Hosting the Olympics in Beijing provided us with a variety of interesting opportunities ...maybe I'll write more about those later. My favorite opportunity...okay aside from the Japan vs USA baseball game with the boys...my other favorite opportunity was meeting Rene Flemming. She came to Beijing as part of the Cultural Olympiad.
Rob worked diligently to arrange a web chat with her and invited me to attend. What an honor to meet her. We mentioned to her that I was looking for a voice teacher in Beijing. She very graciously put us in contact with her friend from Juliard, a famous Chinese mezzo-soprano named Ning Liang.
Tuesday was a real priviledge. Ning Liang hosted us for lunch at a delicious Sichuan restaurant. We felt so honored! We are planning a lesson for the coming Tuesday. I'm quite excited.
After lunch I raced back (well I was in a taxi) to Shunyi to get Caitlin ready for Mommy and Me dance. Then I met Kyle at the bus to remind him about swimming lessons. I was met with a huge protest. Hmmm... what to do about that? Maybe I'll switch teachers. I went back home to get Mary ready for ballet, give Ben some money to go buy a disposable camera for his field trip, and then headed back up to the clubhouse for Mary's class. Grant, Caitlin, and Olivia came with me. We bought some bananas to make change for the swimming teacher. I caught up with Sam who got off the five o'clock school bus, gave him a banana and his swimsuit and then, after a few minutes of playground time, it was time to go back in and collect Mary. We got some popsicles from the little Jenny's, then they all climbed in the red wagon and I pulled them home. I thought...maybe I need to do something about Tuesday afternoon. Its pretty hectic.
