More Fun with Kathy!

Wednesday Kathy toured the Shunyi area a little bit and discovered that we live in a pretty Western world...then she met up with us at ISB. I treated her to some gourmet cafeteria food-which i don't think she was too fond of:( Then we headed to Riley's room so his students could ask her 20 questions before they headed off to specialist classes for the remainder of the day. We waited around for a while for the Delano crew, but were SUPER excited when we saw their bus pull into our gates about 2:30. My principal, Dale Cox, greeted them with lanyards and some recruiting stuff for the teachers. We watched part of the ISB recruiting DVD, took a quick tour of the school, then headed off to show them our house in our compound. They were all surprised by the size of our house (as were we) and some of the girls couldn't believe how big Kellan has gotten (i coached and/or taught 4 of the 6 students who made the trip to China from Delano).

After showing them a quick glimpse of our world, we headed into the city to do so me shopping at the famous Yashow market. The kids were craving STARBUCKS so we grabbed that and SUBWAY on the way to shop!

When we were at the market we all split up to do some bargaining! I was super impressed at how good the girls i was with were at bargaining! they got some incredible deals! I even hopped in on one deal b/c they ended up getting these bottle openers for cheaper than i would have tried to go:) After over 2 hours of bargaining...it was time for them to head back to their hotel and for me to head back home. Riley and Kathy had spent the evening at Kingy's bar with teachers. It was the day before our spring break so most teachers were out!

Thursday we headed to the TEMPLE OF HEAVEN which was a new adventure for Riley and me. It turned out to be one of my favorite sites to visit thus far in China! You see everything while you walk around the park...tons of older Chinese folk dancing, stretching, yo-yo-ing, playing all kinds of racquet sports, singing (or yelling-depending on your tastes). It was truely amazing! We loved walking around. In the pictures you can see Riley and Kathy trying to yo-yo--with sticks (i think that is what they call it?). Another picture you can see men painting on the sidewalks with water and brushes----beautiful artwork! Yet another picture of the older small Chinese woman --if you loook carefully-we thought her feet must have been bound from a long time ago. She was dressed in a very unique manner and she definitely walked funny. She got many stares as she wondered around the Temple of Heaven.

After spending a few hours at the park, we headed to the pearl market where kathy got herself a beautiful necklace and i bought a few things for the folks back home. We didn't spend too much time there before we were starving and headed off the a famous noodle shop close by. The food there was GREAT! Riley and i had quickly eaten there the night we went to the ballet-but this time we were able to enjoy it more. Good food......,then we headed home to NAP for a few hours-which was much needed! That evening we just hung out and tried to gain some energy for the next day's adventures! More to come!