Beijing Visitors 2008-2011

I had three great years in Beijing and I had several people come to visit me. Thank you for visiting! In order of appearance:

Cousin Hallie, November 2008

Mom, March 2009

Dad and Jessica, June 2009

Leah, Richelle, and Roger, October 2009

Mom, May 2010

Jon, October 2010

Jon, November 2010

Jon, March/April 2011

Jerilynn and Ray, April/May 2011

Joann, Splash, Clem, and Kristen, May 2011

Dad, Geoff, and Heidi, June 2011

Thank you for visiting!

--Sarah--

Year Three Completed!

I tried to post this several times while I was still in Beijing, but I was having internet connectivity issues.

I finished my third year teaching in China and my eighth year in total. I wrote about the last day of school tradition my first year and second year. All of the teachers go out to wave at the buses as they carry the kids away. There are also fireworks crackling while the bus horns are blaring. This year, we had a new Head of School (I had his son in my class.) and I wasn't sure if the tradition would be any different from the first two years. I have a video of our zillion buses leaving on the last day of school 2010-2011, but every time I try to load it, something doesn't work. Now that we are in July and I still have China posts to post, I better just get on with it and post this one videoless. The video was pretty similar to the first two years.

On the Sunday after school ended I was off to Tibet different cities in China via train with my dad, uncle, and aunt. We all returned to California on June 26th. There were a few bumps along the way which I will write about soon!

--Sarah--

Happy Father's Day Papa!

Happy Father's Day to my dad. I am so glad that you were able to come with me on this trip. Thank you for being a great listener, supporter, advisor, and everything else. Also, thanks for being here to once again help me move! I promise that I will only move a few more times until I stay in one place for a while!

Dad and I are currently off traveling in China by train so he will see this when we return.

--Sarah--

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--

Dressing up as Opera Stars

While Jon was visiting me, we spent an afternoon getting makeup applied all over our faces and hands, nails painted and fake hair applied (for me), feet squished into too small shoes (for Jon), and dressing up to get photos taken. Jon was suffering through terrible allergies and was not enjoying this at all but we both think the photos we ended up with are pretty neat. Here are some photos of the process of getting dressed up and the unedited photos. I have to wait until June to get the final edited photos back. The whole thing took about 2 1/2 hours from start to finish. Enjoy!

Starting out:

Adding more makeup:

Jon's least favorite part:

Adding my fake hair one loop at a time:

>Ready for photos:

And now the poses. They placed us exactly - posing us from head to toe:

--Sarah--