The Forest Museum and excessive mosquitos

This week our school planned a trip to the forest museum just south of Hanoi. I had heard about this trip months ago although it was originally advertised as a camping trip. Needless to say, I was much more excited about the prospect of going camping then on a 3-hour field trip to a museum but hey, I'll take field trip. We went on Wednesday with grades 6-10 and drove to the museum in the school buses - which do not remotely resemble American school buses - they're actually more like mini tour buses. Anyway, the drive to the museum took about an hour and when we arrived, we split into our classes to explore. The museum wasn't large enough to take everyone at once and though there were other outdoor activities, my class spent the first 30 minutes standing in the parking lot waiting for our turn to go into the museum.

They brought us in after one of the classes left and first took us into a very well air-conditioned room filled with rather roughly taxidermy-d animals. A woman who worked for the museum talked about the different animals that are native to Vietnam and common animals today. She talked about how wild elephants have been nearly eradicated in Vietnam due to harsh practices and deforestation and today, less than 100 wild elephants remain. Anyway, after her introduction we headed upstairs and explored the rest of the museum where they featured information and specimens of native plants, insects, and animals. The museum wasn't very large so it didn't take too long for them to hurry us through it. We headed back downstairs and outside to wait for the next activity. There was an experiment with water and the filtering power of different natural materials as well as a lesson on counting the age of a tree using rings. It was during this outdoor time that I encountered all the mosquitos and boy did they love me. While some of my classmates were itching at one or two bites on their arms I somehow managed to sustain over 20 mosquito bites! In less than three hours! Had we not been required to wear our uniforms I would've gotten a lot fewer but of course, I had to wear my skirt, and thus got about 10 bites on each leg.

Our last part of the visit was a short forest walk. There was a preserved natural area behind the museum that we got to walk along as a museum worker talked about the native trees and plants. I think at some point they were planning on adding some zoo exhibits because there were some spots along the cement paved trail where they had installed big cages... I don't know what else they would be for so I'm assuming they either had animals at one point, or are hoping to put some in. The last section of the walk took us in this cool underground tunnel! In reality, the tunnel was very short but seemed longer inside since it was about four and a half feet tall, dark, and had a lot of turns. It was fun to go through it in the pitch black and reminded me of the times I've been to old military bases and run through the pitch black tunnels.

After we returned from the walk we waited for another 30 minutes until boarding the buses. One of the younger classes got to make specimen presses with leaves or butterflies so we had to wait for them to finish before we could leave. By the time we left it was 11:50 and lunch was at 12:10 so we were worried we would be very late. After an hour long ride to the museum, we were expecting a long ride back; somehow, it only took 25 minutes on the way back to school.. I guess

the driver took a very roundabout way to get there.

We were only about 5 minutes late to lunch when we got back to school and continued with the rest of the day as usual. It's Thursday evening now and I just finished dinner. Tomorrow, there's a celebration at school for Halloween and we're allowed to wear whatever we want! If I had a costume, I would dress up but since I don't, I'm happy to get to wear normal clothes instead of my uniform.

On Saturday, there's an event at the Ecopark sponsored by RedBull! It's called the "Champion Dash" and it's an athletic event that sounds kind of like America Ninja Warrior with different obstacles and challenges to complete. The Anh met the man who's been organizing the event and he got us tickets to participate so I'll be doing some crazy stuff on Saturday. I'll try to get photos of the obstacles before I go through them; the only one I'm not excited for is called the "Human Barbeque" which looks like an event where you basically run through fire.. I guess I'll just have to wait until Saturday to see what it actually is. Wish me luck!

I'm headed to bed now for what should be a fun weekend! I've got a lot going on with Halloween and the Champion Dash and for those of you who don't know, Halloween is also my mom's birthday (send her birthday wishes!). On Sunday, November 1st, my first two college applications are due and I'll be submitting them tomorrow, as soon as my counselor uploads my transcript. Then it'll just be a waiting game.. Anyway, thanks for reading and have a great day!