Zen Hoflich

I woke up with a start. I ate breakfast, and studied, and took a shower and combed my hair and brushed my teeth and wore my clothes and I went out and went downstairs faster than a cat in a rat race. The school bus came and took me immediately to school. First we did mother tongue, and did math and English and PE. I went back home and I was so excited. First I watched TV faster than a cat in a rat race. Then I ate dinner, took a shower, brushed my teeth, combed my hair and wore my clothes for going to Japan. We arrived at Changi Airport at 10:30 PM, went inside, bought presents for all my cousins, and went inside the airplane at last. The airplane took off with a “whooooom” sound and we arrived at Kansai International Airport in Osaka on Friday, May 29th at 8:30 AM. We got on the bus and went to Himeji, faster than a cat in a rat race. When we reached there, we immediately took Ojii-chan’s car that was parked right in front of the bus terminal. In two week when Mama and I were alone in Japan, we ate a lot of sushi in Himeji. Baa-chan bought a Bakugan shooter for me, I was so super happy, I couldn’t even believe it. I also went to a Japanese school and made lots of friends, like Ohmichi, Wada, Ohnishi Kazuma, and Matsuo Fuuta. I played with them a lot, like Ohmichi and Wada. We played on the slide and most of the time I got lost, so I just went back to class. We also practiced for the sports day that was going to happen on the 14th of June. We did “One Park Hurricane,” running, and a dance called “Dragonball.” Heguri-sensei was my teacher, she was good at teaching. I loved math, inside math I loved learning about millimetres.

My cousins in Himeji are Haruka, Nanaka, Yuuta, Shiota and Daichi. Haruka loves to do DS games. Nanaka loves dancing, likes the song “Truth” by Arashi. Yuuta loves to do sports, he loves baseball, running, jumping, hopping and every sort of thing in sports, except basketball, volleyball, football, ohsama dodgeball. Shiota loves to walk around, he is so tiny, he is about 75 centimetres tall. Daichi is tall and he loves me, but he doesn’t often play with me.

One day we went to a stadium near Tegaraiyama in Himeji because we wanted to see Haruka’s running, and Haruka came in second twice.

When papa came to Himeji, I was so excited and I was running back home faster than a cat in a rat race. I ran upstairs to see papa, and he was sleeping because he flew all night. He will give me a present when I do good at the sports day on the 14th of June. And finally we will go to Hokkaido. On Saturday Yuuta had a sports day, when I came back Nanaka was so excited because Peter came yesterday.  So we two ran to Ojii-chan and Obaa-chan’s house and finally Papa saw this Arashi fan girl.  On Sunday I woke up very early, got ready, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, wore my clothes, and finally I could go to school at 7:30 AM.  I love sports day.  We did “One Pack Hurricane,” where you run around.  I was in the middle. 

Then we did running, I was third, so I did a good job.  Papa was happy, so he gave me presents – they were two Beast Quest books: Nanook the Snow Monster and Epos the Flame Bird.  Then we had a nice lunch, I ate a lot of things like onigiri, mini sausages and egg.  The kids had two teams, the red team and the white team.  My team won, I was on the white team.  Finally, it was night time, everyone was ready to go to Hokkaido.  We packed everything and we went to sleep.
I woke up at 5:30 AM.  Everyone was so excited, even me of course.  I really wanted to go to Hokkaido.  Jii-chan drove us to the train station and we got onto the bullet train.  I did homework in the bullet train and soon we took a regular train.  It was “Super Hakuto.”  In the Super Hakuto it was very fast, and we could go to the front part. 

The train went into a tunnel, which took 25 minutes to go from Honshu to Hokkaido, it was very long.  It was 140 metres deep into the sea, and it was 53 kilometers long.

Hokkaido Train Video 1

Then we were in Hokkaido!  We reached Hakodate in the early evening, it was after 6:00 PM.  It took us 11 hours to go from Himeji to Hakodate.  We called a hotel and the hotel was Toyoko Inn.  It wasn’t far from the train station, we walked about one minute.  We went eat sushi and went back to the hotel.  It was sooooo nice inside.  We went to sleep and woke up the next morning.  I brushed my teeth, went into the shower, combed my hair and wore my clothes faster than a rat race.  We ate breakfast and went to the fish market next to the hotel.  There were so many crabs and one was so big, it cost 10,000 yen, that’s 140 Singapore dollars.  Then we rode on the train, getting ready to go to Otaru.  We saw lots of trains, inside the train I did homework.  I was at page 127.  “Soon I will finish,” I said.

Zen is a good student

We went to the front and took lots of videos.  We passed by Sapporo airport, lots of people got out of the train there.  We saw a jet landing when we passed by. 

When we reached Sapporo we took another train, it was a regular train, it went to Otaru, it was a bit big and it was very close to the ocean.  There was a small village.  In Otaru we went to a shop that is called New Naruto, there was lots of fried chicken and sushi, of course my favourite. 

We followed the old train track and there was even a playground near there.  In Otaru we saw lots of shops that had my name, like Dai-Zen and Chu-Zen. 

There were lots of people.  At last we could go to Asahikawa.  We jumped into the train and went to Business Hotel Fuji.  There were no other hotels that had rooms that night, so we were a bit unlucky.  So I slept there with the futon. On Wednesday we woke up with a start. We ate breakfast, combed hair, brushed teeth, showered, and waited for the bus to take us to Asahiyama Zoo.

We arrived there at 8:20 AM, and it opened at 8:30. We went in and saw the seals, they were so cute and they swam through a glass tube. We saw polar bears swimming, then we saw the monkey mountain, there were lots of monkeys in the monkey playground. We saw giant monkeys that were the bosses, and then also mama monkeys and baby monkeys. Then we saw the penguin show and went into an underwater tunnel, it was very short. After the penguin feeding show we went through the tunnel, it was very short. After the tunnel we saw people going through the underwater tunnel, we saw some king penguins, they are also called “O-sama penguins.” Then we saw the leopards, lions, tigers and chimpanzees. One tiger died with a heart attack one week before, so there was only one tiger left in the cage, poor tiger. The lion was sleeping on a rock.

We saw a rhinoceros that was very big and some giraffes. There was one fake-looking type of giraffe. We saw spider monkeys, the spider monkeys were kind of fighting, they were very good at monkey bars. Then we saw an orangutan family with a cute baby orangutan and one orangutan was so fat, he was the boss of the orangutan cage. We saw lots of rabbits and guinea pigs. Then we went out of the Asahiyama Zoo gate and went on the bus back to Asahikawa. We took a train to Furano.

Hokkaido Train Video 2

I was more beautiful than I ever thought. We saw a strange train and we went to the flower farm. There were lots of flowers, but they didn’t have sunflowers or lavender. In Furano we saw a skiing place and we wanted to ski there but it wasn’t winter so we couldn’t ski there. When it is winter, then we can ski there, but maybe it will be a bit scary for me. After that we saw lots of strange poor one-level houses and people were living there. After that we rode on the train and went back to Asahikawa, and we changed to Toyoku Inn, it was very nice. At the end of the day, we went to a restaurant, then we went back to Toyoku Inn and we slept. The next day we went to Biei, that place is one hour away from Asahikawa, it was a small place.

Hokkaido Train Video 3

In Biei we rented three bicycles, they were so cool. I rode a blue bicycle, papa rode a silver bicycle, and mama rode a pink bicycle. We went cycling for more than two hours, and then we were so sleepy. We saw some goats and some animals and saw some flowers. I hate flowers, and they’re going to get attacked by pirates – those are gardeners! I cycled at the side of the road, mama and I took some cool pictures with some funny poses. I took a picture with papa with lots of farm fields. After that papa took a picture with a goat. We went to a wheat field with a red-roofed house behind me and Peter. Finally we reached the finish line.

After that we went back to the train station in Biei and we saw a strange caterpillar trying to cross to the other side. We jumped into the train, got a seat and went back to Asahikawa and too a picture of Business Hotel Fuji. We rode and finally we went back to Hakodate, we went back to the Toyoko Inn, then we went to Lucky Pierrot. I ate french fries in a mug.

After that I had to do a poo, so I did a poo, washed my hands, then we went up the hill and we saw three churches and they were so cool and they had the shape that looks like on top of the church. After that we saw a strange building, I think it was made over 100 years ago, before Singapore was born. And I saw an old strange house, and finally we went back to Toyoko Inn. The next morning I woke up with a start, ate breakfast, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, took a shower, and we took a streetcar – this is called “chin-chin densha” in Japanese. We saw some old houses that look like the houses in North America (just kidding!). Then we saw some graveyards for foreigners that died a long long long long time ago in Japan. We saw some Japanese-style buildings, and on top was an American style building. And we came back to this old, old over 100-years-old building again. You could have many guests in there. After that we went to the same church again and looked outside. And we saw another half American style building and half Japanese style building. After that we saw an apartment, and I ate ice cream at Lucky Pierrot (and we sat in the same seats as the night before). Papa took a picture of Yakitori Bento and Lucky Pierrot. After that we saw some sailboats and saw a mountain. We ate our lunch, everyone had almost the same thing: it was a bowl of rice with some sea food on top of the rice. Mine had salmon eggs on top; mama’s had salmon and salmon eggs on top; papa’s had salmon eggs and sea urchin on top.

After that we took the train, we could see Mount Hakodate. Our train went to Honshu, I was so sad that we were leaving Hokkaido. I was sleeping in the train like a baby. After that we ate “yakitori bento”, it was the best, but it was actually a “buta niku” yakitori bento, that means that they say it is roast chicken on the outside, but really it is not – it is roast pork!

Hasegawa Store Yakitori Bento

The next day I was so lucky that I was sleeping with my cousin Evan. We were eating breakfast, it was muffins, and muffins are going to get attacked by pirates, and those are EATERS! And the eaters are me and Evan and Lauren, and everyone in the whole wide world.

After breakfast we went on a bus to a park, we walked through a park and we ate berries from a tree. Then Evan didn’t like the berries, but he picked a lot. We saw a giant spider, it had eight eyes and it was dancing. Lots of water came out of its bum, but it was a female, and female spiders going to get attacked by pirates, and those are FIGHTER JETS!

Yokohama Spider Attack

Then we saw so so so sooooo many motorcycles, and we jumped into a ball playground for a few minutes. After that we Evan, Lauren and I were ringing a bell, and it was so loud. After that we went on a speedboat, and Evan was looking behind Naoko, my mother. After that we went to Chinatown, and when there was a vending machine, Lauren looked inside for any money. She found 2 yen only. After that we went to a baseball game. It started at 6:30 PM. Lauren was eating popcorn while me and Evan weren’t. Yokohama Bay Stars were protecting if any batter could hit a home run. After that, Papa, me and Mama took a picture. There were about 10 home runs, the Softbank Hawks were winning. And the Yokohama Bay Stars didn’t do well. Then we took a bus home.

The next morning, I woke up with a start, brushed my teeth, ate breakfast, combed my hair, and got ready to go bowling. I scored the third-highest for bowling. In bowling Ralph got the highest score, Evan got the second, I got the third, Lauren got the fourth, Naoko got the fifth, Peter got the sixth, and Nicole was the seventh. Altogether there were seven people, no mistakes. We were wearing sports shoes, I had black socks with blue stripes around them, and a watch, and a blue shirt with red stripes on it. After that we wanted to look at a festival, but we had to eat lunch, so we just went off to a restaurant. We ate gyoza and ramen. Then we packed up and I played with Megatron, and in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, he said “You’re weak” to Optimus Prime, because he died. We said goodbye to Evan, Lauren, Nicole and Ralph and we went inside a regular train, like the MRT or the subway, and we went inside the bullet train. First we went to Shin Osaka, then to Shin Kobe, then to Nishi Akashi, then to Himeji. I really wanted to see Ojii-chan and Obaa-chan again. We went back to Horikawa-cho and we went back.

From Monday, June 22nd I went back to school. On June 26th, I heard the news that Michael Jackson died. I was so sad, he was the best singer I ever saw!!! Michael Jackson was so pretty (just kidding). After the last day of school I said goodbye to all my friends, and straight away we went to Karaoke. I sang “Happy Birthday to You”, and some other songs. Papa sang Michael Jackson songs. Mama sang Arashi songs. She is an Arashi fan. At night, we had a party, all the cousins came and we ate some fried chicken, eggs, potato chips (just kidding), fish, salad, and sashimi. Haruka and Nanaka and Yuuta danced around, and Nanaka did a very very very funny song, it was Ojarumaru. Haruka went to watch Doaremon, and me and Shiota also. Yuuta danced. The next day, I woke up with a start. I ate breakfast, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, and wore my clothes. Papa went to Himeji castle, and we went to Sushi-ro with lots of sushi. It was Haruka, Nanaka, me, mama, Peter and my grandmother. On Sunday we woke up very early to take a bus to Kansai International Airport and got on the airplane. In the airplane, we ate some things, I slept, I watched s”Monsters vs. Aliens” and I played some video games, and finally we landed very bumpily. We saw lots of Singapore Airlines airplanes in Singapore. We took a taxi home and rested

Here are some videos that I filmed in Japan:

Zen the Cameraman

That’s all, I hope you enjoyed it!

THE END

Today I woke up with a start, read a book, woke up papa, ate breakfast, and took a shower faster than a cat in a rat race, but I didn’t brush my teeth (I forgot). Then we took a bus to West Mall and saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It was great, but it was a bit scary when a human changed into a robot. A lot of people and tanks and fighter jets attacked the bad robots, who are called Decepticons. The good robots, called Autobots, defended their planet, called Earth. The Fallen, the king of the Decepticons, attacked Earth, and the Autobots must defeat The Fallen. Optimus Prime, the king of the Autobots, died when Megatron and Starscream and one more Decepticon attacked him. But there’s only one thing that can make him live again. It was not the Allspark, it was the Matrix of Leadership. The Decepticons wanted the Matrix of Leadership, so they attacked the Autobots. Bumblebee killed a lot of Decepticons. Jetfire and Optimus Prime became one, so Optimus Prime became very powerful and had a lot of weapons like guns and rockets and swords. Amazing that he had a lot of weapons. I had never seen Optimus Prime with so many weapons. So I said “Mama mia, papa pia, baby’s got diarrhea.” That’s all, and they destroyed The Fallen. There was also one cat robot and it looked so crazy with a gun on top of his body.

I woke up with a start, and then I went into my mama and papa’s bed. It was after 10:00, oh no! I slept too long!! I couldn’t go to see Star Trek!!! But papa told me we can go next week, so after I cried a little bit, I cheered up. We can go to see Star Trek next week, then.

Then we ate breakfast and played Bionicle. After that I did my Japanese homework and we played Bionicle again. I ate my favorite food, Cup Ramen! It was delicious, VERY delicious!! Then we played Bionicle again. This time we used another guy. It was Tua Gali and Photok. We got ready for softball, and off we went, faster than a cat in a rat race. We got a taxi and it was only $6, but it was a bit expensive. When we reached there, the uncle went inside until the staircase, where I got down. Then I helped the other children do some things, and we did a little bit of exercise. Then we did softball. I did it with the teacher in charge of the Coconuts. When I dropped the ball, we had to do it from the start again. When, finally we got to 10, it was great. And we did a bit of rest. Then I caught two fly balls. They were very hard to catch in my glove. You cannot even drop the ball, or else you’ll still have to do it once more. And we rested again. Then we did batting and catching. I was excited. I LOVE doing softball. We rested once more. Finally, it was the last rest, and soon I could go home. We had a competition between fathers and children. The fathers and mothers almost won, but we beat them. And, it was time to go home. We took a taxi home, faster than a cat in a rat race.

We went for swimming lesson, it was the last time. I felt sad, because I miss them so much. Coach taught me lots of things.

We headed home and then went to Beauty World Plaza and ate pizza, dumplings, soup, and rice with some meat.

We headed back home to my house and ate sweets that Dennis the coach gave me. I watched “Battle Plan” and “Monsters Inc.” Then it was time to go to sleep. But first, I need to wear my pajamas and brush my teeth and wash my face.

I lost a front teeth this week, it looks very new.

I woke up with a start. I ate breakfast, and it was cereal. After that, we did packing and I watched a bit of television. Then we jumped in the taxi and we went to the airport. Then we went to Popeye’s fried chicken and we ate a lot and I drank F&N Groovy Grape. We jumped into the airplane and off to Taiwan we went. The airplane landed at Kaohsiung airport. Quickly we jumped into Marcelo’s car, he is a clever person because he knows many things about Taiwan and he lives in Yong Kang. Then we went to Yuki and Paul’s house and we went together to the night market, where there is lots of meat, and we ate a lot, and I wanted to play some games. I won one prize, it was a toy gun (but I left it in Taiwan).

The next day, it was a very cold and very shivering day. It was cold. It was about minus one degrees, I think. Then papa bought for me a jacket and high socks, which were very good. We ate lunch – it was beef noodle soup and dumplings. But it was a different type of dumpling, because it was boiled, not fried. Then we walked to my dad and my mom’s old university school, we saw a cannon and we saw a bridge, plus we saw the place where my mom and my dad met for the first time. We walked to Tainan’s railway train station and later we ate dinner with Judy, Superman, and their mom and dad.

The next day, I immediately took a shower, and I played Wii with Uncle Paul. I played Wii Sports, which was very good for my sports. I learned how to play tennis, golf, baseball, boxing and bowling.

The next day, we woke up at 6:00 AM! We went to the train station and jumped in the train as immediately as we can. We got out of the train 45 minutes later in Chiayi and we met my best friend Yuping, who was the teacher of my father last time and we rushed to the bus stop. We were pretty fast. Then we immediately jumped in the bus and immediately went to Alishan, that is a mountain in the middle of Taiwan. Then I made a Skrawl Bionicle, which you don’t know. In Alishan, we walked a lot and we saw sakura and lots of people and I did a poo in the forest (and maybe some animals will eat it), then we went to the hotel and it was very big. Then we ate cup noodles and watched TV. Then I saw my favourite baseball player, called Suzuki Ichiro. Then I took a bath and slept. I was very very tired.

The next day I woke up in Alishan, we ate breakfast at 7-Eleven (which is my birthday – “it’s a store, and more”). Then, we jumped on the mini train and it was a five minute ride!!! Then we said goodbye to the mini train and we walked a lot again. There were lots of special trees, and there was one that looked like an elephant, and there was one that was 2,700 years old!!! We saw the bear cave, but it wasn’t really a bear cave, it just looked like a bear cave. Then we saw those dancers, there was one dance where they had spears, which is a weapon.

We went in a big bus this time, and we reached Chiayi at 5:30, so we said goodbye to Yuping, then when the train immediately came we immediately jumped in the train. Then we returned to Tainan railway train station and we got in a taxi and the road was really wide. I really loved Alishan, but it was time to go back.

The next day, we went to Yuki’s second house, there were lots of delicious cakes, but you cannot eat them – those were actually made of soap!!! Then we ate dumplings and lots of other things which I can’t remember. We went to a place where there is another cannon, which was really cool. The first cannon I didn’t see the parts, but it looks very cool and it looks like a real cannon, but I don’t know if it was a real cannon. Then we saw lots of fighter jets flying over our heads, those fighter jets came from Taiwan and those fighter jets came from Rende fighter jet airport. Then we saw quite a few temples of Tainan city, we saw quite a few squirrels in one temple, we saw about three squirrels in one tree. We went to a cafe which there is a very very narrow gate!!! Then my mom and my dad drank coffee and I ate cookies, which were very nice. Then mama bought Yuki a present, it was a plant and it was very cute! Then we saw one huge fighter jet, which was very cool, and I think it was taking off from Rende fighter jet airport, but I don’t really know about that. An uncle came, Mr Lim, picked us up and drove us to Judy’s family home, and we saw some carrots and there was an old home and there was only one level. Then we went to Judy’s old primary school and it was very nice. We then went to Judy and Superman’s family home, then we ate dinner together and I played with Superman’s toys, which was very nice, and he had Spiderman toys. And he even had Lego, I didn’t know that Taiwan has Lego!!! We played a bit of Monopoly and Superman gave it to one of Judy’s classmates, instead he didn’t give it to me, he gave it to the older kids. Also Superman gave me something, it was a watch, it was very nice watch, and I will never forget that watch. It was a Batman watch. Then we went to the night market near their home to get a battery for my watch, and I played a game again. Then it was time for us to go back home.

Here is my video tour of Taiwan!!!

Pictures from my trip to Tainan

This house in Anping is 200 years old

Bionicle Skrawl, in Alishan

Our friends in the carrot field in Tainan

China Airlines at Xiaogang airport in Kiaohsiung

This is a picture of me with Marcelo the first time I came to Taiwan – that was exactly seven years ago, when I was zero years old. It was March, 2002, and I was born in November, 2001.

I woke up with a start at about 8:30 AM.  Oma and Opa had gone swimming, and I ate breakfast.  Then I did homework given by my teacher.  Then I saw a broken elevator, but first we went in and it was actually broken.  We took the next elevator and it was not spoiled, luckily.  We went to the first floor.   Oma and Opa and Mama and I waited for the taxi.  Then a City Cab taxi came, it was Oma and Opa’s taxi.  Mama and I said goodbye to Oma and Opa.  I did not cry, but I was sad.  I hope I will see them again soon.  Oma and Opa got into the taxi and waved goodbye to me and Mama.  When Oma and Opa reached Singapore airport they jumped on the plane to Hong Kong, and they reached Hong Kong at 5:30 PM.

After that I went to school.  I did mathematics, music, English and Chinese and I had recess.  Chinese was interesting because I was the monitor of Chinese class.

When I came home I watched Teen Titans and a little bit of Galactic Football.  Then I ate dinner with Mama and Papa, and I went to Gopal’s house, but he was not there.  I was disappointed – I made a promise with him, but he broke the promise, so I was sad.

I already miss Oma and Opa.  I went to see their room tonight, it was empty.  I hope I will see them again soon.

Oma and Opa and Zen

Opa and Zen

Oma and Zen

Oma and Opa and Mama and Papa

Me and my SWORD!

Today I woke up at 8:20, then I ate breakfast and I did some homework. I went to the market by bicycle with Papa, we bought green onions. Then we bought bread. We ate at 12:00 sharp. At 1:15 I left from my house with Mama and we went to Turf City for softball games. I played second base in one of the games. We had some children playing too, but not only me. When I was at bat one time, the catcher dropped the ball, so I ran to first base, but I was out. We didn’t win the games, the Little Stars won the game. The Coconuts (my team) got three points, and the Little Stars got 16 points!!! After that we went home, and we went swimming with Papa. After that I came back and practiced for my spelling test and ate dinner.

Here are some pictures from my softball game:

We woke up at 9:30 sharp today, it was late. We heard the lion dancers at 10:30 so we went to see them at the clubhouse. Then we went to the bus stop and we waited about 30 minutes for our bus to the Science Centre. When we arrived at the Science Centre, we saw Shanik and his little sister and his papa and mama. Then we found a huge dinosaur in front of the Science Centre. We went in and looked at the mice and gecko and hamster and cockroaches and tortoise. We ate lunch at McDonalds and we went back in. Then we played in the Water Works for a long time, THEN we went to the Eco Garden and we played a lot in the tree house. Finally, it was 6:00 sharp and Shanik’s papa drove us to the hawker centre, where we ate satay and carrot cakes. Then we walked home and me and mama watched Animal Planet. We were so tired.

What’s inside this big nose?

Wow, what a big nose!!

I like Teen Titans because when my father was 18 years old he read Teen Titans comic books. Because there is a powerful bad guy, his name is Slade. There are five Teen Titans in the show. There is Robin, he is special because he is the most powerful good guy in the Teen Titans. Next, there is Cyborg, he is special because he has something that is 100% power and he has a rocket launcher. Next, there is Raven, she is special because when a door is locked she can go through the door. Next, there is Beast Boy, he is special because he can change into dinosaurs and animals and he can also become sea creatures. His skin is green. Last, there is Starfire, she can fly and use her power to destroy bad guys.

It was the first day of Christmas. We had a Christmas tree standing beside our table. When we came back from the airport after our visit to Japan, we saw a lot of presents under the Christmas tree. When I was opening the presents, the first one I opened was a Bionicle ship. I opened all the presents under the tree. The other presents were the Clone Wars toy and comic book, some chocolate, the Toa Tahu Bionicle character, and an Anakin Skywalker keyholder, and three Geronimo Stilton books three Geronimo Stilton CDs, and a calendar a photo album. The whole family was so happy.