Goodbyes

 ISQ does a wonderful job helping you enter and exit well.  Last night all the ladies went out to eat.  The leaving women offer "prizes" of left over items they couldn't sell.  By answering a question correctly, the lady can pick a treasure.  There was some pretty fierce competition!! 

 I love the modern design of this restaurant.  These bookshelves lightly stained in green would be inexpensive to make--might look good in a boy's room. 

It's tradition too that the leaving people get a free meal!  What's not to like about that?  These were double decker quesadillas. 
As always it was super nice to get out of the house, have adult conversation, and be with friends!

Spring Trip Activities

 So, Matt's trip consisted of  the 10th grade class.  This was his homeroom--he also had most of them in Chemistry.  (He was originally put on another trip, but the class sent some representatives to the principal to ask if he could be switched to their trip.) Here they were doing a cooking class.

Matt especially wanted you to know that these were his jiaozi! 

 Another activity was rock climbing and..

rappelling.  One good thing about working with kids--they keep you young!

Matt Went On A Trip...

and took some beautiful pictures (OK...so these are slightly edited!!)  BUT, the scenery really was amazing!!

                                     

 

More on what he actually did tomorrow!

The Great Wall

Through a friend, we were able to hire a driver for the first day in Beijing.  He spoke fantastic English and gave us a lot of information.  He picked us up near our hotel around 8:15.  It proved difficult to get out of Beijing at that time in the morning--what a lot of traffic! Instead of taking us to the normal places tourists go to visit the Great Wall, we went to an out of the way section.  It was great because there was hardly anyone else there and it saved us quite a chunk of change in entrance fees.

 

(In other parts it would be wall to wall--pun intended--tourists).  I have to admit this climb was difficult for me.  To even get to the wall you had to do some hiking.  The wall itself was very steep.  Steps help, but the incline in some places was quite severe.  Even Ana eventually tired out and that takes some doing!  This section of the wall has not been all redone, so in some places it would be easy to go over the edge.  What an amazing feat this wall is!  And I want to say that I am so glad I was not a soldier patrolling it.  (Also, AK I know you're in great shape, but running on this wall might not be possible :)  Think of it more as hiking!!)

 

Boom!

Massive firework displays are pretty common here.  There are also lots of firecrackers.  At first the kids were alarmed, but not anymore!  They're loving all the noise-as only kids can!