Reporting from Tomorrow: Great Pyramids of Giza

Another blast from the past - back to late September:

Reporting from Tomorrow: the Parthenon

Here's a post from September!

Reporting from Tomorrow: The Terra Cotta Warriors

This one is a little out of order - but still worth a look.  Grace and James have done a few news clips throughout the trip that we will attempt to post before the trip is over!

Enjoy!

Meequan's World Adventures

a story by Maggie Muth

Once upon a time there was a cow named Meequan.  He lived in Mequon, Wisconsin.  Meequan loved everything about his home except one thing, no one liked him! 

One day Meequan was walking along the road near his house when he saw his neighbor walking the other way.  “Hello neighbor, I’m going on a trip around the world”, Meequan said.  The neighbor replied, “Be Gone Meequan!”  Meequan hung his head and walked home.

That night when Meequan was lying in bed he thought, “Why do people not like me here? I better not think too hard” He decided to leave on his trip around the world in the morning.

When Meequan woke up he ate breakfast, packed a bag and drove to the airport.  Then, he flew to… Greece. 

When Meequan got there he was immediately greeted by a man named Dimitri.  They drove to a hotel that was in the shadow of the world famous Parthenon.  Meequan took a little nap and went downstairs for dinner.  Meequan had a delicious meal of pastitsio (a creamy macaroni meatloaf like dish).  When dinner was over he went back to his hotel room and fell right to sleep. 

When Meequan woke-up the sun was up and bright.  He got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast.  Dimitri met him downstairs.  He was standing next to a woman.  “This is Smaro,” Dimitri said, “She will be your tour guide”.  “OK,” Meequan said. 

After breakfast Meequan followed Smaro and they walked to the Acropolis.  They walked up to the Parthenon and Smaro started talking about how the Parthenon was the temple of the Athena and was built in 447BCE.  She talked more about the columns and epistyle of the Parthenon while Meequan snapped photos.  The best one turned out like this:

The sun was starting to set in the sky when Meequan and Smaro got back to the hotel.  Meequan liked Greece but something was missing, “I want to go to Egypt”, Meequan said.  “Be Gone Meequan,” Dimitri said.  Meequan sighed and walked upstairs.  He started packing his bags, when there was a knock on the door.  It was Dimitri.  He said he was willing to drive Meequan to the airport.  Meequan was surprised but said yes. 

The next morning Dimitri drove Meequan to the airport and Meequan flew to…Egypt!  A nice man named Walid met him at the airport and drove him to a campus.  Meequan got his bags and went to his dorm room, where he cooked himself a dinner of koshari (a traditional simple Egyptian dish with pasta, rice and lentils) and fell asleep. 

When Meequan woke up he thought, “Why was Dimitri so nice to me then said ‘Be Gone?’”  Meequan ate breakfast and thought some more.  Then Walid came in with a woman, “This is Amani, your tour guide”.  “Great!” Meequan said.  Next thing he knew he was in a car on his way to the Great Pyramids of Giza.  When they got there Amani told Meequan that the Pyramids were the tombs of the Pharoahs Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure and they were built in 2560BCE and Meequan was free to take pictures for the rest of the day.  Here is one of the many pictures Meequan took:

Amani asked Meequan if he wanted to go inside the pyramid but Meequan was too scared.  So they drove back to campus and ate lunch.

After lunch Meequan walked around campus and found a library.  Meequan sat in a comfy chair and read.  Then he walked back to his dorm.  Meequan thought, “I like Egypt but there is something missing.”  Walid came in and said, “Time for dinner”.  “I want to go to India,” Meequan said.  “Be Gone Meequan,” said Walid.  Meequan jumped and ran away.

The next morning Meequan took a taxi to the airport and flew to…India.  A nice man named Regi was supposed to meet him but got stuck in traffic.  So Meequan took a public bus to a nice green place called ECC where Regi met him.  “Change of plans,” said Regi, “we are going to Agra.”  “Why?” asked Meequan.  “Because you want to see the Taj Mahal”, said Regi.  “OK”, said Meequan.  So they went back to the airport and flew to Agra, which was somewhere else in India.  When they got there, Meequan followed Regi to a giant tour bus and hopped in.  Then they drove to a hotel right next to the Taj Mahal.  Meequan found an Indian buffet of basmati rice, lentil dal, palak paneer and spicy curry.  Then Meequan went to his room and fell asleep.

In the morning Meequan woke up and went downstairs to breakfast.  Regi met him and was standing next to a man.  “This is Ajay, he will be your guide.”  “OK”, said Meequan.  So they got back on the giant tour bus and drove to the Taj Mahal.  Ajay gave Meequan a few facts about the Taj Mahal like…the Taj Mahal is a Mausoleum (tomb) it was build between 1631 and 1648 CE.  Then Meequan was free to roam.  Here is a picture that Meequan took:     

After the sun had set and things were closing Meequan found Ajay and they headed towards the hotel.  They ate a lovely meal and Meequan decided he liked India but something was missing.  “I want to go to China,” said Meequan.  “Be Gone Meequan”, said Regi.  Meequan walked to his room and thought, “but why were they so nice? Maybe they don’t mean ‘be gone’ in a bad way”.  He fell asleep after that.

The next morning Meequan decided to head back to the airport and fly to…China.  When Meequan got off the plane a nice man named Bruce met him.  They got into a car and drove to a very nice hotel.  Meequan got out of the car and went to a restaurant inside.  He had a meal of dumplings, soup, noodles and roasted duck.  It was all served on a table with a spinning center.  Then Meequan went up to his room and fell asleep.

In the morning Meequan woke up ready for the day.  He got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast.  Bruce met him downstairs, “Where is the tour guide?” Meequan said.  “I’m the tour guide,” said Bruce.  “Oh”, said Meequan. 

After breakfast, Meequan and Bruce got in a car and drove to the Great Wall of China.  Bruce got out of the car and Meequan followed.  Then they started to climb.  Suddenly Bruce stopped.  He started talking about how the Great Wall was created to protect an empire from invaders and was built in 221 BCE.  Then Meequan could take pictures and climb.  Here is the best picture that Meequan took:

When Meequan was exhausted he found Bruce, ate lunch and drove back to the hotel.  When they got back they ate dinner.  Meequan liked China but he realized how much he missed home.  “I want to go home,” said Meequan.  “Be gone Meequan,” said Bruce.  “Thank you,” said Meequan, for now he knew that “Be gone” was a weird way of saying, “have a nice trip”.  Meequan immediately drove to the airport and took the next flight home.

When Meequan arrived at his house all of his friends and family were waiting for Meequan.  They were so happy to see him.  Everyone told Meequan they were so happy to see him and were sorry about being mean.  Meequan said, “No, ‘Be Gone’ is a good way to say, ‘have a nice journey’”.  Everyone cheered.

The end.   

Wacky Korea

By James Muth

          Korea is a wacky place. It is full of wacky experiences, wacky people and wacky technology. Before this trip, our family was excited and anticipating East Asia. China and Korea especially have fulfilled their duty in astonishing, amazing and wowing us. Korea has left us giggling at our selves and almost everything else. The technology here is especially wacky because Korea is such a developed country. Another thing that the entire family noticed that was wacky was the electric street life. Lucky for you, that’s what I chose to write about. Korea is certainly one heck of a country.

            It has been pretty confusing to see all this new technology so luckily we had the opportunity to go to the Samsung D’light showing center. We all got wristbands and these wristbands had microchips that we could scan in to access our individual accounts and do activities. We made planets, edited photos and made open shutter pictures. The equipment analyzed what we selected and came up with emotions, senses and our types of imagination. Here’s a link to the photos from my account (please excuse my ridiculous face): 

             http://www.samsungdlight.com/global/#!/dlight-me/view/9280

After doing all of the super cool analyzation, we got to test out some of Samsung’s new products.  Some of the favorites from the group were: the oculus rift, the smart mirror, the transparent TV, the virtual closet and the smart refrigerator. Samsung is coming up with so much new stuff, so hopefully we’ll see it on the US market soon.

            The people in Korea are nice, inviting, kind, friendly and a bit different. I don’t mean this in a bad way at all, my guess is that most of what we have experienced is completely normal in Korea, not the US. In the US, I haven’t seen any people in the street, dancing on their long boards, but I have in Korea! There were close to 20 people in shorts (yes it’s cold here too) dancing around on a public street. Not to mention all of the street performers. Korea has everything from clowns who don’t talk to people signing autographs in the street. There are people dressed up in batman costumes, raising awareness for child cancer. There are magicians who can make a hat disappear and reappear on someone else’s head. Almost every time we go out we have to stop and watch someone perform. There are always guys making cool skateboarding videos and people dressed up like mascots to sell their products on the street, whatever it may be. And Gangnam Style, it’s all true. Gangnam has some crazy style. There are lots of shops, beauty parlors, cosmetic stores, plastic surgery clinics, and K-pop stores. I’m not sure what Psy was saying in Gangnam Style, but it certainly is wacky!

            Korea has been such a welcoming, happy and friendly country. Even if almost no one outside the university speaks English, people will repeat whatever they are saying in Korean until you understand. Someone like me may think that Korea is just a crazy place, but in all honesty, I think we’re just experiencing culture shock. It was shocking and astonishing to see street performers but after all, we are from a small town. I really enjoyed getting a taste of Korean culture after all the waiting. Korea is definitely on the top of my favorites list!

Technology (Or Lack There Of)

Written by: Grace Muth

As a person living in the 21^st first century I know as well as anyone that technology is important.  Having the newest iPhone, having a computer, iPads, the Internet, YouTube, video games, you get my point. When you’re traveling, technology becomes even more important.  It’s your way to connect back home, it’s entertainment for long flights, it’s a way to do math for homeschooling.  However all of this technology relies on battery power. When you run out of battery the device no longer works, simple logic. Fortunately we can easily recharge our gadgets by plugging a power cord into an outlet.  Except that US plugs don’t fit into the outlets outside of the US.

Before we left we made sure that we had adapters.  Adapters are great, you just plug the US plug into the adapter and now it works in whatever country you bought the adapter for.  We had two global adapters; those adapters were supposed to work in almost every country of the world.  In Greece we used the Europe adapter part.  The Europe plug is almost exactly like a US plug except instead of having two thin lines, the indents are circular.  Fortunately we were able to use the Europe adapters in Egypt as well. We also had two USB inputs in a wall in our apartment, which reminds me of another struggle.  This struggle is not just one found in traveling but in everyday life in the US as well.  Almost every power cord ends in a USB, not a plug, so you need a brick.  Brick are little plastic blocks that transfer the USB end of the power cord to the plug of the country you need. Back to the original point, it was super convenient to have two adapters and two USB plugs in the wall and each adapter had two USB ports so we had a total of six USB ports and two US plugs, that is until one of the adapters got fried after we overloaded it.  As we headed to India we had one adapter

            India was a whole different story.  We were able to use the Europe plugs but the thing is there were a lot of power outages. By a lot I mean at least one a day, for at least 15 minutes.  One time the power was out for a good 12 hours.  So while we didn’t have to go find new adapters was still really difficult to charge our devices.  Thailand was by far the easiest plug situation, the outlets were designed to fit Europe, Asia, and US plugs so no adapters were needed.

 In Hong Kong technology stores and market stalls that sold bricks were everywhere, so all we had to do was get some cheap bricks and then we could recharge our devices. Key word there is cheap, and cheap they were. One of the three bricks we got died in a week, and two of the four power cords broke after three uses.  China was the same as Thailand, and now in South Korea we are back to the Europe plugs, but our adapters are slowly dying.

            There’s one other struggle when it comes to technology and travel. This is Internet and Wi-Fi. Yes those are two different things. Wi-Fi is a way to connect to the Internet; I won’t get into the details. Greece and India were the hardest to connect to the Internet and Wi-Fi. In Greece you had to be in the lobby of our hotel and India, the router was slow and every single time the power went out, you had to reboot the system. The only country worse than India was China, there was nothing.  I mean nothing.  There was about one bar of Wi-Fi if you were lucky, but Internet, none.  On the flip-side Hong Kong, Egypt, and Thailand were great.  The connection was a little slow in Thailand, but otherwise it was great.  South Korea is the oddball.  There were plenty of available connections but all of them were locked, all we had was an Ethernet cable.  Once we figured out how to connect to Ethernet and turn on Internet and Wi-Fi sharing on the iMac, which took two days and an Arduino, the Wi-Fi started working great and we were able to connect to the Internet.

             As I stated before and described out this whole post, technology is a struggle, especially when traveling.  Sometimes it’s easy to forget that when we have such good signal and easy access to power sources in the states.  I’d like to be able to say that I have learned to unplug and be screen free, but the sad truth is, it’s nearly impossible to do that when you have to work so hard to plug-in.  In all honesty it’s been really frustrating trying to connect to back home and have access to the materials that we need for homeschooling.   It’s a little bit ironic that we rely so much on something that twenty-five years ago didn’t really exist.  It just goes to show that you can’t take something for granted especially when it’s as convenient as Wi-Fi.

Pandas at the Beijing Zoo

By James Muth

            Imagine yourself feeling happy, lazy, content, lucky, calm and full of zen. The combination of all those emotions is the emotion our family calls “Panda”. That emotion was created when we took a trip to the Beijing Zoo. Seeing pandas for the second time in my life made me feel like a kid again. I was so nostalgic, happy, overwhelmed and “panda”. It is said that there are close to 2000 pandas left in the world and our family was lucky enough to see five of them. Pandas are endangered animals and are considered to be on the edge of moving a step farther away from extinction. This is good because pandas are important and protecting them should be a priority. In our family, seeing them was a priority.

This panda is feeling very "panda"

            When we got to the zoo, the first thing we did was buy tickets to go see the pandas. There were two locations that had housed pandas, the Asian Games panda area and the Olympic Games panda area. We decided to go to the Asian Games pandas first because they were closer. Inside the area we found an enclosed building with artificial, indoor living spaces for the pandas. The closest living space was full of bamboo, a panda eating that bamboo, a play set for the panda and some rocks. It was really astonishing to see such a large creature so close. It was almost like there was a human in a panda suit sitting on the other side of the glass. These pandas just looked really abnormal, but my guess is that pandas are just really abnormal creatures. This massive panda seemed to be done eating so it decided to get up and go to the bathroom. It was pretty awkward watching my favorite animal pee in a corner but luckily it decided that after doing it's business, it would take a nap. So it walked to a comfy spot, scratched itself and went to sleep. This panda made a great first impression.

"Now I will bury myself in my breakfast"

             After gawking over the other Asian Games pandas, we walked over to the Olympic Games panda area but no one was home. Lucky for us, one of the Asian Games pandas decided to get up and move around. It took him a while to roll over and get out of bed. By then, dad and I (equipped with the necessary photography equipment) had elbowed our way to the front of the crowd. When the panda decided to walk downstairs and get some bamboo, I was ready and I managed to get a ten second video of the panda at it’s most active part of the day: walking down the stairs.

Smiley Panda :)

The panda then waddled over to a large pile of bamboo, sat down right in the middle and started to eat. He was still eating when we left, about 25 minutes later. We came back after looking at the Olympic Games pandas again and he was still eating! Pandas eat around 14 hours a day and sleep the other 10. Seeing these pandas was such a magical experience.

             Pandas, although they are endangered, are some of the most iconic animals in the world. They are the logo of WWF and the international emblem of China. We’ve made animated movies about them, we pay so much to go see them and we give them human-like personifications. We can’t live in a world without pandas. They’ve done nothing to harm us and we’ve almost driven their entire species off the face of the planet. We can redeem ourselves. Use the emotion “panda” to describe how you feel more often and maybe it will catch on. If there are no pandas in the world, there will be no zen, no sense of laziness, no happiness and most importantly, no reference for the emotion. Soon pandas will be roaming the streets of China and maybe pet pandas will be an option…