Thoughts of Home and Xi'an With the Davoudgoleh's

Jocelyn Writes:

Could it really be that we are less than three weeks away from returning home????
We have all started to remark that this is "probably our last time doing ....." as we live out the last week of our Xi'an life in China. As Ayden will tell you below, we were visited by the Davoudgoleh's this past weekend. After sharing Xi'an with Marilyn (four weeks ago) we felt like Xi'an experts as we traveled back to some of our favorite spots with Sherri, Ira, the kids and Sherri's parents Karen and Stan. It was fun to visit the Terracotta Warriors one last time. All of us never seem to tire of visiting them and thanks to the support of Madame Jiao at the Gaoxin School we have purchased a 3/4 size kneeling archer that will be joining us permanently at 66 Lawton street!

We leave for Guilin on Friday. Our adventure in Southern China begins (and ends!) with a 28 hour train ride in a soft sleeper car. Wish us luck!! We return to Xi'an on May 18th and have two days to pack, party and pack some more and then we fly to Beijing for 4 and a half days of sightseeing. On May 25th we board our Continental flight to Newark and are hoping to arrive in Boston at 10:00 PM for a good nights sleep (hah!) so we can celebrate Ariana Weinstock's Bat Mitzvah on Monday morning at 9:30 AM.

We'll be staying at Carol and Toms till the first of June and then we move back into 66 Lawton street!!

We will try and blog before we leave..... Fondly, Joc

Ayden Writes:

On Thursday and Friday my school did not have class, because it was May holiday. I don’t really know what May holiday celebrates so I can't tell you. Instead of us going to school, Goldie and her family came to visit. A couple weeks before, we went to visit Goldie and her family in Shanghai. Goldie came with her parents, her brother and her grandparents. Goldie’s grandparents don’t live in Shanghai with Goldie; they just came from Boston to visit her family.

My family has been to most of the places in Xi’an. So when we went to those places they weren’t new. Looking at sights when they are new and looking at sights for a second time is different. I have already been to the terracotta warriors two times. The first time everything was new and amazing but the second time I started to notice things that I had missed noticing the first time. For example, some of the terra cotta warriors have no hair; and some terracotta warriors have numbers written on them. I also noticed how different each one was. I think going the second time to a sight is more fun than going the first time.

Goldie, Goldie’s family, my Mom and I all went to a phenomenal show. The show had a lot of dancing and gymnastics involved. From a ten-year-old perspective the show was absolutely phenomenal. From a 40 year olds perspective the show was good. The performers in the show were doing things like Chinese dancing, playing music and acrobatics with yo-yos. One of my favorite things I did with Goldie and her family was going to that show. When Goldie left I was sad because my English speaking friend was gone
--Ayden