Camporee 2009

About a month ago I went to the 2009 Pathfinder Camporee. It was an international Pathfinder event held once every 5 years. There were 36,000 Pathfinders there! They were from all over the world. It was awesome! We were there for 6 days. One of the cool parts was the pin trading and all the activities like archery:

I also met Randy Fishell (editor of guide magazine)

Another cool thing was the bike show:

The best part of the camporee was the evening program. Every evening we would go to this massive stage to sing songs (sigh) and watch a play about the life of Esther. I enjoyed having friends around me.

The only problem was that we had to get there half an hour early, so we were really bored:

The food wasn't that bad:

The bad parts in the camporee were the heat (around 30 degrees),

the Parade (took forever and it was really hot),

the Sabbath program (1 hour, outdoor, full dress uniform and 30 degrees = really bad),

and the porta-potties which I did not take a picture of because they were HORRIBLE!

One of the big things at camporee was pin trading. It was really fun. I got a lot of good pins for my Hong Kong pins:

On the way home from camporee we stopped at mount Rushmore:

If you're wondering why I take so long before I upload the blog, it's because I spend all my time building Lego like this:

"Hand over the popsicle and no one get hurt."

Cloning can fail....badly

Here is a link to my photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/legosasoperative/

Bye
Jonathan

Another trip to China

A little while ago..., ok a month ago we went to China again (I'm very good at slacking). While there we experienced what it means to be deprived of edible vegetarian food. The food was disgusting, seriously when all you get for lunch and supper are slimy veggies, mushrooms and rice it's pretty bad, and I did this for SIX days! But at least they had some good food:

But we did see and do some cool stuff, espically going 431 kph on a train (the fastest train in the world):

Sorry for the blurry picture but you try and take a picture at 431 kph.

 While in China we went to a place where they made silk. We saw how they got the silk out of the silk worms:

We saw how they stretched the silk to make it long and thin:

And we saw how they tried to sell the silk to us.

In China we went to a place that was like a mini Venice. It was cool:

We took this really old and weird looking boat down the canals. It was human-powered.

In China we saw some other cool things like an accident:

We also saw some rickshaws (but we didn't get to ride in them) :

I was going to get some pictures of Shanghai but I got really sick so I couldn't get any good pictures, sorry.

Jonathan

Dragonboat Festival

A couple days ago we went to a dragonboat festival in a place near us. The dragonboat festival is an annual holiday for everyone in China. There were several different dragonboat races at the same time in different areas. The one we went to was packed, so we had to hire a boat to go out and see the races, even though the boat was really old. The boat was a traditional Chinese junk.

The races were really exciting. Some of the races were really close, while in some races the last placed boat came in a minute after the first placed boat.

Today we went on a hike. On the way to the trail we saw a couple nice cars; we see them all the time around here but I thought you might like to hear about them. Today we saw a couple Mercedes Benzs, a BMW, a Porshe, two Ferraris and a white Lamborghini Gallardo. 

Bye

Jonathan

I haven't been able to post in a while for several reasons

1 School

2 A 2 week trip to Canada (my uncle's wedding)

3 My grandparents have come for a visit

4 I have been practicing for a play.

5 Laziness

6 Slacking

7 Didn't really want to

While in Canada we went to my uncle's wedding (my uncle from my dad's side). I had to wear a tuxedo and escort my grandmother to her chair. But the unusual thing is that my uncle's new wife was the sister of the person we bought our house from in the Soo! The wedding was in Toronto.

My uncle and his new wife.

A Hill family gathering celebrating my grandmother's 80th birthday.

On the way back to Hong Kong we met my other grandparents and the flew with us on the same plane back to Hong Kong.

I have also been practicing for a "Fiddler on the Roof Jr" play. otherwise there is not much stuff that I have been doing to write about.

We went to China again

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy with school and some annoying Chinese and violin lessons. 

But back to the main subject, we went to a place in China called Guilin a few days ago. It is considered the most scenic place in all of China. It is very famous for its rock formations as you can see in the pictures below:

 It also gave us a chance to see the real China. In Guilin they were still farming rice-patty fields with water buffaloes:

Forget toilets with seats now, you can squat instead! (squat toilets are the normal toilet in China. Toilets with seat are only found in tourist areas or higher-end hotels)

Also forget having to pay for a washer and dryer for your clothes, now you can just wash them in the river!

On certain models of cars you don't have to waste any of your time lifting the hood when you want to fix your engine (veeerrrry fire-safe):

 

There were lots of markets with all kinds of stuff:

And lots of original and different boats:

The person in the picture below is fishing with cormorants (a type of bird). They dive into the water, catch a fish and land back on the fisherman's stick. Then they try to swallow the fish but there is a ring around there neck, put there by the fisherman. The fisherman then takes the fish out of the bird's neck and put it in a net.

The rock formations and caves were amazing! One particular cave is 2 km long. Though the food wasn't so good.

Bye

Jonathan

=P

HKAC

I now live on the Hong Kong Adventist College campus. Let me show you around it. The entrance of the campus is guarded by two tall black gates.

 The first thing that you see once you get onto the campus is a roundabout with flowers and a giant rock with Chinese words on it.

 At the roundabout you can either go diagonally to the left or to the right. I usually go to the right road so let me show you along it. The first thing that you see on your right is a long three storey, red-brick secondary school that the whole campus is based on.

       

 On your left is a small park-like area with a couple of benches and trees.

 After the small park-like area you see the primary school that I study at. It is also a red-brick building.

 Soon afterwards a road goes off to the right so that it runs parallel to the main road. 

The main road continues to the church while the other one goes to the health centre and down to the apartments. I live in the apartments so I will take you down that road. The first thing on your right is the boys/girls dorm. Then there is the health centre which has a small restaurant and rooms to stay in.

 Then you go down the hill to the apartments. The apartments are also red-brick and 4 stories high.

 There is a parking lot in front of the apartments. That is as far as you can go on the road; if you drove any further you would drive off the hill! That is the end of my tour.

Bye

Jonathan

=P

Back in HK

Sorry I haven't posted in a long time; we haven't had internet for a while and I've also been going to school. You'd think that if I was going to school I wouldn't have to do this blog, but no, I still have to do it and I still have to use correct grammar; and speling =). So, because I am at school, my blogs will be much more boring. Now we are living in a different apartment in Hong Kong. I will tell you more about it another time.  

 After our ten days in Melbourne we went to Sydney for five days. While in Sydney we did all the usual tourist things and some special things like walking across the Sydney Harbour Bridge or watching an opera in the Sydney Opera House (semi-boring). The best thing in Sydney was buying a new computer game from the Mac store. The place that we were staying in was right in the heart of Sydney so we were close to all the main attractions. 

Here are some pictures from Sydney:

The Opera House from the Sydney Harbour Bridge:

    

    

The Sydney Harbour Bridge:

The Sydney Aquarium/Darlington Harbour:

 

Feeding some kangaroos in the wild:

Bye

=P

Jonathan