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Our main purpose for the trip was to present at the US-China Educational Leadership conference held today at the People’s Education Press (known as PEP). We departed from the hotel at 7:30 a.m. in order to make it to the PEP for an 8:30 a.m. conference start time. I suggested to Jan and Jim, our guides, that some of the accompanying guests may not want to sit all day in a conference on education so Jim was able to work out a stop at the Beijing Zoo. Lucy and Monica were dropped off at 8 a.m. and had the morning at the Beijing Zoo. They had a great time touring the zoo and seeing the panda bears, both adult and baby. Unfortunately they only have disposable cameras, so the photos can’t be shared until we return home.
I attended the conference which was actually quite interesting. We did not have to translate every speaker, which allowed for a nicer flow to the conference. It was a blend of Chinese and American presenters which also make for an interesting morning. At 10:30 we had a tea break, very traditional for Chinese conferences. It was still hot and humid and hot tea
Technology at PEP
The conference room had 2 displays of the laptop for the participants to see. was not exactly what we would have selected.
The highlight of the day was the buffet lunch at American Island Restaurant. It was a nice departure from our other traditional meals which are pre-ordered and consist of all traditional Chinese menu items. The huge buffet featured cuisine from America, China, Thailand and Japan. There were seafood items, sushi, pizza, and many Chinese delicacies.
We were lucky enough to be guided by Jim, our Chinese-American guide, to the insect section which featured fried meal worms, silk worm pupae and cicadas. Matthew and I tried each of the 3. The meal worms were just crunchy and had a spicy flavor, and were actually quite good. The silk worm pupae (like a cocoon) was hollow inside and really did not have much flavor. The cicada was crunchy and bug like and basically not that good. I wouldn’t say gross but after one bug I was done.
We later saw that they had the same bugs on ice which meant that they were “raw” or just dead and uncooked. Matthew found duck head in brine, which he tried but said was too salty. I found duck blood cake, a stew
US-China Conference
This is the panel seating for the speakers at the conference. with cottle fish heads, and then “gentleman’s soup” which we later found out was penis from type of animal. You had to have a special ticket to order it, so it must be a delicacy of some sort.
The afternoon was time for 4 more speakers and then we concluded our conference. We took the bus back to the hotel and had time to rest before dinner. Some of the group members had their private fittings for suits/jackets they were having made.
Dinner was pretty awesome, with standard Chinese dishes. They served a bowl of hot noodles with spicy sauce that were really good. Matthew liked the broccoli (just plain steamed..imagine that) and the sweet and sour beef with peppers. We had several types of cabbage as well, one with hot peppers that gives it a spicy kick. They offered the fried bread which is common to this area. The piece de resistance was a whole fish (carp) which was cut and batter dipped and then flash fried. It had sweet/sour sauce on it and came with the entire head and tail. It looked appealing but I we were so stuffed from dinner that we really couldn’t eat
Trip Group
Here is the Virginia Tech Educational Leadership Conference delegation. it.
Dessert was a trip to the local DQ in order to satisfy our craving for sweets. Matthew and I hiked to the mall with Cheryl, LaTonya, and Donna. Lucy decided she had had enough walking so she took a break. We ordered 2 M&M Blizzards which absolutely hit the spot.
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