Travelog for: Diddl-Maus

Hi Mom!

Guess what we did?  Well, last night Host-Mom practiced writing my new host's name on a sticky-note so that it was legible enough to mail out.  It's been awhile she's written in Chinese...  Why is it in Chinese?  Cuz I'm on my way to China now!  Yippee!!  That probably means I'll get to travel across the Pacific Ocean this time!



At the post office Host-Mom took one last picture of me before sealing up the envelop.  She was pretty teary-eyed and gave me a big hug.  It was kinda embarrassing because I'm too old for hugs, but I guess it was okay since I was going to miss her too 



Can't wait till I get to see the open air again!

xo Diddl-Maus

Hello Mommy!
I have reached SHANGHAI!!! A short trip I think I still have a little jetleg.
Today Eva brings me to have a look at her studying place "ECUPL",that is, East China University of Political Science and Law.
This bell tower strikes hours day and night.

This is a university specialized in law and politics courses and Eva enjoys her exchange student life in this school.

This is the library.  Mommy,can you see the white sculptures over there? He is the famous philosopher Plato.

Another German philosopher Hegel.

This is the teaching building.

There is an artificial pool in front of it.

Bye Mommy!
Diddle-Maus

HI,there~~~
Today I go to the Expo training with Eva. She will become an Shanghai Expo Garden Volunteer in the following 14 days.
Because of the weekend with pleasant wheather, a large amount of people coming today. INCREDIBLE!Today's visitors flow breaks the history record,which is about ONE MILLION PEOPLE in the Expo!


This is the symbol of volunteer. It is the Chinese character"心", which means heart in English.

This is the China Pavillion.

This is Russia Pavillion.

The Britain Pavilllion

Some other pavillions


What a nice day!
Bye Mommy!
Diddl-Maus

Hello Mommy!
Eva will on duty tomorrow as one Shanghai Expo volunteer.
She shows me her clothes and bags for volunteers.




This is the working card for expo.

You may see so many emblems on the working card. All of them are collected by eva. Exchanging emblems with each other is very popular in the expo garden, which is called the emblem culture.

I also take photos with eva's friends
Love
Diddl-Maus

What's this???? I feel very confused.



WOW~~a big surprise. A bird comes out of the egg
He tells me that he is Pajarito and he comes from Barcelona
So we will visit Shanghai Expo together in the following days.

Bye Mommy!
DIddl-Maus

Hi, Mom
We go to  BaoSteel theatre today. There is a Hong Kong  activity in the stage around this week.

The theatre is structured in steel in general.

This is the stage of BaoSteel theatre.



The seats of the theatre which can hold 2000 people.

There are many lovely cartoon figures inside the theatre. People prefer to take photos with them.
So do I


A colorful model of Double-decker bus.


This cute piglet is called Mcdull, which is well-known and popular among Hong kong people.

Love
Diddl-Maus

Hello Mom!
Today I go to the expo axis with eva. It looks like several cup-like  buildings that stand in line. But I can only take photos with one of them.


We meet Haibao. As the expo mascot, he is warmly welcomed here.

This is the Expo Performance Center. Tourists can watch performances from different countries every day. Theses performance are always the typical ones, which reflect the culture of theses countries.

Bye Mom
Diddl-Maus

Hi Mommy!
Eva shows me around the different part of the expo every day.
Today we visit the Europe area. A great amount of pavillions come into sight
This is Lithuania Pavillion. It is a country famous for its basketball and balloon.


There is a French band plays rock music here. It's amazing!

Other European countries' pavillions are as followed.
Russia

Croatia

Ukraine

Norway

Estonia

Finland Pavillion which looks like a curling stone.

Latvia

Czech Republic

Belarus

European Joint Pavillion

UK Pavillion

Bye
Diddl-Maus

Hello there!
As Eva is a volunteer working for the ferry dock, we have a walk along the river when she is off duty.
This is the mother river of Shanghai---Huangpu River




Then, we take ferry across the river to have lunch. We choose paste and French fries for our lunch

We also pass by some Central and Sounth American pavillions  .

The Brazil Pavillion

the Central and South American Joint Pavillion


The Mexico Pavillion


Bye
Diddl-Maus

Hey Mommy!
Today we go into the Sweden Pavillion and the Australian Pavillion.
Lively colors inside the Sweden Pavillion!



Then we go to the Australian Pavillion.
It tells us the history of Australia by using cartoon figures.




We have a nice day
Bye
Diddl-Maus

I made it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I actually made it here a week ago. However, there was a mix up with the mail here in the house. One of the hosts here picked up the mail & forgot to tell the she-host that I had arrived. I have been cruising around in his car. At least he has good taste in music!

I was set free from my box today & I was very glad to be inside. Today was a record low temperature here in Colorado. The other TVs here wanted to have a contest to see how long we could last outside. It was about 15 seconds before we started screaming to be let back inside!



We checked the temperature when we got back in. It's -39 F with the wind!!! It's been so closed that schools were closed today and will be closed tomorrow because they dont the kids outside walking to school in the cold.



The post card that I got sent with is very pretty! Pea is very excited to hang it up in her house.



I got to meet the other TVs that are staying here - Dusel the Tiger and Nathalie the Duck. Pea - the gecko - is my TV host. Nathalie wrote me a very pretty welcome banner. Dusel is heading out this week to his next host so we wished him farewell as well!

Today Pea taught us about golfing and got us a behind the scenes tour of a golf course.

You can see that it's really not the best weather for golfing. Can a golf course even be open in this weather..

Sure enough! The course was open, but people weren't allowed to play. Just the club house was open in case people wanted to come and get lunch out of the restaurant , have a drink or buy something from the golf shop. The first order of business was to learn what each of the different golf clubs do. The big ones with the black covers are called "drivers." They hit the ball the furtherest.



These shiny metal clubs are called wedges. They are used to make shorter shots out of the sand. They also make the ball go higher up in the air. 


Golfers really like baseball caps. A lot.

Golf isn't a very dangerous sport, but one of a Golfers biggest fear is lightening. The workers in the golf shop are always watching for storms so they can alert people on the course of dangerous weather. There were no golfers today, but they were still watching the snow!


The people in the club house also watch whats going on on the course through high powered binoculars. There wasn't much to look at today.


Players can either walk the course or ride around in a golf cart. Here are all the keys to the golf carts. They stay locked up to make sure no one drives a golf cart away!


The way scoring works in golf is that each hole is assigned a certain number of strokes - 3, 4, or 5. The par 3 holes are shorter in distance than the part 5s. If you you get your ball in the hole in the designated number of stokes - you get a 0. Any more strokes than par, yoiu get positive numbers. Any less (which is good!) you get negative numbers. You want the lowest score possible. Here are the score cards that the players get.

We're gettin out of the snow!!! We will soon be in the land of cactus and palm trees!! VACATION!

We are going to Lake Havasu City, AZ. It's a very popular boating spot. It is also the location of the original London Bridge. The brought it brick by brick from London to Arizona and reconstructed it.

Here is where we are going on the map:



We will have to fly from Colorado to Las Vegas Nevada:



Then we will drive from Las Vegas Nevada to Lake Havasu City AZ. We will end up driving through 3 states to get there! We start in NV, go into California for a bit and then into Arizona. It is only about a 3 hour drive. Here is our route:



On the way there - we will have to drive through the Hoover Dam. It dams up the Colorado River to provide hydroelectric power to Las Vegas and surrounding areas. It sits on the border between Arizona and Nevada. It is now home to the world's highest suspension bridge - the Hoover Dam Bypass. And we get to drive over it!!

Here is a picture of it. It opened for traffic only a couple of months ago - in October 2010. Pea has seen it two years ago when they were still buidling it and she was so surprised at how big it is now!!



I hope we are strapped in tight to our car!

Today was an exciting day of mail! Our host had been waiting for two very important packages now for over a week, and they both arrived today. We were sure to call her at work when we arrived. It was quite fun learning how to use a telephone!

The first package is *drum roll* another Toy Voyager friend! Frogg has come to visit us & will be traveling with us to Lake Havasu next week! He had quite the advertising slogan on his box!



He was surprisingly very fresh whe he came out of the box. He was hopping around the house in no time, learning his surroundings.



The second package that came today was one of the pictures that our host took. She had one printed nice and and pretty to give to a friend. It's actually printed on fabric instead of paper! She took this one in her front yard here just a couple of weeks ago! I hope I get to see a sunset like this while I am in Colorado.



As you can see - it is quite the full house here. I'm glad Pea has extra beds! I was sleeping on the first floor of the pink bungalow, but I fit just a comfy in the drawer of one of Pea's closets. That way the big guys can stretch out!



Valentine's things to come this weekend!

We got to celebrate Valentines day early today because our host went out and got us cupcakes! They are from this bakery that makes nothing BUT cupcakes - so you know they have to be good right??

There were all sorts of flavors to choose from. We wanted to get our picture taken in the shop but we were quickly kicked out because we were drooling all over the floor.

We had to wait until after dinner before we could jump on in and eat. The wait was killing us!



We looked at their "Winter" menu while we were waiting. They have one cupcake flavor called "Sweet Potatoe Pie"! It was sweet potatoe cake with a marshmallow frosting! Weird!



Finally it was time to dig in!



We each got to pick one cupcake. They were gigantic!



I got a Red Velvet cupcake. Thats a kind of chocolatey cake with red food coloring. It had a giant mound of cream cheese frosting on it. Everyone said my cupcake was the biggest because of all the frosting! I am a mouse so I should like cream CHEESE frosting right?!?!