New School Adventure

Welcome to a new school year! While North America was celebrating Labor Day on September 1, China's students were heading back to class. Molly is in first grade and Hudson is in pre-k at a wonderful private school that combines the best of the American and Chinese education systems.

I set my alarm for 6:15, and when I stumbled out of our room in the morning, Molly greeted me entirely dressed for school. I'm not sure what time they got up, but they were excited! (Pieces of the school uniform are still being ordered. For the first day, Molly had the skirt and knee socks and Hudson had his long-sleeved shirt.)

Molly's teacher is Cici, and Hudson's is Amy. His classroom is on the second floor, directly above Molly's. Hudson is most looking forward to violin class, which takes place every Friday.

Hudson's class doesn't begin until 8:30 so the students who arrived early chose books to read. (Hudson found "Clifford the Big Red Dog.") The books are a mix of Chinese, English and bilingual.

The school is a little far from our home and not accessible by subway. We figured out the bus routes, and that's the way I'll travel home from school in the mornings and back again in the afternoons. But the neighbor of a friend of a friend is a taxi driver, and his wife is able to pick us up at our door in the morning at 7:40 and meet us at the school door at 4:00 to drive us home. (Isn't it amazing how relationships work in China?) She is only charging us $5/day to do that, and the time and effort it saves is remarkable.

Taking the bus requires waiting 10-20 minutes at the stop, riding about 30 minutes, and then a 10-15 minute walk to the school. This is the path: First, up and over the road via pedestrian bridge. Then down through a tunnel under the train tracks. (See the train going by in the photo below?)

Coming out of the tunnel, you cross another set of train tracks. The first time we did this, we had to wait for the train to pass, and there's no guard rail of any kind at the crossing.

Then there's a few more blocks to walk through a residential area before crossing one more street in front of the school. When the kids and I first navigated it a week before school started, it was raining and it couldn't have felt any more like an adventurous exploration. They had so much fun! But they are also very grateful to be driven because they recognize the difficulty of doing that every day. (Not to mention how cold it will be outside before long!)

They were very happy this morning to head back for Day 2!

Bonus pic: Kids posing in front of the cutest foliage sculpture in front of a department store near where our international fellowship meets.
~Dayna