in Bacolod

The past few days I went to a place in the Philippines called Bacolod. There, I went fishing and rode atvs. When I came back, I played canasta with my older sister, my cousin, Bettina, my grandmother, and my uncle, Tito Butch. Me, Bettina, and my grandmother were a team, and my older sister and Tito Butch were a team, and we won!!!!!!!!

more philippines

Yesterday I visited our old apartment that we had renovated. Our friends are staying in it right now. We ate at Pancake House (which has really good pancakes and spaghetti). Ariana and Bettina got better, so now they aren't sick anymore. Also, my grand-aunt died yesterday afternoon from cancer. :'( So my parents went to the mass for her, and we had to watch Ariana. SHE WAS SOOOOOOOOOOOO ANNOYING!!!!!! She had the worst tantrum in a long time. We wanted to smack her! But we didn't, of course. Also, there are a lot of mosquitoes here.

In the Philppines

First day in the Philippines, Ariana got sick. Also, we visited sick people, and Bettina, my cousin, also got sick. Lots of sickness around. This is really unexpected....

Singapore zoo

3 days ago, I went to the Singapore zoo. No zoo can be better than the Singapore zoo, it is the best zoo I have EVER been to!! First we saw lots of animals, like the white tiger, the proboscis monkeysand moreWe then went all the way to the other side to a water park. The water park is awesome!!!!! There are a bunch of buckets that would fill up, then dump. There was a HUGE bucket that would fill up every 4 minutes, then dump down on us. It was awesome!!!!!!! We then zip lined, ate, then headed towards the splash amphitheater. At the amphitheater, there were manatees, penguins, pelican and Carlos the sealion. The show was mostly about Carlos, who could splash water on us, clap, kiss, wave, and jump. Also sometimes when the trainer asked him if he wanted to do it, he would shake his head and bark. The trainer would say, "Carlos says, ..." A trainer also got 4 kid volunteers, to feed Carlos, shake his hand, and turn around, then carlos would kiss them. He also got 2 adult volunteers, to throw a frisbee for Carlos to catch, and if they missed, they would get dumped in the water, and Carlos caught both. Then we went to see more animals, most of them were cats and reptiles, rode the elephants, then left. We were there for 7 HOURS!!!!! We didnt even get to see everything!!!! It is awesome!

Jogjakarta, Indonesia

On July 31st I stayed at Jogjakarta, Indonesia for 3 days. I lived in the house of my dad's colleague whom my sisters and I call Auntie Celia. My grandparents lived in a hotel called Puri Artha. Auntie Celia is a single mother who adopted a little girl from China named Camilla. She also has a helper named Mba Tini (pronounced batini) and a friend named Auntie Suraya who lives with them.
The first day I went to Prambanan, the largest Hindu temple. There was an earthquake though, so they was still construction, so we couldn't go in all the temples. Prambanan is made of thousands of temples, focusing on six main temples. Each of the temples have inside either a god or goddess or their transportation. One was Shiva, god of destruction, whose transportation is Nandi, a cow. Another is Vishnu, the highest god, whose transportation is Garuda, an Eagle. The last one is Brahma, the creator, whose transportation is a swan. We only walked into the temple of Nandi and Shiva.

The second day I got mosquito bites. A bunch of them! All over my face and arms. I also got a few on my eyes and because I have an allergic reaction to mosquito bites on my eyes, they got really swollen. So I didn't go to the bird market, where they sold pets, mostly birds, and I didn't get to go to the water palace. While everyone else was gone, I fell asleep and woke up around 11:15 am, and then started reading until my mom called and asked me how I was and if I felt well enough to eat lunch with them. But I did get to see the Ramayana ballet. Sadly, I fell asleep half way through, and I missed the part where they use REAL fire to burn a "house."

The next day, we went to Borobudur. Borobudur is the biggest Buddhist temple!! We went all the way up to the top. At the top there were many stupas, ("a dome-shaped shrine erected by Buddhists," according to the dictionary.) All of them, except for the biggest one, had a Buddha in it. Some of them didn't have heads! We all tried to touch the Buddha inside because it is said that if you wish something and touch the Buddha inside the stupa, the wish would come true! And I touched one!

Night Safari

Yesterday night we went to the Night Safari in Singapore. We saw lots of cool animals, like hyenas, wild pigs, capybaras, and tapirs. The cool thing about the Night Safari is that most of the animals are NOT behind glass! The more dangerous ones, like tigers and hyenas are not behind glass, but there's a ditch so they can't jump out. But the non-dangerous ones, like the tapirs and deer, can come up really close to you if you're lucky! We also saw an animal show where they train wild animals to do things. We saw a serval jump up really high for food, and some other kind of wild cat catch a fish. Also, a person could hide a grape in one of their hands and a civet could smell out the grape and tap the hand with the grape. A weird creature also walked on a tightrope right over our heads and flipped upside-down to eat food from a trainer. The trainers also taught us about recycling by having an otter collect all the paper cups and drop them into the right bin. The problem was the otter wanted to drop the cup into the bin, but at the same time was refusing to let go of the cup. But the rest of the animals to do the recycling didn't want to come out, which was too bad. There was also a snake who would wrap himself around "sexy gorgeous ladies." It was so fun!!! So if you ever visit Singapore, make sure you go to the Night Safari!!!