Ni hao!

Today we began our day at 8:00 AM with a visit to the Ministry of Education. The trip took us about 45 minues through Beijing traffic which was quite an experience. Thousands of cars and bicycles were fighting for space on the roads. The Ministry of Education building is beautiful, and like so many places in Beijing, is modern and elegant, but is right next door to some very poor areas. We heard a lecture on Chinese educational reform. They are planning on adopting concepts like group projects, cooperative learning and multiple solutions for problem solving in math. Then we went to Peking University for a lecture on Confucianism and Education. Most people struggled to stay awake with jetlag kicking in. I found it really interesting because I like all that stuff. When we left, we went by the Olympic Village, which they are working very hard to complete. Thousands of migrant workers have come to Beijing to work on this project. We went to eat lunch, which again consisted of about 12 different dishes, most of which I could recognize,and then we were off to the Summer Palace which was amazing. It is where the emperors stayed to get out of the summer heat in Beijing. It is fascinating to actually be in the places that we have learned about and to walk where the emperors once walked. We then went for a Peking duck dinner. The weather turned chilly and it started to rain, and after a 12 hour day, most of us fell asleep on the bus back to the hotel. Tomorrow we are off to the Great Wall.