12/7/2013
Olkhon Island, Siberia

In Russia after two nights in a city we went on a 5 hr drive then on a 10 minute car ferry to an island called Olkhon Island.

We went to a playground at a place called ‘Nikita’s Homestead’ where we are staying for a week. We got to hold the dog and the rabbits. Just outside the playground where there is a little water fountain thingy I met some kids named Gabby and Levi who you’ll hear heaps more about later because we became very good friends and we spent four days with them.

The next day we went to breakfast at the canteen – there are three choices – eggs, pancakes and porridge – I don’t really like the porridge which I normally like so I have pancakes and eggs and bread. Then as usual we did words, writing in our journal and maths. We then went to the playground to play with our friends Gabby (Gabby is short for Gabrielle) and Levi. We played with them all day except for lunch and dinner but even then we sat together. Some people thought we were a family of 7 kids and 5 adults- they were travelling with their parents – Luke and Maria and their grandma Kathleen. They were going home to America from a year living in Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong they went to a school called an Academy in Hong Kong. They had some hamsters there. Gabby’s first hamster got its leg caught and died, this happened the first two weeks they were home which was sad. Levi’s one was named Superman, Gabby’s other one was named something like Cutie. Her second one was named Snuggles which suited her because when she wanted to be picked up she would climb on her two hind legs as if she wanted to be picked up.
After dinner that day we played a cat game. I was the owner and Yas was the cat robber. She tried to steal the cats who were Levi, Zoi, Emilio and Gabby – and we tried to save them.

Earlier that day we went to the beach – it was freezing – I dove under twice but it was way way way too freezing to play for too long.

We climbed up high on the rock hills and found some fishermen on the other side. We found special rocks like crystals and glass that had soft edges. There were lots of coins that people had put on the rocks that were offerings to the gods they believe in, or prayers for their good health – I’m not quite sure.

For dinner I had delicious carrot pasta – we all squeezed together on the one table, Baba and mama and Toby had to sit on the window sill.
The next day we did the same thing – after school work we played and played but that cat game totally did not work cause everyone wanted to change which character they were and Emilio was missing cause he took too long with his school work. The lunch was different of course.

We did go to a different beach further along the trail – which I had seen the day before over the cliffs. There was lots of sand, cows on the beach and lots more glass and stones and trees – it was basically just beautiful. We played a game of collecting more special shells and glass. We also went to the place over the cliff where we were throwing rocks the day before but we had to get home quickly because we had booked a Russian Banya which is basically a special type of bath – the way traditional Russians would wash. The banya was cool (actually hot – I mean the other cool – like awesome) and refreshing. It was warm water and you could put cold water on yourself to cool down. After the banya we went to have dinner again and then we all got to sit on one bed and stay up late watching a movie on Luke’s computer – have you heard of it it’s called the Lorax.

It is about a boy who has a friend who really wants to see a real tree because they have only plastic ones. His one at home can do disco on his tree remote, even Autumn, Summer and Winter. And the girl called Audrey had an awesome painting of a tree on a wall. When she went to do some more painting one time it was gone and the wall was completely white because someone had painted over it. This is because they wanted to keep the world free of trees. Towards the end the boy had got a real tree seed and went back to his home. He got the seed from the person who chopped down all the trees to make a sneed in the first place. He re-planted this seed and trees began to grown everywhere. Their names where Tropular something seeds. Someone told them that trees are filthy and they grow in the ground and drop their leaves wherever they want but these trees didn’t do that, they were different – they had some hair sort of things and are softer then silk and they smelt like butterfly milk. They convinced them to be on their side by saying they give fresh air for free and they were all singing a song called ‘Let it grow’ and then Mr Hair came out – he was the only one who didn’t say it – he didn’t want trees to grow because his company sold fresh air out of a can and it would spoil his business. Then he said ‘I say let it die, let it die, let it die’. One of his helpers put a thing on his head that makes people fly and he went zooming off. Out of town where there used to be trees you could see where the tree stumps were because they knocked down the wall and the person who knocked down the trees came out of the building he was living in for hundreds of years and planted the little baby trees – they now dug a hole and sowed the plantings – it grew and grew and grew in the centre of town. Earlier the little boy was dreaming of kissing Audrey and kissed the cereal box instead. His mum asked what he was doing and he said -‘ I do love this cereal’ – as he turned it around. In the end Audrey kissed him on the cheek as he was planting a tree and the there were lots of trees in the world again.
You might wonder why I am not writing about the next day – cause my Baba said I’ve done enough and I need to leave things for the other kids to write about and I talk so fast and he’s a bossy boots.
By Kikibelle