Sports Day on campus

Ni hao, y'all. Things here in Baoding are going well. We had a very busy week of classes. We also met about 100 students for English Corner where students can practice speaking English in a more relaxed setting. We met outdoors after dinner time, where we played some games and danced to the Cupid Shuffle. It was a hit.

This photo was taken in front of the Beijing Art Museum with the much younger couple teaching with us- Lauren and Cuyler. The sculpture reminds us of the helmet or bean in a downtown Chicago park.


Its Sports Day on campus this weekend. Classes were cancelled today and the students participated in track and field events. They were having a good time cheering on their classmates. Marianne was again very popular with the students. She was in many group photos, again. I have to start makin' some money off this.

Marianne with her many fans. 

The girl next to Marianne is Felice. She is our Chinese teacher. We have a quiz on Monday. Gotta study.

Below are a couple of short videos of the sports action. The Back-to-back race was very exciting. These teams needs to work on their technique a little more.

Here, the boys are running a heat of the 800 meters. They all start out great, but they are usually struggling at the end.

I met one of my students there and he told me he's running in the 5,000 meter race on Saturday. I asked him if he ever ran that far before and he said 'No.' I asked him if he's been training for the race, and he said, 'Well, I've been riding my bike.' I'm not sure if he'll be in class on Monday.

At 12:00, everyone took a break for lunch and a nap.

We promised some more photos of our trip to Shanghai.

This are the fountains at the People's Square. Its a nice space in a busy city.

The city is very beautiful at night. Many building are lit up and neon lights are everywhere. Along the river is a  promenade called 'The Bund'. People flock here to get some great night views of the city.  

This is old part of Shanghai. As you can see it is a very popular place to visit. It was tough to get through this part of the city, but we made it and eventually found our way back to the hotel for a well deserved nap.

We ran into these folks on Nanjing Rd early one morning. Marianne had a hankering for a Mr. Donut and on our way we saw the seniors doing their tai chi and dancing. From midday to midnight, this pedestrian street is packed with shoppers and people-watchers, but at 8am it belongs to the seniors.

We found a nice Italian restaurant that serve a great Caprese salad with fresh mozerella. We went there twice. We also found a place that had good burgers and quesadillas. So after loading up on western food and four days of sightseeing in Shanghai it was time to head back to Baoding. We had a long but good train ride back, and met some nice students along the way that wanted to practice their English.

 The young man to the left had a 14 hour train ride to his university in southern China. No big deal.

The young man below was a student at Nanjing University.  They both promised to be our tour guides if we came to their city.