Anna Rankin

Fall is coming to Nanjing, finally. What this means is a little less sweat and a little more cool breeziness, but not enough to make you quite comfortable yet. Went with the girls (alas Zuhra and Anna have now left us :( ) to XuanWu Lake and played pirate music as we sailed the treacherous waters in a rented boat, then walked around the trees a bit.

In other news, I have caught a cold and am still trying to move house unsuccessfully.

So, we finished up summer camp with the munchkins. Enjoy some photos of adorable children eating fruit learning!

我在听中文课的录音。。。 最近，每天睡不好。 我急死了！ 上个星期我七天上班了，没有休息。 今天我休息，明天还需要上班，只有一天。 哦，还有事—我要搬家！ 东西都很乱，没准备好了！ 压力很大。 Oh well, 今天我打算睡懒觉！

Some black and white stuff from around Nanjing

Life goes on. Crystal and I have one week of classes left until we focus solely on curriculum development for two weeks, then we take off to travel China for a while… THEN BALI!!! It’s really bittersweet to think we’re going to be leaving China soon. I haven’t left for over a year now. I’m going to miss people here so much…

Blue skies in Nanjing! WHAT???

So, long time no tumble. We left off in Beijing, 对吧？ We’ll start with the photos from our trip to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum. It’s a real open wound as far as sentiment goes, but the museum and the grounds are gorgeous even if some of the exhibits are stomach-turning. 

Beijing: Weekend 1, Day 1

So I went by myself to Beijing two weeks back while the girls went to ZheJiang to play in the water. The plan was to pick up a friend and spend some time with her in the capital, then head back to Nanjing for a week and show her around, but due to airline stupidity I ended up walking around Beijing’s metros and airports with a fever for about twelve hours before collapsing into the hostel with food poisoning and a nasty cold. Luckily my Sara 姐姐 (big sister) just HAPPENED to be in Beijing a few blocks from my hostel with her husband and was willing to bring me medicine. Unfortunately fever reducers/painkillers were incredibly hard to come by (instead I was given herbal anti-inflammatories)… So, next day I set out for the airport again, managed to pick up my buddy and headed us to the train station back to Nanjing. My fever persisted until that night on the train when I begged an attendant to help me. She supplied magical fever-reduction pills and life was wonderful again. THE END 

Okay, so life’s been crazy busy since the girls arrived and I have fallen behind on stories. We’ve been to Beijing, we’ve been doing lots of… activities. Here are some photos from my munchkin’s recent preschool graduation! I shall miss them terribly. Also some pictures from our Fourth of July party. We invited everyone, we set off fireworks and all sang our respective national anthems. A good time was had by all!

More on Beijing and that wackiness later.