We have been on the road for the last couple of days. Here's a quick blog update with more to follow in about 6 hours - after we finish our BIG concert in Beijing (it is supposed to be broadcast nationally on television).
This is my second blog. I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. I loved it! It is by far my favorite of the seven HP books. China is still hot and I lost another 5 lbs. There is so much history here it is unbelievable. I don’t think I will be able to remember everything that I have learned so far. The other day we lived in villas with other families. It was really cool. The food was the best Chinese food so far. It was some type of Chinese burrito with some spicy stuff on it. It was really good! We played a concert last night that I thought went really well. I hope all is going well back at home I hear the Cubs are a game out of first!!!! GO CUBS!!!!!!!!
Billy
The Bell Tower in Xi'an about a block away from our hotel.
The Xi'an Concert
Lincolnshire students
Deerfield students
Wow, a half of the whole trip has passed. I’m Daniel, new to this blog. First stop to our tour after all the hours of flying was Shanghai. It’s a city of 18 millions, with a relatively short history of two hundred years. It first started as a little port with a lot of fishers, but developed into a big port by the influence of the British and the French. Shanghai is a very special city to me. As a Korean, I read a lot of stories about the Koreans setting up a temporary government in the French quarters during the Japanese occupation. What amazed me the most are its modern buildings. The atmosphere of the city was amazing and the city was very westernized.
The next city was Suzhou, a very popular traveling spot for the Chinese, Suzhou was a very hot southern city. My impression on Suzhou was its rather slow modernization. Visiting a school in Suzhou was very interesting too. It was very nice to share our music with them.
As a next stop Hangzhou was a very beautiful, natural city. We visited a lake called West Lake, and not only the foreign travelers, a lot of locals came to visit the lake. Hangzhou was a very interesting city. It seemed like it was between Shanghai and Suzhou in the sense of modernization.
The last city and the current city I’m at is Xian. This city was the biggest city in the world at a point with more than a million houses. Xian was a capital city of Chinese empires for a thousand years. There is a proverb, “One must get Xian to get china.” Such an ancient city seems very interesting. Within hours I will go see the terra cotta soldiers. Since it’s a revisit of mine in 4 years, I can’t wait to go and watch.
Although the trip is so much fun, I’m very depressed due to two reasons. First one is the execution of Korean hostages in Afghanistan, and the other is the bridge collapsing in Minneapolis. I feel so sorry for the families of the sacrifices to the tragedies.
