China Trip #1, Part 4

Somewhere near the half way point during this first semester, the staff at the UCEAP Beijing Center planned a field trip. The trip’s fees were included in my program cost so I didn’t have to pay more money for the trip.

The trip was to Henan province 河南, specifically to Luoyang 洛阳. In Henan, we visited Shaolin 少林 Temple, known for being the birth place of Kung Fu 功夫. We also visited Longmen Grottoes 龙门石窟, which is a canyon with hundreds of statues carved into the sides of the mountain. Our other stop was at White Horse Temple 白马寺, which is known for being China’s oldest surviving temple (although I do wonder if more that one temple in China claims the same feat). White Horse Temple’s specialty is that combined Chinese style, Thai style, and Indian style temples in one area. All three sections were adjacent to each other, so as soon as I walked away from the Chinese styled temple, I entered the grounds of the Thai styled temple. Following that was the Indian styled temple.

You can read more journal entries about this trip on a previous blog post of mine.

Nat Geo Wild’s Wild Hawaii

My dad and I were watching Nat Geo Wild’s Wild Hawaii and learned these interesting facts:

• Mantis shrimp have the most advanced eye vision in the entire animal kingdom
• There is a invasive species of frog that lay 75 eggs every 2 weeks. This adds to around 10,000 frogs from one female frog
• 1 in every 1000 sea turtles survives to adulthood
• The monk seal is one of 2 native mammals. The other is a ‘ōpe‘ape‘a, the Hawaiian hoary bat
• It snows in Hawaii. Snow falls on the big island, Hawaii, Hawaii. This reality was then expanded to fact that it snows in every US state

Some other facts that my dad and I have already known are:

• Sperm whales make the loudest sound of any animal. It is as loud as a firing shotgun. The sound they make is comes from their large head and is used for echolocation
• Sperms whales dive up to 2 miles below the ocean’s surface in order to echolocate and eat their favorite food: squid
• The longest parental care term of a bird belongs to the frigate bird. Both the father and mother frigate bird take care of their young for 1 1/2 years
• The only sea-going lizard is the marine iguana, which is native to the Galapagos Islands
• The orca has the largest brain in the animal kingdom in proportion to its body
• The sun fish is the largest boney fish
• The highest blood pressure of an animal belongs to the giraffe

Reference Site:
Hawaiian Encyclopedia: Native and Endangered Species