We went inside and went to the to the counter. Then we bought combo tickets for the observatory 1 time and the enchanted forest 🌳 as much as we wanted to. We went to the enchanted forest 🌳 first. 3 butterflies landed on me!!!!!!!!!!! One of them landed in my head!!!!! The other 2 landed on my hand. My mom and dad gave a name to me-butterfly whisperer.

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Then we went to the Maori section. We saw a cool war boat. Then we went went to the observatory and we watched a movie 🎥 that was called ” We Are Stars ✨”. It was about the big bang. My mom slept through it!!!!!!

Then we went to the animal section and we saw a Japanese spider crab 🦀. IT WAS HUMONGOUS!!!!!!!!!!! It was bigger than 2 people combined!!! Then we left.

It was very fun!!!!

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We were driving to Dunedin and we stopped at the Moeraki boulders. They were amazing!!! They were so round!! There was a boulder that I could climb into. We played catch on the way there and back. I almost hit someone!

We stopped for lunch and we saw a park. It was very very cool 😎! There was a human hamster ball, a steep slide, a cool set of swings, and a long zip line!! I went on the zip line more than the others.

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We drove to the Royal Albatross Center. We were on a tour where we saw a movie and then went to the lookout where birds were nesting. We saw a lot of albatross!! They were flying against the wind. THEY WERE HUMONGOUS!!!!!!!!!! They have a wingspan of 9 feet. The Royal albatross only nest in New Zealand 🇳🇿 ! We also saw albatross that were “courting”.

At 9: 30 we saw blue penguins!!!!!! They’re the smallest penguins 🐧 in the world!! They’re so so sooooooooooooooooo cute!!! They mostly came in groups but one of them came by him or herself. The penguin 🐧 pushed the seagulls out of the way!!    The center does the tours to help save the penguins.  Since starting, the population has grown from 30 or so to over 100!

It was sooooooooooooooooooo cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had lunch 🍴 and booked a tour. We definitely wouldn’t have known what types of birds 🐦 we saw. We even saw a kiwi feather!!!!!!!!!! Kiwis are very rare. That’s why the Eco sanctuary keeps them. Then on the Tui trail we saw a kaka[ a big bird 🐦 that likes nuts]! We were lucky 🍀 to see them. I liked The sound of the Tui alot! Their songs sound amazing because they have 2 voice boxes 📦!!! We saw a bird 🐦 that’s 1 out of 300 of it’s bird!!!!!!! Kiwis are sa rare too!!!

I didn’t want to leave!!!!!!!!!!!!

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When Wasa (our friend) picked us up and brought us back the girls( Macey 5 and Addison weren’t there, but Vanessa was there. When Macey and Addy( short for Addison) got there we played Monopoly. Addy was playing me while Macey was banker 🤑. In a while it was dinner 🍴 time. Addy and I had a hard time going to sleep. When we finally went to sleep it was already 9:30!!

We woke and went to the children’s museum!!! It was very cool! There was a thing where you crawled through a fake mouth   and when you got to the end it made a fart 💨 noise [ and it smelled]!! We had lunch af the children’s museum. After the children’s museum Wasa and Vanessa gave my mom and dad a tour of the University. We went home and played some games. We watched the Polar Express next!! We had dinner and went to bed.

We got up and had breakfast 🍳. In a while we made cookies 🍪! It was a special recipe and they were so good!!! We had a nice dinner 🍴 with Wasa and Vanessa friends. Then we watched movies and went to bed!!!!!!

We woke up on Christmas morning and were very excited but sad that we were leaving… then it was time to open presents! I got a socceroos [ Australia’s soccer team] jersey, a wallabies [ Australia’s Rugby team] cap, and a triangle frisbee.

I was sad to leave Australia 🇦🇺 but happy to go to New Zealand 🇳🇿!

Australia was super super super fun!

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It was raining ☔️ when we came into Sydney, but we were actually lucky 🍀 because it was supposed to be very hot. A cab picked us up and brought us to our apartment. We went to Macquarie bench and saw the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge for the first time!

The next day we went took a walk through the Royal Botanic Gardens to the Opera House. The Opera House looked like sea shells 🐚 to me. The architectural design was amazing!!!!!!! We took a ferry ⛴ to Manly and walked around the beach and town. My mom’s student told us about a brewery and we went there. My dad had squid 🐙, I had mini burgers, and I forgot what my mom had. Then we found a doughnut 🍩 place where I got a Nutella stuffed doughnut 🍩. It had like a can of Nutella in it!!!!!!!!! The place was called Doughnut Time. Then we caught a ferry back to Sydney. We went to the Queen Victoria Building. It was a a very very old building and we saw a  very very big Christmas 🎄 tree 🌲. It started at the bottom and went all the way to the top of the building! The building was very tall and there was a very cool clock too! We took a cab back not knowing that there was a train station right under the building! And guess what: I actually wanted to check it out! After a long day of walking we settled down and relaxed with a home cooked meal.

The next day we went to the Zoo! It was so cool to see al the animals that we can never see at home at all!! I was most exited to see the Australian animals. We saw the seals first. We went to the Australian animals and saw the Tasmanian Devils first. We saw kangaroos next! We saw emus next. The emus just wandered around and they weren’t separated from us! It was cool! We saw kualas next! They were so cute! We saw red pandas next. We didn’t see it’s face at first, but then it came out!! We walked to the ferry and took it back.

Sydney was very fun and we have got one more day ( right now ) and friends in Wollongong!

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When we went to this restaurant we all wanted desserts 🍨. I wanted a chocolate cake 🎂. It was the BEST! We didn’t know          that it was a chocolate lava cake and we did know that it came with a scoop of ice cream! It’s name was Mie Cafe. IT WAS THE BEST! Remember this: Passion fruit sauce is great with chocolate and melted ice cream.

When we woke up we were very tired 😴 but exited. It was only 4:40 AM. Then our tuk-tuk driver picked us up. We were heading to famous temples to see the sunrise 🌅! Sunrise at the the temples was AMAZING 😉! What was really cool was we were stumbling on rocks and following the crowd not knowing what to do. At 6:30 sunrise came. We went back to the hotel for breakfast 🍳. We met our tour guide for the day. Then we went to the East gate, we saw sunrise at the West side. We went inside and found ancient carvings from 900 years ago! He told us stories and a lot of other stuff about the temples ⛩. The second temple we went to had more ancient carvings. He told us about Demons fighting Gods in wars and a tug-a-war with a snake 🐍 as the rope! There was many other temples that we explored but my favorite temple was a jungle temple that trees 🌲 grew into! We took a lot of pictures and most of them were of the trees 🌲 but one of our pictures was a freaky one where my dad was doing a panorama picture where my dad started with me and while he scanned it I ran around his back and he ended with me. The trees 🌲 were on top of the temple and the roots were growing around the side trying to find the soil … IT WAS AWESOME!

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During a month of travel I think about what I miss and what I like.

I miss:

• My family,
• my friends,
• my dog 🐶 ,
• School,
• Recess,
• Home,
• My room,
• and people speaking English.

I like traveling:

• sometimes trying new foods,
• meeting new people,
• having new experiences
• seeing new places
• sitting on the beach🌞🌞☀️☀️☀️☀️ 🌊 when it is below zero at home 🌨❄️⛄️☃️,
• and getting ornaments to hang on our tree 🌲 to remind us of our experiences!

It was very fun kayaking! I was okay after the fall but it hurt a little.

Squid 🐙 fishing 🎣 is fishing 🎣 but with a different hook. You move the pole up and down and it is done at night.  My mom got nibble of a squid 🐙 and it released ink! A crew member caught a squid 🐙. We were looking for squid 🐙 about a foot long.

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The name of the ship was Dragon 🐉 Legend 1 and it used to be Dragon Princess. Our guide told us about the legend of how the bay was formed.  You can read about it here . We were in Bai Tu Long, where the legend says the Dragon’s children descended.

It was very very very very fun!