Dianne Skawski:
Happy Birthday to Paxton! Today we spent our final hours
in Xi'an and traveled to Beijing. As you know from yesterday's,
page, Xi'an is a walled city so we decided to start the
day by taking in the view from the wall. When we got there,
we opted to rent bikes and use them to circumnavigate
the wall.
After our PE regimen we flew to Beijing. We had dinner
tonight in the very same restaurant we visited for our
very first meal together in China. Jet lag is gone (until
Saturday) and the students are nearly seasoned travelers.
It's great to see how relaxed and poised they are now
in a Chinese restaurant and to see how well they've developed
a sense of table manners. Dining Chinese style with chopsticks
and a rotating table is old hat now and many people in
the group have expressed a preference for the family style
meal. Of course, today's author has to be the birthday
boy:Paxton:
Today was my sixteenth birthday. We started with a leisurely
bike ride around Xi'an's city wall. We rented speed cruiser
bikes and some people rented tandems. We were able to
get Nikki on a bike for the first time ever; we got her
on a tandem bike with Ms. Simpson. Everyone seemed to
be having a good time and was able to complete the nine
and a half mile ride with ease. After we finished our
loop, with 30 minutes to spare, we all had a chance to
try a tandem bike. Let me tell you, it is not as easy
as it looks and it was actually quite frightening especially
turning. Even Ms. Greene and Mr. Perrin took a ride on
one of the tandems, and did surprisingly well. After the
bike ride was all said and done, we departed for Beijing.
Our journey started with approximately one hour bus ride
to the airport where we had a brief lunch. Our group had
about and hour before we boarded to look around at shops
and do work. After we landed and collected our bags we
sat on a bus for another hour which took us to our hotel
in Beijing. We arrived at around 5:30 pm, collected the
luggage that we had left in Beijing before, and went out
to dinner. The place where we ate was within walking distance
so travel time was short. When we got back to the hotel
for a meeting about our trip journals, I was sent back
upstairs to find Mr. Perrin's camera. When I returned
empty handed I was greeted with a cake and the whole group
singing happy birthday. I didn't expect it in the slightest;
I was completely surprised and grateful. It really made
it easy to have a birthday away from home.
Ms. Greene and Mr. Perrin burn some rubber
on the tandem, above, and Jordan and and Tiffany try out
the tandem bike, right---->
Looking down from the wall you can see the park that encircles
it for nearly nine miles. This ring of parks has outdoor
pool tables and fitness equipment scattered along it.
Its a very popular spot all day long.
