Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Fulbright orientation and Tian'anmen Square






I know I went a day without posting, but I fell asleep putting Sophia down last night and woke up in the morning! Yesterday I attended some briefings with Michael while the children were cared for nearby, and then we all went on a field trip with the Embassy staff who are in charge of us. First we went to the Beijing City Planning Center, where we saw a scale model of Beijing and films and models of the "new Beijing" under construction for the Olympics. The "Bird's Nest" building we saw the day before was featured prominently. Also Helen posed for me with her Huan-Huan mascot by the Olympic countdown clock. Did I post already about how Helen's Chinese name is Huan (now her middle name) and she is planning to use Huan-huan as her name at school here? When we arrived we found out that one of the five mascots has the same name and is all over the place.


On our field trip we went to Tian'anmen for a group photo and then out for Peking Duck at a famous restaurant. It was a long meal featuring duck at least four different ways, but even Thomas ate a lot of the duck, which was very good. Managed to get enough cash together (finally found an HSBC ATM) for our tickets to Xiamen -- we leave 2 pm on Thursday.

2 comments:

Joan Stoltman said...

I dig Thomas' Mackinac Island shirt in the Fulbright pic---spread the Michigan love to China!

You guys look like you're having a blast.

Cool art galleries, by the way. There's a lot of buzz in the recent years about the Contemporary Chinese art scene. There are a few great catalogs and surveys out by D.A.P., Hatje Cantz, Tate Publishing, Phaidon and Taschen.

Continue to have fun!

-Joan

Anonymous said...

Amiable brief and this enter helped me alot in my college assignement. Say thank you you on your information.