Going to the Summer Palace

For Labor Day we went to the Summer Palace.   The Summer Palace was really far away.  It is outside the city on a hill, near a lake.  The Summer Palace was used by the emperor in the summer because it was cooler than the city. 

We went on a dragon boat ride on Kunming Lake.  The boat took us to a temple.  It was very crowded.  It was fun riding on the boat.

We climbed up lots of stairs.  These stairs took us to a tower on a hill.  Most of the buildings were built in the 1700s but were burned in a war.  An emperor rebuilt them in the late 1800s.

The Summer Palace isn't just one building its lots and lots of buildings.  Here is one example.  There was a really long walk way that connected many of the buildings called the Long Corridor.  There were lots of paintings on the walls.

We had a great time!  Please leave comments.


Alex's School

My school is called The British School of Beijing or BSB. The school is really big. My school has lots of stairs. The playground field is really big. At recess we play tag and football. Football is really just soccer but that is what they call it here. My teacher's name is Mr. McGuigan. He is from Scotland. We also have a TA. His name is Mr. Lauther and he is from England.

My after school activity (ASA) is football. I also have a Chinese class everyday. At BSB I'm in Year 3 but I am in 2nd grade. I have a music class. At music class we sing, play shakers, drums and bells. We go swimming for PE.

Our principal's name is Mr. Bishop but here we call him Headmaster. We have houses at our school which is really just a team. My house is the Saxons. Our color is green.

This is my school uniform. I wear it almost everyday. I like my uniform a lot because it is very British. This is my "jumper" but it is called a sweater in the US.

I have classmates from England, Egypt, China, Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Canada and maybe Germany.

Ni hao!

Ni hao means hello in Chinese.

Welcome to my new blog from China! I want to share some pictures and adventures with you.

I miss you all and want to stay in touch. Please leave comments so I can hear from you.

Alexander W.

Our trip to Temple of Heaven

This is us at the Temple of Heaven (Tian Tan). It is about 500 years old. Emporers used this temple for praying. They prayed to a statue of a god for a good harvest.

We saw lots of really big and really old trees. Some trees were hundreds of years old.

There were lots of people there. Chinese people looked at us because they had never seen western people before. They wanted to take pictures of us. We had fun there.