Sophie's class goes to Aquera 21

Because of the long holiday weekend (I told you they love holidays here) we had a really short week for school and work.
I played tennis with my friend, Heather, on Wednesday. I'm not getting better. You'd think being at a racquet club it'd just rub off on me a bit. Nope. :)
Thursday my friend, Leslie, took Heather and I to the flower market. Let me tell you. It's a really good thing I don't have a driver bc I'd be there throwing money around every week. I love love love it there! Store upon store of beautiful flowers. I got some pretty hanging basket thingys and other flower boxes that hang off the railing of the balcony. I got to spend the afternoon planting and getting my hands in dirt again. SO therapeutic!! And now my balcony is really pretty and colorful. I'll have to take some pics and post those at some point, too.
Ok, Friday. Friday I got to accompany Sophia's class to a local aquarium, Aquera 21. All the Reception (Preschool) classes went and that meant 5 classes of 18 kids. There are hardly words for how stressed I was about losing a kid! Even though each class that 2 parent helpers, their teacher and their aide. I was still amazed we made it out of there with everyone we came with. :)
It was a whole day event- we left the school at 9 and got back just after 3 and I was KNACKERED! (That's British for really super tired :)
The plan was to go through the museum, have lunch, play in a nearby park for a bit, see the beluga whale show then go home. The problem was that we got through the museum and it was only 1030. The whale show wasn't until 130. Hmmm. So we ate then hit the museum again! We focused on trying to find new things the second time around. :)

Here's the class excited to start the day!

When we got to the museum everyone had a snack before we headed into the museum. Oranges and a minimuffin. Here they are all lined up...

And here is their audience watching them eat. SO exciting watching kids eat. :)

Sophie and her friend from New Zealand, Rachel, grooving to the music while waiting in line to enter the museum.

Most of Soph's class- The Lions! Notice Soph is missing. No idea where she was here...

All the displays were really low so many people would just put their hands in to touch things. *sigh*

Really huge, really ugly fish things. Huge. Ugly.

My personal favorite. They had a whole exhibit based around Finding Nemo.  Shaaa, bro...

An odd room that was lit only by black lights. A huge tank to the left.

The kids were SO fascinated by the diver in the tank who was cleaning the window... See Soph right in the middle staring up? She could have watched him for hours...

All lined up and acounted for- whew!! Good job, Ms. Hafseth!

Lunch was uneventful. Nothing really new the second time around, although I did find jellyfish which I had missed the first time through.
Then the long walk around this lake thing to get to the beluga whale arena. We got there about 20 minutes before the show was to start and the place was packed!

Of course, it was a bit hard to get too much out of the show since the whole thing was in Chinese. But, the kids got a kick out of the whales jumping around. Here's one beluga...

Here it is again by his trainer (sorry for the long distance shot- taken with my phone bc my camera died!).

Trainer riding the beluga...

The kids all lined up being so good!! It was really hot so they all had their trusty water bottles. :)      

The other half of the crew.

Ciana, Imogen and James showing their water-drinking abilities.

Overall, it was a fun day and I was really glad I got to go along and help out. It's one thing to sit and read with them once a week, but I know there's so much more to their little selves than that so it was really fun to get to know them all a little better.

I wanted to put another "China moment" picture up. The workers in our development are obsessed with mowing the lawn here. The first mow of the season was quite the event. Push mowers with no bags. Then other workers who raked the grass into piles then additional workers who bagged it and then still other workers that collected the bags. Seriously.
They mow the lawn twice a week. Seriously. It's scalped in areas from being mowed too much.
Anyway, today I noticed an evolution in their mowing technique. Now they mow with the bags on their mowers and people just stand around with bags waiting for the mower bags to be full and then they move in, empty the mower bag, replace it, then bring the clippings in the other bag to a wheelbarrel. Ok...
Those standup moving mowers that landscapers use at home would blow their minds....