We are twin girls from Canada. The first time we went to China, it was in 1993; we spent our second birthday in China, and it was also our father’s birthday the same day. We received many unusual gifts; it’s very interesting to celebrate our birthday in China. We went to China the second time when we were 5 years old. In September 1999, it was the third time, and we were 8 years old. Now, Mommy said we will go for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing but we wish we went even before that.

Last time, we travelled by train to Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, by car to JiaXing and by bus to Huang Shan. It was funny to try all kinds of trains: old and dirty ones, new and comfortable others, hard seats or sleepers, two-storey ones. In Canada we mostly use our family car.

We both love animals and saw so many kinds of them in China. Beijing zoo has improved a lot since our last visit in 1995, and Nanjing has a beautiful large new zoo. We saw leopards, lions, bears, elephants, pandas, monkeys and even a white tiger! But we could not take its photo because it didn’t want to come out of its den. We love and respect all what is alive and all animals, even the small ones like ants, bees, cicadas, and butterflies. But we saw some persons killing them just for fun, and we were so sorry to see that!

Shanghai has very tall modern buildings but also little one-room houses. Some people run a store in their own house. Other people sell things on the streets, like iced bottles of water. Sweet potatoes and other things to eat have a good smell that we like. Some other smells are less pleasant, like public toilets, but we can say it’s much better than four years ago.

In Hangzhou, we went to the animal market. The vendors were very kind and allowed us to take dogs and rabbits in our arms.

In JiaXing, we met several old ladies not taller than ourselves, 1.4 meter! We also noticed that in China, fat persons are very few. In the countryside, once we heard two pigs crying like if they were going to be killed; but fortunately, people were only trying to sit them on a motorcycle to bring them to another place.

We visited a place where soft shell turtles are raised. There were 80 basins with 1,000 turtles each. What do people do with so many turtles?

We had a popsicle made from soy milk. To us, the Chinese cow milk has a strange flavour, unlike the one we are used to drink. Sometimes it tastes like corn, or like butter. But we adore the Chinese yoghurt!

After visiting the Silk Museum, we know how silk is made. We even saw living silk worms. In a street of Hangzhou we observed a man making new cotton-filled blankets from old ones.

In Nanjing, we tasted new things like lotus roots filled with meat, and chrysanthemum leaves soup.

The Chinese acrobats are really fabulous! What a performance! We attended a classical concert of Chinese instruments. At the beginning, we didn’t like the music, but it was not so boring after we decided to listen carefully.

On our last day in Beijing, we went to Badaling. For the second time we climbed the Great Wall. Some people throw papers and bottles over the wall where there things can’t be removed easily. It’s a pity! Why don’t they respect the beautiful Nature? Other persons have a bad habit: they spit everywhere; it’s disgusting… When we grow up, we will work in a Centre for the protection of the environment or the protection of the animals. On the Xingxing Huoju Bao, which is now called Beijing Children’s paper there was an article about a little leopard whose mother was killed; it is blind and deaf. After ShuShu read it to us, we could not sleep for how sorry we were.

This time we had a chance to attend the Mid-Autumn Moon festival and eat moon cakes. It was a special year because China is 50 years old and Beijing was so beautiful with millions of flowers and red lanterns!

What we don’t like is... to have our photo taken all the time. People say, “Only one”, but we hear that 100 times a day. Mom says it’s because we have blue eyes, we are blonde, and twins, which looks strange to Chinese eyes. OK, then!

We had a wonderful trip in China and wish we’ll go again. There is still much to see!