Pictures!

Are you ready for some pictures?!? I hope that you are. Here are just a few of the pictures thus far of my adventures in China.

Today, David and I spend the day with Sarah at school It was very cool and interesting to see her school during school hours and to see how an American school in China works. Her third graders are all so cute! They were all excited that today was the last day of school and that they could now go on a summer vacation. The school is a mix of Japanese, Korean, Tawianese, Malasian, and American (yes, American) children. Talk about cultural diversity in the classroom! :)

Tonight we're going to the Bund, which is right on the river. Here you'll find the Pearl Tower, on of the world's largest TV towers. Then we're going to do some shopping in a famous Chinese shopping district...Nanjing (spelling?) Road. I'm excited! :) Can't wait to see what there is and to get some hopefully good deals on some real authentic Chinese goods!

We are leaving Sunday night for Beijing via a night train. Trying to purchase our train tickets was an interesting experience. Before we left school, Sarah had someone write in Chinese what we all wanted, hower, the person who was selling train tickets really didn't understand what we wanted. Thankfully, China has this phone number that you can call and have someone translate for you. So, I think that we'll be spending a lot of time calling this number in order to get anywhere! This will be my first time traveling first class. According to the western locals, first class is the best way to travel in China...you get less people staring at you. Speaking of staring, I had a lady today at the mall walk past me and just stare the entire time. Talk about slightly unnerving! I'm slowly getting accustom to people staring at me because of my white skin and brown hair. There are a lot of other white and black westerners here. I really wasn't expecting to see so many westerners and to hear them all speak English and either be from the States or Canada.

Another thing that has really suprised me to see in China, and I don't know why I wasn't expecting this, was the amount of western resturants. Within a few blocks of Sarah's apt you can find a Starbucks, KFC, Dairy Queen, Papa John's, Pizza Hut, and a McDonald's. Talk about being able to eat American food while away from home. The movie theatres here all have western movies from Hollywood. I even saw a movie poster for C.S. Lewis's "Prince Caspian." I took a pictures because I couldn't believe my eyes! I wasn't expecting China to allow a "Christian" movie into the country.

Pizza Hut

27 Dresses and Prince Caspian