This week my dad took a business trip to China over his birthday. We all thought (including him) that he would be miserable on a business trip in China. When he returned we found out he did enjoy himself apart from the pollution. He said that the Chinese people he was staying with him were more than fluent in the English language. He also said that one of the ladies with him had such an American accent you could not tell she has never left China. 

Not only my dad had fun though this week. While he was gone the 2 of us went to a street fair at the local beach town. It was rather strange. It seemed to have no theme. My mom soon discovered a wooden clothes peg on the back of her backpack saying “pass me on”. It took us a while to find the right person to pin it to. We saw a drunk man who seemed very strange. I was moments away from pinning the clothes pin to him when he turned around. We decided that if he found out I did this he wouldn’t be too happy if I bugged him. My mom immediately saw a women in a chicken suit. While my mom used her food talk to distract the chicken I put the wooden clothes peg on it’s tail. Funny enough she didn’t seem to notice.

 The rest of the week was the usual school days, today (Monday) it was very cold and rainy, that means it is a shorts day! We also got are mid-term progress report. I scored reasonably well in every subject. We get a 1 to a 3 for our reports, 3 being good and 1 being bad. I scored a 3 in math, electronics, grammar, French, and history. I scored a 2 in science due to the fact I tend to talk a lot... I scored a 2 in PE because I forgot to bring my uniform 1 day... shame... To my surprise My electronics teacher said I achieve above the teachers expectations... I don't really get this because I have barely said a word to my teacher, I am also starting too think he doesn't know who I am..

Another thing about our road trip. We encountered some sand flies in the West Coast. My dad an I could feel them biting us while we were fishing. About 2 days later the bites started itching like you would never believe. We are still itching after a week. My dad had thought he brought some kinda of a bug back from China. thanks god the suffering has stopped on day 8

This weekend our school had 2 teacher meeting days so we got Friday and Monday off. For this 4 day weekend my family decided to take a road trip to the West Coast. In school we discussed the West Coast a lot. We talked about how rainy it was. I have to say I don’t think it is the rainiest place in NZ... The skies were blue everyday and getting very hot. I pictured the West Coast as more England’s weather.. I was very very wrong. The West Coast is very tropical. The plants and terrain change a great deal. It gets very humid out there. While we were in the West Coast we took a tubing trip out on a local river. Since the West Coast hadn’t had rain in 7 weeks the rivers were VERY low. It seems that us Californians bring drought with us to every river. The tubing trip was fun. They gave us a free zip line ride to make up for the lack of water. I could see the fear in my dad's eyes standing over the cliff edge. After we finished the zip line we got to sit on what was left of the water. The ride was slow but fun.

After we finished tubing we headed into a glow worm cave. The cave was very cold and long. The cave was inhabited by glow worms. The glow worms were not actually worms but maggots. They had silky strings hanging down from them to catch up insects to eat..  We learned that the worms were territorial so they would defend each's property. They also spend months as the maggot then turn into large flies. The flies only live for about 2 days max...

The next day we tried to go find an area to fish. It took us forever to find a good place. All of the rivers (if they had water in them) were stone covered and we kept getting our lines stuck in the rocks. In the end we didn’t get to catch anything. Instead we decided to skip stones. I beat my dad's record of 12 skips while I got 15!  

The next day we took a nice walk through a path alongside a river. While we were driving we came across New Zealand's largest swinging bridges. It didn't look very far though... The walk across it was great. My mom decided to walk both ways while I took a zip line on the way back. After that we did nothing except drive back to Christchurch and stop at the occasional rest area. This weekend had lots of adventures and we hope to do another road trip all the way around the south island.

After my cousins and aunts left, things around here have a gotten a lot quieter. School seems to be flying by. More than 1 month has passed by since we have arrived.. The trip seems to be going much much faster than I predicted. Everything school-wise has been going great. On Saturday my family went to see my dad’s work host, Mark, play cricket. It got a little boring not knowing what was happening, although my dad tried to explain it to me and Mark was scoring over 50 runs. Later  that day we headed down to the mall to watch a New Zealand movie. The movie was a bit weird. After we started to exit the mall we heard the sound of motor cycles. We then saw a ton of people crowding around a 75 foot jump. We stayed in the mall parking lot for a while watching 3 dirt bikers doing 70-80 foot high jumps. Some of them did tricks like backflips while some drove through jets shooting out fire. The show went on for about 1 hour then all of the spectators left. So far this has been the most exiting part of my week. 

I noticed many similarities and differences between New Zealand and California. The weather here is almost exactly like what it would be like in summer back in California. Many of the cars are the same, although they drive on the other side of the road. The hair and clothes styles are a bit different though. It seems that rat tails and mullets are in fashion here, weird...

This weekend has been rather quiet. My mom's side of the family has left back to New York.  One Fun fact about New Zealand is that Christchurch and Florence are on the exact same latitude  as each other (but in different hemispheres). If you could see through Christchurch, you would be able to see Florence, Italy. Italy and New Zealand also have almost exactly the same land area. Now on to what we did this weekend. Today (Sunday) we got to visit the beach side of Christchurch. The beach part of Christchurch is a lot like Encinitas because of the ocean and the weather.

While my family was here we went and did an Adrenaline ropes course that has zip lines, rope bridges, and swings. My cousin and aunt went on it. I have to say that course was the toughest thing physically and mentally I have ever done. The zip lines were the easy part, but everyone had a real problem with climbing over the wire at 13 meters. One of the hardest things about it was that when you were climbing over the single rope the tall skinny trees started swaying making the middle of the rope wobble up and down. When we first got to the course we all gave awkward glances at each other. It was much different than we expected it to be. There was only one supervisor on the sight and the two safety lines you had were all manageable by only you. In America they probably would have someone up in the tree with you at all times. After we left we had planned on going to a play but arrived to late to get in. We decided to go to an improvisation skit. It took us a while to find where it was held. The skits were extremely funny. So far this has been a great long weekend.

My aunt's broken finger x-ray

This week my 2 aunts and cousin visited us here in Christchurch. They have been here for 2 days now. The first 2 weeks of there trip was spent back packing the North and South island. On their trip my aunt nearly fell of the edge of a tall mountain. She broke her finger on the tumble. I get to skip 2 days of school this week so I can spend some time with my mothers side of the family. We plan to visit Quake City, a simulation of the earthquake that destroyed the city back in 2011. We also plan to go fishing this weekend. 

On Tuesday our school had a mufti day which means we don’t have to wear a school uniform. The whole day was spent on the field competing in sports. Our school has 4 houses, Red house, Blue house, Green house, and Yellow house. Each house gets a point when someone wins a sport. In the end my house (Red) won with the mosts points. Some of the sports included an 800 meter race, 100 meter race, long jump, high jump, discus, and shot-put. After the day was over I had a horrible sun burn.

A STROLL THROUGH 2  PARKS

Victoria park /w Christchurch
in the background

On Saturday we went to a Shakespear play called "12th night" in a park called Mona Vail. The park was very English and Hobbit-like. One famous line I learned was "Some are born with greatness, some achieve greatness, while others have greatness thrust upon them". I texted my Aunt Claire, who is traveling around New Zealand right now, and she texted back "keep on thrusting".... go figure!

 Today (Sunday) we took 2 buses up to Victoria Park. The 2nd bus ride was up many many steep hills. The bus clipped a small car on the side of the road, scratching the mirror and denting the side of the bus... Luckily, the bus and the car were not damaged too badly, but the bus driver was really shaky after wards. The walk up to Victoria park was long. After that we went to a cafe to get brownies. School has been going very well. All of the classes seem relatively easy and there is not very much homework. I have made several friends in my form class over the past week. Next week we have a day called "sports day". We don't have to wear a uniform to school that day, instead we have to take part in several sports such as, long jump, 100 meter sprint, and a relay race.

The first week of school went very well. I got to my classes on time. Math seems rather easy. We are studying things like square roots, which I have done before. I am struggling in history though. We had a test about New Zealand history and all the questions were asking what was New Zealand's prime ministers. I asked the teacher what to do since I had no clue on who any of the people were. Eventually I had to skip half of the questions. The other classes like English and science went very sooth. In science we made a chemical mixture that changed colors and heated up when we added powder. In graphics class we learned how to draw 3D squares. We used the squares to draw circles within them. The teacher said this was a practice on how to draw circles at different angles, to give perspective to a 3D drawing. Let’s talk about some stuff other than school, shall we? This week on Wednesday there was another 3.8 earthquake. I was playing computers games while my mom was out shopping and felt the jolt. The earthquake lasted about 10-15 seconds. Today on Sunday there was a 3.6 except I slept through it.

Here is the link to the earthquake site in New Zealand 

http://www.geonet.org.nz/quakes/felt