Feng Tai, Deep Fried Bacon & Forbidden City

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Our first full day in Beijing has been amazing! We started our morning visiting Feng Tai First school. After months of planning and Skype meetings it was wonderful to at last see the school in person and meet the teachers and Principal Yin. We had a great team meeting working through final preparations. Opening ceremonies are tomorrow morning and will commence the two week Fine Arts Camp.

After a tour of the school grounds it was off to lunch. Once again we experienced the incredible hospitality of our hosts who provided an enormous meal. Dish after dish was delivered to our table, and we eagerly tried them all. One of our favorites was a pork dish that as Grant described, was "deep fried bacon drenched in maple syrup" and oh so delicious! We had a lot of laughs as our hosts continued their attempts to tutor us in the use of chopsticks. I must say, the bowls of noodles were particularly challenging to eat with chopsticks!

We also had the opportunity to tour Tiannamen Square and the Forbidden City. It was very surreal being there. We were all astonished at the sheer expansiveness and seemingly never ending palaces. The architecture and ornate detail of the buildings was impressive indeed! Being surrounded by so many people from all over the world was another experience in and of itself, and we enjoyed taking it all in.

Exhausted, we returned to our hotel. One of our hosts brought us Subway; after joking about what kind of subs we might find in the bag (one thought was we may find a squid and seaweed sub- who knows?) we had to laugh when we pulled out a seafood sub, a bacon sub, and a sausage sub! Who knew?

With excited anticipation we are now looking forward to tomorrow's ceremony and meeting our students!

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Comments

[dad hill]

fantastic!
I don't think I'd ever leave the dinner table.

[Kathy Keehn]

Thanks
Really appreciate the updates. Enjoy every minute. The time will speed by.