Christmas Spirit

Alana started Kindergarten at the beginning of December and has absolutely loved it - especially the Chinese food. She has a boyfriend already, which is a worry, but she is enjoying herself and learning lots. The picture is Lauren wishing Alana luck on her first day. Lauren finished her year off by performing in the Christmas concert with the Year 1's. I hosted the Senior Concert which was pretty nerve racking because I had a translator (so if I messed it up she was there to repeat it!) One of the best things we went too however was a Carols night at Heather and Kevin's compound - we caught up with Frog, Amy, Shirallee and David plus a lot of other friends we have made, which made the night.

We even met Santa there (it's amazing how familiar he looks).

Christmas in Beijing

We had an amazing experience over Christmas travelling with our friends Dan-Dan (Dianne), Jim and Hugh. We ate a lot of Chinese food and tried a lot of new dishes thanks to Dan-Dan (she's Chinese), but had Christmas dinner at a Japanese restaurant - Lauren couldn't stop eating the Japanese food. We also saw the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, Tieneman Square and lots of cool markets (incidently, Beijing seems cheaper than Shanghai on the whole). We travelled on a 'sleeper' which took around 12 hours - it was a bit tough, but a pretty good experience (not sure whether Kamila agrees though - she didn't get enough sleep). While we travelled across the Country Alana watched the Wiggles!