the school vists have begun...

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Monday, May 26th. Happy Birthday, Grandma Slaven! (It's actually Tuesday at 5am here. I'm finding that it works into my crazy early wakeup schedule to write on the blog first thing).

I keep forgetting to mention how great our hotels are. The first--Renaissance--was fab. Great area, amazing gym, and the breakfast was also wonderful. We had breakfast there on our last day (Monday morning) as we had 3 schools to visit. The breakfast was a big buffet with both Chinese and American options. We went for the Asian options and had some dim sum, as well as some great noodles in broth with veggies. Good choice as it turned out--that would be our 1 meal til dinner! Second hotel is in Hongqiao, where we plan to live. We'll be here til Friday. It's a Sheraton and also very nice. Great lobby, nice gym, room is very modern and comfy. I cannot complain!

Today, went to the first of 5 school visits. he school is called SCIS and it's in the heart of Hongqiao. We were both very impressed with the school. It was large, and modern. Many of the buildings are brand new. They have a theater that holds 750! The school is K-12, so it's pretty large as far as number of students (about 800) but the campus was spacious and new. I think we could easily live close to this school and be near restaurants, stores, etc. More on the school: All the classrooms are nice--remind us very much of home with the class decorations and student work displayed in the rooms and hallways. They had a lot of community service activities posted as well--relief projects for the earthquake victims, habitat for humanity projects.

Key highlights of SCIS for the kids: uniform policy is not that strict. You have to wear a particular white school polo shirt and then navy pants or shorts for the boys (can even be stretch/track pants as long as they are navy!). Girls wear blue shirts and Navy jumpers or skorts and the kids wear ANY shoes they want! Some schools have stricter policies so this was a great thing to hear (thinking from the kids' perspective). The kids have snack time (1 time for Nathan's grade and twice for Emily's). They bring their own snacks from home. I think this will go over well for Nathan and especially snack-lover, Emily! Grade 4 does choir and an instrument starting in grade 4 (piano or a string) and grade 1 does choir and the recorder. There are lots of optional after school activities to choose from!

The class sizes are small--18 for 4th grade and 16 for 1st grade. The teachers are all native english speakers, and a few are bilingual. The kids take 45 minutes of Mandarin lessons a day and it is leveled (beginner, intermediate and advanced). They work on speaking and also characters. I'm excited to have the kids teach us what they learn! There is a swimming pool, so they have lessons as part of PE. There is a very nice library, with a section for parents to borrow books (love that). The school has great technology, with mac laptop carts the teacher can pull into their classrooms, as well as PC media centers. Each classroom has a 60 inch flat screen monitor for projecting lessons, announcements, etc. Super cool. Overall, our vibe was good about the school, the kids seemed really happy and there seemed to be an active parent community.

Second school was the British School (BISS) and it was also very nice. However, it took us over 30 minutes by cab and this was at 12:30pm. The morning commute is much more crowded. We saw the school buses and they looked very nice (air conditioned, comfy seats). The area the school is in is very suburban and less interesting. The school was not as nice, facility-wise, but we did talk to some teachers who seemed very fun and nice. They also had a pool, nice cafeteria, media centers and lots of smart boards in the classrooms (interactive white boards). I won't go on and on because as you can read from above, we had our #1 school so far.

Finally, we went to the 3rd school. It was about 20 minutes from the hotel, so not in the same good part of town as SCIS, but closer than the British school. I won't give a great deal on this one, but I must share the first impressions. We arrived a bit early, so as we tried to find the office, we noted there were HUGE photos of President and First Lady Bush, Vice president Cheney and his wife. We found someone and told them our contact person, and we were seated in the teacher's lounge. It was decorated with pictures of both Presidents Bush and Ronald Reagan. We read through the school literature, and noted the school was founded by a former Senator (I'm guessing Republican, based on the decor) and was intended to provide schooling for American children of consulates. However, the school was very run-down, a former public school that really had not been updated. No air conditioning. Also, even though we read about the school's mission, it only has 10% American students. The rest are asian, but not Chinese (from Korea, Japan and Singapore).
While we want the kids to have a diverse experience, this seemed like the least diverse community and a great number of the students are ESL.

We came back exhausted and very hot. My blisters have gotten worse and we did a lot of walking today in our fancier clothes. I fell asleep and Mark did work for a few hours (poor Mark). Then we went to dinner in a great area Mark had been to before called Hong Mei Lu. It's an area full of shops and restaurants. We walked down the Entertainment Street which was full of restaurants and went to a place called Simply Thai. It was excellent. We were starving, as we had not had time for lunch. Those Lara bars and green bars I packed are coming in handy.

We did a little shopping post-dinner. Can't describe the purchases, since my audience includes 2 adorable recipients of some of these gifts (yes, Emily I am talking about you and Nathan!).

We got to talk to the kids and Mark's mom and dad after some skype technical difficulties. It was great to hear everyone's voice. It's surreal at times that we are so very far away. The phone calls are helping us get through the long time away from the kids.

Tuesday's agenda: 2 more schools. Starting Wednesday, we look at apartments and hopefully find one!

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Photos

we dressed up today
taken at first hotel, Renaissance before heading out for school visits

playground
they also have a ball room (a ball pit!) but the door was locked.

Hong Mei Lu area
The street where we had dinner.

Comments

[Malia]

School #1 looks good!
Loved all the details of your school visits! School #1 looks really good. Are you leaning toward thats? Do you have other schools to visit? Loved the photos -- very modern facilities! xoxox - Malia

[soooze]

thanks, Malia!
Yes, although the school today is a contender. I'll post more on that one later. We have 1 more school to visit today and then it's decision time!

[Amy D]

Nice job on the blog!!
I've enjoyed reading your blog-especially all the food details. I'm guessing they don't have Peapod. I liked your entry about the Tai Chi/ballroom dancing park. Are there many areas westerners aren't allowed to visit? Keep up the blogging! Amy D

[soooze]

hi amy!
Not that I know of. I think it was more me being paranoid/feeling uncomfortable than anything else. It's a big adjustment being so foreign in a country of so many people. However, it's a good life lesson, since I've had 38 years of being in my comfort zone, right? Thanks for the nice comments! Suzanne

[Linda]

schools
Really interested in the schools...it sounds like the kids may have the opportunity to learn Chinese, both speaking and writing. How terrific! I look forward to hearing about Nathan and Emily's classroom experiences. Linda