Melbourne, Australia

Samara, Russia

swackett — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 06:19:00 GMT

Next and last stop is Samara in Russia. The main dishes that they eat there are, Pelmeni, which is a soup with meat and other soup ingredients with breads, a side dish would be Borsch, which is a soup with a lot of vegetables in it, and a dessert would be Chvorost which is also known as rum cookies, they are made with obviously rum, but there are many more ingredients than that, and they would be, milk, salt for the taste, and oils. There are famous buildings found in Russia. One of the buildings would be Saint Basil's Cathedral, another is Saint George's Cathedral, another is the Bagration Bridge, and the newest one of them all being Moscow City, Moscow, Russia. Moscow City holds a lot of skyscraper buildings to get the city noticed to other cities.

Kaesong, North Korea

swackett — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 06:06:00 GMT

Next stop was Kaesong in North Korea. When I got out of the air port, I saw 2 buildings that were on both sides of the road, the buildings looked a lot like mini sky scrapers, the large buildings looked like work spaces for the North Koreans. Kaesong is right on the border of North Korea's country grounds. Anyway, the first thing that I made sure to do was to check into a hotel next, I went to my first famous site of Kaesong, the Koryo Museum. The museum was a central institute of education in the Koryo dynasty. The main idea of what the Koreans believe in is the acceptance and loyalty to one's lineage. As I walked to my next site to see, I saw a few homes, and they were fairly large, and I greeted the people and asked how they use their living space, and I learned that the father is the head of the family, and the oldest son and him get the most respect. I also realized that the houses were tightly packed, with just about three acres per houshold, which is if you do the math 300 families per every 1,000 acres. Next, I went to one of the work spaces of the North Koreans, and they told me that they work 40 hours per every week, and when you think about that, it is pretty close to the average american working average per week. The next morning, I went on a bus to go see a concrete wall created by South Korea, with the help of us the Americans, and the wall was on the border, they stopped at about 3 miles and figured that the wall would be too costly to risk the money, so they ordered a stop of the building of the wall. Next, I went to the newly built Industrial Village, created by the South Korean company called Hyundai. After that, I figured out that North Korea is slightly larger than Indiana, and is mostly tropical, but with slightly dry areas. After that I took a rest and ended my trip to Kaesong.

Madurai, India

swackett — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 06:15:00 GMT

The next stop I had was Madurai in India. Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. When I got to Madurai, India I saw as I got out of the air port, a large building some of the locals that spoke chinese told me that it was one of India's great palaces. Roughly translated, but I asked what it was called in chinese, and they spoke back saying it is Meenakshi-Sundareswar Temple. When I got to the hotel, I made sure to later check out more of their great palaces, statues, and old and great achitectures and structures. All of the buildings, and other architectures were awesome looking, and must've taken a long time to build. When I got to the hotel at around 8:00 pm, in their time, I ate some food there, all of the food did not have meet, because of religious vegan reasons, so I had noodles. They offered me monkey brain, and I was thinking, Whoa!, but I said no thank you mostly because I felt that it would not taste good and be disgusting. The next morning, I ate idli which is a dumpling filled with rice, bean fermented batter, a side of soup called sambar, and a drink of plain coffee. Most of the things I could not pronounce so I just said yes to the things that sounded good, and it worked all of the food tasted really good. As I got out of the hotel, I noticed that I had to see the river of Madurai, the river's name is Vaigi, the river had clear, but rough waters. The river was large, and had a lot of people over by it at that time of year, that day it was 90 degrees F, so it was really warm, and a perfect time to go to it, I had other things to look at so I chose not to take a quick swim, so I left the river. Next, I went to that great temple that I saw yesterday morning, and it was large and high up, I wasn't allowed to go inside, so I took pictures of the temple on the outside of it. On my laptop I found an Indian story, it is about a woman who knows a story and a song but would not share either of them, it is called, The Story and The Song. Then, I finally had to leave Madurai, India.

Bishop, South Africa

swackett — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:39:00 GMT

Next, I went to Bishop, in South Africa. South Africa is known for being the richest country in Africa. When I got there, I got to look at a lot of things before I had to take a rest. The things that I looked at were the fort that was there, and a few lakes and streams, the names of these were the fort was named Hare, one of the lakes was named Bishop Lake, and the stream's name is Bishop River. Both of the water related ones do not have very thought up names from the South Africans. After I woke up from a long night, I went to an animal reserve, where I saw many animals native to Africa like lions, giraffes, hippos, elephants, and rhinos. I didn't want to stay at Africa that long, so I decided that I would leave the next afternoon. Then, I went to a website with my phone, because you don't get very good reception any where else, so I didn't bring a laptop or anything like that. But when I got to the website that had South African poems, and there was one that was all about giving, and it was called The Story Bag. The Story Bag is all about a boy who gets told stories, but never shares them, so one day when the boy was going to get married, the stories got very angry with the young master, and they made a plan. The plan was to kill the young boy, and pay him back for his wrong doings, and the old servant overheard the conversation, and had to make sure the young master would not be killed, so he followed him and defended him. In the end, the boy survives, as does the old servant. It told you to give prople stories that you learned from other people.

Melbourne, Australia

swackett — Wed, 7 Mar 2012 06:55:00 GMT

I went to Melbourne in Australia, a few months ago. The flight took just about a day, so I had to check in to a hotel the exact time I got off the plane and out of the air port. When I woke up in the morning, I went to a few famous places of Melbourne, one of them being: the reptile sanctuary, found in the Eastern part of Melbourne. Most of the reptiles there were mostly snakes, and other non harmful reptiles. Another of these attractions would be: the formula racing and race track there. The track was not very large, mostly because the gas mixture would run out, so it does'nt last very long. The next thing I went to was the aquarium there, it held many local fish from the great barrier reef, so there were a lot of tropical fish, and fish you normally wouldn't see in an aquarium in florida, or any other tropical place in the U.S. The next day I took a visit to the Melbourne zoo, it had many local animals, and animals that are not typically there, like in one exhibit you could see tigers, and other things that are not native to the country.And while I was there I figured out how Australians say good morning, they say g'day. You might have noticed that on the news that there was an article that told you about a horse that was dragged out of the mud in Southern Melbourne. But a woman eventually grabbed him and dragged him out, this is a giving and giving acts I learned about in middle school language arts back in the states. After I went to one of the many museums there, but the one I visited was mainly a Melbourne history museum. Then the next morning I went to one of the amusement parks there, and it had a lot of rides that are familiar to the ones in the United States. Then after, I finally left, and went back to the U.S., but there was a lot of interesting things Ilearned there.