March 18: Trip to Xing Xing Park & We are Off to Yunnan Province

Jocelyn Writes:

We have been "thin" on blog entries this week... I think the kids have been feeling tired of our routine--such that it is.... and are experiencing a bit of homesickness. In a timely-sort-of -way, we, the 5 Mallory-Gordons and the 8 BHS students, are all heading to the airport on Sunday, March 23, 2008--to spend five days in Yunnan Province--that's southern China near the border with Vietnam.

Our group will be visiting Kunming--the City of Eternal Spring, Dali --where the regional population is Bai and the city of Lijiang capital of the Naxi kingdom (another Chinese minority people). According to our itinerary, we are also going to climb some part of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (5600 meters above the sea level). We'll be out of touch till our return on Friday, March 28th, 2008 (Happy Birthday Mom, Zimra, Aunt Judy and Cousin Steve!!!). Our friend Marilyn Shapiro arrives in Xi'an on the day of our return--We are sooo looking forward to seeing her! Safe travels Marilyn! Happy Purim and much love to all!!
--Jocelyn

Ben Says: I lost a tooth!! (Ed. Comment: bottom front!)


Ayden Writes:

Yesterday I went to a park where you can see birds, ride boats and do many other things. The first thing we did was ride on a paddleboat. I was really scared at first but when we got out in the lake I decided that I wanted to steer the boat. The view from the boat was gorgeous. On the other hand the lake was not so pretty. The lake was full of dirt. It looked like the Charles River.

After the boat ride we went to look at birds. When we walked in, someone gave us a bag of stuff that we can feed to the birds. First we saw many pigeons. We also saw parrots. The next kind of bird we saw was a peacock. There were two different kinds of peacocks, the first kind was the regular kind that most of you know, the next kind was a white peacock. We saw many different kind of birds. I am sorry but I don’t know the names of the birds.

We also saw a bird show. It was really cool. I’m going to tell you about some of the really special acts. In the first act, a bird took a few pieces of paper and put them in the right order, then the bird held it up. My translator told me that the words meant “welcome”. In another act, a person who works with the birds took a bird and held it up. He told the audience that if someone wanted to hold up two kinds of money that the bird would choose the bill with the greatest value. The act was really entertaining to watch because the bird would always choose the bill with the higher value. The last act was a bird walking across a tightrope and didn’t fall off. I bet I could tell you a bunch more but that would take ages.