But Wait, There's More ...

Monday November 16th

Our final week.

On Monday, while Tony, Des, Matt and Elke went to the Summer Palace with Spring, Lora had the opportunity to visit a Chinese Primary School, talk with the Principal and teachers (through and interpreter), and observe and participate in an English lesson with 6 year olds. School is definitely different to Australia, the content, expected behaviours of children and lack of choice in education, but kids are kids, and it was a pleasure to see the children singing songs in English.

Over at the Summer Palace we found Emperor Matt and Empress Spring.

The Summer Palace has beautiful landscaped gardens, lots of water, and mountains surround behind the Palace. The snow is still hanging around, providing that special glistening look.

After lunch we all went together to visit the Bird's Nest.  It is quite an impressive structure.  Unfortunately they were digging up the centre of the stadium.  Not sure if they were preparing it for use, or if snow had damaged the ground - but we could have been back in Shanghai amongst the roadworks.

Speaking of roadworks ....

Barack Obama is in town.  As a consequence traffic is chaos and evening plans were changed because of the delays with transport.  Just the first of our Barack Blunders.