Our Weekend

This weekend started with Chinese tutoring make up class on Saturday morning. Here are the characters I was writing on the board while my tutor dictated them to me....

Chinese is written with a specific stroke order. I like to shortcut that order a lot of times because it's easier for me to remember the characters then. But Chinese people call you out on it as my teacher was doing. Once again, a reflection of how they are taught to stay inside the box... don't question the stroke order!




We went out with Ben and Kate (from Russia) to Lan. It's a restaurant that has the craziest atmosphere ever. I would say it's decor is a bit like the MadHatter's Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland.




Chase sitting in one of the chairs in the hallway of the restaurant. No piece of furniture is a like throughout the whole restaurant and club that it attached.




There's tons of art on the ceiling and gorgeous light fixtures. This one I thought was great.




On Sunday we went to the train station to buy tickets to Shanghai for next weekend. It's Labor Day on Friday and I have the day off. So we are going to Shanghai, except it will be by plane.
We walked around to a grassy area near the station which is close to Temple of Heaven park and flew our kite! It was great fun and the new kite looks so beautiful in the air.

All the Chinese people walking around there would stop and look at the laowais fumbling around with their kite.



We made it over to San Li Tun for some food and a massage. While we were in the Village (shopping/restaurant center) we noticed three cranes working on a Sunday afternoon. Labor in this country doesn't rest except when it's raining.




In the middle of the Village, there were some djs playing electronic music with visual effects up on the big screen. And we thought it was interesting how parents would just allow their children to be around the blasting techno music. I wonder what those children will turn out to be.




So we didn't get a chance to go to the Botanical Garden. We both have come down with some sort of head cold and are lacking energy. So hopefully we can make it through this week chomping down lots of multivitamins and C. Four more days and then a vacation to Shanghai!