Day Seven in China:

Hello! It is day seven in China!! Which means (does mental math) there are 54-7 days left! That’s 47 days left. Yay! Today was a fun day. Compared to all the other days in the week at least. Today we didn’t stay home all day. We went hiking today!!

The mountain was called 宝石山 (baoshi shan, mountain). It was right next to 西湖 (xi hu, lake). We left early in the morning, around 9:30. It was really warm out. I thought it was 37 degrees out (celsius) but it was actually only 35 or 36. There was not a single breeze, which made it worse. We walked to the foot of the mountain. Most of it was covered with trees, so we couldn’t exactly see the top of the mountain. There were tons of stairs up as far as I could see. So we began to climb. Unsurprisingly, Jasmine took the lead, racing up the stairs. My cousin (诸葛俊兰) was right behind her, racing up the stairs too. I was after her, and behind us was my uncle (诸葛军). After one-third of the way (which was very far), Jasmine grew tired and asked for water. So, we all took a break. Then we had to climb.

We saw two little baby chickens running around by the side of the path. They were fighting for a worm. It was the cutest thing. One of them had it already, and it was running around trying to get away from the other. The other one wouldn’t let it stop to eat. It hid in the branches and gobbled down the worm. The other chicken didn’t get to eat it. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find worms for it either. But they were super duper cute!

It was really warm out, or I should say steaming. I wasn’t getting tired, just sweaty and hot. It was really uncomfortable. But we still had to keep climbing stairs. I was surprised Jasmine didn’t start whining and complaining. It was getting warmer and warmer with each step. Finally, my cousin said she couldn’t take it. So did Jasmine. We walked a little further, and suddenly I could see the lake!! Well, partially because it was partially covered with bamboos. And that, was my mistake. I looked down. It must have been super super far because my head started getting dizzy. It was scary. There was a straight rocky drop through the trees all the way into, either the lake or street. Both were bad choices. I drank some water and we headed back down.

At the bottom, I could see the lake. It was right in front of me. There were tons and tons of lily-pads with a couple of lilies. It was very pretty. There were boats in the distance, and willows too. There were little dragonflies flying around and skinny little fish swimming around in the water. I sat in the shade, although it was still really warm. Jasmine and my cousin were throwing leaves at the dragonfly to shoo it away from it’s leaf on the lilypad. Poor dragonfly. Finally, we headed back.