Today is Wednesday...we have had two beautiful days in a row. By beautiful days I mean that the sky is blue and we can see white fluffy clouds. The smog has been blown somewhere else and it is very nice to see our river view again. Today is a three + bridge day!!! The temperature is still hot and muggy but not as bad as before we left for Beijing. The kids are having fun exploring Shanghai and shopping. Today....I decided to stay home and "veg" for a while. Xiao Zhang is sick today so I will have to make dinner....hmmmmm....I wonder if I still can???

My new Chinese teacher is very cute. She is the same age as Tucker and Kim....so....guess what?....I could be her mother. This weeks lesson is all about getting your hair cut....too bad I did not have this lesson 5 months ago.....it may have saved a lot of trouble.

We are having some trouble with Mr. Zhang. It seems he has been using the car for "personal" activities which is totally against the contract that we have with our car company. This was reported to his boss and now he is in a very bad mood. He seems to be going out of his way to make things more difficult for us...i.e....taking the longest way to our destination, not answering his phone when we call him, does not acknowledge when we speak to him....etc. This is a cultural thing that is a very big pain to deal with. We are all a bit frustrated with him. I just want to say...SNAP OUT OF IT!!!! I am afraid if he does not change his attitude we will be getting an new driver......aaaarrrrggggg!!!

Abi has been spending the past two days rearranging her room and getting herself organized to go back to school....yes...she starts school next Wednesday. I think she will be finished with her summer reading Tuesday night....ha ha.. No need to rush into anything!!!

Here are some pictures from last Friday : The Great Wall and The Old City

The Great Wall.....and Wow is it ever Great....It exceeded my expectations

Kim and Tucker with The Great Wall in the background

In the market at the bottom of The Great Wall

The Spoffords hiking the wall

Some factoids about the wall.... the wall is 6000 kilometers long....which means that it could span the US from Coast to Coast. The Wall was never conquered....but it was once "over taken". A General was bribed to let warriors pass through without a battle.


Tucker and Abi at the Wall

The country view is absolutely beautiful from the wall.



This is one way to get down off the wall. Abi, Tucker and Tim took this way.....Kim and I took the chair lift down.

Abi at the bottom of the wall
.... The market place at the bottom of the Wall


On our way back to the city we stopped for lunch. Tim caught a trout and it was BBQ'ed for us on the spot.....now that is fresh fish!


Waiting for our fish to be cooked

After lunch we went into the old part of Beijing and took a rickshaw ride through the streets. We stopped at a home an visited with a local family

Abi in the rickshaw

Walking through the market in the Old City.

Ahhhhhhh.....we found a Starbucks. Nothing like a cold drink when you are tired of "touring".

Next Stop.....dinner at the home of a local family. We visited another local family that made dinner for us. It was really very good how ever we could not identify everything on the table. Specifically the yellowish squares with Chinese characters stamped on it. Tim decided to try it and then Kim said it was probably soap....we all cracked up and had much discussion about what the Chinese family thought about us eating the "soap"....

Tim laughing about eating the soap....we all had tears running down out faces we were laughing so hard.

Dinner in the Hu tang (old city area) of Beijing.

Dumplings....Can you tell which one was made by the expert and which ones were made by the "Americans"?

This is our dinner host showing us how to make dim sum....Dumplings

Tucker making dumplings...

Abi making dumplings. This is a very important part of the Chinese New Year Celebration. Each family gets together on the Eve of the New Year and make dumplings. All generations and genders participate in this tradition. Each family has a "special" recipe for what is put in the middle of the dumpling.