Hello from Morgan and Ko: TGIF!

Hello there,

We just got back from eating dumplings. Most of them had egg. They were pretty yummy. Ko likes fried dumplings best, but these were boiled. Morgan likes both, but not egg so much or meat. We were excited because we got to explore the outside of our hotel, which we hadn't done before today. We traveled the long and winding road, aka 50ish feet (that took us way too long to calculate), that led to the dumpling restaurant, which was right outside our hotel.

Before dinner we went to the Summer Palace. It was beautiful and there was a huge lake surrounded by all of the buildings. We crossed this awesome bridge and people were flying kites that flew all the way out to the middle of the lake. We were really impressed by the kite flyers. Later, we got on a boat to cross the lake. The boat had a dragon on it. By the end of our trip, we were all so hot that we were burning up. It was so hot! We tried to look up the weather just now, but it wouldn't let us look at the past.

Before the Summer Palace, we had lunch at the hotel. During lunch, we competed against Ben and Eli in a Harry-Potter-Off. Each team comes up with a difficult question pertaining to the Harry Potter books (not the movies) to ask the opposing team. If we ask Eli and Ben a question they cannot answer, we get a point. If we answer a question asked of us correctly, we also get a point. Needless to say, we are winning (9 to 4). This competition will last until the end of our trip, at which point we will tally our scores and declare a winner.

Before lunch, we had classes as usual, including tai chi and kou yu ke. Our class (class 2) is planning to sing a song by Wang Leehom for our party next friday. We argued about who should sing lead. Ko thinks we should all sing together. Everyone else thinks that Ko or Max should sing lead. Speaking of Wang Leehom, Morgan bought one of his CDs yesterday at the mall. She also bought 哈利波特－神秘的魔法石, or for those of you who don't speak Chinese, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Ko bought 小王子 or for those of you who don't speak Chinese, The Little Prince, a ridiculous story that doesn't make any sense. She also bought a staple-less stapler and a little Charlie and Lola notebook. We saw a store full of Pucca things which Ko's mom would have enjoyed. We also saw an Astro Boy store and lots of cute, but expensive clothes.

This morning, Eli called our room to tell us some very sombering news. We learned that Michael Jackson had passed due to a failed liver transplant. We held a moment of silence for the deceased pop king. Not really, but we were very sad. We hope all of you at home are not suffering from this terrible loss.

We are having so much fun here in China! We miss everyone at home and hope to talk with you soon! Zaijian!

Blog playlist:
1. The Long and Winding Road-The Beatles
2. Let's Go Fly a Kite-Dick VanDyke
3. Burnin' Up-The Jo Bros
4. Apologize-Ministry of Magic
5. Beat It-Michael Jackson