Traveling the US - Summer 2010!

We went to the USA for six weeks and this is what we did...

First we flew from India to Atlanta, Georgia. Our Grandpa picked us up from the airport and we drove to Blairsville, GA. It's in the mountains. We stayed there for ten days.

While we were with our Grandpa and Nana we got to eat really good food, explore the woods with Georgia the dog and listen to some live "bluegrass" music. We even got to go hiking with our Aunt Melanie and cousin, Sarina!

While we were there we visited our great Aunt Jane in North Carolina. Aunt Sue and Uncle Bob lets us feed the chickens and collect eggs, we learned how to ride the four wheeler, shoot a rifle and play on the Wii!  It was a very fun three days!

Then our Dad found out someone knocked down our backyard fence in Austin, so we had to drive to Texas...

On our way to Texas we stopped at some famous Native American mounds in Alabama at a place called, "Moundsville."  The mounds are 1,000 years old.  They are sort of like pyramids.

In Austin we stayed in our house on Avenue C for four days. Evan and Audrey both had play-dates and we had a party with some of our friends.

Then we had a long drive from Austin to Buffalo to see our Grandma and our JaJa.  That part of our trip was 1,700 miles long!  First we stopped in Shreveport, Louisanna to see our Aunt Faye. We stayed for one night. She fed us some BBQ!  Then we drove through Arkansas, Missouri and then into Illinois. We stayed at a motel in Marion, Illinois.  The last day was really long. We drove on across Indiana, through Ohio and finally went across a little corner of Pennsylvania to Grandma's house in Buffalo, NY.  Nine states in all!

We had lots of fun at Grandma's house.

We went fishing with our JaJa and took a trip to Niagara Falls. At the falls we got to walk BEHIND where the water falls! 

Evan's favorite fact about Niagara Falls: "you can fill one million bathtubs every minute with the water that goes over the falls...."  Before we had to start home we also had had fun at a baby shower for our Aunt Heidi and Uncle Sujal.  All of the ladies wore big hats and drank tea.

After visiting Grandma's we drove back to Georgia.

We stayed a few more days with our Grandpa and Nana there in Blairsville. Dad says our summer "road trip" was over 4,000 miles long!

We are excited to be back in India this time because we are going to a new school - the American Embassy School AND we will be moving to an apartment in New Delhi soon!

Water in India

by Evan Sayer

There are three different kinds of water in India.  The kind that we should drink is in the bottled water that comes in a huge bottle (25 litres).

It is 100% pure water from "Aquafina."  There is also the water from the kitchen RO filter.  R.O. stands for, "reverse osmosis."

We use this water for cooking and for things that need boiled water like vegetables and tea.  And then there is the tap water which you should never drink! 

It sometimes smells like rotten eggs. We use the tap water for washing our hands, doing dishes, laundry and taking a shower.

When you take a shower, if you want hot water you need to turn on the "Geyser" (pronounced "geezer").

It takes 20 minutes for the water to heat up in this.  You have to remember to turn it off BEFORE you get in the shower because the geyser is electric!

And of course, last but not least, there is the ice in the freezer. We use the bottled water to make our ice cubes.

Adventures in Malaysia Part 2

After a few days in Kuala Lumpur, we took a "VIP" bus to the Cameron Highlands. This is 2000 metres high in the mountains, so it cooler and very pretty there.
We got to go on a sight-seeing tour. We saw a rose farm (the roses were beautiful).

Then we saw a strawberry farm. They had a bakery there so we had strawberry tarts!  Then we went to a tea plantation and factory. We got to see the tea bushes. (They turn into trees if you don't cut off the leaves!)  This was our Grandma's first time to see a Tea Plantation, so we took a tour of the Boh Tea factory. Then we had a cup of tea in the cafe.  We had a great view!
Last but not least we saw a butterfly farm.

They had some really strange insects. Evan and Audrey got to hold some! The butterfly farm was the best.
Before we flew back to India we stayed for one more night in KL. 
That last day we went to a bird park. They say it is the worlds largest. We saw many birds we had never seen before.

 A red ibis, and a "victorian-crowned pidgeon." That one looks like a giant pidgeon with a very fancy hat!

Then we went a saw a bird show.  The first bird unicycled across a tightrope, the a lady came out and said, "Welcome to our Bird Show!"

Some birds were in bicycle races and also slid down a slide! But the best part was when Audrey got to feed a hawk. She held a stick up in the air with some meat on it. Then the bird swooped down and grabbed the meat right off of the stick!

We went back to our hotel for one last night. That was a good last day and a fun trip!

Adventures in Malaysia! Part 1

First we had to fly two hours to a city called, Columbo in Sri Lanka. Then it was a three hour aeroplane ride to Singapore. Then we took a taxi to our hotel which was beautiful!

It rained while we were there. Every day. We walked and walked to go to a Botanical Garden and an Orchid Garden where we saw lots of plants and trees.

There was a lake in the gardens with big swans in it, and turtles too!
Then we walked along some pretty canals to the Merlion. It is a famous statue the spouts water into the sea. "Singapore" means "City of Lions."

The merlion is half fish and half lion - kind of like a mermaid. Our last day in Singapore, Mom took us to McDonalds to get a hamburger! You can't get beef burgers in India when you go to McDonalds...
We took a "VIP" bus to the city of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. We got there late at night, but dropped us off right at our hotel. The hotel was fancy. It was called the "Sunway Pyramid."

Sunway has a water park so we spent all the first day at the water park! Grandma and Dad went with us while Mom worked. The water park was cool!

The next day we went to see the Petronas Towers.  The Petronas Towers are the 4th tallest towers in the WORLD!! 

We also went up in the Menara Tower which has an observation deck.  You can see the whole city of KL from there! The we went to a market called, "China Town."  It had many different shops like toy shops, tourist shops and local shops. Some of the days we were there we went swimming in the Sunway Lagoon swimming pool which was very very fun too!