go on a man’s boat and learn all about the different ghats, and some people threw strings of flowers into the river. The Hindu people say that if you do this and make a wish, your wish will come true!
The big city of Delhi was another place I went. That night I explored a market, where I got to watch Indian people going about their normal day. Indians dress very differently than we do in the United States. The men almost always wear tan pants and button-down shirts, which is kind of fancy dress in the US. The women wear beautiful dresses called sarees. These sarees are always very colorful, and decorated with lots of beads and ribbons and pretty designs.
Sometimes they wear something called a “salwar kameez,” which is just like a matching pair of pants and a long shirt with a pretty pattern like on sarees. Most of the time they will wear scarves with their salwar kameez. I bought two salwar kameez, and I will make sure I wear one when I come visit so you can see what it looks like!
A really cool art that comes from India is mendhi. Mendhi is a design that goes on your skin using an ink called “henna”. It is a little like a tattoo because henna can dye your skin, but it only lasts for a couple weeks. Indian women put mendhi on their hands and feet for special celebrations, and especially weddings. The bride’s hands and feet are always covered in mendhi as a wedding tradition. A lot of my friends got it done in the market, and it looks great!
The last thing I’ll talk about is something that you’re going to make yourselves! It is another art that Indians are famous for, and that is called embroidery. Embroidery is when you sew things together in a creative way, and Indian embroidery is full of beads, jewels, and bright colors. The embroidery can be used to make things to hang on the wall, pillows, or even blankets. It is really beautiful to see so many different pieces of fabric and beading put together so artistically. I bet you guys will do a great job of that, too!
Those are the coolest things I saw in India. I hope you have fun making your own wall hangings, and I hope I get to see them when I get home! I will talk to you soon, after I come back from Malaysia!
10.22.2008
10.04.2008
Cape Town Capers
Hello Online Voyagers!
I had a pretty fun time in South Africa. I went to an aquarium, climbed a mountain, watched a rugby game, and saw some beautiful artwork. Our ship docked in Cape Town, a city in the most Southern part of South Africa.
At the aquarium, I saw the trainers feeding penguins! They fed them whole fish and squid. When I come visit you at the library I will show you my pictures of penguins in the middle of swallowing their food whole! I also saw two scuba divers swim in a giant tank and feed the rays and the turtle. They trained the turtle to hit a target with its head, and when it did, it got its treats. That’s a pretty smart turtle. Have you ever seen a ray? Rays look like big, diamond-shaped fish with long tails at the end. The rays with the long tails don’t sting, but the rays with short tails can really hurt you! If you are swimming and see a ray, just be careful not to touch the tail. Rays usually hang out in tropical waters like Florida and the Bahamas.
The divers were in a tank called the “predator tank”. In case you didn’t know, a predator is an animal that goes after other animals to eat. The animals it tries to eat are called “prey”. There were big reef sharks in the predator tank, and when they got too close to the diver that was feeding the turtle, the other diver had to poke them with a stick! I don’t know about you, but I think that would be a pretty scary job!
My favorite part of Cape Town was climbing Table Mountain. It’s called Table Mountain because- SURPRISE!- it looks like a table, with a big flat top. It was a pretty tough climb, but it was so pretty at the top. I could see all of Cape Town on one side, and more mountains and the ocean on the other side. I love to hike, so I had a lot of fun.
I also went to a town called Stellenbosch to watch a rugby game. Rugby is a game that’s sort of like football and soccer combined. It is very fast and involves getting goals like soccer, but there is a lot of tackling, like football. Nobody wears padding, so it is very scary to watch the players get thrown around the field. It was fun to see a game! There are 15 players on each team, so there were a lot of people running around the field.
I saw some really cool crafts while I was in Cape Town. I saw bowls and plates made from weaving colorful wires together- I bought one, so I can bring it in to show you when I get back- and pretty beaded bracelets made to look like the South African flag. Making beaded decorations is a popular art in South Africa, and the markets had lots of beaded stuff: animals like lizards and pigs, big stars that you could use as lamps, and even beaded spoons!
I did some serious stuff in Cape Town, too. South Africa used to follow rules called “Apartheid Laws” that kept the Black people separate from the White people. The Black Africans were treated very unfairly by the White South Africans, and fought for a long time to get rid of the Apartheid laws. I went to an old prison called Robben Island, where they kept South Africa’s most famous president. His name is Nelson Mandela, and the Apartheid rulers kept him in prison for thirteen years because they knew he would help get rid of Apartheid. He did a great job helping South Africa fix its problems after Apartheid was over. He was a very important person to the whole world, because everyone on Earth is equal, and should be treated just as nicely as anyone else.
I think that’s a good message to end on: Everyone is different and special, but we are all people trying to make Earth as beautiful a place as possible.
I had a pretty fun time in South Africa. I went to an aquarium, climbed a mountain, watched a rugby game, and saw some beautiful artwork. Our ship docked in Cape Town, a city in the most Southern part of South Africa.
At the aquarium, I saw the trainers feeding penguins! They fed them whole fish and squid. When I come visit you at the library I will show you my pictures of penguins in the middle of swallowing their food whole! I also saw two scuba divers swim in a giant tank and feed the rays and the turtle. They trained the turtle to hit a target with its head, and when it did, it got its treats. That’s a pretty smart turtle. Have you ever seen a ray? Rays look like big, diamond-shaped fish with long tails at the end. The rays with the long tails don’t sting, but the rays with short tails can really hurt you! If you are swimming and see a ray, just be careful not to touch the tail. Rays usually hang out in tropical waters like Florida and the Bahamas.
The divers were in a tank called the “predator tank”. In case you didn’t know, a predator is an animal that goes after other animals to eat. The animals it tries to eat are called “prey”. There were big reef sharks in the predator tank, and when they got too close to the diver that was feeding the turtle, the other diver had to poke them with a stick! I don’t know about you, but I think that would be a pretty scary job!
My favorite part of Cape Town was climbing Table Mountain. It’s called Table Mountain because- SURPRISE!- it looks like a table, with a big flat top. It was a pretty tough climb, but it was so pretty at the top. I could see all of Cape Town on one side, and more mountains and the ocean on the other side. I love to hike, so I had a lot of fun.
I also went to a town called Stellenbosch to watch a rugby game. Rugby is a game that’s sort of like football and soccer combined. It is very fast and involves getting goals like soccer, but there is a lot of tackling, like football. Nobody wears padding, so it is very scary to watch the players get thrown around the field. It was fun to see a game! There are 15 players on each team, so there were a lot of people running around the field.
I saw some really cool crafts while I was in Cape Town. I saw bowls and plates made from weaving colorful wires together- I bought one, so I can bring it in to show you when I get back- and pretty beaded bracelets made to look like the South African flag. Making beaded decorations is a popular art in South Africa, and the markets had lots of beaded stuff: animals like lizards and pigs, big stars that you could use as lamps, and even beaded spoons!
I did some serious stuff in Cape Town, too. South Africa used to follow rules called “Apartheid Laws” that kept the Black people separate from the White people. The Black Africans were treated very unfairly by the White South Africans, and fought for a long time to get rid of the Apartheid laws. I went to an old prison called Robben Island, where they kept South Africa’s most famous president. His name is Nelson Mandela, and the Apartheid rulers kept him in prison for thirteen years because they knew he would help get rid of Apartheid. He did a great job helping South Africa fix its problems after Apartheid was over. He was a very important person to the whole world, because everyone on Earth is equal, and should be treated just as nicely as anyone else.
I think that’s a good message to end on: Everyone is different and special, but we are all people trying to make Earth as beautiful a place as possible.
Savannah Safari!
Hey guys!
I was just in Namibia, a small country on the Southwest coast of Africa. Namibia has the least people in all of Africa, mostly because the Namib and Kalahari deserts take up a lot of the country, and the desert is not a great place to live. While I was there, I went on a safari in Etosha National Park! It was amazing. I saw so many cool animals!
Here are some of the animals I saw:
The animal I saw the most of was a Springbok, which is a kind of gazelle. They look like little deer with black stripes on their sides. Sometimes, the boy springbok will try and impress the girl springbok by jumping really high, which is funny to see because they look like they’re on a trampoline. Another cool thing about springbok is that they get all the water they need from the plants they eat, so when it gets really hot and dry in the desert and water is hard to find, they have no trouble because they can eat and “drink” at the same time!
We saw another kind of gazelle called an Oryx, which looks just like a springbok, except it has gray fur with long, straight black antlers. I saw another animal that looked like a really tiny springbok, or a baby deer. This animal was called a Dik-Dik, and they are the tiniest antelope. Even when they are full grown they are still not much bigger than a little dog!
I also saw a lot of zebra! I bet you all know what a zebra is (I’ll give you a hint: it looks like a black-and-white striped horse), but did you know that there are two kinds of zebra? There is a Grevy’s zebra, which is shorter, a little smaller and looks like a donkey, and then there is the plains zebra, which looks bigger and more like a horse. Despite looking a little different, both these kinds of zebra play together all the time! The zebra and the springbok like to hang out and eat their plants together, too.
My favorite animal that we saw was a giraffe. Giraffes are the tallest land animals in the world! They like to hang out in groups of four or five and eat the leaves up at the tops of trees. It is really funny to see a giraffe drinking at the watering hole, because they are so tall they have to bend their legs in a really weird direction to reach the water! They take their front legs and move them far over to each side of their bodies, almost like a front-leg split. Then, they bend their long necks down and take their drink.
On our first day driving through the savannah, we saw a herd of elephants! There were about 10 big, adult elephants and 3 or 4 babies! They were all gathered around the watering hole drinking and playing in the water. Elephants can live for over 70 years, which is a very long time for an animal!
At night, we camped in tents. There was a watering hole near our camp site, so we went to see what animals came to drink at night. That night, just at sunset, we saw a mom and baby rhinoceros! There are black and white rhinoceroses in Africa, but the black rhinoceroses are endangered. Endangered means there are not very many of them left in the world. We saw the bigger, more common type of rhinoceros, the white rhinoceros.
The coolest animal we saw is sometimes called the King of the Jungle. Can you guess what it was? If you guessed a lion, you’re right! We saw three lions, two males and a female. They are very hard to spot in the savannah, because the sun gets very hot and they like to relax under shady trees. It is easiest to find them in the morning, when it is still cool and they can wake up and get a drink of water, or at night, when they wake up from their shady naps. If you have cats at home, you know how they like to sleep. Lions sleep for 12-14 hours every day. That’s over half the day!
It was really fun to go on safari. Namibia is a great country! On the way back to the ship from our safari, we stopped at a wood-carving market to buy crafts that the Namibian people made. I got a wooden giraffe statue to remind me of my favorite safari animal.
I’m on my way to India right now! I’ll tell you more about it after I’ve gotten there- next you can look for my stories from South Africa!
I was just in Namibia, a small country on the Southwest coast of Africa. Namibia has the least people in all of Africa, mostly because the Namib and Kalahari deserts take up a lot of the country, and the desert is not a great place to live. While I was there, I went on a safari in Etosha National Park! It was amazing. I saw so many cool animals!
Here are some of the animals I saw:
The animal I saw the most of was a Springbok, which is a kind of gazelle. They look like little deer with black stripes on their sides. Sometimes, the boy springbok will try and impress the girl springbok by jumping really high, which is funny to see because they look like they’re on a trampoline. Another cool thing about springbok is that they get all the water they need from the plants they eat, so when it gets really hot and dry in the desert and water is hard to find, they have no trouble because they can eat and “drink” at the same time!
We saw another kind of gazelle called an Oryx, which looks just like a springbok, except it has gray fur with long, straight black antlers. I saw another animal that looked like a really tiny springbok, or a baby deer. This animal was called a Dik-Dik, and they are the tiniest antelope. Even when they are full grown they are still not much bigger than a little dog!
I also saw a lot of zebra! I bet you all know what a zebra is (I’ll give you a hint: it looks like a black-and-white striped horse), but did you know that there are two kinds of zebra? There is a Grevy’s zebra, which is shorter, a little smaller and looks like a donkey, and then there is the plains zebra, which looks bigger and more like a horse. Despite looking a little different, both these kinds of zebra play together all the time! The zebra and the springbok like to hang out and eat their plants together, too.
My favorite animal that we saw was a giraffe. Giraffes are the tallest land animals in the world! They like to hang out in groups of four or five and eat the leaves up at the tops of trees. It is really funny to see a giraffe drinking at the watering hole, because they are so tall they have to bend their legs in a really weird direction to reach the water! They take their front legs and move them far over to each side of their bodies, almost like a front-leg split. Then, they bend their long necks down and take their drink.
On our first day driving through the savannah, we saw a herd of elephants! There were about 10 big, adult elephants and 3 or 4 babies! They were all gathered around the watering hole drinking and playing in the water. Elephants can live for over 70 years, which is a very long time for an animal!
At night, we camped in tents. There was a watering hole near our camp site, so we went to see what animals came to drink at night. That night, just at sunset, we saw a mom and baby rhinoceros! There are black and white rhinoceroses in Africa, but the black rhinoceroses are endangered. Endangered means there are not very many of them left in the world. We saw the bigger, more common type of rhinoceros, the white rhinoceros.
The coolest animal we saw is sometimes called the King of the Jungle. Can you guess what it was? If you guessed a lion, you’re right! We saw three lions, two males and a female. They are very hard to spot in the savannah, because the sun gets very hot and they like to relax under shady trees. It is easiest to find them in the morning, when it is still cool and they can wake up and get a drink of water, or at night, when they wake up from their shady naps. If you have cats at home, you know how they like to sleep. Lions sleep for 12-14 hours every day. That’s over half the day!
It was really fun to go on safari. Namibia is a great country! On the way back to the ship from our safari, we stopped at a wood-carving market to buy crafts that the Namibian people made. I got a wooden giraffe statue to remind me of my favorite safari animal.
I’m on my way to India right now! I’ll tell you more about it after I’ve gotten there- next you can look for my stories from South Africa!
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