A Day in the (kids) Life

Another typical day of late - Peter and Jack started their day by hitting the books...


Some of the boys' exercises to learn Chinese characters.  They copy the characters dozens of times to learn the strokes for each one.  In China, the 1st grade is spent memorizing 600 of the most important characters!   We won't get that far, but we'll get a few done!
 
The character for square, and circle, respectively, that they're learning - yes the circle character consists of 15 strokes!:

方   圜

After "school", the boys went with Sue out to the local import store, Carrefour, and had a western lunch at the Golden Arches. 

They stopped by Bread Talk with Sue to get some French bread baguettes.  There are only a couple of stores in town that we've found sell these and they are a real treat.  There's not much bread in China from what we can tell, so we try to make a special trip once in awhile to get some.  It sure makes us realize how much bread we eat in the U.S., and how little we eat here!
 




On the way home, these little girls practiced their English with me, and I practiced my Chinese with them.  We were both surprised that we could speak some of each other's language! They were curious (as everyone is!) about why I had a little Chinese girl on my shoulders!

Sue has been championing the benefits riding the public bus back from the University, rather than waiting around for the school's bus, so I decided to give it a try. I paid my 4 quai, and then was admitted to the waiting room - no turning back!  The bus came and there were no seats.  Greeeaat!  So I stood for an hour on the bus, crushed by Chinese humanity, stopping every 50 feet for a bus stop for the duration of 25 kilometers.
The alternative was having a leisurely wait at the University cafeteria, then riding a comfortable bus WITH A SEAT and getting back BEFORE the public bus.  I certainly learned my lesson on that one!  Why does Sue like the public bus?  She thinks it is more interesting - that was definitely true!

The Second Semester Starts

The camera was left at home (sorry, no pics!) but it was another home schooling day for Sue and the boys, and I taught at the University for the second time this week - the first week of the  new semester!

It was wonderful to see all of our students again this week - a few of them had troubles with the bad weather over the holiday; one boy had to stay at a train station 2 nights, but most were unbothered and unscathed. 

This semester I have 2 groups of students for 3 hours in a row, which is a lot of English for them, and a lot of talking for me!  I have been experimenting by breaking up the time playing various word games. Today we played "CONSTANTINOPLE", where I broke up the class into 2 teams and each time had to come up with the longest word they could think of for each letter.  One point per letter was given, with 0 points for any misspelled words.  Harsh!  The students of course love ANYTHING involving competition, and one team beat the other today by ONE LETTER.  When they added their scores, there was a shriek of outrage and disappointment :).  For most of the competitive activities I have been handing out chocolate to the winners to sweeten the pot.

I also passed out some candy hearts from Valentine's Day and explained the sayings, "Head over Heals", "Guess Who?", "Friends 4 Ever", "No Way", etc.  The students enjoyed this as they do with anything involving candy!

Peter and Jack are getting schooled on math, American history, geography, and Chinese.  They even spoke some Chinese to our ayi today, so we feel like they are finding their groove now with home schooling!  This afternoon was a visit to the park and Sue's Polish friend who speaks Chinese very well, much to the Chinese's surprise.  Peter flew his helicopter around at the park and broke a rotor, so he's done flying for awhile.  Sophie is continuing to love her school, and Friday night I have some kind of parents' meeting which should be equally interesting and unintelligible.  I may get one of our Chinese friends to come with me to help me understand everything being said!

Goodies from America!

  Unfortunately the weather turned cold again so we have been staying close to home this weekend.  The kids and I did errands today while Sue went to a spa day with her friend.  Sophie got out the watercolor paints and had a grand time.

When we went to the store I was chastised by an older lady for Sophie's clothing.  Sophie was only wearing THREE layers (long johns, long sleeve shirt and a coat) whereby one could still make out the shape of her body underneath.  I tried to explain to this stranger that she just wasn't cold  but she told me that Sophie needed more clothes!  Also as soon as we get into the store Sophie would strip down to her skivvies if she could, so keeping the warm clothes on her is also a challenge!  Sophie always tells me she WANTS to be cold! :)

This weekend we also went out to the campus to retrieve all of our boxes.  We had 3 boxes of letters from the kids at Abia Judd and Mile High schools for a penpal project that we are excited to start.  We also received no less than 6 (SIX) boxes of goodies from Grandma Weatbrook including jelly bellies, bubble gum, granola bars, cereal, beef jerky, books, valentines, and a whole host of other munchies.  THANK YOU GRANDMA!  We brought our suitcase and backpack to campus and unpacked some of the boxes into them,  then road the public bus back to Hangzhou, with kids, boxes, suitcase and backpack in tow!

Here's our little clown, Jack enjoying the last remnants of a huge bubble he blew.  On the right - some Valentine heart stickers that Sophie had stuck all over his face at a local restaurant last night.

While we sat and visited with our friends, the waitresses played with Sophie.  They lined up all of the Valentines we had received across the restaurant floor making it difficult for the customers and the wait-staff to move around.  Sophie was passed from waitress to waitress and had covered all of them with Valentine stickers.  We definitely left our mark on that restaurant!

Boating on West Lake

Today was home schooling "test day" and the boys buckled down this morning and took their Geography and Math tests.  The both did a great job and we celebrated our first home schooling week by bicycling to a nice lunch at La Varza on West Lake.  It was the warmest day of the year so far, about 70 degrees and we were all overdressed for the weather!

After lunch, we rented these little boats to drive around the lake.  Of course the boys LOVED driving the little boat around.


Sue and I sat in back and let them drive.


Peter reviewed the safety instructions that were given to us with the boat.  We could see they were numbered 1 thru 10, but beyond that, we didn't have a clue.


Our nautical chauffeurs for the afternoon...
 

Motoring next to the Bei Causeway...


The sun came out and so did the cotton candy, which Peter and Jack both sampled.

We rode down to West Lake and back, and all around the city.  Our legs are tired today as we figure we rode more than 10 miles.  On a bicycle it's not all that far, but doing it in stop and start traffic with a 6 story stair climb at the end is another story!

After 1/2 hour of rest, it's back on the bike to go get Sophie from school!

Bamboo-Lined Path at Yunqi

After homeschooling was finished, we took the boys and ventured outside of Hangzhou to a local bamboo forest preserve.  The bamboo was lush and thick, and we enjoyed getting outside after staying in from the rain yesterday.

The taxi driver drove us about 1/2 hour out of the city and I was concerned about getting back in time to get Sophie.  There are NO taxis out this far, but there is a bus line we were unsure of.  We offered the taxi driver 50 yuan to stay while we explored which she was more than happy with (and so were we!)  Since we had transportation back to the city arranged we were able to relax and enjoy this serene place.


(Left): Sue and Peter enjoying their walk.  (Right): Peter reflected in a pond - but which one is the real Peter?  (He loves these illusions... )

  

In amongst the giant bamboo timbers...



Sue and Peter found a little time to break out into a little spontaneous badminton game.  This is a very Chinese thing to do!


Jack had no INTENTION of being captured on film today, so this was the best I could do.  He didn't even want me to point the camera his way...  Except for the foliage, this picture reminds me of some Bigfoot pictures I have seen from the Cascades :)  If only Bigfoot would wear an orange sweatshirt!


Small springs erupted from the forest.  The sounds of the wind moving through the bamboo and the springs babbling through the forest were so soothing...




Peter enjoyed getting this suspension bridge swinging...


More bamboo...


... and even MORE bamboo...  Ever seen the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon?

Peter and Sue enjoying a rest in the forest...
 

The boys were aching for some Dairy Queen so we got in the cab and headed for Hefang Street where there was some kind of festival going on.  Throngs of people!  What a contrast to the deserted bamboo forest!




Sue sitting inside DQ waiting  for the kids to get their Blizzards.  Aah, the small comforts of life!
 

Start of Home Schooling

Today was the start of the new semester for the children, and we decided not to have Peter and Jack go back to Chinese school.  Since they weren't making many friends or learning much language, it was time to change course!

In the U.S., there are ESL programs to help the foreign child adjust to the culture and language, but here it's so rare to have a foreigner in the class that this type of program just isn't available.  So for the student, it's a matter of just trying to listen to the Chinese and figure out what's going on.  Doing that for 8 hours a day gets pretty frustrating and BORING!

So, this morning we started our homeschooling. I put together a lesson plan for them which included their mathematics, studying the human heart, reports on Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, memorizing US states (Jack) and the countries of Europe (Peter).  I'll also teach them some basic Chinese myself.  They are excited about this new program so we'll see if we can continue on a high note!

After their lessons were done, we took them on an outing for a Chinese Foot massage.  On our arrival someone had set off a string of several thousand firecrackers.
Fireworks will continue to be heard until March 1, or when the first full moon appears.  They seem to be lit off in unison at certain auspicious times.  Today was the 18th of February, and at 8:18, 8:28, noon, and other times, explosions could be heard all of the city.  8 is a lucky number here, so the explosions tend to congregate around that number.  Sue was pelted in the face by fallout from one of the giant fireworks while she was on her bicycle.  She's fine, but it's dangerous out there!

We all sat in a room together and had the 4 masseuses working on us simultaneously.  We were all very relaxed, but Peter had a running commentary on what he felt like, and what was happening during the whole experience.  It was cute!


The back massage - all a part of the foot massage experience as our pigs are being soaked in boiling hot water.
 

"Cupping" our feet.  They pour a little alcohol in a small bowl, light it to decrease the air pressure inside the cup and stick the cup to your foot.  Once your foot is stuck to the cup, the cup is moved around on your foot to draw out the toxins.  The boys thought it was pretty wild!  In fact, we all did!


A cloth full of warm beans and a wonderful floral scent was placed around our necks.  Heaven!

I took Peter back to the Starbuck's building and we flew his RC helicopter around inside the big atrium.  I was wondering how much flight time we would get away with since it was a weekday and the businesses had reopened in the building.  It worked to play the dumb foreigner for a little while but after 15 minutes one of the building administrators came over and told us we had to stop.  By that time we had pretty much run out of battery but we were bummed out that we have to find somewhere else to fly it.  Luckily, there are plenty of other big buildings in Hangzhou :).

I also worked on my lesson plan today for next week when Sue and I will both return to the university to resume our classes.

Sophie LOVED her first day back to school which started with a trip to a street vendor for a boiled egg and some rice and meat wrapped in a banana leaf.  Delicious!  Most of our regular noodle places are still closed due to the New Year, but 80% of the shops and businesses have resumed normal operations now and the city is full of people again!

Helicopter Version 2.0

Emptying out Sue's camera, I found these pictures of the Chinese Flaming Candle of Danger that we received with Peter's birthday cake.  Because we had received one with Sophie's cake, previously, we knew what to expect.  Everyone - Safety Glasses On!

First, the lighting of the candle... stand back, boys!


Our new friend and fellow teacher, Laura came out to dinner with us to celebrate Peter's birthday this week after just having gotten off the plane.  She was a trooper to come out with us after such a long flight.  She did get a chance to see this Chinese birthday candle in it's full regalia.  Six small flames surrounding a 1 foot high sparkling torch of fire including music!


Today we went to the field by Stefania and Damiano's apartment, and Peter was dying to have Damiano check out his new helicopter.  The previous one crashed and burned as it hit a very large object (the Earth) very hard.  We waited until the store had more in stock and bought another.  This new one is definitely easier to control as well, so we are quite pleased with it.   

Unfortunately the field was locked so Stefania and Damiano came with us to Starbucks which is in a giant office building with a large interior space.  Damiano had quite an affinity for Sue's pink bicycle...


The building usually has so much security.  Damiano and I tried to guess how many security guards would escort us out of the building.  I said 3, Damiano said 7, and miraculously no one bothered us! 

Here's Peter enjoying the maiden voyage of Helicopter 2.0.  It was the perfect, empty, windless place to learn to fly.


We all had a turn, but Damiano's flight was by far the best.  He was able to keep it level and fly it under control far better than the rest of us!


Next, we went to the roof garden to soak up the beautiful weather and kick the soccer ball around a bit.  We couldn't kick it too high because if it went over the edge it would fall 18 stories.


Damiano and Sophie getting ready pedal to lunch.


The happy couple getting ready to sit down for some Northern China cuisine.

We dropped them off at their place and came home to make dinner and so Peter could recharge his helicopter batteries (4-6 hour charge for about 20 minutes of flight time!)  The kids will go to bed early tonight as tomorrow is their first school day of the new semester.

Jingci Temple

The sun was out on this beautiful Saturday, so it was time to take the family out of the apartment.  The boys wanted to stay home and watch "The Simpsons" all day - they bought 18 seasons of episodes for about $7 US.  I just love it when they quote Bart and Homer. :)

Of course I said, "NO" and we headed to the Jingci Temple, a picturesque Buddhist temple on the south side of town.


Some locals, lighting their incense sticks...


A dragon carved between the staircases of the Jingci temple.
 

(Left) New Years' lanterns still up and (right) an urn for holding and burning incense.


Inside this stunning temple was a huge Buddha idol, and lots of decoration.


Here's our own little Buddha peering out from the temple gate.


Of course Jack is too skinny and too blonde to be a Buddha.  He's got the smile down though!
 

The rows of prayer pillows.  These were roped off by a piece of tape that said, "Police" on it, which didn't really fit with the mood.
 


Another view of the immense Buddha idol and decorative carving and painting inside.












The bronze statue of a famous monk, of which there were several, but I just loved this one's eyebrows.  I'm going to try to grow some of those myself.


Icicles melting in the morning sun after many days of COLD weather.


One of the Jingci monks, warming himself in the sun.  It was so NICE out today!


One of the buildings of the Jingci Temple from afar...




So this blog entry looks really idyllic, but the kids were actually such PAINS to be with today. They were all whiney and complained a lot.  Luckily I was fast with the camera today and  caught a FEW pictures of them smiling :)

Triple-decker piggy-back...


We saw this dead cat at the temple.  Why was it there?  We have no idea, but it was STRANGE! 
"Daddy, is that cat having a nap?"   "Yes Sophie, a very LOOONG nap."

 

Qing Gong Lo is Done!

We're very happy to announce that the construction on our building  (called Qing Gong Lo) appears to be done!  There are spaces ready for shops on the first floor, and down the street more shops have started to open up.  We even have a new traffic signal outside, so I guess our street is up and coming!

 
The city has been relatively devoid of people over the Chinese New Year and today is the first day everything appears back to normal (except for the constant firing of gigantic fireworks - still noisy!!)  The result of the lack of people and traffic are some very blue, sunny skies.  The weather is getting warmer (50 degrees for a high today) so it feels like Spring is coming!

One of the practices that the Chinese do to get rid of the gigantic piles of snow, is to put them BACK into the street for the cars to drive over and melt down.  I saw at least one intersection, recovered with snow, which caused an accident between two sliding vehicles.  WEIRD!

Peter's helicopter lasted one whole day after his birthday until it slammed into a tree and lost some of its landing gear.  Then I tried to fly it with only one side of the landing gear working and one of the rotors slammed into the ground and broke off.

Our strategy now is to wait until they have another copter in stock and buy it for spare parts (and batteries) since it would be just as expensive to get the parts we need via the  mail. Only 2 more days to wait until the store's stock is replenished.  Peter can hardly wait!

Jack's birthday is coming up and we're still trying to divine what he wants.  Hopefully not another helicopter in the house!

Sophie's school restarts on Monday, and we're all thankful about that :).  Even Sophie...

Happy Birthday Peter!

  
Today our eldest son Peter turned 12 years old.  He received his first cell phone for his birthday, but his real desire was a remote control helicopter he had been eyeing at the store.  Sue went 2 days ago to the store and saw they had only one left, so she secretly bought it for him.

Yesterday, the day before his birthday, Peter wanted badly to go to the store and buy the helicopter.  Diabolical parents that we are, we took him back to the store to buy it, even though we knew they were out of stock.  After the disappointment registered on his face, we told him they would be getting more in stock soon, but not in time for his birthday.

At dinner last night, he said, "Hey, I bet you already bought one, and just took me back to the store to trick me!"

We said, "Hey, that would be a good idea, but do you think we would think of that?" 

"No" he replied with great disappointment. Ha!  We had fooled Mr. Smarty-pants.  This morning, Sue put together a treasure hunt for him and he was SO SUPRISED.
 

Next it was off to the field next to the university next door.  We had to get past the security guards (3 of them!).  I explained in my broken Chinese that it was my son's birthday and we would only be there for 15 minutes and could we PLEASE use their field.  At first they said they didn't have a field, but then I said I could SEE it from our apartment window.  Oh.  The guards looked at the helicopter and the boys.  They smiled and let us through  :)

The take off...


Airborne!

A perfect windless day for the maiden flight!

Don't cut the power now!  Avoid crash and burn on the birthday!

The battery ran down with no major ground collisions.  It was a good day.  

The Nintendo Mishap

We had a wonderful time with our friends Damiano and Stefania today, eating lunch at a local Italian place.


Most shops and businesses are still closed, but people congregated at West Lake today to enjoy the (slightly) warmer weather.  Since tomorrow is the fourth day of the New Year, things are supposed to get back to normal.


Damiano, Stefania and Sophie, "cheesing" for the camera!


Damiano is so serious. :) 

Stefania however always has a smile on her face!


Sophie got ahold of the camera, and here is her self portrait.


After walking around West Lake for awhile, we went back to Stefania and Damiano's lovely apartment. While Peter went to the restroom he left his Nintendo DS  on the couch.  Sophie grabbed it and managed to delete all of his progress (over 100 hours worth) in his Pokemon game in just 2 minutes.  Peter is FURIOUS.  Tonight we are keeping them separated for Sophie's sake, and trying to establish boundaries between the boys' things and Sophie.  This is challenging in such a small apartment!  Hopefully the boys learned a lesson to not keep their stuff laying around, and Sophie learned not to touch things that aren't hers.  We'll see!!

Chinese New Year Aftermath

The boys still had some firecrackers left, so they took some cardboard vehicles they had from the night before and strategically placed explosives to blow them to smithereens!

Peter and his first lighter.  I'm so proud :).  Jack (right) is lighting several firecrackers at once for maximum scare factor (of his parents, that is!)


The boys lit off a string of about 5,000 firecrackers in this giant snowball they found.  Fun times!


More blowing up of a cardboard "U.F.O."


After the firecrackers were used up, we went down to Sue's parents' hotel and picked them up for the drive back to the Shanghai Pudong airport.

This AM, they caught their plane from Shanghai for their flight back to the U.S.  We made our way to the MAGLEV train which runs from Pudong airport into Shanghai.  The MAGLEV "MAGnetic LEVitation" train is incredibly fast, traveling 30 kilometers in about 7 minutes.  Our top speed on the train was about 210 miles per hour - we all gawked out the window as the landscape sped by.  From there, we made our way by taxi to the Shanghai South train station, and then hopped the train back to Hangzhou.

We were also impressed by the immediate cleanup of the city after thousands upon thousands of fireworks displays had been fired.  There is almost no evidence.  Indeed the big box that we fired off (see previous blog) was picked up no more than 10 minutes after we had fired it off by a road crew.  The debris from pile from the 50,000+ strings of fireworks we lit is completely gone!

Now that Thailand and Sue's parents' visit is in the past we have another two weeks of unplanned time before the next semester resumes.  Hopefully the weather will get better soon and we'll be able to get outside more!

Happy Chinese New Year

Well I'm kind of a lame blogger for not having more pictures of this event, but I was too busy trying to keep my boys from blowing their fingers off with fireworks.

Our local fireworks distributor


The cacophony outside tonight is really impressive.  There is no delay between one explosion and another, creating just a constant, noisy roar.  The most popular fireworks seem to be those that shoot out of mortars up into the sky and blow up, 4th of July style.  Fireworks stands have opened up on many street corners, and we visited our local fireworks distributor - no less than 4 times.  Every time the salesman sees us come back, he gives us a big smile, and I can see the dreamy, dollar-sign (or yuan-sign) gleam in his eyes.

As with many activities in China, personal safety is a secondary concern.  There are no personal injury lawyers here as far as I know :).  If you're dumb enough to buy the biggest fireworks box available (and we were), you'd better watch out for yourself!

At the fireworks stand, I had my eye on the largest box - 3 feet tall and 2 feet across, and weighing about 100 lbs, and containing 36 finely packed mortars.  I just had to know what it did, so after several minutes of bargaining and 450 quai ($65 US) later, Peter and I carted this behemoth down the block.  Upon surveying the street and the building placements I set it down at I point I judged equidistant from any structure that would burn.  Next I hollered at the family so that they were sufficiently scared to a safe perimeter.  Finally, I lit the double fuse protruding menacingly out of the bottom of the box and ran like hell!

I'm happy to say the display did not disappoint!  There were 36 beautiful shots that went up over 100 feet and exploded in a dazzling array of colors.  We "oohed" and "aahed" over each one and felt fully satisfied when it had completed.  An old Chinese man stopped to watch us, and after the box finished its launches, Sue and Peter sauntered forward to look inside.  The Chinese man stopped them immediately and gave them a Chinese style talking to which none of us could understand, but we all knew what he meant. :) 

Sue bought a ring of firecrackers about 2 feet in diameter, holding more than 50,000 firecrackers.  We lit one end, and then sat there watching it explode for over 4 minutes.  Our ears are all ringing tonight!

The boys bought 1,000 firecrackers on their own, and spent hours blowing up snow drifts, water bottles, tin cans, oranges, peppers, and anything else not nailed down at home.  They had their eye on Sophie's toys, but we had to draw the line somewhere. 

Now, it's finally time for bed, but I'll put my earplugs in, just in case my hearing returns before morning.  Happy Chinese New Year!

Back to Snowy Hangzhou

We are back to a snowy Hangzhou, safe and sound!  We got up at 4:30am yesterday morning for our flight back to Shanghai, and then our 2 hour car ride to Hangzhou took 4 hours due to icy roads.  The roads got worse as we reached Hangzhou, We were surprised to see more than a foot of snow had fallen in the last week!  They say this is the worst snow storm in this area in more than 15 years, and expecting more tomorrow!

We came back to find all of the building scaffolding removed, but the roof over the bicycles collapsed.  Yes, our bicycles are under there somewhere; I guess we'll sort it out when the snow melts.

Linda and Randy came back with us to Hangzhou, and our friend Rebecca came with us to guide us to the local tea museum.  Of course tea is a HUGE deal to the Chinese, with the more expensive varieties costing more than $200 US per pound!  The history of tea in China is more than 2000 years, and you can get a college degree in tea here!  No kidding!
 

We tried some expensive  teas -  $200 per pound tea and the $25 per pound tea, and really I couldn't tell much of a difference.  They both tasted very good to me.  Guess which one we bought?


The children LOVED the snow - outside the tea museum they played hard in the snow, building and dismantling a snowman, having a snowball fight, etc.


Peter, nailing Jack in the back...


Inside the Tea Museum, the boys played with an old tea grinding machine...


... and back outside again throwing snow off of the bridge to a babbling brook.


The babbling brook that took so many of our snowballs.


Looking across from the tea museum, the sun is starting to cut through the fog to become a brilliant day.


Peter and Jack each made "eggs" out of the snow that we tossed back and forth as we walked around Westlake.




The day cleared up and it was very nice to look across the lake.


The boys found a couple of sticks and spent a couple of hours at the lake choreographing a fight scene and bashing hunks of ice they found on the ground, while Grandpa had a nap.  We drew a crowd as the boys replayed their scene over and over.  A good day was had by all!

Thailand Day 8 - Phuket

Today was pretty much a carbon copy of yesterday, with plenty of pool and beach time.  Grandma and Grandpa took the kids to the game room for part of the day to play pool and video games to get them out of the sun.  Sophie and I stayed in the kids program for part of the day, coloring and doing puzzles, but then it was time to go out to the pool.

Sophie also found more wildlife to examine.  Not as exciting as elephants, but just as fun for her!


Peter and Jack, loving their shovels on the beach...


What this shot doesn't show is the Thai woman massaging my feet on the beach.  A 1 hour massage for $12 US!  Aah, so relaxing!


Tomorrow we are not looking forward to the long trek back to Hangzhou, where it will be cold and snowy.  We will leave our resort at 5am and we estimate we'll be back to Hangzhou around 6:30pm - so it will be a long day for everyone!    

Thailand Day 7 - Phuket

We hung out today at the Luguna Beach Resort where we are staying.  Much to our chagrin we were not able to change our tickets back to Shanghai, so we will be going back on our original schedule, February 3.  Hopefully it won't be too cold and snowy!

The gorgeous reception area...  This is the cold season here, about 85 degrees and it feels so darn good! 

Some nice scenery at the resort...   

 

The resort is right on the beach of course, and the boys LOVED going boogie-boarding in the waves.

After some instruction from the boys, even Grandma tried her hand!


Having some refreshments at the swim-up bar...
 

Sophie found a water gun at the pool and was shooting Sue.  Notice how she just missed Sue's head with a stream of water...


A lovely warm pool and perfect weather!


Jack dug the obligatory hole in the sand and found this little critter.


What's that out in the water??


"Hey Peter, I think I'm getting heat stroke - I just saw an elephant swim by."

"Just ignore it, Jack, it will go away."


"Oh no, Peter, I'm seeing it again!"


No, it wasn't a mirage!  Two elephants walked by with their trainers.  The elephants were sisters, 6 years old, and 1 year old!

This was the younger one, very friendly with everyone!

Here's the trainer with the 1 year old...    

... and here's our 3 year old!  Sophie sure does love the beach! 

Tomorrow's our last full day in Thailand, so we're going to do our best to enjoy every minute!