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The buttons at the top are in roughly chronological
order, from left to right.
We left home early on June 23 and returned in the wee small hours of July 4.
A good time was had by all!
Click Here for videos of the various band
concerts they played in China
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The band
directors of the two High Schools in our district, Cedar Cliff and Red Land, joined forces to take a combined student band to China for the Beijing International Band Festival of 2008.
Middle Schoolers were
invited to audition
for the band,
and a handful were chosen -- Katy was one of the lucky ones! We weren't about to send a
thirteen-year-old off to China alone with a pack of older kids, so we
tagged along. It was a trip we will remember fondly forever, even
though we may never really want to eat Chinese food ever again. |
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But, mostly the
food was OK. Lunch and dinner were served family style,
with a large lazy Susan in the middle of the table. Seven
or eight different Chinese dishes were presented, so there was usually at
least one thing
that was pretty good.
One dinner in particular was excellent --
at a restaurant that specialized in Peking Duck. It was delicious,
but some of the kids were a little squeamish because the ducks still had
their heads.
But by the end of the trip
meals
felt like we were trapped at a shopping mall Chinese buffet. One dinner was particularly
bad. The food looked and tasted like
leftovers, and literally NOTHING was good. |
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Then finally -- the flight home. We were
sad to leave, but ready to come home. The aerial shortcut to China is over the
Arctic. After so many hot and sweaty days touring
ancient buildings in the sun, I couldn't look at the ice enough.
Air
conditioning does exist in China, but it's not up to Western standards. I
wouldn't really call it cooling, but it does reduce the heat somewhat. I
definitely want to go to China again sometime, but in the winter. |
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