3 Asian Tigers: July 2012

Beijing Taxis

The are notorious for being picky drivers. It is not uncommon to have one stop and decide he does not like where you are going, and refuse to give you a ride. The reason can be as simple as it requires him to do a U turn and head in the other direction...crazy! BUT if you dial 96103 you can schedule a taxi to pick you up....and they offer service in nearly perfect English! The taxi usually arrives within 5 minutes unless it is rush hour/raining/etc. If it is, they probably cannot find a driver for you.

A clean puddle...a golden opportunity

It rains a lot in Beijing during the Summer.....a complete flip from the bitter, dry cold of Beijing winters. We found a clean puddle and the boys had a great time. Jack stripped off all of his clothes and went for it. The locals thought it was all pretty funny. Our teacher told me that locals would never let their children play like this.

Chaoyang Park and Sony Museum

The Sony Museum was great - a lot of music/sound experiements. The museum is located inside Chaoyang Park which is the Central Park of Beijing. We then rented an electric boat, and had a picnic and floated around a little.

We are out of school

Which means a lot of museums, local excursions, working at the local hutong (market), sample lessons....here the boys are at the aero space museum. Not exactly well behaved....but it isn't church so I figured we are okay. No one was there anyway!

Testing the mood of the new turtles

Yes, we bought three new turtles....the other ones died and were left at parks. I am not a big fan of the new turtles. They really do not like the boys. We put them on the iPad and ran them through a mood test.....

Mixed Emotions...hmmm.

Dinosaur Museum

Gavin's new favorite museum is the dinosaur museum....unfortunately it is an hour away in a cab. We'll wait until we get to Utah.

Was happy that know one freaked out when Jack jumped into one of the exhibits....it is hard to keep all three boys under control at the same time....not something people who have only one child understand!

Anyone sick of learning Chinese Character yet???

I think that everyone in the house is sick of this (okay - Sam is dying to learn). We try to make it fun, but now we are at 525 characters, and they are getting harder and harder...but Gavin will start reading books instead of work books next week. We will see how he does!

Hands, Foot, Mouth....and Butt Disease

We got Hand/Foot/Mouth. It struck Sam's butt. Doesn't hurt or itch, but it has been 3 weeks and his poor little bum is still healing.

Guitars and Violins

Gavin wants to play both the guitar and the violin. When he finished book 5 of his Chinese Characters book (450 characters memorized now), I promised him a guitar. He did it! His brothers are benefiting from Gavin's hard work. We went to the area of Beijing where they sell instruments. Sam got a guitar and Jack got a violin (although he calls it "Jack Jack's guitar").

Jack and his "guitar"

Love how Jack wants to strap his violin to his back and take it everywhere!

This is the boys playing guitar with Tommy over FaceTime

Lego Robotics Class

We took a free trial Lego robotics class in Beijing. It was awesome. Aftewards Gavin said that he wishes that he could go to Lego class every day. We aren't signing him up. They want $1,000 US Dollars for 32 classes....not going to happen! Note to self - get Gavin signed up for Lego camp next year! Found one at Thanksgiving Point for full days for one week - $135. I love Utah!

Contest in a local mall

Gavin signed up for a contest in a local mall. There was hopscotch, some bean bag tosses, and hula hooping. He got top prize....but not for his mad skills....probably only for being the only non Chinese person participating. It took him a while to muster the courage to get up on stage, but he was super jazzed about all of his new toys - a toy wind up frog, some legos, and some other trinkets.

3 Asian Tigers

Saturday, July 7, 2012