Jamil. We are in Sumatra and the city Medan which is a big city like Vancover only not as big! We rented a car in Medan to take us through Sumatra. The first place we went to was Lake Toba, which is the biggest lake in South East Asia. It is actually a huge volcanic crater. We got there but we had to wait 1 hour and 30 minutes for a ferry that you have to take to get to the main island. The second day we rented mopeds to go around the island . On the third day we [View Full Entry]

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Samir's article. Back on Gilli Air, probably a week ago (yes, it's been that long) before we went night fishing, we all went snorkeling (even Alia, who's leg is better now). We snorkeled in a current, above a coral reef. There were mostly black fish, but also the regular confused pinstripe fish, tie dye fish, angel fish, bright blue fish and ugly, fat, orange-lip fish. We swam the current 3 or 4 times before getting bored (believe it), and heading back to shore. That night (as promised), we went night fishing in deep waters. I caught a medium sized yellow [View Full Entry]

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Samir's article. It was a dark and stormy afternoon... but before that, us kids went to a batik class. (And it wasn't all that dark). Batik is when you put wax on cloth where you don't want it to be dyed, and it ends up with a neat stained look. We all made T-shirts and our teacher was very nice and helpful. (By the way, this was still in Bali.) After that though, we got caught in a rain storm, which was a bad way to end our travels in Bali. The day after Jamil's birthday, which we spent mostly [View Full Entry]

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Hi, it's Jamil. My birthday is coming up and I get to pick the hotel, the thing to do and mom will buy me one thing and will give me 20 dollars. What I want to do on my birthday is to take a glass bottom boat through the ocean to see all the fish. We have been in Ubud for eight days. One day in Ubud we rented a car and drove up to a volcano. It is an active one and the second we got to the top it started to pour, so we plopped ourselves inside a [View Full Entry]

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We've now spent 8 days in Bali, as we arrived here on the 10th of April. We were picked up by an old friend of ours, who used to be married to someone in Canada and moved back to Indonesia about five years ago, Tata. He greatfully showed us a few hotels around Ubud untill we picked a nice one (well Jamil, Samir and I think it's good because it has a swimming pool, that's about all we look for). Our first full day in Indonesia was a great one, we went to a monkey forest, you wouldn't believe how [View Full Entry]

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Samir's article. A few days ago, after a failed walk (no details) we saw two dances called Kechak and the fire dance. At the start of Kechak a bunch of sweaty guys burst out of the temple, fingers a waggling, making fighting cat-duck noises. The rest of the dance was about the monkey god Hanuman, two brothers and a monkey army fighting a demon and a giant (guess who won). The fire dance started with a man walking out and dumping a basket of coconut shells onto the floor, then painting it with lighter fuel, then setting it ablaze with [View Full Entry]

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Hi, it's Beth. Really, the only reason I write is to publish the pictures the kids won't. For example, I know they'll only publish the pictures of them with the python but a certain Mrs. Sahota needs to see me with that thing around my neck. And by the way, Alia really wanted to hold the python (even though gnats send her into a tailspin!) but nobody would hold it with her so I volunteered. It was my turn since Azim did the Smashdown slide with Jamil...once. So, after I said c'mon to Alia. Samir joined in and yes, I [View Full Entry]

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Samir's article. Only a few days ago, in Japan, me, Alia, Jamil and Dad's friend's daughter, Sarah went to a course thing where there were three different courses that you can do. Mom & Dad didn't go on any, but us kids went on the family course. We would have gone on the water course if it wasn't so cold out and if there weren't giant carps in the water. On the family course, however, there was a rope swing over water, a big hamster wheel and an enormous bowl called the ant trap. You had to run along the [View Full Entry]

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Hi, it's Beth. We have been in Tokyo since March 26th but we leave in just two days. We have conflicting feelings about leaving because we really like it here-if it weren't for the cost! And the cost of things is the reason we need to be on our way. Well, we knew that before we got here so have been very grateful to everybody who let us stay in their house. The kids have really liked Japan-a bit of the west in the east. They have had fun playing with friends' children and of course the food has been [View Full Entry]

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Jamil's article. We've been in Japan for two weeks. I like Japan. I like the cherry blossom trees. Yesterday we went to a park. We brought so many things for nothing. For example, a soccer ball, chinese sticks, a swinging thing and a skateboard. Because we didn't play with any of that stuff and it was a 30 minute walk. Instead we played on the slide and the game was trying to get Samir off the twisty twirly slide. What I like about Japan is the people are always very nice to you. It's CLEAN, the food is very nice [View Full Entry]

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