Wonderful week-end

We went to a small village in neighbouring Hebei Province for the week-end. "We" = a Chinese English teacher, around 18 students from Continuing Education (Monday afternoon class) and me. We took four cars (owned by my students) and drove there. We stayed with a local villager in her home, which can accomodate many tourists. The villagers make their money by playing host to stressed-out Beijingers looking for the quiet, relaxed country life in the spring, summer and early autumn months. Here's a cute boy and his grandfather that a couple of my female students played with. One of my students gave the young boy (1 1/2 years old) the yoghurt. You drink yoghurt here, through a straw.
The kitchen in the home where we stayed - pretty simplistic but the food was great!
One of my students preparing the sheep meat. I saw the sheep being killed and I have pictures, but I'll post them later. This student spent three months in culinary school at one point. He thought it was boring, but he learned a few tricks. "He'll make a good husband," as they say here.
The view from our porch (just outside our room) - wire reparations were taking place in the village.
A view of the village from our porch. These are the "hills" that surround Beijing. There are some that are open in the winter for skiing, but apparently the snow is man-made!
Another view from our porch. That's a white horse under the...could you call that a barn? An open shack?
Rooftops seen from our porch. I love these very pittoresque rooftops!
The class monitor - a very important position in China - is on the left (in black), and two of my students (working for China Air at the airport) are in the middle and on the right. They're super nice. We toured the local train station before breakfast on Sunday.
Hu Da Ming (in red) and Franklin in black.
The girls' room. I didn't sleep here (I slept in a room for three beside this one - I shared a bed with one of my students).
Me with a group of my students. I'm wearing Hu Da Ming's coat because I'm cold.
We went boat riding on Sunday on this lake in the middle of high hills. There are two ways to move forward: using large poles to push the boat or by peddling with your legs in that plastic blue thing you can see in the picture.
Three of my students. The one in the middle - Jack - he made dinner for me last week and he's coming back tomorrow to make me some more Chinese food. Yum Yum! On the right is the woman - Chang Ping - who came with him and who's also from Inner Mongolia.
Some of the views from the lake.
We stopped at a market on our way back to Beijing - mostly it was a rest stop.

HAPPY HALLOWE'EN!!! Just came back from a party at one of the restaurants right outside the university campus. Saw quite a few of my students there (not from the continuing education department; they're my first and second-year students). It was fun at first, with dancing and singing and shows, but then it got boring - it was all in Chinese and they were playing Chinese games that I couldn't understand. I've got class early tomorrow anyway.

More pictures from my trip to come tomorrow. These were the pictures from Saturday night and Sunday. Pictures from Saturday to come tomorrow. I loved my week-end, btw! It was wonderful!