Isadora in Beijing - Part 2

Hello everybody!! It's me again -- Isadora! What a lovely evening -- let me sit down and share with you more of my holiday pictures! 

Can you see what my Aunty Roro is doing here? Yes! She is feeding me some sausage! The hotel we were staying at gave us breakfast every morning. A lot of it was really oily. We ate tons of hard-boiled eggs.

Here's Aunty Roro offering me some cereal.

I was super excited to visit the Great Wall! We had to take a cable car up. That was so much fun.

And here I am at the Great Wall! It was really magnificent! The Wall was built more than 2,000 years ago and is 5,500 miles long! That is really long! I've read though that the Wall is getting shorter bit by bit because of natural erosion and all the human activity. Of course we can't do much about nature, but people can be more careful, like not taking bricks!

Here I am at the Summer Palace! It is a royal park built in 1750. Isn't it lovely?

Here I am sitting by Kunming Lake and thinking about my dolly life.

I am imagining the Dowager Empress Cixi being rowed along the lake. That day the lake was iced over though, so maybe she went skating.

Here I am with a qilin -- a mythical creature that symbolises peace and prosperity. He looks friendly, don't you think?

Then, we went to the Forbidden City! This was the Chinese imperial palace for almost 500 years! You have to get tickets to go in. Here you can see how big the place is and how crowded it was.

Here I am standing outside one of the palace doors. Isn't is pretty? I sort of match it.

This is a dragon water spout! There were many of them to help prevent flooding.

And here I am inside one of the garden pavilions.

Next we visited the Beijing Museum of Natural History! The museum covers the evolution of organisms and the development of life on Earth. Here I am with some dinosaur bones!

This guy shows the stage after coming out of the water and developing legs. He looks happy.

Here I am talking with a dinosaur! Yes, they actually moved. Go animatronics!

The museum had a really huge collection of stuffed and preserved animals and things. I think this is a yak. All the signs in the museum were in Chinese only, and my Chinese isn't that great yet.

Here I am with a whole bunch of bugs.

And here I am on our last day there -- waaaaaaaaaaaah.

I sat at the hotel window as long as I could while mommy packed up everything.

Here I am in the airport.

And here I am on the plane. I was already thinking about where I'd like to go next!

Well, I hope you liked my pictures! You can see more pictures of our trip here. Enjoy the rest of your holidays and see you again real soon! Bye!!

Isadora In Beijing - Part 1

Hello everybody!!! It's me, Isadora! How have you been? I hope you are all enjoying your holidays! I know I am! Do you know what I am thinking of? Yes, my trip! I just came back from Beijing, China! It was sooooooooooo much fun -- let me tell you all about it!

When my mommy Rebecca took out my travelling bag, I knew it was time to go. I was so excited! Here I am peeking out of my bag. It fits right around the handle of my mommy's trolley bag, so all she has to do is pull us along.

Here I am sitting with Rebecca's mommy's knapsack. We were having drinks in the lounge while waiting for our flight.

And here I am on the plane! We watched a whole bunch of movies and got served our kid meals before everyone else.

And here I am in our hotel! You can see from the view outside the window that Beijing has lots of open space. It's winter and all the trees were bare. I really loved the weather though -- it was an average 0°C downtown, and it was great to not feel all hot and clammy all the time.

Here I am all dressed up and ready to go down for breakfast. You can see not everyone else was ready though.

During our trip, we did A LOT of walking. Thank goodness the weather was so nice. When we first touched down, we could actually smell the smog right inside the airport, but the next day it all cleared up, thank you God! Here I am standing outside the station underpass. You can see the Beijing Olympic Fuwa behind me. Aren't they cute! Fuwa means good luck dolls. Beibei is the Fish, Jingjing is the Panda, Huanhuan is the Olympic Flame, Yingying is the Tibetan Antelope and Nini is the Swallow. When you put their names together -- Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni -- they say "Welcome to Beijing"!

Here I am outside Yonghe Lamasery, or the Lama Temple. This is a monastery for monks of Tibetan Buddhism. There were lots of people inside praying and burning incense sticks. You weren't allowed to take pictures in most of the areas. One Buddha statue we saw was absolutely enormous. It was carved from a single piece of white sandalwood and is in the Guinness Book of Records.

The next day we went to the National Museum of China. The place is really really huge. Chinese history is really long, so there were lots of things from the time before Christ and even prehistoric times. Here I am with some terracotta people from 202 BC.

Mommy took this picture of this smiling guy.

These are a silver holder and sticks from a drinking game called jiuling. The player who can't respond to a riddle or poem must drink as punishment.

There's mommy looking at an iron plaque from 897 AD (well, right then she was looking at Roro). The plaque was given to Qian Lu, a military governor, by Tang Emperor Zhaozong to certify his exemption from the death penalty. I think that was a good thing to have.

Here I am in the museum gift shop. Those gigantic paintings on the wall were really fantastic.

This is the Beijing Tourist Information office. It looked really cool outside, so we went in. But there was nothing inside except a bunch of brochures and a few really bored looking staff. That was a bit sad.

I know when you visit a different country you really should try that country's cuisine. But we were so tired and hungry from all the walking that we popped into McDonalds'. Well, I guess I don't have to tell you it tasted exactly the same! But the Happy Meal box was different. It says "Learn English together!", but you could also learn Chinese from it.

On the way home, we walked through this big street called Wangfujing. It's a shopping area that's 700 years old! There was even H&M there, but of course, that's not 700 years old.

Here I am looking at one of my favourite treats. But my mommy said "No" because her mommy said "No".

OK! That's all for today! I'll share more of my pictures with you another time. Have a super day! See you again soon!!

Zoo Excursion!

Hello again! I'm so excited to share with you some pictures from my recent class field trip! We got to go to the Zoo -- yippee-doodle!

Welcome to the Singapore Zoo! We were so excited when we saw it come into view. Our teacher gave out excursion booklets for us to fill in while we were there.

There were dozens of people queuing up to pay for their admission, or buy tickets for animal shows, and tram and ferry rides.

Here I am standing near the ticket booth, waiting to go in with my class. It was pretty sunny that day (like every day here in Singapore!!!), so I decided to put on my hat.

We saw the parrots first. The parrot is also known as a psittacine. There are more than 370 parrot species living in tropical and subtropical areas, including Macaws, Amazons, lorikeets and cockatoos. All parrots have strong, curved bills, and clawed zygodactyl feet (that means two toes facing forward and two facing back).

Parrots mainly eat seeds, nuts, fruit, nectar and other plant material. Sometimes they eat animals as well. Did you know that parrots are one of the most intelligent birds in the world? They can also see many unusual colours that the human eye cannot see -- they can see parts of the ultraviolet end of the spectrum! Unfortunately, some parrot species are highly endangered :(

After the parrots, we went to look at the otters, but they were swimming so fast that I couldn't take a decent picture of them. I did manage to take this one of a proboscis monkey though! Proboscis monkeys are one of the largest monkey species. The male has a pretty large nose! Proboscis monkeys are found exclusively in the rainforests of Borneo (well, in zoos too), and eat fruits, leaves, flowers, seeds and sometimes insects. They usually live in groups, and communicate by honking, snarling and even roaring! Did you know that the proboscis monkey has webbed feet and is a very good swimmer? Sadly, it is extremely threatened in its natural environment because of deforestation.

Here is cute little sea turtle. I'm not sure, but I think he (she?) might be an Atlantic ridley sea turtle. He is diving down to pick at something on the floor, maybe some algae or seaweed.

Here is an adorable little squirrel we saw sitting on a little log. He was actually nibbling on a cute little acorn. Before I could snap another picture, he scampered away to a nearby tree, out of sight.

Here are two crocodiles. As you can see, one is dead and one is alive. Obviously, this one is quite alive. Crocodiles usually live in freshwater habitats such as rivers, lakes and wetlands; they mostly eat fish, reptiles, and mammals, which sounds like almost everything really! Did you know that the word "crocodile" comes from the ancient Greek word for "lizard"? The pressure of a crocodile's bite is more than 5,000 pounds per square inch, compared to just 335 pounds per square inch for a Rottweiler dog, or 400 pounds per square inch for a large great white shark. Crocodiles can swim swiftly and are very fast over short distances, even out of water -- very, very scary!

This picture of the stuffed crocodile was taken outside the auditorium, where we were waiting for a talk by one of the zookeepers. He looks awfully fat, doesn't he. Perhaps he died from that.

Here I am posing at a notice board near the auditorium. Some kids draw stuff and they tack it up here. My friends and I walked around a path near the auditorium and found a creepy, yet cute, surprise hanging from the ceiling. Guess what we saw? Yes, fruit bats!

Isn't it kinda weird that there were bats up there? This is only one of the bats; there were a whole bunch on the ceiling up ahead. My friend started yelling at the bats to come down, which woke some of them up. Some of them flew off but eventually flew back; some just went back to sleep.

Did you know that another name for the fruit bat is megabat? Fruit bats eat, well, fruits, or lick nectar from flowers. They have sharp teeth to bite through hard fruit skins and very long tongues that unroll when they are feeding. Some bats actually help pollinate flowers! Did you know that they have to run into something such as a tree or bush in order stop themselves when flying?

Soon, we were heading to the zoo auditorium to listen to a talk by one of the zookeepers. We were learning about the outer coverings of animals.

Do you see Mr Bones up there? He was used to represent humans, and to tell us that we are mammals, like dolphins and whales.

This is a quote from a wildlife aid group. They try to help animals that are being killed for their skin, fur or feathers. I'm not sure if it's WildAid, but this is their mission, which I think is great: "To end the illegal wildlife trade in our lifetimes by reducing demand through public awareness campaigns and providing comprehensive marine protection.

"The illegal wildlife trade is estimated to be worth over $10 billion (USD) per year and has drastically reduced many wildlife populations around the world. Just like the drug trade, law and enforcement efforts have not been able to resolve the problem. Every year, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent protecting animals in the wild, yet virtually nothing is spent on stemming the demand for wildlife parts and products. WildAid is the only organization focused on reducing the demand for these products, with the strong and simple message: when the buying stops, the killing can too".

The crocodile, tiger cub, pangolin and porcupine had all died a long time ago and been stuffed. The zookeeper had them displayed on a table in front of her and kept stroking them.

The polar bear's paw was from the zoo's polar bear, Inaku, who had recently died of old age. I hope there was a very good reason why they did not just stuff the whole bear and leave him his paws.

The snake's skin had been shed by a python from the zoo's Reptile House.

These are white tigers. Aren't they beautiful? See how their fur gleams in the sun. They always look so proud and majestic, but I think they look happy and cheerful sometimes too.

Unlike domestic cats, tigers have eyes with round, not slitted, pupils. That's because domestic cats are nocturnal, while tigers are crepuscular, meaning they hunt mainly in the morning and evening. Most tigers have yellow eyes, but white tigers usually have blue eyes. This has to do with the the gene for blue eyes which is linked to the gene for white fur (see my cat Ming?). A tiger's night vision is six times better than that of humans!

Tiger claws are retractable, just like with house cats, and they scratch trees to mark their territory. Tigers don't normally roar at other animals, but to communicate with other tigers. A tiger's stripes are unique, like human fingerprints -- the markings can also be found on their skin, so even a shaved tiger would still show its stripes. Tigers are very good swimmers.

Many people hunt down tigers for their beautiful skin, which endangers the poor animals. They also face territory loss as more and more humans crowd them out. In just a hundred years, the world has lost 97% of wild tigers -- don't let them become extinct! Visit groups like the WWF to see how you can help!

We had lots of fun at the zoo, but we learned some sad things about the animals as well. I hope you will help to save these poor endangered and homeless animals. Many animals are endangered because of human activities -- not just poaching and killing, but also other things like deforestation, pollution and using poisons in gardens and on farms. Read this for a start and remember to reduce, reuse and recycle! See you again real soon!