Flat Logan in China

Updated November 14, 2004
He is here!! The Lamb family rejoiced today with the arrival of their new guest, Flat Logan. He came all the way from Texas! He was rather jet-lagged and somewhat wrinkled but recuperated quickly at the idea of seeing China. He has been very pleasant to be around. He went to Shanghai today, but was too tired to do any sight-seeing so he took a nap in Catherine's backpack the whole day. But tonight he was rested and raring to go!

He went to Trent's work and got to see a real Chinese factory. Then he joined the students in Catherine's English class. Learning English is very important because so many Chinese companies do business with America and Britain. The students just smiled at Flat Logan, but didn't say much. They don't know too much English yet, and Flat Logan only knows one word of Chinese: ni hao, which means hello. You say that "knee how". Simple huh?

Today Flat Logan had lunch with the Lamb family and their two friends who do homeschool with them. Every day the Lambs have Chinese food for lunch, cooked by their Chinese maid. It is very delicious, but Flat Logan didn't eat too much. He had a really hard time holding the chop sticks. Flat Logan has only been in China for three days and already he is getting tired of eating rice! The Chinese eat it all the time! Some days for breakfast, lunch and dinner! With Lamb's rice today they had stir-fried lotus root, bean sprouts with pork, fried cucumbers, and the American dish: fried potatoes! Look close and you can see chopsticks in Flat Logan's hands.

Flat Logan is excited for Wednesday. He gets to go on a two-day field trip with the HOSH group. He will get to hike, go white-water rafting, see beautiful gorges and eat junk food on the bus with the HOSH kids! So stayed tuned for lots more pictures of Flat Logan in China!

What's happened to Flat Logan lately? A lot!

First, Flat Logan got to go sightseeing with the HOSH group. It was two fun-filled days of mountain climbing, boat riding, eating junk food and playing games! Here are some pictures from the trip.

TIAN MU, LI AN, five hours south of Shanghai

Here is the beginning of the path that led to a Buddist temple. There was a LOT of stair climbing. Seems the Buddist temples are always at the top of some mountain. The younger kids didn't seem to mind though. Like Flat Logan, he is up ahead with the fast group. We slow-walking old folk didn't get to see him much.	Here is the Buddist temple. They are quite often painted yellow. The kids had a great time shaking the rope bridge as they crossed. Yikes. Flat Logan got pretty shook up by the bigger boys!
We tried to take a picture so you could see the budda statue inside the temple. Look close. They are always very colorful with red and gold. Buddists, or anyone, can buy candles or incense to burn so their prayers will be carried up to Budda. Our kids (Not-flat Logan and Trina) preferred just petting the puppy.	Isn't the mountain area pretty?
Here are some statues dressed in the traditional wedding costume. We tried to talk Flat Logan into wearing one, but he said, "I'm only in second grade!" Then he ran off. He wouldn't even get in the picture.	China is famous for its bamboo. There are more than 300 kinds of bamboo. Here is only one. You can see the smooth green straight trunk. Also, those feathery light green trees in the background are bamboo. We Moms thought it was just beautiful.
Who doesn't like to see monkeys? We had a blast watching wild monkeys playing in the trees. Here some monkeys are coming in closer to us. They saw we had oranges!	For two yuan (25 cents) we could take a picture of ourselves with a monkey trained to pose with tourists. This monkey was pretty fascinated with Trey's gel-ed spikes! I think he was looking for food in that good-smelling head of hair.
It was interesting to see these men splitting bamboo to make shingles to decorate this metal roof.	This bell was huge. We don't even know what it was for, but the kids had fun hitting it.

XIN QIAO, SHANGHAI

After they were rested from the trip, Catherine, Trent, Tess, Trina and her boyfriend Logan (two Logans! ha ha) took Flat Logan to a small town near Lamb's house. It is call XinQiao (Sheen Chow). They wanted to show Flat Logan a Chinese market and get noodles! It was raining when they went, but Flat Logan stayed dry under a plastic folder. Here are the pics they took.

Flat Logan said, "Wow I've never seen any place like this in America!" There were rows and rows of stalls, each selling something different. Here is FL at the entrance of the market.	So many eggs! Duck, pigeon, chicken, "muddy", plus others we don't know what they were. You have to be careful buying eggs in China. You pick the ones you want then put them in a grocery bag. Sometimes we forget we are carrying eggs - oops. What a mess!
The Chinese have vegetables Flat Logan had never seen before! But maybe you can see some common ones.	Tofu is very popular in China. Here it is in several forms. So far Flat Logan hasn't tasted any tofu.
This stall sold all kinds of dried foods: mushrooms, beans, bayberries, shrimp, bamboo shoots. Most of these foods Flat Logan had never seen before.	When you buy seafood in China it is still alive! We watched a vendor chase a couple fish that had jumped out of the water and were flopping across the concrete floor.
Lots of cellophane noodles here. These noodles are made from rice. See all the different colors?	Flat Logan bought some potatoes for dinner. This big bag of seven huge baking potatoes cost 8 kwai. (which is one dollar). We also bought some celery - which cost 60 cents. FL asked if we would please take this picture of the chilis - for you Texans!
Everybody here buys lots of rice! They also use LOTS of oil. Here Logan is sitting in a bag of rice. He'd never seen so much rice at one time!	The meat section is always interesting. They sell it fresh everyday and never packaged. You tell them what you want and they slice it off. Here you see the ducks are sold intact - at least they took the feathers off. The chickens are also sold with the head and feet. The Chinese eat lots of parts we Americans throw in the garbage - like chicken feet!
We drew quite a crowd of Chinese people wondering what those "foreigners" were up to. The Chinese are very curious about us anyway, but today, taking pictures with Flat Logan, was especially amusing for them to watch. Here is a picture of some of them who watched us and followed us around the market to see what we were up to.

The market is always interesting. Some days you can even see pig heads. There are lots of things sold we didn't take pictures of. The vendors were good to let us take pictures of their wares. They just laughed. Hope you enjoyed Flat Logan's visit to the market!

After the market we bought lunch - NOODLES!

Noodles are VERY popular in China. You can get all kinds, and all flavors. When we need a little adventure go to town to buy noodles. Today we tried a new place. They liked having Flat Logan visit and let us take a picture of him watching the cook make the noodles.	Can you see what Flat Logan is using for a napkin? Here in China they put toilet paper on the table instead of real napkins, which are more expensive. Flat Logan thought that was pretty funny, and just had to have a picture of it.
While the noodles were cooking, Flat Logan chatted with the children who lived at the noodle joint. They were pretty excited to meet him. They were even more excited to have their picture taken. That is a luxury so they don't have a lot of pictures. The white hat on the man means he is a Muslim. That is a person who belongs to the Islamic faith.

Well Logan has seen quite a few things in China during his week here. Is there anything else you want him to see? Tell him quick because he is already making arrangements to go to Japan. Here is his mailbox for China.

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