5 Cheeseheads in China: Month of May...

We have had a very busy month. Can't believe May is almost over and we are down to less than two months!

Here is recap of some of our month.

We did some hiking in Guangzhou at Bai Yun or White Cloud Mountain.

We often see English translation errors we refer to as Chinglish...not sure what Dyaw is. but be sure to Stress the Civilization???

Heading to the top, it was a really steep climb up these steps for about 15-20 minutes

We discovered many people bring locks to the top and add them to this collection

Happy we made it to the top, this is a wishing tree with all the red ribbons in it.

According to Wikipedia...Moxing Ridge (Chinese: 摩星岭; literally “Star-scraping Ridge”) is 382 m (1,253 ft) high and is also called the “First Peak under the Southern Sky” (Chinese: 天南第一峰).^[1]
Virescence covers over 95% of the area of Baiyun Mountain, enabling it to absorb 2800 t of carbon dioxide and release 2100 t of oxygen each day. Therefore, Baiyun Mountain is regarded as the “Lung of the City” (Chinese: 市肺).^[1]


This is midday while I was waiting for the bus, we get something they refer to during the daytime as black rain (according to what I read the black that settles is due to the pollution :(. It gets dark quickly, poors rain and gets very windy, more like monsoon conditions!


Hattie, Mason, and Gabe helping to celebrate Claire's 13th birthday, also with her sister Taylor. We went to see the Crood's in 3D

This month my class had a big event for our Open Day Conference. I was selected to teach a class in our auditorium for 300 guests and the students' parents :). These are a few photos from our fun day. It went much better than I anticipated. After weeks of prep, practice and some panic from my coworkers, we pulled it off! It was an interesting experience to say the least. The kids had to wear special uniforms, including nice new black shoes. Also, I had to wear a uniform and since I am not Chinese sized I had mine made by a local tailor.

This is the auditorium when we were getting set up.

Kelly and Jenny

Austen, Leon and Alex

Eilm and Maggie

After our open class in the auditorium, we rushed to change our clothes to their normal school uniforms and head out to do our choreographed exercise program for the parents. As you can see we then proceed to take off those uniforms, because when it is so hot they just exercise and play in their underwear. This is one of those things that has become normal in my head, but once in awhile I remember this is not usual. We danced to 4 songs, which we have been rehearsing for about two months. The parents stood on the upper two floors to watch.

This is one of the multi-age exercise stations the kids can participate in...notice they are jumping from a ladder at the end??? It is hard to explain, but so far no one has broken anything, although I can't stand to watch so there may be injuries I don't see. The ladders were also originally two feet taller.

This is Gabe with his Book Buddy, Kevin and Claire and my director, Apple, reading with Maggie. We started book buddies about a month ago with the 7th grade English students. We read for 30 minutes every other Friday morning.

Gabe and Mason had a basketball tournament in Shenzhen this month. This is their second tournament with a 14U team. It was a great tournament. They got to play 4 games and took second place, only losing by 3. One court was outdoors and it was in the high 80's so here is a pic of Gabe finding some shade. We see more umbrellas used in China to block the sun, than the rain.

We got a kick out of this pic of the bench, not to many similarities to what we see in the US, a Mom and another teacher/coach parked it in the middle of the bench with their umbrella. Also two kids just had put away their phones. The head coach, Michael is on the left. We were ahead by a significant amount at this time, hence the relaxed demeanor.

Here is the team accepting their 2nd place trophy. In the 3rd quarter this boy they are holding got cramps and still an hour later couldn't walk, a little melodramatic to say the least. His teammates helped to carry him to the auditorium and the bus.

Luke and I saw these twin babies while we were out one night. Their parents owned a bike shop. This is where they get to hang out.

For Mother's Day we headed just outside of our gated community to a couple of small museums. At the first one an artist was painting the man in the backgrounds portrait. It was quite good. They also had Chinese Calligraphy.

The second museum was also a park/garden area. We enjoyed a nice walk around and of course couldn't escape a day without a photo opportunity for someone. We got swarmed by this group of young ladies.