More Photos!

Hi everybody. More phone calls, reports, and photos! Elton’s report is below  (Report number 2, to be included in the next batch, will be posted a little later.) so let’s get right to the latest news . . .
 

REPORT 4

Reporter:  Elton

Today was a fun and interesting day. We had free time until 12 just to hang out and explore the campus. The interesting part of the day was when we learned about Confucius and saw his grave and a park built in his memory.

Wednesday morning --

Elton didn’t have much time to write last night, so I’ll take a minute to flesh this out. The campus in Qufu is a welcoming place for all of us.  Our host staff is warm, friendly, helpful and genuinely appreciative of our kids. The students have enjoyed more free reign here within the boundaries of this campus.  There are beautiful parks, funky stores, ample avenues for walking and jogging and thousands of welcoming young college students, many of whom are eager to converse.  Pretty cool.

Qufu is a special place:  Being Confucius’ home town, it has an air of philosophical and spiritual importance that is palpable. All the places we visited yesterday resonate with 2,500 years of venerable history.

We’ll be giving our first formal performances at the theatre on the campus here this weekend.  I’ll let you know how we’re received. 

Must close now: We have a 9 am lecture in Chinese calligraphy and art. Ann

Looks Like Alex had a terrific birthday celebration. Cool! The group looks great and it is obvious they are having a blast! We heard from Kim last night and she said . . .

. . . everyone is doing great and having a terrific time. The food is good, the weather is fantastic, and the Chinese people have been really friendly. She said the shopping at the Forest was a lot of fun.

Any other phone calls?

This 13 hour difference is really weird. While we begin our day, they are ending theirs. When it is evening here, it is tomorrow there. We are still in their yesterday . . .

Well, this marks one week now that the group has been “on the road.” In addition to the the fun they all had in and around Qufu, they were to do their first rehearsal since arriving in China. Tomorrow they will be performing for the first time.

If you’d like to send your child (or spouse) a letter, simply write the letter and send it as an attachment to either Neil at nmanders@wcsu.k12.vt.us or John at john@bookdesign.com. We’ll place the attachments in the folder being used for transfer of documents to and from China. If you don’t know how to do attachments, you can send the e-mail directly to either of us and we’ll see to it it gets into the folder.