Getting Ready to Say Goodbye...

(Patty)

Hi all!

Today was another characteristically busy day for everyone's favorite bears. The morning started off in Chinese painting, a class which we all enjoy but do struggle with a bit due to our artistic inabilities (I'm the weakest link in this case). About an hour into class I had a painting which I was fairly confident in, as I thought it looked like the subject matter I was trying to depict (flowers). However, when I went to go show the teacher, her response to my masterpiece was that it didn't look like a flower, but at least it had feeling! From that point, I fell back onto the refined art of splatter painting. Ah, looks like I won't be a Picasso any time soon.

After everyone's favorite part of the day, lunch, we took off on a mini-field trip for our Chinese Culture class. We made our way to the tea museum which had information about the history of Chinese Tea, displays of dozens types of tea, and showcased several ways tea can be served and used. Although the museum was interesting and informative, the best part by far were he grounds surrounding the building. The museum sits in the middle of a tea plantation which we spent the better part of an hour exploring. Although it was starting to rain, there was so much to see that we risked getting soaked. On our adventure walking through the fields, we saw 20 or so women harvesting tea leaves, and we had fun watching a couple take their engagement photos among the bushes.

I was quite eager to get back to the apartment today to spend more time with the newest addition to the family: a brand new dog (we went and picked her up yesterday) that is about 1/10 of the size of the dog I have home. It's name I can neither spell nor pronounce, so I've taken to calling her sharkbait- it seemed fitting. The neighbors daughter came over to play with the new dog, and after a while asked me to help her with English homework she had to complete. Her task was to learn a song for a concert she is performing in soon, and her English was so good that I was surprised to learn she is only a 5th grader. After a bit of coaching on how to pronounce some of the trickier words, she was able to recite the whole thing quite well.

I know I'm not alone in my surprise that we're leaving Hangzhou in 5 days, time really has flown by. Although I can't wait to get home I know I'll miss some of the great friends I've made here.