Expedition Week

I just got back to Beijing; the whole school has been away this week on expeditions. Each year group went away to different places around China. I was assigned to year 10, and we went to Shandong Province, which is south of Beijing. We took the overnight train Monday night, which was surprisingly okay, to Qufu, which is famous for the fact Confucius was born and lived there. We visited the Confucian Temple, Mansion, and Forest, which we cycled around. We also went to visit a local school, which had about six thousand pupils - it was massive, but fairly poor, so it was a good eye-opener for the spoiled rich Harrow kids! The following day we started the main part of our trip, which was a trek up Mount Tai. It is a famous mountain, where many Chinese pilgrimage - one of the Five Sacred Mountains of Taoism. It has 6,666 steps to climb (six being a lucky number in China). It took us the best part of the day, and was very reminiscent of my work in Switzerland, encouraging kids up mountains! We stayed in a hotel at the top, which had pretty great views. We got up at 5.30am the next morning to watch the sunrise, which the kids weren't that happy about - made worse by the fact that it was so cloudy we ended up not seeing anything! The descent only took the morning, and in the afternoon we visited a local village - real poor, rural China, where they showed us local activities like pancake and tofu making, paper cutting, weaving, and so on. It was really interesting, and, again, something some of our kids really needed to experience! Though we then retired to a 5* hotel, and came back on the luxurious express train today!

So it was a good week. Three weeks of regular school now, and then half term. I have a football match on Sunday (we lost 6-4 last week in a disastrous match, so need to make amends!). A birthday party to go to tomorrow. And lots to catch up on with all my friends who went on the other expeditions - some have been trekking and abseiling on the Great Wall, one went sailing, others went to the Tsunami reconstruction zone etc. I am home alone for the week ahead as Louise has gone back to England for graduation. Have finally sorted Mandarin lessons with a really nice teacher who works at the primary, and is going to teach me for free!

Hope anyone reading this is well. x