We are officially on May break!! Yaayy! We had Friday off school and all of next week as well. I think we will really need this in order to charge through the last 7 weeks of the school year. There will be a lot going on.
This past Monday was Sports day for the secondary school at SSIS (primary will have theirs in a couple of weeks). I'm pretty sure I've talked about this before but every student at SSIS is put into a "house" when they register. The four houses are the blue monkeys (which Mark is the head of this year), the red dragons, the yellow phoenixes, and the green tigers. They have meetings about once every 6 weeks and they compete in various challenges throughout the school year. These challenges include everything from chess and trivia to soccer and basketball. The houses get points from every challenge and at the end of the year the house with the most points gets a trophy. It is all very Harry Potter (without the sorting hat and magic of course).
So sports day is their chance to accumulate a lot of points at one time. It is mandatory for each student to participate in at least 3 events during the day. Mark's blue monkeys are second place in points right now so he was very determined to get enough points on sports day to pull ahead. James is a blue monkey as well.
So here was the scene on Monday.
Here is James doing his part for the blue monkeys. He ran the open mile as well as long jump and shotput (which he has been doing in PE).
The head of the blue monkeys with the head of the red dragons. This is Glen, a Canadian who teaches math with Mark. He used to teach at Appleby College (for all you Oakville people) and we went to Acadia (for all you maritimers).And the final score was............
Blue house won!! They have pulled ahead in points for the year so far.Yesterday (our first day of the break) we decided to go to a big flea market that was supposed to be an opportunity for expats to sell used items before they get ready to move. There were maybe 3 expats selling stuff. The rest were Chinese who work in factories who brought in overflow items. So we didn't stay for very long and we didn't buy anything. We did walk around a bit through some nearby gardens, it was a beautiful day.
I saw these statues by the cultural arts center. I loved it. The statues were so detailed. Right down to the fat, bald drummer's flip flops. Abigail wanted to pose with the rock band but the security guard wouldn't let her get close.
This is the cultural arts center. The whole exterior lights up at night and changes colour. I caught two young chinese ladies crossing the bridge with their umbrella.
On a completely different note. The school booked our plane tickets home this week. What we have decided to do is fly from Shanghai to Houston the day after school is over. The school had us flying into Toronto to connect to Houston so we decided to have 2 nights in Toronto before we head to Houston so we can have a little more rest and the kids can see their Oakville cousins. We will be in Houston from July 6 - July 12, which will overlap with Abigail's best friend from kindergarten visiting Houston from London so she is very excited about seeing Alessandra. Then we will fly to Halifax on the 12th and be there until August 16. The school will fly us back to Shanghai from Halifax. So we're really happy about that. We will get to see almost everyone.
I had better run, we are off to buy train tickets to Shanghai. Lots of love to everyone!
I saw these statues by the cultural arts center. I loved it. The statues were so detailed. Right down to the fat, bald drummer's flip flops. Abigail wanted to pose with the rock band but the security guard wouldn't let her get close.
This is the cultural arts center. The whole exterior lights up at night and changes colour. I caught two young chinese ladies crossing the bridge with their umbrella. 
On a completely different note. The school booked our plane tickets home this week. What we have decided to do is fly from Shanghai to Houston the day after school is over. The school had us flying into Toronto to connect to Houston so we decided to have 2 nights in Toronto before we head to Houston so we can have a little more rest and the kids can see their Oakville cousins. We will be in Houston from July 6 - July 12, which will overlap with Abigail's best friend from kindergarten visiting Houston from London so she is very excited about seeing Alessandra. Then we will fly to Halifax on the 12th and be there until August 16. The school will fly us back to Shanghai from Halifax. So we're really happy about that. We will get to see almost everyone. I had better run, we are off to buy train tickets to Shanghai. Lots of love to everyone!
