Happy Mother's Day Mom!

This was the sign in the lobby and elevator area at my building wishing a Happy Mother's Day to all the moms around.

Above the English translation was the Chinese version but I didn't take a photo of it and as it warned at the bottom, they did indeed take it back on May 9th. Rather than "Mothers are the best disinterested in the world" I wonder what it was really supposed to say.

Happy Mother's Day Mom. I don't think you are the best disinterested. Let's go diving again!

I love you!

--Sarah--

Jerilynn & Ray's Visit

On Friday, I met Jerilynn and Ray at the airport and we smooshed into a taxi. Imagine two large suitcases, two carry-on suitcases, one garment bag, one backpack, three people (plus the driver), and a good sized walker. I wish we somehow got a photo but we couldn't really move once we all got squished in. The taxi driver even had to help us get it all in. We made it though! We arrived at home just in time to catch the Royal Wedding coverage on CNN!

On Saturday, we had a leisurely morning and Jerilynn and I walked over to the grocery store. After lunch, we took a taxi to the dirt market where we had a great time people-watching, checking out all the things for sale, and buying things too. The air quality was not good because of a sandstorm and we had quite a bit of wind blowing us around, but we had a good time.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant that I have been wanting to try. It is called Din Tai Fung and it is on the New York Times Top 10 Restaurants in the World list for their wonderful dumplings. We thought it was pretty good too!

On Sunday, we hired a driver to take us to the Mutianyu Great Wall. It was a holiday this weekend so everyone else was going to the Great Wall as well. There was lots of traffic but lunch was tasty and we had a good time. We rode up in the chair lift and then we rode down the toboggan! We had lunch at the Schoolhouse Restaurant.

On Monday, Ray rested at home while Jerilynn and I went to the Forbidden City. But first, we had an ice cream.

I lost my sunglasses, but I found an elephant.

We had some excitement getting from the Forbidden City to the Pearl Market. We took a little three-wheeled putt-putt vehicle there!

On the way home from the Pearl Market, we had more excitement. We got in our taxi and he promptly got in a car accident. No one was harmed and we didn't see much of anything on the cars either, but we didn't stick around long. We hailed a new cab and hurried on home.

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Jerilynn and Ray had a driver drive them all around Beijing. I didn't get their photos from them for these days so I can't show you what they did. They went to many places though - some I haven't even been to yet! They also came to visit my school on Thursday afternoon for a little while. One day we had dinner at Pure Lotus - a vegetarian restaurant with interesting and flowery language to describe each dish. We drank tea that made our childhood memories bubble up into our pockets, or something.

In the evening on Thursday, we went to see the acrobats. We think the acrobats were tired because there were more mistakes than expected. We still had a great time though.

On Friday, I said goodbye to my lovely guests before I left for school and organized a driver to take them to Tianjin where they met up with their ship. Enjoy the rest of your trip Jerilynn and Ray! Thanks for visiting!

--Sarah--