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We got up early to go biking. First we got in a biking trip van with a lot of other people. The company was http://www.cyclechina.com/. They do the driving, and give us the bikes and lunch and everything. The only people on this trip was a group of 4 ladies who were staying with friends across the street from where we are staying. Their names were Stephanie, Margarita, Maddy, and Julie. They are all here from Silver Spring Maryland!! Stephanie reminds me of my Aunt Jenny.

First we drove for about an hour. Then we took out the bikes and started on our way. It was just the seven of us and the guide. We biked along the winding road, through the mountains. At the beginning it was all uphill, for over an hour. Then we went down a looooong hill. We went really fast, the bike was shaking. We must have gone downhill, coasting, without pedaling, for at least 20 minutes. My dad thinks we were going about 25 to 30 miles an hour. After the long downhill, it was up and down hill for a while, then we had a short snack. We went a little bit more, and finally saw THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA! We biked for about 2 and a half hours.

 They served us Chinese food for lunch. There was lots of different things, but I had a peanut butter sandwich and sticky rice. We had lots to drink.

Then we went to the WALL. The wall was crumbly, slippery, and the steps were too close together. First we had to climb, and climb, a dirt path to get to the wall. We saw chalk rocks, a gecko and some trash. Parts of it had no steps, it was smooth like a table going uphill. This part of the wall is mostly original, from the Ming Dynasty, and hasn’t been fixed like most of the places the tourists visit near Beijing. Some rocks were loose, and you could pull them off. Me and Mom felt tired, and we got on our bottoms and slid down. We met one of the ladies at the watchtower near the spot where you leave the wall to walk down. She was having problems with the pollution and bad air, and waited there while the others were at the top taking pictures. Then we got off the wall, and slid down the path. Mom was ahead of us, and I kept on falling over and over again, because my shoes were too slippery, but dad held my hand and kept me from falling.

 Our friends bought really pretty scarves from the vendors at the bottom of the wall. Mom and another lady went part way in the van and met us at the stop. It was a really tiring bike ride and the climb was pretty tiring too. Then we had a two hour car ride back.

Dad says the portion of the wall we went too was called the Huanghua wall. It’s nice because we were the only ones there. At Badaling and MuTanYu there are thousands of other people, lots of vendors selling junk, and big tour groups. We had this section of the wall all to ourselves!!!

Afterwards I fell asleep in the van ride home. When we got there we had left-overs from all our previous big meals, and went to bed early. I was so tired. But it was fun. Our guide said that I was one of the best kids to ever do the bike ride, since I finished the whole thing, and didn’t hold everyone up and didn’t complain.

The Forbidden City and biking to The Wall, and climbing on The Wall are really tiring. I need a break!!!

We woke up early so we could see the cousins go to school, said bye and left to the clubhouse. At the clubhouse we took a shuttle bus down to China World downtown. Then we took a cab to Tian’anmen Square where we did a Geocache, took pictures and went to see Mao. Me and mom went in while dad stayed outside to hold the bags and cameras - they’re not allowed in. Inside there was a white statue of him with a bunch of flowers. People bought flowers and put them down. Then we went to see Mao, and there was books, newspaper articles, jewelry etc, to buy. Mao was in a refrigerated case. He was wearing a red robe with golden dragons on it and 6 buttons. His collar was up and he had ribbons on his sleeves. Most of the people seeing him were Chinese.

When we were in Tian’anmen Square, there were about 20 people that wanted to take pictures with me. We should have charged money (ha-ha-ha). Someone even asked me for my autograph. One woman tried to reach into mom’s backpack. Mom chased her away.

Then we went to the Forbidden City. They had lots of stores, shops and restaurants (junk!!!).  We went through a couple of big courtyards, and then they wanted money to go into the main part, so on, so on. A lot of people wanted to guide us. It costs 60 RMB to go in. (RMB is chinese money). Did you know there are over 9,000 rooms there? We saw many buildings and a really nice garden in the back. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of tourists in the middle area. When we went to the back area, they had all different gems and a shop that tried to sell dad a lot of stuff.

A lot of the rooms are now museums. They had museums of Jade, Jewelry, porcelain, drum stones (the oldest stone writing), princes, girlfriends, old thrones, imperial seals and lots more. The place is REALLY big!!

We had ice-cream in one shop, and tea and snacks in another shop. Dad bought me and mom some jewelry. We were there for hours and didn’t even see half of the place. Part was closed for fixing, including the biggest building.

We then took a cab back to China-world and the shuttle back. Mom got a starbucks at China world. It’s a really nice mall, with American and European stores. I don’t remember them all, but Mom says Louise Vuitton, Hugo Boss, Swarovski Crystal, Mark Jacobs, Ferragamo, and lots more. Not all of the shopping in Beijing is cheap!!

Back at the house we relaxed with the cousins and had Indian food sent in. I ate Naan and chicken fingers and rice. I taught Mia more words and numbers and adding and how to say stuff, and how to write words and peoples names. The door was left opened by accident and we had to kill about 30 mosquitoes. There are a lot of them. Our beds have nets around them to keep the mosquitos away. Chinese mosquitos are “wenzi” (my new word for the day. )

We had to go to bed pretty early because we had another busy day coming.

That’s it for today - Zai Jian!!

We got up early and saw the cousins and they went to school.  In the afternoon then we went out to Starbucks for drinks, saw the travel agent for china trips, saw the animals at the pet store and went to Little Italy for lunch.  It was good pizza. Mom said it tasted like Shakeys. My pasta was great, and there was a lot of cheese that tasted good.

I played on the computer with Maddy and Melissa on the computer when they got home. We played neopets and Barbie explorer. We watched on http://www.atomfilms.com/ Anakin Dynamite and the Star Wars Gangster Rap. We also looked at http://www.storewars.com/ the grocery store wars.

Then the Ayi (their maid/housekeeper) made an authentic Chinese dinner of Jiao Zi. She also made beef noodle and vegetables. I hear it was really good. I ate Mi Fan, sticky rice, and tasted the chicken.

Mostly it was a quiet rest day.

That’s it from Beijing - Love Jensen

I am still messed up about the hours, so I thought that it was Sunday! So I hear a racket around the house at 6 o’clock, so I’m like, “BE QUIET!!!” But I forgot I had to get up and go to school with Maddy! So I think “It’s like I slept through the whole summer” and go back to school.

What the heck are you doing eating cheerios at 6 am. School was awesome! Almost everything was perfect except when I had to play hard-ball instead of soft-ball. Also I couldn’t stand playing outfield! All the balls landed 3 feet away from the tee! In PE you have to wear a uniform and change in the girl’s locker room. The playground is SO AWESOME. You get 2 recesses. They have 2 sets of swings, 2 giant chessboards and the pieces are as big as me. There is a giant Dragon that has mist coming out of the nose and it’s tongue is a rock skipper, they have a stream and big climbing rocks. There’s a sandbox, three temples, a rock climbing wall, a basketball court times 2, two playgrounds, and the gravitator, 2 “spider webs” for climbing, 2 jungle gyms, and a tennis court!!!!

The drinking water in the fountain is purified, so it’s ok to drink it, but it’s warm. I couldn’t read anything because it was all in Chinese symbols. I almost got sick when I was told that school had three flights of stairs. So I took the school elevator. I signed up for the helping hands list, and helped carry the PE kit and test tubes to the teacher. I left my sweatshirt at the school!

When I found out Michael and Miko weren’t there (they are my new friends) I was upset. Then my other friends Judy, Gabby, and Eva were on the bus on the way home. It was so funny when Judy opened the bus window and held onto a twig from a tree and it came off.

My cousins live in a housing area that is mosty foreigners. They have guards on the streets, and a park, a clubhouse, a pool, and more. Michael got a gigantic mud blob on his shoe at the park and when me and Maddy went down to the clubhouse we accidentally hit the ceiling with the ping pong ball.

Dad went shopping with Uncle Tom downtown - practicing bargaining in Mandarin. Tai gui le! (Too expensive). Mom and Aunt Carolyn got massages, and did some shopping at the shopping center near the house. You can walk there.

Woo! That was a long one - I’ll talk to you again tomorrow.  Zai Jian!    

Friends of my cousins got confirmed and invited us to a brunch at a fancy hotel in downtown Beijing. They had lots of different foods, Chinese and Western. Lots of chocolate and there was a chocolate fountain!!! We played piano, ate and visited.

 Then we all got in the car and headed for the famous Tian’anmen square and the Forbidden City. My Aunt Carolyn bought us all hats in front of the National Museum. Then we wandered around the Square, taking pictures all over the place. Many Chinese people come from all over the country to see the Palace, Square, and the other stuff. They are interested in foreigners, especially blonde, blue-eyed ones. Several people asked to take pictures with us. People tried to sell us lots of stuff. Especially kites.

 We went to a park next to the Forbidden City, and had Tea at a teahouse. It looked weird, just lots of leaves in a glass of hot water. But my dad said it was good. We saw an orange tabby cat on the roof. Aunt Carolyn bought me and my cousins Chinese umbrellas (I got a green one with magenta like flowers). The bathroom was not so nice. They don’t have lines for waiting. Ask me about it later (squatty potty) 

  Traffic is kind of crazy and people drive really bad, but not too fast or dangerous. Many many bikes. Lots of Big buildings, billboards, McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks, and other American food places. People just bike in the middle of the street. People feel uncomfortable when you wave at them, and they stare a lot. They think pink is red, and it’s not a girlie color here.

 Jet lag caught up to us, and we were all VERY VERY tired. We ordered Chinese food to be delivered. We got lots of food, for all eight of us. It cost $10 for all of it, delivered!!!

The flight here:

My flights (I had three) were long and hard. The food was not normal! Like pizza-noodle and all the chinese liked milk because they can’t get it at home. They had movies on my twelve hour trip from Chicago to Shang Hai. In Shang Hai they broke my DVD-plus-who-knows-what back-pack.  We went in a special first class bus to get on the plane. Then for two long hours we flew from Shang Hai to Beijing in first class. There was only one other guy in first class.

When we got to Beijing, after 20 hours of travel my Uncle Tom was waiting for us. It was a short drive to my cousin’s house from the airport. I saw my cousins, but they were still asleep. It was a long day!!

My SWAT volleyball team had their end of year lunch today. We came in second place in the league. They didn’t have a finaly tournament or we would have won everything!! We lost a couple of games early, but beat everyone at the end.

Volleyball was really fun this year, and we’re getting a lot better. I’m going to try to play again in the fall.

It’s Mother’s Day, for both Mom and Grandma. We did it the easy way. Frisco has a big mother’s day buffet lunch and it has tons of food. Chocolate fountains, breakfast, and lunch. All you can drink, and hundreds of people. This is a lot better than doing dishes!!!

The Piano playing is keeping me busy!! I had a festival where I played a song for judges and was graded, then an open playing session down at the mall, where I played in the open courtyard in front of Dillards, and then we also play at the teachers house. The songs are getting harder, that’s for sure.

Easter’s here. We went down for the Warren Sports Park Easter Egg hunt, and church in the morning. Aunt Tonja and Uncle John came down for Easter dinner, and Goggy and Grandpa came over.

We did an Easter Egg hunt in our front yard, and Bailey, Caitlin’s sister came over for the easter egg hunt.