Foreign language

Mulan and Miya are bilingual.  I speak to them in English; Mama speaks to them in Mandarin Chinese.

But learning a language as a native speaker is different from learning as a foreigner.  It would be good for the girls to also learn a foreign language.

In term 4, the girls started learning New Zealand Sign Language through HASCA.  It is being offered again in term 1, and we were strongly considering continuing it as the girls' foreign language.

But after a few back and forths, we decided that instead of Sign Language the girls would learn Cantonese Chinese as their foreign language.  So, for the past several weeks the girls have been having weekly formal Cantonese lessons.

On the plus side for NZ Sign Language, it is one of New Zealand's official languages.  But we also found a couple of big minuses -- (a) it seems that there are lots of different sign languages around the world, so NZ Sign Language would only be for local New Zealand use, and (b) we (currently) don't know anyone in our daily life who uses it, so (currently) it would only be used in the classroom.  We feel, then, that the girls learnt enough in term 4 that should they ever need to know it in future they will already have a sense of what to do.

Cantonese, however, is much more practically useful for us.  It is Mama's second native language, and in everyday life she uses it with some of her friends and family.  Mulan and Miya would be able to connect much better with the extended family, and also it would allow them to fit in better whenever we return to Guangzhou.

The obvious other plus for Cantonese is that Mama is the teacher, so lessons are free!

Meanwhile, I have restarted formal Mandarin lessons (also with Mama).  I learnt for a year full time back in 2008/9, and since then I have sort-of made do with partly understanding bits in everyday life.  But we thought I should return to weekly lessons.  It is painful, but for the best.

Book review: N K Jemisin

A few months ago I read about N K Jemisin winning her third Hugo Award in a row.  Apparently this is a first -- no one had ever won three in a row before.

I'd never heard of Jemisin, but the blog post was provocatively enticing, and her acceptance speech was funny with bite.

Curious, I requested one of her books from the library.  I was hooked.  I requested more.  I've now read:

Inheritance Trilogy:
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010)
The Broken Kingdoms (2010)
The Kingdom of Gods (2011)
The Awakened Kingdom (2014)

Dreamblood duology:
The Killing Moon (2012)
The Shadowed Sun (2012)

Broken Earth series:
The Fifth Season (2015)
The Obelisk Gate (2016)
The Stone Sky (2017)

And I'm still wanting more.  I have to say, Jemisin is now one of my all-time favourite authors.  When I run through in my mind the various aspects of what, to me, makes a good book, these books have it all to near perfection.

I won't suggest Mulan read them just yet.  There's some challenging stuff in there.  But in another five years or so she might be ready for it.

So, what's so good about Jemisin's writing?  Saying everything would take way too long, but I'll say a quick few things.

First off, a good novel needs to have plausible, interesting, three-dimensional characters.  Jemisin's books have those.  In fact, Jemisin is one of the best writers I can think of who can get into the heads of her characters.

This isn't all that surprising.  Apparently, before becoming a fulltime writer, Jemisin was a counselor.  Her first couple of book series above were written while also working fulltime.  I can only assume that over the course of many, many hours of helping people, she has built up a pretty good understanding of what makes people tick.  And then she is able to put that into her characters.  Her characters are uniquely flawed, contradictory, whole, real, relatable people.  It is a pleasure to spend time with them.

On top of that, Jemisin is a wonderfully creative world-builder.  For those who are not aware, the Hugo Awards are for science fiction works.  Jemisin's books (at least all those above that I read) are squarely in the speculative fiction camp, either fantasy or science fiction or some sort of mix.  Each of Jemisin's three series above are set in a uniquely different world -- each amazingly creative and unique in themselves.  That Jemisin has managed, in such a short writing time, to develop not one, but three fascinatingly complex worlds is impressive.

(Mama tells me that one of the big praises Chinese readers have for Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem is his creative world-building.  They should read some of Jemisin's novels to get an idea of what real creative world-building is about!)

The third big thing I noticed about Jemisin's books is her mastery of stringing words together.  She shows her expertise in the rules and history of writing.  And then she breaks the rules to make it even better.  Reading her writing is a true pleasure.

Fourthly, Jemisin's stories are un-put-down-able.  There are plot twists and turns and excitement galore.

Fifthly (and finally), Jemisin's stories quite clearly have social and moral messages.  Her books are not merely entertaining stories set in another universe (although they are that, too).  They also have plenty to say about our world, our society, and real people.  The Broken Earth series is her most mature work (although the other two series are excellent in this regard, too).  Part of it's message is a subtle and sensitive commentary on US race history.  It is well worth reading for this alone.

(And then we read true stories like this one.  All in combination, it hits hard.)

UPDATE 15/1/2019: I've just finished reading Jemisin's Mass Effect Andromeda Initiation, which she co-authored with Mac Walters.  It's a pretty dull read, and is absent all of Jemisin's usual distinctiveness.

Book review: Under the mountain

Mulan and I both just finished reading Maurice Gee's Under the Mountain (1979).

I suggested it to Mulan, along with Gee's O trilogy (The Halfmen of O, The Priests of Ferris and Motherstone), and she read them all within a few days.

This was the first time I'd looked at Under the Mountain since I read it when I was about Mulan's age.  It held up extremely well; I recommend it.  Mulan also really enjoyed Gee's books.

For those who don't know, Gee is a local New Zealand author who has written many excellent books, both for children and adults.  Under the Mountain was made into a popular TV series back in the early 80s, and a few years ago was remade as a movie.

At 160 pages, Under the Mountain is a short book, but each chapter is tensely exciting.  It tells the story of twins, who are about Mulan's age, coming to Takapuna to stay with their aunt and uncle over the summer holidays.

Yeah, the book is set just a short walk from where we live!  Many of our local landmarks are featured -- Lake Pupuke, Rangitoto Island, the beaches, the shops, the Harbour Bridge.  And it is all still recognisable -- not much has changed in the past 40 years.  (The main things that stood out for me as having changed were that the Harbour Bridge tollbooths are now gone, One Tree Hill lost its tree, and the city's population has tripled.)

The tense excitement happens because Aunt and Uncle have weird neighbours, the Wilberforces, who turn out to be worm-like aliens intent on turning Earth into a mud-planet.  And the twins are the only people in the galaxy who can stop them (with the help of another neighbour, Mr Jones, who also turns out to be an alien).  It is a simple, silly premise, but an excellent, exciting story.

We found the old TV series version on Youtube.  We plan on watching it over the next several days.

Gymnastics (and the gym)

For the past two years, Mulan and Miya have been attending a gymnastics class for homeschoolers at our local YMCA.  It has been brilliant for them, and I highly recommend it.

Recently, the teacher pulled me aside and suggested that Mulan has outgrown the class.  (The class is theoretically for up to 12-year-olds, but even Miya is one of the biggest there.)  The teacher was very nice about it, and suggested that Mulan do an after-school class.

Unfortunately, our after school times are almost completely booked up with ballet these days.  I don't want to add another after school activity.

So, I checked out the North Harbour Gymnastics website, and happily they have a class at one of our few remaining free times -- Sunday mornings.  Their final class of the year was yesterday morning, so we all went along to check it out.  It looks really good, so we have booked Mulan in to start there in term 1 of next year.

(Our main comment was that some of the coaches look so young -- one boy's voice hadn't even broken yet.  While they may be good gymnasts, we doubted the teaching experience of some.  I could see that sometimes the coaches weren't following up on students who weren't as involved, so my advice to Mulan was that she will need to be somewhat proactive in taking charge of her own learning.)

Miya will continue next year with the homeschooler class at the YMCA (another few terms and she will get a free T-shirt for attending 100 lessons!).

So, our next question was what could Mulan do while Miya is in her YMCA gymnastics class.

Out of curiosity, I asked about the minimum age for joining the gym at the YMCA.  And it's 11.  Perfect.  So, Mama and I cancelled our individual YMCA gym memberships, instead signing up for a family membership (at just $2 per week more).  When Miya is doing the gymnastics, Mulan can join me in the gym!

We met up with Laura, the wonderful YMCA gym manager/trainer, and she is making a training programme for each of us (Mama's and mine were ready to be updated).  Laura even said that Miya could do a bit in the gym with us, too!  We'll meet with Laura tomorrow to go through our new programmes.

We had been wondering what exercise activities to do over summer, with all our term-based activities (ballet, gymnastics, swimming, athletics) finishing.  And this fills the gap perfectly!

Harry Potter 3

Today, I finished reading aloud to Mulan and Miya the third Harry Potter book.  As expected, we all thoroughly enjoyed it.

I reviewed it here back when Mulan and I first read it.  There's not really much more to add, except it reminded me just how horrible Snape is!  Whatever else happens, Snape is still a bad guy.

MERC

On Monday, the girls and I went to MERC.  That's the short way of saying Sir Peter Blake Marine Education and Recreation Centre.

The homeschoolers booked the Centre for the day, and 120 kids were there between 9 am and 4 pm.  They got divided into 10 groups, with each group doing three different activities.

Miya's three activities were abseiling, boarding and dingy, while Mulan's were boarding, raft building and archery.  The boarding was supposed to be body boarding, but the sea was completely flat so instead they did giant stand-up paddle boards that could hold 13 people.

Both girls learnt a bit about knots (Miya while doing abseiling and Mulan while doing raft building) and both have come away inspired to do more knot-related stuff at home.

They both really enjoyed their two water activities (of course) -- any time in the water is always a good time.  But Mulan's water activities were more educational than Miya's.  With both of Miya's water activities, it was mostly just jumping on and off the board/dingy and playing in the water.  I felt that was a little disappointing -- they could have learnt a bit of rowing/paddling.  Mulan paddled on the board, while the raft building was mostly about learning how to tie barrels together and design a raft that didn't fall apart in the water (their raft held together while the other team's raft fell apart).

Both the abseiling for Miya and the archery for Mulan were first times for them.  It was a great educational opportunity, and Miya even said that she enjoyed the abseiling the most out of her three activities.

So, yeah, a great day was had by all, except that we were so busy that we forgot to put sunblock on and our faces got a little pink!

Music concert

Belmont Music Centre had its end of year concert yesterday.

It was really enjoyable, and not just because Mulan and Miya were both performing.

Mulan played three different instruments in three different groups.  Miya played two different instruments in two different groups.

Mulan's senior flute class (two students and their teacher) played one piece.

Mulan and Miya's senior recorder class (three students) played two pieces on three different sized recorders (soprano, alto and tenor).

And Mulan played the cello while Miya played the violin in the string band.

Both girls got a handful of certificates each for all the classes/groups they are in, and both got a medal (Mulan for senior flute and Miya for senior violin).

Over summer, Mulan will continue the music by having private cello lessons with her Music Centre teacher.

Next year, both girls will continue again at the Music Centre with their same instruments (Mulan with recorder, flute and cello; Miya with recorder and violin).  Mulan also plans to have flute lessons with Gugu (alongside cousin Maria), working towards sitting the Grade 3 flute exam during the year.

And both girls will continue learning the ukulele with Yeye.

Book review: Harry Potter and the cursed child

Mulan and I finished reading Harry Potter and the Cursed Child recently.

Or, more accurately, within a couple of days of getting it out of the library, Mulan had read it twice through.  I was a bit slower, and have only read it once.  I think Mulan plans to read it a third time before returning it to the library.

Obviously, we're big Harry Potter fans, and this was a Harry Potter book, so all good, right?  Well not quite.

I mean, we both still really enjoyed the book.  The story was exciting and fun, as we learnt more about the familiar characters "19 years later" and more.  The Time-Turner plot point was obviously put in so that the reader/play audience could conveniently do "back-tos" to the old, familiar Harry Potter school days times.  And it worked in that sense, even though Time-Turners inevitably create plot holes and inconsistencies.

(Yeah, I'm not going to say any more about what happens in the story.  I don't want to spoil anything for Miya, as she is only onto the third book.)

That the book was the script of a play, and not a novel, made the reading a bit different.  But that was good too -- I liked that this enabled Mulan to read a different type of writing.

To me, though, the big problem was the story writing.  It was just done badly.  One thing I always like about Rowling's writing is that she knows how to string words together to make reading a pleasure.  But in this case she apparently didn't actually write the story.  I think I am right to say she had the story idea, and then the words were written by John Tiffany and Jack Thorne.  And I don't think Tiffany and Thorne did a very good job.

I felt the writing was too simplistic.  Everything was up front and on the surface.  All the issues were (sometimes painfully) said out loud by the characters.  It was dull and dumbed down, with no subtlety or character depth.  This meant that many of the characters didn't seem like themselves -- they had turned into two-dimensional cartoon versions of themselves.  Maybe this has something to do with the necessities of writing a play as opposed to a novel.  Or, more precisely, maybe this has something to do with writing a play for a mass, pop audience.  Did they think that anything that required a bit of brain power to process would scare away the ticket-buyers?

So, yeah, it was a book that was fun for already existing Harry Potter fans.  But, objectively speaking, it was a so-so work -- if it didn't have the Harry Potter names attached to it, I probably wouldn't have bothered with it.

Ballet show

Mulan and Miya had their end of year ballet show over the weekend.  This was for their ballet school, Rowe Dance, doing Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

They did two performances -- one on Saturday and one on Sunday.  In total, probably a few hundred people watched the shows.  Mama and I went to see it on Sunday, and it was awesome!  It was a really well-arranged show, and the children danced beautifully.

Of course, I was totally proud of Mulan and Miya, as they both danced in three dances each.

For the past several weeks they have all been super-busy with their preparations, and last week Mulan was there practicing and performing for seven days in a row (Miya was only needed for six of the seven days!).

The school prize-giving was directly after Sunday's show, and Mulan was acknowledged as gaining the third equal best marks in the school for this year's RAD exams.

And with the show, ballet is over for the year.  (Except for a one-off class next week taught by an RNZB dancer/choreographer.)

Homeschool athletics day

The Auckland homeschoolers are having an athletics day this summer.

It's all booked -- mark you calendars for Wednesday 13 February 2019 (or 20th, if it rains on the 13th).

It seems that I am in charge of it.  Why?

Well, each year about 20 or so local schools do their athletics days at Onewa Domain, the home grounds of Takapuna Athletic Club.  This year I have taken over the job at the Club to help these schools on their athletics days.  In the morning (around 8 am), I unlock the grounds and clubrooms, and help the schools set up the Club equipment.  Then, in the afternoon (around 2 pm), I check everything is safely packed away and lock it all back up again.  In all, it probably takes about one to two hours each day.

Mulan and Miya come along with me each time to help, and it has been a very worthwhile learning experience for them.  (Most fascinating has been observing the schools and teachers; I may write something here at the end of the season!)

Anyway, I mentioned to the homeschoolers at HASCA that we should also have our own homeschool athletics day.  One thing led to another, and I have now set the dates with both Takapuna Athletics and HASCA.

Our vision of the day is that it will be a fairly relaxed and fun chance for the homeschool kids to have a go and try things out.  Kids who have never done athletics are very welcome, and we will aim to do a little coaching for the newbies.

The reason for this is that homeschool kids who are already athletics-experienced will (hopefully) already be involved in their local athletics clubs.  Athletics clubs do athletics better than schools do, and there is no need to duplicate things.

But alongside the newbie-helping, we will also run the event competitions.  We still want it to be fairly competitive, and I think HASCA is planning to do certificates, etc for the winners.

The cost for the day will be minimal -- probably just a few dollars per child to cover the costs.  HASCA will organise the registrations and fees, and will no doubt start advertising it in the near future.

Congratulations Miya

Miya competed in her first interclub athletics competition yesterday.  It was also her first time competing on a rubber track.

This was a relay competition; Miya was in the Takapuna Grade 8 girls team.  She ran in both the  4x100m and the 4x200m, as well as doing the shot put for the field events relay.

It was an awesome experience for Miya, both watching and competing alongside some great young athletes.  It was also a very enjoyable family day outing for all of us.

Before this, Miya hadn't had much experience doing relays, so on Friday evening (after ballet class) she and I had a bit of a training session at the track.  It probably took about 30 minutes to go through the basics of baton passing, and getting her to think about when to start running so she was up to speed to receive.  By the end of the session she had got the idea and was starting to get fairly smooth with our baton passes back and forth.

The four girls did brilliantly on the day, comfortably winning both the 4x100m and 4x200m.  Miya was delighted to get her first ever gold medal, for the 4x100m.  Unfortunately though, they were disqualified in the 4x200m.  Apparently there were two mistakes made -- someone stepped out of the lane, and a baton change was made outside of the changeover zone.  The girls all took the bad news well, and as disappointing as it was they all probably learnt a lot from the situation.

The field events relay was a lot tougher.  They only got two throws/jumps each, and no warmup throws/jumps.  Miya's throws were decent, though not at her best.  But we all enjoyed watching the power and skill of the best throwers.

The girls have qualified to enter the Auckland Relay Champs in the 4x100m on the 8th of December.  Unfortunately Miya can't make it because she is performing at the Belmont Music Centre end of year concert on that day.  Another girl will run in Miya's place -- all the best to them!!

Book review: Alice in Wonderland

I mentioned before that I was reading aloud to the girls Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.  Well, we finished them a few days ago.

I'm pretty sure I read the first book to Mulan several years ago when we were still living in China, but she didn't remember much of it.

We were motivated to read them because Mulan and Miya's ballet production this year is inspired by Carroll's books.  (Mulan is in three dances -- the Mock Turtle in the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, part of the Caterpillar, and a Card.  Miya is also in three dances -- the Sea of Tears, a guest at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, and a Chef.)

Carroll's famous books are, at one and the same time, both a simple story of a Miya-aged girl dreaming about meeting up with some funny/crazy people and also a complicated social commentary.  We didn't get into discussing the social commentary stuff much, but the girls enjoyed the crazy humour of Alice's adventures.  They also really enjoyed connecting it with their dances.

Carroll includes some really interesting poems/songs in the books, and we did the typical school-ish activity with Jabberwocky.  You probably know what I am referring to:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

One night when Mulan was in bed (and Miya was already asleep) we got to chatting about what it meant.  She had some ideas, and we started thinking about how different people might see it differently.  So, we decided that all four of us (Mulan, Miya, Mama and me) should secretly write down on a piece of paper what we think it means, and then "present" our interpretation to each other and compare.

Well, we did just that the next day.  Independently, Mulan did a poster-style analysis of the poem, complete with pictures, "biological/geographical information" and "history" of how researchers learnt about the animals and environment.

It really is interesting that, unschool style, Mulan did something that would not look out of place on a classroom wall.

I mentioned what we had done to Gugu, and the cousins all did the same thing.  We plan to meet up and compare everyone's interpretations, but so far it is hard to find a time when everyone is available and in one place (maybe next week at Nainai's birthday party.)

We are now a couple of chapters into reading aloud Harry Potter number 3.  (I read aloud 1 and 2 earlier this year.)

Congratulations Mulan and Miya

I mentioned before that Mulan and Miya did their ballet exams.  They got their results back yesterday.

Mulan did the RAD Grade 5 exam, and got distinction!

Miya did the RAD Grade 2 exam, and got merit!

Both girls improved on their marks from last year -- Mulan got 3 more and Miya got 13 more.

Crash Course Philosophy

Just over a year ago I mentioned that I was using the video series Ethics Matters with a couple of my paying young-teen students (both teens separately, as one-to-one students).  We finished it a few months ago.

It is an excellent series and it was well worth the time spent on it.  There are 12 12-minute videos in the series.  It took us about 24 one-hour lessons to go through it all.  We'd stop and start the videos, discussing the content as we went.

With one of the students (who prefers to learn through videos rather than books) I have now started working through Crash Course Philosophy, which is 46 10-ish-minute videos.  After 12 lessons we are now partway through #12 in the series.

From what I see of the series so far, it is like someone has looked at the standard first-year university philosophy courses (metaphysics/epistemology, ethics, logic) and grabbed the topics covered.  Each episode then summarises in ten minutes what might have been an hour-long lecture plus readings.

Honestly, Crash Course Philosophy is not nearly as good as Ethics Matters.  In general I really like Crash Course (I've written about it before here), and while their philosophy series is not bad, it doesn't have quite the same sharpness that Ethics Matters has.  The presenter, Hank Green, is very smart and well-read, but it is clear that he has not had much philosophical training and his logical reasoning is sometimes not quite so spot on.  He misses things and blurs things every once in a while.  It really is a shame that they didn't get a trained philosopher in to head the series.

I plan to continue with Crash Course Philosophy with this student, and I recommend it as a nice introduction/advertisement for philosophy, but, yeah, Ethics Matters is still my favourite teen-level online teaching video series.

Rubik's cube

The Rubik's Cube is in fashion at the moment.

While we were away in China the cousins got into it, so when we got back at the end of July Mulan and Miya immediately tried it, too.

At first they were using my old classic early-80s cube, which I got when I was their age.  But those ones are incredibly stiff and slow, so when Miya had her birthday a few weeks later we gave her a new, modern speed cube.

The girls have been regularly working on it over the past few months.  Mulan has been able to complete it for a while now, and her fastest time has been steadily dropping.  Today, she got a new best time of 1 minute 37 seconds.

Miya has been slower to memorise the algorithms, but yesterday she proudly announced to me that she can now complete it, too.

And would you believe it, but Miya did it in 1 minute 14 seconds today!  Apparently it was a very lucky scramble, as she had far fewer algorithms to do on the final layer.

UPDATE: Mulan just fact-checked this.  She informs me that Miya's other times today were over 2 minutes.  But lucky scrambles still count as records, so Miya has the house record for now!  Two of the cousins can do it in under 1 minute.

My birthday pressie

I got a lovely birthday pressie from Miya this week.

For some days previously she'd been secretly doing something on the computer.  It turns out she'd been writing stories -- five four of them -- and then she printed them off for me.  So, I got a seven-page book of original short stories.

Beautiful!

UPDATE: Oops, Mulan just told me that she wrote the fifth story (and she also spell-checked it all).

Sign language

One thing I forgot to include in our Term 4 plans was that we are doing a New Zealand Sign Language course.

This is something new for us, although in the past Mulan and Miya have both, unschool style, played with signing and kinda learnt the alphabet.

The course, run through HASCA, is only four one-hour lessons over four weeks.  Quite clearly it is intended merely as a quick introduction.  I haven't heard if they are going to continue it more seriously afterwards, but it would be awesome if they did.

Well, we had our first lesson on Friday.  I counted 19 kids in the class, ranging from five to maybe about 15.  Most kids were around eight to ten, I guess.  At first it was said that us parents couldn't go in, and I was just saying goodbye to the girls when it seems there was a change of plans and we were invited to stay.  Awesome -- I think it is important that we know what is going on in the classroom so we can help the kids outside of the classroom.

The teacher is deaf and spoke to the class entirely in Sign Language.  She also had an interpreter speaking in English for us as she signed.  This, in itself, was a great experience for the kids.  And I think this alone made the lessons worthwhile.  The interpreter stood at the back, and it was emphasised that the kids look at the teacher and speak directly to her, not the interpreter.

In practice, the lesson really was a quick introduction to the idea of Sign Language.  It was not a proper first lesson to a new foreign/second language.

Over the course of one hour, the teacher presented about 50 signs.  This was the alphabet (a sign for each letter a to z), the numbers 0 to 10, and several greetings signs so that the kids could say hello, ask a person's name, say their own name, say happy to meet you, and say I don't know or don't understand.  That is a lot!

Obviously, it was done very fast.  And in a class of 19 students the teacher was unable to individually check the kids were getting it right.  I noticed many kids were mirroring the teacher rather than doing the correct hands, and many were struggling to hold their hands correctly.  Almost all went uncorrected.

I think I am right to say that neither Mulan nor Miya got any individual attention from the teacher for the entire lesson.  However she did pick out a couple of students who she helped several times -- both the youngest and the oldest children.

Nonetheless the teacher was confident and organised in the lesson.  She alternated smoothly between presenting the language and organising activities for language practice.  It looks like she has taught this many times before.

But realistically, it was too much, too quickly, and with too many students for it to count as a genuine foreign/second language lesson.  As I say, it was a fun taste, and a well done fun taste.  However, if it was to continue more long term I would expect it to be structured very differently.

Sydney

Schools had their holidays a few weeks ago, so a lot of our classes had stopped.  It was a good time for us to hop across to Sydney, Australia and have a bit of a look around.

I have no idea if this counts as a holiday for us or an educational class trip.  It certainly wasn't relaxing.  But it was lots of fun, and we did learn a few things.

For me it was also partly a "back-to".  I’d lived in Sydney for a year in 1980, and had often visited as a child, but I hadn’t been back for 25 years.  For Mama, Mulan and Miya it was their first time in Australia.

Day 1 (Sunday 30 September 2018): Arriving in Sydney

We missed the bus!

We'd prepaid for the airport shuttle bus, from home to Auckland Airport, and we missed it.  I blame Mama; she blames me.  But the end result was that we had to phone Gugu and ask her to drive us to the airport.

This was all around 5:15 in the morning.  Our flight was supposed to leave at 8:15 am.  And it was the morning that daylight savings started, so we had lost an hour overnight and were still kinda tired.

Luckily Gugu was awake, and she was able to get us to the airport in time.

We had booked the cheapest flight, which was with Jetstar, and you get what you pay for.  We had to pay extra for any check-in luggage, and we opted to check in one 15 kg bag.  No food was provided during the flight, so we brought our own home-made sammies.

And then the flight was delayed one and a half hours after we boarded.  The pilot was informative, letting us know what was happening.  Firstly, they had to reset the computers — the paperwork for which seemed to take longer than fixing the problem itself.  Then a passenger at the terminal reported that a door was open on our plane.  Better to be safe than sorry, and they called out the engineers to re-check the plane.  It turned out that the door was supposed to be open (air-con, I think they said).

Sydney still hadn’t started daylight savings, and our 10 am Sydney-time arrival was three hours behind New Zealand.  Mama’s friend, Kane, picked us up from the airport and drove us to our home, which was a new apartment Kane’s friend had recently bought out west in Toongabbie.

Our home was like a very scaled-down version of our Chengdu apartment.  Like Chengdu, we were in an apartment complex with shops underneath, an open area (with swimming pool and tennis court) above the shops, and a few apartment buildings sprouting up from the open area.  The train station was also just a few minutes’ walk away.  The big difference was that the Toongabbie building was somewhat smaller — the top floor was only level 6, and the open area was one floor above the ground.  We were also on the first floor.

(The view from our balcony of Toongabbie, with the train station in the distance.)

After lunch we visited Kane's home, which was just a few minutes away over the train tracks.  Kane and family have planted a beautiful garden, making their home look the nicest in his street.  Walking home again, and wandering around the local area, we stopped off at a couple of playgrounds.  Toongabbie seems a bit run down — there is graffiti everywhere, and a sign at the big playground warned people of syringes.  One morning when we came out of our apartment the lift smelt of vomit.

Day 2: Opera House and Botanic Garden

Sydney gets light very early at this time of year, and we woke with the sunlight soon after 5 am.

We caught the train into the city centre, transferring at Central and arriving at Circular Quay.  We hugely enjoyed the train announcers’ personalities.  Mostly transport announcers sound like, well, transport announcers.  But we got some fun ones here — one man was very laid back, while one woman was ultra-perky.  One announcer pronounced Quay as “kwee,” and we started to doubt ourselves and think that that was the proper local pronunciation.  But in later trips the announcers all said “kee.”

The local Sydney city trains are convenient, though confusing.  Unlike other cities where the trains run repeatedly on the same set lines, Sydney city trains are a bit like intercity trains in that different lines run at different times.  Trips need more advanced planning, as not all trains stop at the smaller stations.  Mama was in charge of planning, using the online planner on her phone, and often we were running for the train in the mornings.

The girls soon got into a habit on the trains of playing a train station memory game.  They took it in turns to name a station, and by the end of our holiday I think they had both memorised almost every train station in Sydney.

Mama had read that the view from Circular Quay train station is the best of any train station in the world.  I’d believe that; I can’t think of any other train station with such a stunning view.

From Circular Quay we walked towards the Sydney Opera House, following the “Writers Walk” — circles placed periodically in the footpath describing various Australian-influenced writers.  I didn’t recognise many of the local writers, though there were several big-name international writers who had visited Sydney some 100 or so years ago and then incorporated their experiences into their novels.

Mama's immediate reaction to the Opera House was that she thought it looked smaller in real life.  We walked a circuit around the Opera House, also noting that up close it looked a bit rough and unfinished.  But of course it is still an incredibly stunning building, especially when viewed from further away.

We ate on the grassy area overlooking the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge.  What an amazing view, and there was almost no one around!  We saw our first wild cockatoo (with a number on its wing) perched in a tree.  We saw plenty more later.

The grassy area was the start of the Royal Botanic Garden, and after eating we continued walking through the Garden, alongside the water, to Mrs Macquaries Point.  Along the way the girls found and climbed an excellent tree (one of the best they have ever climbed, they said).  We saw several ibises wandering around the Garden (again, the first of many).

It was a bit more exposed and windier at the Point than it had been elsewhere in the Garden.  But the girls finally got a chance to dabble their feet in the water, as the rock seawall ended and we were able to walk over rocks and into the water.

At the Point, we looked back across the bay towards the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.  Looking in the other direction we could see a naval base, where a large ship was tied up.

Mrs Macquaries Chair, at the Point, was a natural-looking section of the cliff where it appeared that the lower part had been carved out by water, leaving an overhang.  One could sit on the rocky chair and be protected from the rain by the overhang.

Turning around, we wandered back through the Garden, but this time along different paths and further away from the waterfront.  Arriving back at Circular Quay around 3 pm we caught the train home.

Mama wasn't having a complete holiday from work, and she needed to go to Kane's house to do some online stuff in the evening.  She did this a few other evenings, too.

Day 3: Manly

This was my big back-to day, as we visited my old home area.

We’d heard that the trains are cheaper after 9 am, so we left home just after that time, again getting off at Circular Quay.  From there, we caught the 10:30 am ferry to Manly, which took about 30 minutes.

While standing outside the ferry building, we were given a couple of information booklets by a red-shirted tourism volunteer.  One of the booklets informed us that Manly is called Manly because when Arthur Philip arrived in 1788 he thought the local Kay-ye-my Aboriginal people looked very manly.

Until I read that, it had never even crossed my mind that Manly was anything more than just a place name.  And now I'll never see it in the same way again.  It's like how when Mama first arrived in New Zealand she laughed at our big department store chain, Farmers.  It had also never occurred to me before; Farmers is just like a big advertisement saying that New Zealanders are countryside folk!

From the Manly Wharf we walked the short distance along “The Corso,” the pedestrian street, to the beach.  Hungry already, we ate sitting on Manly beach.  This early in the summer, the wind was still a little icy, but the sun was warm and the sky was blue and there were plenty of sunbathers about.  Mulan and Miya were curious to see that all the women wore bikinis.  In China they are used to women wearing one-pieces with frills.  In New Zealand they don’t wear the frills, but they still usually wear the one-pieces.

Heading north along the beach we soon found one of my old back-to sites, the “Trident” building.  I had stayed there during a two-week holiday back in 1982.  Conveniently there was a playground just in front of it, where the girls played for a while.

At the north end of Manly Beach we felt the water of the Rockpool.  A couple of swimmers went in and out quickly, but the water was pretty icy for sustained swimming.  We walked up the cliff and over to Freshwater Beach.  A large lizard (maybe 30 cm or so) was wandering across the path as we walked down.  The girls played in another playground at the beach, just in front of Nainai and Yeye’s old house they had lived in about 50 years ago.

From Freshwater Beach we walked up to the Harbord shops.  Harbord was my home suburb in 1980, and I think I recognised some areas.  We passed through Jacka Park, where we stopped at the playground for a short time.  This was where magpies used to swoop down on us back in the day, but none were there this time.

Then it was on to 16 Wyadra Ave, my old home.  And it still looks the same!  From there, we walked past Gugu’s old school, Harbord Public School, then past my old kindergarten, before arriving at Curl Curl Beach.

After (impatiently) waiting all day, the girls finally got to have a swim at the Curl Curl Rockpool.  It was icy cold, but the three of us all managed to swim for a bit.  Mama had conveniently failed to bring her togs to Australia.

As the sun got lower the air got colder, and shivering a little we caught the 4:30 pm bus to Warringah Mall (another old memory), where we caught another bus over the Harbour Bridge to Wynyard.  From there, we caught the train back home.

We had dinner with Kane's family in the evening.  My face and shoulders were pink with sunburn.

Day 4: Harbour Bridge, Wendy's Garden, Luna Park

Yet again, in the morning we caught the train to Circular Quay.  But this time we turned left from the train station towards the Harbour Bridge.

We walked the other half of the Writers Walk, again reading about the local writers, before going through The Rocks and taking the stairs up and onto the Harbour Bridge.  We could feel the bridge swaying slightly with the movement of the cars and trains as we walked the length to the northern side.  The view was beautiful from the middle, and it was another pleasant day (though slightly more overcast).

Off the bridge at the other side, we continued north before turning into Lavender Street where we then walked down and into Wendy Whiteley’s Secret Garden.  Apparently, some 20 or so years ago it was just a scrubby public-land hillside.  Needing something to distract her after the death of her husband, Wendy, who knew nothing about gardening but was an artist, started working on the hillside.  What she has created is amazingly beautiful and unique.  It is a definite must-see when in Sydney.  After wandering back and forth along the paths, we sat and simply relaxed for quite a while in the garden.  While sitting, we heard some spooky laughter and a couple of kookaburras landed in the tree above us.

From Wendy’s Garden we walked the short distance to Luna Park, which, while uniquely artistic in its own way, is kinda the opposite in feel to Wendy’s Garden.  For those who don’t know, Luna Park is the famous old-style carnival amusement park, which first opened in the 1930s.  We walked through the park, stopping periodically to watch the rides.

From Luna Park it was a short walk to Milsons Point train station, where we took a direct train back home.  Our train went over the Harbour Bridge, so we had walked, bussed and trained over the bridge.

Day 5: Rest day

We needed a rest day after the long days of sightseeing, and the weather said so too.  Overnight it started raining, and it drizzled for most of the day.  Our best weather was over, and most of the remaining days were cloudy or rainy.

The girls and I stayed at home all day.  The girls swam twice in the apartment complex pool, while I swam once (in the rain).  The water was cool, but not icy like the Rockpools on Tuesday.  Mama went out in the afternoon with Kane.

Day 6: Australian Museum

A wet day meant an indoor museum day.

We thought the Australian Museum looked the most interesting, so we caught the train to the Museum station and, huddling under umbrellas, walked the short distance across Hyde Park.  There was a bit of a queue outside the museum entrance, and we had to stand under our umbrellas for another several minutes before we got under cover.

We were inside the museum for about six hours in total.  While there was still more that we could have seen, we’d all had enough museum-ing by the end of the day.

We (that is, Mama and I) especially wanted to focus on the local Australian exhibits, so first up we went to the “First Australians” section.  As a child, I had known nothing about the atrocities done to the Aboriginal people by the whitey immigrants.  It was never part of our schooling, and even living in Australia didn’t educate me about this — our Aussie cultural studies schooling consisted mostly of learning a few “Dreamtime” myths.  It has only been in the last few years that I heard about the “Stolen Generations,” and started to realise just how awful the immigrants often were.

At the Museum I learnt a few more shocking facts.  I had known nothing about the apartheid system in place in Australia in the 1960s, nor the 1965 “Freedom Ride” protests which helped start the process towards more equality.  The Australian Museum was thus an excellent eye-opener for me, as we watched the videos and read the displays telling the personal stories of the people involved.

Next we moved into the section that showed various Aboriginal artefacts.  For a culture that is some 40,000 to 60,000 years old, there is surprisingly little remaining.

The girls (Miya especially) were more interested in the animal displays (and were kinda bored with the people stuff).  So, we wandered around the displays that showed the extinct megafauna, kangaroos, etc, before heading into the bird section.  The girls were interested in identifying the various birds that we had seen locally.

Finally, we visited the “top 100 Australians” and “top 100 artefacts” sections.  The former was an opinionated view of influential local people; the latter was the museum’s star artefacts, with a focus on the Pacific area.

Day 7: Blue Mountains

We travelled the furthest this day, all the way to the Blue Mountains.  It was a couple of hours on the train further out west to Katoomba.  The weather was pleasant where we were, though we heard that in Sydney it was rainy.

While there we learnt that the Blue Mountains are blue because of the eucalyptus trees which dominate the forests.  Apparently, eucalyptus oil evaporates into the air from the leaves.  Light refracts through the oil vapour, where it is bent towards the blue end of the spectrum.  What I had initially thought to be smog was actually the slightly bluer light.

At Katoomba train station we caught the local bus to Scenic World, where we bought an all-day pass to the park.  This park combines beautiful mountain scenery and bush walks with historic preservation and stunning rides.

The entrance to the park is at the top of a cliff overlooking a tree-filled valley.  Walks along the top provided stunning scenery of the cliffs and valley below, while walks down below were pleasantly peaceful through the bush.

The historic aspect was the coal mine in the valley.  We saw the entrance to the mine, a miner’s hut and old equipment.

But most importantly, we saw the old train line that brought the coal up the cliff to the town above.  And the line was steep.  They have now turned it into a tourist ride, where it is the steepest passenger train in the world, at 52 degrees.

Our day pass entitled us to ride the railway as often as we wanted, so we rode it seven times.  There was also a cable car, the “Scenic Cableway,” down into the valley, which we rode three times.  And thirdly there was the “Scenic Skyway,” the highest cable car in Australia, which has a glass floor, strung across between cliff tops.  We rode that one twice.

We feel like we got our money’s worth.  We were at the park for about six hours and we caught the final railway up at the end of the day.

Day 8: Ferry, The Rocks, Darling Harbour

We got another daylight savings start, losing an hour overnight, so when we woke up Sydney was only two hours behind New Zealand.

Taking advantage of the cheaper public transport on Sundays, we got the train to Parramatta, where we caught the ferry to Circular Quay.

The ferry ride, which took about an hour, was lovely as we cruised down the Parramatta River.  The main problem was the occasional sharp shower, which combined with the breeze made things a bit chilly outside.  But we still chose to brave the weather — a little wetness was a small price to pay.

From Circular Quay we again turned left towards the Harbour Bridge, but this time we wandered around The Rocks, the old historic area where the new immigrants set up home and business a couple of hundred years ago.  It was fascinating to read about their lives, and see some of the artefacts and old buildings.

The showers continued throughout the day as we had a quick look up at Observatory Hill before catching a train to Central and the light rail to Darling Harbour.

We got off the light rail at Paddy’s Market, as this was another back-to for me.  Back in 1988 I was selected for an athletics team to compete in the Australian children’s national competition.  If I remember rightly, there were 22 of us 11-to-12-year-old Kiwi kids in the team.  When we weren’t competing we got to do a bit of sightseeing, and one of my distinct memories is being dropped off at Paddy’s Market by the adults and wandering around there freely with the rest of the kids, having been told to meet up with the adults again in a few hours.  Call me over-protective, but I don’t think I’d be happy with Mulan doing that now.

Mama wasn’t too impressed with Paddy’s Market, but I enjoyed the back-to.

From the Market we headed to the Harbour.  We took a photo of the girls standing in the sculpture-fountain, where I had stood 30 years ago.  We also had a ride on the Ferris wheel — the girls’ first time on a big one.

It was getting dark around 7 pm, and we watched the lights start to flick on around the harbour.  We caught a ferry from Pyrmont Bay Wharf under the Harbour Bridge to Circular Quay, enjoying seeing the lights on the Opera House and elsewhere.  It was still a little cold and wet, but we again braved the outside for the sake of the view.

From Circular Quay we caught the train home.

Day 9: Wedding Cake Rock

One of Mama’s old school friends now lives in Sydney, and for the catch-up with her it was decided that she would drive us to see the Wedding Cake Rock.

This Rock, which is just over an hour’s drive south, near Bundeena, is hanging off a wild coastal cliff top and looks, unsurprisingly, like a white wedding cake.

The walk from the car park to the Rock is 3.4 km.  Walking slowly out and enjoying the scenery took us a couple of hours, while walking back took us less than an hour.  Again the weather was mixed, and it showered a bit on and off, especially during the walk back.

The Rock, indeed, did look like a wedding cake.  Apparently, the mineral iron has been naturally bleached out of the sandstone rock, making it white.  This bleaching has also weakened the rock, and it has partly cracked away from the rest of the cliff.  A few years ago a geological assessment was made and they concluded that it was highly unstable and could fall at any time.  They fenced it off and put up plenty of warning signs, but we still saw several tourists squeeze through the fence to take their photos on the Rock.

Back in Sydney, Mama had dinner out with her friend, so they dropped the girls and me off at a train station and we caught the train home.

Day 10: Featherdale Wildlife Park

A pleasant day was forecast, and provided, so we went to the zoo.

The zoo of choice was Featherdale Wildlife Park, about 15 minutes drive from our home (Kane drove us there and picked us up).  We were there for about seven hours, and it was just the right amount of time to see everything, in a relaxed way.

Featherdale is a smaller zoo.  It doesn’t have the typical international animals, instead choosing to focus on local Australian ones.  With several of the significant animals, they do feeding/information events throughout the day, and these were definitely worth watching.  We saw in turn, pelicans, fairy penguins, echidna, crocodile, night bats, fruit bats, and dingoes (sadly, the Tasmanian devils weren’t on display).  As part of our entrance package we had our photo taken with a koala, which we were able to stroke.  We were also supplied with kangaroo food, which we handfed to the kangas that hopped freely around us in the enclosures.

When we got home the girls had a 50-minute swim in our apartment complex pool.  This made this and the Blue Mountains trip the girls' favourite days of the holiday.

Day 11: Berry Island Aboriginal rock carvings

A rainy day was forecast, and provided.  But we still wanted to get out and do something, so we decided to go to see the Aboriginal rock carvings at Berry Island.

We caught the train to Wollstonecraft, where we walked the short distance to the Island that isn’t an island.  Rather, back in the day it was a rocky hill connected to the mainland by a sandy bar that was about half a metre above high tide.  When the new immigrants arrived it seems that they had a habit of dragging their boats over the sand until it was eventually eroded away.  It turned into an island briefly before the sand was replaced with a stone walkway.  The connecting land is now a grassy park.

The Aboriginal carvings were faint and very difficult to pick out, but once again it was eye-opening to consider how quickly the culture was lost with the arrival of the settlers.  Smallpox killed many of the Aboriginal people, and with them died the stories that explained the significance of the carvings.  We have no idea of the meaning of the fish-like picture carved in the rock, and with no one from the clan left to re-mark the lines, the sandstone pictures are almost gone.

I write this calmly, but it was anything but calm while reading the information boards in the driving rain (and occasional thunder and lightning).  The 800 metre walk around the perimeter of the “island” was a wet and soggy event, and we were wondering who would win the “wettest clothes” competition (I think it was a four-way tie!).

Beaten by the weather, we arrived back home soon after midday.  The girls had another swim in the apartment pool later in the afternoon.

Day 12: Bondi

Our last day in Sydney, and we wanted to see the famous beach that is Bondi.  Unfortunately the weather still wasn't cooperating, but at least it was better than the day before.

We caught the train to Central, where we caught a connecting bus to Coogee Beach.  The plan was to then walk north following the path along the coast in and out of the bays and over the clifftops until we got to Bondi Beach.

The plan worked mostly well, with the main problem being the occasional shower.  The coastline is indeed stunning in its beautiful wildness, and the walk was enjoyable.  We went in and out past Gordons Bay, Clovelly Beach (which looks nothing like Clovelly in the UK), Nelson Bay and MacKenzies Bay before reaching Bondi Beach.

Overlooking Bondi, Mama said that she still preferred Auckland beaches.  Surprised, I agreed with her, thinking that she would say something about these Sydney beaches being not so good for swimming.  But no, Mama didn't like that Sydney beaches were lacking shady trees to sit under.  Sigh, sometimes Mama is so very Chinese!

From Bondi Beach we caught the bus to Bondi Junction, where we caught the train home.

Day 13 (Friday 12 October): Flight home

We had another early flight, though with departure set for 9:55 am it wasn't quite so painfully early this time.

But yet again our plane was delayed, and this time for three hours.  Our boarding gate changed a couple of times, before we eventually settled in to wait at Gate 26, apparently the gate for all the problematic delayed flights.  Nonetheless the time went by fairly smoothly, people-watching other flights steadily leaving.

When we got on the plane the electrics in the cabin weren't working -- lights, music and air-con were all dead.  The first replacement thingamee box didn't work, and so they needed to scrounge up another replacement.  I overheard one passenger wonder if it was too late to get off the plane -- he declared that he'd rather be late than die.

Eventually we took off, and we survived the flight.  But then there was another minor delay at Auckland Airport when they struggled to connect the plane up with the bridge at the terminal, and everyone was left squeezed into the aisles waiting to get off.

I have no idea if this was all merely several unfortunate coincidences, or whether Jetstar has issues.

Anyway, we caught our airport shuttle bus this time, and we arrived in home just as the sun was setting.  The girls immediately decided that they weren't yet ready to come home and they had a two-night sleepover with the cousins at Gugu's home.  Mama and I played at being Old Couple Alone With Cats for the weekend.

Term 4

We are now into the first week back in Term 4.

(Yup, even though we homeschool, we still have to follow the school term system.)

For most of the two-week holiday break we were over in Sydney, Australia.  It was my first time there in 25 years, while Mama and the girls had never been there.  I wrote a travel diary while we were away.  I'll probably post it here in the near future.

This term, our big focus (once again) is ballet.  The girls' ballet school will be doing a performance (Alice in Wonderland) in December, and they are learning dances for that.  Mulan is having 8 1/4 hours of lessons each week (four days a week), while Miya is having 4 1/2 hours of lessons (three days a week).  They often do ballet at home, too, including teaching the cousins.

As part of getting the girls more independent, last term we were often catching the bus to ballet rather than taking the car.  At first I went with them in the bus, but they are starting to go on their own now, too.  We bought a basic mobile phone for them to take while out and about.

The girls are still doing their music, though lessons don't start until next week.  Mulan is still learning flute, cello, recorder and ukulele.  Miya is still learning violin, recorder and ukulele.  They practice daily, alternating instruments.

Both Mulan and Miya still love the water, and are continuing with their swimming lessons.  In addition to lessons, we go to the public pools once a week for a fun/training session.

The girls are both still doing gymnastics once a week.

And finally, we have (sort-of) started athletics.  I say sort-of, because it clashes with ballet.  Both girls have chosen to prioritise their ballet, but they squeeze in a bit of athletics when they can.  Miya can attend the last half of Wednesday clubnight as well as some of the Monday coaching session.  Mulan may attend the occasional athletics evening when ballet is not on.

Oh, and our "schooling" stuff?  Yeah, that gets done quickly and easily, squeezed into our day:

For maths, both girls are still doing Khan Academy daily, and both are still about two years ahead of their ages.

Both girls are reading heaps -- both our own books and borrowed books from the library.

I continue to read aloud daily to the girls.  At the moment we are (unsurprisingly) reading Alice in Wonderland.

The girls still practice their typing daily.  Mulan gets up to 80 words per minute while Miya gets up to 60 words per minute.

We watch a YouTube video each day while eating lunch.  This varies depending on what jumps out at us.  Sometimes it is from Crash Course.  Sometimes it is ballet.

Both girls are still having Chinese lessons daily with Mama.  They have now joined Mama's Chinese teaching business as paid assistant teachers.  They work with the preschool students, doing Chinese language games and activities.

Our other subjects are typically done more "unschooling" style.