We went to China in July 2007. We first went on a long plane ride from Auckland and I felt a bit sick. I watched only some films on the plane because the other movies weren’t working.

We first stopped at Bangkok . The hotel in Bangkok was my favourite hotel. We had a night there. In the morning we went for a swim. In the afternoon, we left to go to China . We went to see our old country again.

These are all the things that we did in China .

When we first arrived, we stayed in a hotel in Chengdu . Mei Mei and me played `offices’.  We did work and typing. I went through all of my spelling words from school. I learnt them very well. Then we played offices and airports. We even pretended to talk Chinese and played with a typewriter that we found in the cupboard in our hotel room.  

This is me and Mei Mei playing offices and showing our spelling words. Mei Mei, my twin sister, was copying my spelling words because she had left her spelling book at home. She learnt all my spelling words too. We had fun playing with the typewriter. Mummy and Daddy had to knock at our office door if they wanted to talk to us. We were always playing in our office.  

After Chengdu we went to a place called Juizhaigou. We saw some great lakes and mountains and waterfalls. Here are a few pictures. Dad used the video camera. He interviewed me and Mei Mei about our holiday. In Juizhaigou we saw someone getting married. She wore a long white dress and one of those things over her head [a veil]. We also saw some big fish and small fish in the lakes. A girl was picking white flowers and feeding them to the fish.   

Mei Mei and me had only one baby panda and a mummy panda. Dad and mum said that if we did good walking, we got to have another baby Panda. That would make twins, like us.

At Juizhaigou, we found a rock and made a home for the Pandas. We put some flowers on the rock and some leaves. The pandas were pretending to eat. We were looking for lots of grass and bamboo for their nest. 

After Juizhaigou, we went to see some real, giant, Pandas. We had to travel a long way on a bumpy road. Mum felt very sick. Me and Mei Mei played “Sleeping Queens” [a card game] with dad. There were lots of pandas at the reserve. They were cute. We saw big pandas and baby pandas and even a very small panda in a cot. One panda was very happy because it was lying on its back eating bamboo. We saw a man and a woman feeding the pandas.    

This is our family at the Panda Park . Mei Mei and I are holding the twin pandas. Mum has got the mummy panda in her handbag.

 After the pandas, we went back to Chendgu. We spent a lot of time swimming. Mei Mei and me were having fun practicing diving. This is me diving (below). Mum and dad says this is a good dive. This is the first time I’ve learnt to do a good dive. When I was diving, dad had a bad headache and mum went to get him some water. Mei Mei was doing three lengths of the pool and I was lying on the pools seats watching. She was practicing her arm strokes and her breathing. She was tired. Then I had fun pushing Mei Mei into the pool. I jumped into the pool and we played.  

After the pool Mei Mei wanted to try out the hotel gym and daddy used big heavy weights. Mum told him to use smaller ones. Mei Mei liked pushing weights. After this we went back to our room to have a shower.

In the last few days of our visit to China we went to see the orphanage where we were when we were babies [Yibin, orphanage on right].  We had another long car journey. At the orphanage we saw the people who looked after us when we were small. Here is a picture of the ladies who looked after me and Mei Mei when we were small. This is Xiao Ling [on right] and Jiang Li Ping. Jiang Li Ping looked after me when I was a baby. Xiao Ling looked after Mei Mei. I was really pleased to see them. Xiao Ling and Jiang Li Ping gave us nice necklaces. Mei Mei’s was a brown stone and mine was green. When we had lunch with them Jiang Li Ping put food in mine and Mei Mei’s bowl.

In China I met another lady called Xue. She is a friend of Xinran Xue who came to our house in Auckland . Xue is the first person I’ve met who has my name. We also met someone called Tingting. Her mum is Xue’s sister. She’s called Ping Lin. Tingting was our best friend in China .  This is a picture of Tingting on the left. We went to the fair ground with her and we went in dodgem cars. It was cool. We had good fun. We bashed into people and we bashed into a big girl. Tingting had just woken up because she’d come off an airplane from England .

Xue Coates and Xue Lin.

 This is us on our way back to New Zealand .  It was good to go home. When we got there, our fish tank was scummy. We had to spend a lot of time clearing it out.

The things that I liked most about China were: seeing the giant pandas, swimming at the hotels, going for walks to see the lakes. Most of all it was good to meet Jiang Li Ping and Xiao Ling. It was also great to have fun with Tingting and go on the car rides at the fair.

The end.

By: Xue Coates

2 Waitapu Road ,

Greenlane,

Auckland

New Zealand .