Good Evening Manchester!

Greetings from the Netherlands!

It's cold, wet and cloudy here in Amsterdam but we are only 4 hours away from seeing our families!
Although we miss our Chinese friends already, it is a relief to finally visit European toilets!
It is almost 10pm in Beijing but we have set our watches to UK time ready to adjust.
Not long now....love to all xx

This is a Dutch police man. (We couldn't find anything better to take a picture of!) 

(Edit)

...We just found some tulips!

Our Welcome Party and Friends

From left to right: Mr Zhou (Mr Joe!), Mrs Gardiner, Miss Ding, The lovely Heather & Mrs Edwards.

These people have been our rocks. The most helpful, kind, thoughtful & generous people we could have hoped to have met.

Thank you x

Look who we Found...

As we were walking through the airport, jiggling our last few Yuan in our pockets, we spotted some beautiful pandas wearing traditional Chinese clothes. Pandas are an endangered species and there are about 239 living in captivity in China, 49 abroad and around 1590 living wild in the mountains. While the dragon is the national symbol of China, the panda is slowly becoming more recognisable and was even used as one of the main good luck mascots in the Beijing Olympics. These ones were so cute, they practically jumped into our shopping basket! (As well as a chocolate muffin) We hope they'll love their new home.

1hr 30 till be board. Love to all x

Homeward Bound!

We're up, dressed and having breakfast in the airport hotel which consists of coffee, croissants, chocolate & cheese spread crackers as well as a range of beef, pork and seafood dishes with rice. We opted for croissants & coffee today! 
Flight KL898 is on time & ready to depart at 10:55. 16 hours to go. We're on our way! 
Love to all, see you soon. Xx

School life in Qingdao

Looking back at our photos, reflecting on our experience and talking to the teachers here, it seems like there are many things we can learnt from each other.
In China the lessons are always very formal and text book based. The children stand up to answer questions and have a different teacher for each subject - much like English high schools. Each lesson lasts 40 minutes and they have daily 'exercise' where they raise the Chinese flag.
During a discussion with the teachers who observed our art and science lessons, they expressed how creative they thought the activities were. The children were keen to continue the tasks we set and were clearly learning independently, thinking for themselves and demonstrating enquiring minds. Mrs Jiang the principal explained to us afterwards that she would like to change the structure of her school day to include longer afternoon sessions so the children could benefit from English style creativity.

Life in Beijing

Many people in Beijing wear masks on the streets as it can get quite smoggy here.
During busy times of the day, roads get very full and traffic is a big problem. Many people travel on motorised push bikes, scooters, rickshaws and tuk tuks! Taxis are very cheap but so many people use bikes. Its so interesting to watch daily life here!

This is Mr Zhou (pronounced Mr Joe!) He has been our personal chauffer all week. He doesn't speak English but smiles so much and requested that we sing English songs to him in his car....Bruno Mars was his favourite. What a lovely guy.  Goodbye Mr Zhou!! X

Mr Dixon - one of these gifts is yours from Mrs Jiang. Looks good? Enjoy the picture because its coming home without the packaging!

Well, we're here. We are in the airport hotel having spent 5 hrs on the bullet train, 1 hour eating noodles in the station and 45 minutes in a taxi. If we can just fit 8 handbags, 5 purses, 6 Tins of green tea, 5 silk scarves, 2 Beijing football kits, 206 dragon festival bracelets and a Qingdao uniform in our case without exceeding our weight allowance - we'll be laughing. Zai Jian!!

A whirlwind of a day began with our first lie in...(until 8am!) We had our last breakfast of egg fried rice and watermelon before a quick shopping trip and packing our cases. We were picked up by the fabulous Mr Zhou who has been our driver all week, Miss Ding and the lovely heather, our translator. They took us to Pizza Hut for lunch where we also met some of the other lovely ladies from the Bureau who we got know this week. Sophia's mum popped in to thank us for looking after Sophia so well when she was in England and gave us a gift to bring back for Tierney who hosted her!

After lunch we headed over to the train station and said Tai Jian to our Qingdao buddies. They made us feel so welcome and so special we can't thank them enough. Once they were happy we were in our seats with bags stowed, they waved a final farewell. We have started our journey home. Love to all x

Qingdao Beach

Before tea this evening we were taken to the beach on the east coast of Qingdao. The air was clear and the landscape was beautiful! With the Laoshang mountains in the background we dipped our toes in the yellow sea! After searching for shells we wrote our names in the sand. What a beautiful place. 
2 sleeps to go. X

Jodie's letter.

This afternoon we read the letter Jodie wrote for Mrs Jiang. It explained how much Jodie enjoyed their visit and how much she learnt about Chinese culture. Mrs Jiang was so touched by the offer of a 'friendship forever' that she shed a tear! She has promised to write back and would love some of our children to visit her school next year!