Old Wall Linhai City

It was a packed afternoon and evening. I am absolutely exhausted between the activities, heat, rain, and stairs! It rained for the first time this afternoon. The rain helps cool things off, but not a whole lot. We are still in the upper 80s.

Some of the kids went home after lunch, others went shopping. Maddie's host, Andie, picked out dresses and bought them for all the American girls. It was a very sweet gesture. At 2 o'clock, we met back at the school for our music class. One of the English teachers, Mrs. Tang (Vivienne), asked me if I enjoyed lunch. I told her the dumplings were very good. She said, "You liked them? They were terrible! The worst I've ever had." She must not have liked the ravioli-style dumplings everyone made... or maybe she got one of John's McDoubles. Oh well.

The music teacher would give Mr. Hamid a run for his money. She was an excellent teacher, she sang beautifully... and all the boys LOVED her. She was so gorgeous that the boys asked to take pictures with her after the lesson. We sang a song from the Beijing Opera; we sang one of the easier songs that they teach young students because it is so difficult. The students were great sports with the singing- no solos, but everyone participated. After, everyone had an opportunity to color/create a Beijing Opera mask. It doesn't matter how old you are- if you get crayons out, you WILL color. It was the most focused I had seen any of them during class.

We had our sports class next: ping pong. I knew that it was intense here, but oh my, did we see some competitive players today! There is a large room in on of the classroom buildings dedicated to the sport. It was the coldest room in the entire school- several AC units in the room. The floor is a rubber material, there were waist-high fabric dividers, and 5 different tables. Huipu had a PE teacher there and two coaches. There was another man training there, decked out in a matching polo and shorts and ping pong shoes. Yes, ping pong shoes. They don't mess around here. We got a private lesson on the proper form, then the kids were turned loose. I watched one of the coaches, an older gentleman, school student after student after student. He had a sick spin serve that no one could return. Everyone participated and enjoyed ping pong.

At 4:30 we dispersed to clean up and eat dinner. Mr. Kline and I went to dinner with Miss Ren, Steven (American teacher), and Mrs. Tang and her husband. We ate at one of the hotel restaurants. In addition to having private rooms, most restaurants have you look and pick out what you want to eat. You walk around a room and look at pictures, prepared plates, or, in some cases, pick out what fish or other critter you want right out of the tank. I wish I could take pictures or video of this process without offending anyone. I tried to tonight, but it was frowned upon. Again, we had another meal "special and unique to Linhai." Everything was pretty much the same (like the duck tongue, unfortunately), but the dessert was very interesting. They brought out a large wooden pail and when they opened up the top, it looked like sand and bird seed inside. I, for one, was not about to dig through sand for some dessert I did not want- watermelon was fine by me. But Miss Ren had the waitress cut up this cake, which was only the top part of the pail. She served several pieces of this spongy, brown cake supposed made of a sweet potato base. It was kind of dry, but actually pretty good. I don't know what it is called, so I'll just say I ate sand cake in China :)

We all met up again after dinner at 6:30 at the city wall. The kids kept calling it the Great Wall all day, but it's really not part of it. Miss Ren said something about it being used to block water, but I'm not sure how much is lost in translation. I'm almost positive the southern city wall was intended to keep invaders out. It was a steep climb up 195 steps, then we continued further uphill to a pagoda overlooking all of Linhai. The walk was somewhat disappointing because it started to rain hard for the second time today. Plus, the sun sets around 6:30, so our pictures didn't really turn out. This was, however, a nice little adventure before we get to check out THE Great Wall of China.

The students were picked up by their host families after. It appeared that all the boys wanted to go to KTV again and the girls were going to go out for smoothies. Again, it is so wonderful to see the positive interaction between the US and Chinese students.

Tomorrow we visit the Changyu Cave- and hope to see the 3 pandas that live there! It is quite the hike, so we start out bright and early. In the afternoon, we will go to the markets at LuQiao.

Have a great day!