Waking up to birds

Today we woke up to birds!!! It was so pleasant. After weeks of the coal trucks, then the night on the train, then the hotel on the Beijing runway, we had good nights sleep. We have been in the urban jungle for so long, that we were so happy to hear the birds at 6am.
It wasn't the full chorus that we get on Lummi Island, but it was sweet.

Roses!!

So todays menu has not been our favorite. We are dining in the cafeteria with the friendliest servers and chefs, but the food...
It was registration day for the summer camp. It is actually a residential camp so the folk pay and go. Our job was to talk to the kids while the paperwork and money was being processed. Again, I HATE for profit education. I'd never seen the passing of the RMB before so it was uncomfortable for me. Really, if you look at camps in USA, this one is a steal if you translate the cost to USD. Course in the USA, families make US dollars so it is quite diffeent. Anyway I looked in all of these faces and I saw lots of similiar features to my former Anhui student and just a few that shared features with little guy. I can't wait to meet him.

Mowing the grass with a sythe.

In the afternoon we explored the shore of the lake. It was really interesting, little plots af gardens everywhere. One guy showed us his big cucumbers and tomatoes. There were huge lotus pads. There were lots of flowers and butterflies and dragonflies.

"Now I like this place"

Princess threw rocks in the lake and said "Now, I like this place!" I hadn't known she didn''t like it before! Teenager has island fever.
At night we had an opening ceremony for the school.

In the uniform

Then we took another walk and found the island market. Everything was closing so we will check it out more tomorrow.

Waking up to birds

Hefei, China