Author: Clifford

大隊接力 – Relay Race

In school we have P.E. just like any American school. We have badminton, basketball, dancing, baseball and relay races. The relay races are a little different from the ones we have in the U.S.,and are called 大隊接力(which roughly translates to “relay races with a big team”). 大隊接力 is basically just a relay race, but with sixteen-twenty people. We had to chose who would run in the relay race, so in P.E. we each ran one hundred meters while the teacher timed us, I ended up coming in fourth so I got to be fifteenth in the lineup for running.

Before the relay races, we were all really nervous because if we won, we would have to go to represent our school for the next race. During the race, I was even more jumpy because I had never run very competitively before, but it turned out to be easy and fun. All I had to do was cheer, grab the baton, run, hand the baton to the next runner and cheer again. We were all really nervous as it came down to the last runner as the other teams were catching up, but just managed to squeeze into first place.

Yesterday, we went to the beach at Tam Sui. First we took the metro to Beitou to drop Charlotte off with her friends, but we ended up being a little late so Charlotte’s friend’s mom had to come back to get her on a scooter.

After we dropped off Charlotte, we continued on the metro to Tam Sui and ate lunch at a sushi restaurant. Then, we walked to the Ferryboat Wharf and got a two-foot-tall frozen yogurt in a cone. When we finished the frozen yogurt (which took quite a long time), we got on a ferry which took us to the Fisherman’s Wharf.

At the Fisherman’s Wharf, we took a bus to a stop in the middle of nowhere, climbed over a stone wall, through a bunch of trees and broken fences to get to the beach. The beach didn’t have any people on it, but had these really cool tide pool things with little riverbeds flowing into the sea. In one of the tide pools, there were little Hermit crabs scuttling around, and when my dad picked one up, it tried to pinch him, but its claws were to small so it couldn’t pinch him and so it hid in its shell.

I had a fun time on the beach playing in the sand. First i made a dam to stop water from spreading all over the place and only got into a canal I had dug. Then, I made the canal thiner the farther I dug it so the water would flow fast. Next, I let the water flow into a little tide pool I made. When I finished, I put a few stranded clams in to the tide pool. The canal kept widening, so I was constantly putting more sand to patch it up. In the end, the dam that I had made broke, so I let the water flow as it wanted.