Beijing’s Big Sites

After scouting out the concert venue and potential collaborations, it was the turn of the tourist’s sites. China has a rich history with a lineage of 5,000 years. This has produced some of the world’s most interesting and valuable sites.

Located right next to each other is Tian’anmen Square and The Forbidden City. Tian’anmen Square is recognized as the largest public square in the world. Located in the middle is a large monument to the People’s Heroes and Mao’s Mausoleum. Flanking the square are a number of grand and imposing communist party buildings and at the far end in the Ming era gate with Chairmen Mao Zedong’s portrait watching over the entire square. These images are so iconic it is strange to be there looking at them for real. The memory of the gory outcome of the student protests in 1989 also haunt you.

From Tian’anmen Square you walk directly north in the Forbidden City. Built in the early part of the 15th century, this walled city contains 9,999 rooms and was the primary home for 24 emperors for 500 years. If you haven’t watched the famous movie “The Last Emperor” then it is a must before you embark on the tour next summer. It tells the tale of Pu Yi who ascended as Emperor in 1908 at the grand old age of three years. His reign only lasted until 1912 when the Republican government took power. He remained in the city until the age of 19, never leaving the city gates for his own safety. After a tumultuous life living for many years in Japan and then imprisoned by the new Chinese communist government in 1950, he eventually worked for seven years as a gardener in the Beijing Botanical Gardens before his death in 1967.

The Forbidden City is wonderful to explore but a couple of things to be careful about. There is a lot of walking so be sure you are wearing your most comfortable shoes. It is also extremely crowded so our students will need to be diligent about sticking together and not moving from one section to the next without being sure all the members of their chaperone group are together. This will certainly be a day when we will ask all of our students to wear their complimentary YOSA tour T-shirts.

The next day we took the 90 minute drive north of the city to explore the Great Wall of China. Extending across the north part of China for several thousand miles, the wall was an attempt to keep the enemies coming south and invading. It never really worked as it was breached several times in its long history. While a lot of the wall is now in disrepair, there are a number of visitor friendly sections. We will visit Juyong Guan which is one of the steeper sections. This keeps away a lot of visitors but will be fun for the students who want to spend about an hour to climb to the very top and enjoy some spectacular views across the mountains. While it was busy at the bottom, the crowd thins out as you climb — clearly not everyone makes it all the way up.

On the way back there is a chance to stop at the Olympic sites. To see the bird’s nest stadium and the water cube up close is just plain neat. You are so used to seeing these iconic structures on TV which now stand as a monument to a stunning Olympic games last year. It is possible to pay and go in but no one recommends this as worth the time or money.

Steven Payne

Tiananmen Square

The Great Wall of China

Olympic Sites

Beijing Basics

We departed Hong Kong on Friday morning, traveling on China Air. For YOSA’s tour we will actually complete our trip in Hong Kong, but we will be traveling between Hangzhou and Hong Kong via an internal flight. As before (on our Dragon Air flight) the plane was very comfortable. While it is generally recognized that airline food is not too good, China Air took this to a new level. What was supposed to be chicken noodle was more like chicken fat and noodles. Probably a good idea for the students to bring a couple of granola bars which they can resort to as standby meals should they encounter food they don’t like too much.

We are staying in the Holiday Inn Express Temple of Heaven. It is a nice three star hotel, almost identical to the one in Shanghai. The breakfast food has been quite good. There is a mixture of Western and Chinese foods available buffet style. I have been taking advantage of the delicious watermelon which has been served each morning as a way to get a fruit serving for the day. They also serve Seattle coffee, which they market heavily on the coffee cups and on posters adorning the walls as you enter the dining area, although I have never heard of the make.

This morning we went to visit the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) located right next to Tian’inmen Square. YOSA will perform at the NCPA in June — it will be our first concert on this tour. And I have to say that the group is in for a very special treat. This venue is quite simply stunning! The building was completed in 2007 and is shaped like a large dome. It is surrounded by a moat of water and costs 3.2 billion Yuan to build (over $460 million – which is about twice the cost of building Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA). You can check out some photos and information at http://www.chncpa.org/n457779/n2065112/index.html. To enter the building you descend a flight of steps below street level to enter into the lobby. You then proceed past the box office to a hallway under the water of the moat. The ceiling is all glass so you can see the rippling water above you. The effect on the light coming into the hallway is quite unique. You then enter the main dome area with its tall ceiling. In front of you are three halls, the concert hall (where YOSA will perform), the opera house and the theater. All three halls share the same lobby space which also has an array of restaurants and CD shops. The concert hall seats 1,800 people and has a full pipe organ adorned across the back of the hall. We met with a representative of the NCPA and two representatives from a media and marketing company who are helping to establish the promotion for our concert. They are still working on some of the details, but it is likely that our concert will have a small ticket price but be billed as a charitable concert to benefit the victims of the recent earthquake in southern China.

Lunch was at the Laoshe Tea House. The food was excellent, as was the tea of course (I tried Pu ‘er, a fragrant black tea). The other wonderful thing was the shadow puppet show that was put on during our meal. Traditional Chinese instruments were being played whilst the story of a mischievous crane trying to eat a stubborn tortoise was acted out using the puppets. It was a lot of fun to watch and not the sort of thing you get to witness every day. They are also in discussion with some local groups who may share the concert with us.

In the afternoon we met with the leaders of Beijing’s National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts. We were led into a formal meeting room with grand wooden chairs arranged as three sides of a rectangle. We have learned that the leader sits in the central chair and then everyone else sits in the chairs that flank him either side. The nearer you sit to the leader, the higher your importance. Green tea was served to us and we proceeded to learn about each other’s organizations. With over 2,200 students, this university level institution is China’s leading training facility for Peking Opera. Although the term Beijing Opera is now more frequently used but the National Academy are trying to promote the Chinese pronunciation of Jing Ju. Behind us displayed in a glass cabinet were the elaborate costumes and masks used by the singers and actors. They are very interested in hosting us for an exchange and this will be a wonderful opportunity for YOSA’s students and traveling companions to learn about traditional Chinese instruments such as the erhu and pipa.

The day was rounded off by the exciting, yet touristy, Kung Fu show. We were dazzled by macho men head butting pieces of steel in two, laying on beds of nails and of course giving lots of flying roundhouse kicks. These shows are packed full of tourists but are very well produced and do give you a good flavor of Chinese culture and history. The athleticism of the performers is quite amazing and the costumes and set design very beautiful.

We’ll be in Beijing for a few days so I will update you more soon.

Steven Payne

Me and Rick Dillard with media coordinators at NCPA

The water ceiling hallway

National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts

Gate in Tian'imen Square

Hong Kong

We arrived in Hong Kong in the early evening with dusk already descending on the city of 8 million inhabitants. Established as a colony by the British in 1842, the peninsula grew rapidly in the 1960s and 70s as the economy boomed and the population had grown due to migration from China after the establishment of the communist party in 1949. There is now a curious mix of Chinese and British influences. The locals first language is Cantonese (both Shanghai and Beijing speak Mandarin) but virtually everybody also speaks English. The cars drive on the left side of the road (where as the rest of China drives on the right) and all the road markings are the same style as those in Britain. Yet all the people are Chinese with traditional Chinese restaurants and foods available from the street vendors.

The first obvious thing is how much more commercial Hong Kong is when compared to Shanghai. The shops are packed and people clearly have more money to spend. There is much more Western food available to buy which will probably be a welcome break with the students next year after a week and a half in mainland China.

We only had a day to explore Hong Kong. The morning was spent visiting with the staff of the Hong Kong Music Office. YOSA’s tour orchestra will give a joint performance with the Hong Kong Youth Symphony so we needed to discuss the concert program, the logistics of having over 150 young musicians performing on the same stage, which instruments they would be able to lend to us (primarily percussion and double bass instruments) and how they handle publicity. They run 6 different youth orchestras as well as a traditional Chinese instrument orchestra. With over 5,000 also receiving group lessons, this government run music program is a large operation. We then went to visit the Kwai Ching Performance Center where we will perform. This lovely 900 seat hall is an ideal venue. Boasting one of the best acoustics in Hong Kong, it also serves a diverse range of performances from dance to theater as well as music. We had some lengthy discussion with the stage manager as to how we will fit all the musicians on stage so it was certainly helpful to be able to get into the venue to see this for myself.

In the afternoon we scoped out some of the tourist sites. We were able to fly around the main places to visit quite quickly as we had a driver willing to drop us off and circle the block while we looked at each tourist spot. We will be able to show the students the magnificent views of the modern Hong Kong skyline from Victoria Peak. We’ll climb to this vista via the traditional cable car ride. Another highlight will be Stanley Market where the original ‘knock off’ clothes items went on sale. The area has kept its appeal for the bargain hunter even though the discount items are now more readily available to discount stores on the main shopping streets. Another delight is Aberdeen where the fisherman’s life continues despite the decades of industrial growth around their community. We took a short ride on a boat which gave us a good view of the harbor and a good drive by view of the infamous Jumbo Shrimp, the world largest floating restaurant.

In the evening we walked about 20 minutes from our hotel down to the Kowleen water front and watched the famous Hong Kong light show. While music is pumped out of the speakers along the waters edge, the skyscrapers across the water host a stunning light and laser display. Each of the building lights up in time with the music.

Our stay in was brief and I’m glad I get to spend a little more time here next summer. It is a truly vibrant, exciting, and unique city.

Steven Payne

View of Hong Kong's skyline from Victoria's Peak

Hong Kong Hotel

Hanging Out in Hangzhou

Hangzhou is a Chinese city of about three million people (more than twice the size of San Antonio) and is on the Eastern coast. Its most famous feature is the beautiful West Lake. A lovely expanse of water surrounded by rolling hills which are ordained by the occasional pagoda and encased by a nicely landscaped foot and bike path along the water’s edge. We didn’t get much time to hang out by the lake, but we scoped out the boat cruises and the bike rentals so our group can get to experience the lake a little more next summer on the tour.
Our main purpose this morning was meeting with the folks at the Hangzhou High School. They are interested to see if there was some potential for our students to visit the school next June. We met with the school principal, Mr. Zhou, the school music teacher and the school English teacher. Mr. Zhou and the school music teacher speak very limited English so we relied heavily on our guide and the school English teacher to translate – which tends to make meetings last twice as long! We have some more details to figure out, but there is certainly an opportunity for our students to have a very meaningful interaction with some Chinese students of similar age. They will also send a good delegation of supporters to our concert in Hangzhou which will help ensure we have a good audience.

Our next stop was to see the Hangzhou’s Zhejiang Concert Hall. It has 557 seats with a nice acoustic. While it is not the most modern concert hall I have seen, it will serve us well for our performance next summer.

One of the great things about having the opportunity to do a site inspection trip is to make sure all the basic elements of the tour are good. There is nothing more frustrating than having to put up with a bad hotel and this is what we initially found in Hangzhou. We had been put up in a hotel which was looking very outdated and the lingering smell in the rooms seem to prove it. I went straight back downstairs to request an alternative room and bumped into our tour manager, Rick, doing exactly the same thing! So a quick word with our host, Daniel Xu and he had arranged for us to inspect an alternative hotel. And I am pleased to report that the Hangzhou Sunny Huansha Hotel was a vast improvement. We will stay there for one night but as the group leader, I would have been dreading the groups’ reaction to staying in the old hotel. One thing I can’t do much about though is the rather firmer beds the Chinese seem to like. We’ll request some additional duvet covers which people can sleep on if they are particularly sensitive to a firm mattress.

From the hotel we had time to spend about 20 minutes at Qinghefang, a delightful shopping street full of trinkets and other traditional Chinese goods. Unlike much of these stores in Shanghai, this street was a real delight to walk through. One of the highlights was a traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy. It was a little like walk back in time 50 years as there was a high counter with an amazing array of roots, leaves and herbs ready to be ground in the right mixture for you. There were also some interesting food vendors again, but here there were hoards of Chinese people gathering around devouring the most unlikely looking foods. Crab on a stick, fried fish heads and a few other indescribable things!

We didn’t have much time for lunch so just planned to eat at Hangzhou airport before our flight into Hong Kong. That was a mistake, we paid over $50 for a super basic meal, but it was the only place to get anything to eat – note to self – avoid having to eat in the airport again. And then to top it all off we didn’t realize that Asian airline companies have not cut back like the U.S. ones have so we still had a meal served to us on our two hour flight. It is also ironic that Dragon Air, who primary customers are the Chinese people who tend to be shorter in height than Americans, actually gives you more leg room. One of life’s mysteries.

Steven Payne

Young lady enjoying crab on a stick

Down to Business

For this site inspection trip, Ena and I came a couple of days early to have the opportunity to explore on our own a little. Today we met with the travel company which we are using in China to help make some of the more detailed arrangements. Our tour company is led by Rick Dillard from American Classic Tours & Festivals in San Antonio and Daniel Xu represents Asia Getaways which is a based in Hangzhou but frequently brings groups to Shanghai and Beijing.

When YOSA travels to China we are undertaking a concert tour. While we will also have lots of fun visiting the various famous sites and experiencing the culture, a concert tour is not complete without exciting performances. Mr. Xu has made arrangements for YOSA to perform as part of the World Expo which is being held in Shanghai from May to October next year. San Antonio experienced the benefits of this in 1968 and a number of our cities’ landmarks were built for this event including Hemisphere Park, Tower of the Americas and the Riverwalk. The scale and scope of the construction dedicated to hosting the World Expo in 2010 is quite phenomenal. The Expo site is over 5 sq km in size (3.1 sq miles) and contains exposition halls for dozens of countries, several large corporate exposition centers (for Coca Cola and the like), outdoor stages and a large performance center shaped to look like a large clam which is about the size of San Antonio’s AT&T center. Seventy million people are expected to visit the Expo over six months with over 20,000 performers of all varieties presenting.

The Expo site is located right in the heart of Shanghai and straddles either bank of the Piudong River. Most of it is still under construction right now so we could not enter the site. However, Mr. Xu arranged for us to walk over a large bridge and take a special pedestrian skyway which took us over 300 feet up for an excellent aerial view of the whole Expo site. Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperating so the view was a little misty, but we certainly got a good sense of the scale of this event.

Next it was back into the car to head over to the Expo events office. There we were met by Teddy Xu who is one of the leading events managers for the Expo. Teddy is no relation to Daniel. I learned that while you might write their names the same when using the Western alphabet, the pronunciation is slightly different between their names so they have different Chinese characters. Teddy led us through a busy office of lines of Chinese office workers busy on their laptops to a plain conference room. He pulled out various floor plans and made a couple of suggestions of good locations where YOSA could perform. There is good protection from the sun and possible rain from an overhead canopy. All specs for the sound system where laid out in detail and it was clear from all the choices that the volume of people visiting the Expo should ensure a good crowd for our performance.

It was then off for an early lunch at a fun restaurant called Hong Zi Ji. The decor is bright, the waiters move around the large floor plan on roller skates and the food was very good. This place gets a thumbs up for the trip next summer.

Next we went to check out the Shanghai Holiday Inn where they are proposing we stay during our visit next summer. This three star hotel was straight forward, very clean and functional. It also has a bank of half a dozen computers adjacent to the lobby area which will be convenient for students to send a quick e-mail back home. There is also an ATM machine which I am sure will get some use from our students next summer as our stay in Shanghai will be right in the middle of our trip.

Before leaving Shanghai we had one more stop, a whirlwind visit to the Shanghai Museum of Musical Instruments. This small museum has a fascinating collection of traditional Chinese instruments off all varieties from China’s long history. Seeing a museum of instruments from a completely different culture and the importance that music has for the Chinese is a good reminder of the universal power of music. This museum also has the only complete set of instruments for a Gamelan orchestra in China. If you haven’t heard a Gamelan orchestra yet you should look it up on YouTube. This musical style from Indonesia has had a huge impact on a lot of classical music, starting with Debussy in the late 19th century and many of America’s West coast composers of the mid-20th century.

Mr. Xu then escorted us to the large and very busy Shanghai train station for us to catch a train to Hangzhou. YOSA will enter Shanghai at this station next summer after our overnight train ride from Beijing. I saw a train come in with the sleeper car attached and the sets of bunk beds neatly arranged in their cabins. We had about a 70 minute train ride to Hangzhou, a city of about three million people located to the northwest of Shanghai where YOSA will visit for one day on our tour.

We arrived when it was dark but checked into the hotel and had another good meal in the hotel. Mr. Xu then decided to treat us to a traditional Chinese foot massage. Wow, what an experience! Mr. Xu took us to a place he goes to once a week with his wife. A row of comfortable reclining chairs with footstools awaited us. We were not even aloud to remove our shoes, the massage therapist insisting on doing this for us. Our feet were then dunked in very hot water for 15 minutes to soak before they then got to work prodding and rubbing our feet. While they work on one foot, the other is delicately wrapped in a linen cloth to help retain the moisture. About 90 minutes later, we felt refreshed and I felt like I was walking on water.

Steven Payne

Gamelan Orchestra

Traveling to China? A few things you should know

Some of the people reading this blog are planning on coming on YOSA’s tour to China next summer, so I thought it would be helpful to have a few practical pieces of information about your trip. For the rest of you, well, it is often interesting to hear how day-to-day things work in other countries.

Money- Always an important commodity, the question is how to exchange it. My assumption was that, like in Europe, the best thing to do was to just find an ATM and draw money out of the account. But in China, a country much more tightly controlled by the government, it turns out that the cost of changing money is the same everywhere. I bought 3,000 Yuan at an exchange rate of 6.9 Yuan per US$. That’s $435. And it cost me $10.72 to do this. For most of our students traveling on this trip, this would be more than enough money — you could certainly get by on a lot less.

Food- Each morning in the hotel there is a very generous spread of buffet foods from cereal, fruit, yogurt and bread. There are a few Chinese options such as noodles and dumplings, and we have enjoyed an omelet bar and some more traditional cooked breakfast foods such as hash browns, bacon and ham.

There are now a lot of very familiar restaurant chains, particularly American chains. We have a Starbucks next to our hotel and for some reason KFC seems to be everywhere. These types of restaurants tend to find their ways to the main street type of locations so you won’t find them on every other corner.

Of course there will be plenty of traditional Chinese food on the trip. Round tables seating eight to ten people will have a lazy Susan in the middle. Waiters will bring a constant array of dishes and be forever filling your small tea cup with complimentary tea. Very often we have been offered one complimentary beverage which includes a glass of water as well as Coke and Sprite. Then you proceed to spin the lazy Susan around and pick off the food you want to eat and put it on your plate. There always seems to be plenty of options and as you only have to commit to eating what you take off the plate, there are lots of opportunities to try new foods. A lot will look very familiar from your visits to Chinese restaurants in America.

You will also see lots and lots of food vendors selling a wide variety of traditional and rather exotic foods. Personally, I don’t feel comfortable risking this food when there is such an obvious lack of hygiene. A couple of ideas look interesting to try at home such as making hard boiled eggs in tea rather than just plain water. Quite a few things are still alive while they are out on display. Ena is a vegetarian so she finds this particularly disturbing. It was certainly sad to see a tortoise sitting in bowl waiting to be cooked. Another common food in Shanghai is the hairy crab, named for the hairs on its legs. A bucket full of them still alive is also common to see.

Drink- Tap water is probably not potable. I haven’t risked it and just cleaning your teeth there is a different taste in your mouth. Bottled water in the hotel lobby costs the same price as the States, about $2 – $3. However, a quick stop in the plentiful convenience stores (think 7-11 or the type of store attached to a gas station) and you can buy water for about 25c a bottle. And this probably goes without saying, but don’t expect to find any ice for your drink anywhere!

Tea is certainly the way to go in China. We tried some chrysanthemum tea which was somewhat sweet but full of flavor and very refreshing. Green tea is the norm of course but the variety to try is quite outstanding.

Hotel- Our hotel came equipped with a bathroom kit of toothpaste and a toothbrush in addition to the usual soap, shampoo, conditioner and bath gel. Towels are also plentiful and surprisingly large. Internet access is free in our hotel which is a nice perk, although it is only through cable and not Wi-Fi. We also have a convenient safe in the room. It is just the right size to put the lap top in and to leave any extra cash I don’t want to carry around all day. All the travel books advise you to carry your passport with you when out and about. It is the only valid form of ID a tourist has on them – the U.S. driver’s license isn’t much use over here.

I bought a set of adapter plugs and haven’t had any problem charging the computer or the battery for my digital camera. There are hairdryers provided in the rooms as well as irons so unless you have any special requirements, the electric plug conversion is unproblematic.

Stores- There is so much junk knick-knack stores it is hard to know where to start to describe them. They are also full of shop merchants who know how to drive a hard bargain. A lot of places do not have prices on their goods so you have to show an interest in an item and you will be told a price. The rule of thumb is to haggle their price down to about 10% of the original asking price. This is a fun game initially but it soon becomes tiresome as you play out the game each time. For one item I resorted to simply walking away when he didn’t come down enough in price. I was chased down the street and finally offered the price I was looking for.

The Western style shops on the main shopping areas carry the same goods as you are used to seeing in America. In fact, most of what you see in American stores comes from China anyway. The prices are also very similar so don’t expect any bargains here. And they don’t haggle, that is reserved for the street vendors.

Steven Payne

Eggs Cooked in Black Tea

Seafood and Vegetables

Chinese Plug and Wall Socket

Hotel Safe

Around Shanghai

Today started with a hearty breakfast at the hotel. A full array of cereals, fruit and yogurts were available. There was an omelet bar and sausages also available. I went for the baked beans, which were the same as I used to have in England and Canadian style bacon. Tea and some very strong coffee were also available.

We were met by our guide in the hotel lobby at 9 a.m. and we started the day by going to the Yu Gardens. This is the famous zig zag bridge among a setting of old fashioned traditional Chinese buildings. We walked across the bridge to enter the gardens — a famous classical garden located in Anren Jie, Shanghai. The garden was finished in 1577 by a government officer of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) named Pan Yunduan. Yu in Chinese means pleasing and satisfying and this garden was specially built for Pan’s parents as a place for them to enjoy a tranquil and happy time in their old age. It has suffered periods of neglects in its 430 year history, but has been open to the public in its currently restored state since 1956.

After the beauty of Yu Gardens we then explored Old Town with its array of tiny back streets filled with touristy knick-knack stores. Tourists are everywhere here so this also brings out the eager salespeople keen to sell you a fake Rolex watch or Prada bag. If you are looking for cheap Chinese tourist items, this is the place to buy them. Vendors sell everything from silk scarves, ink stamps, to flutes and musical instruments.

A short trip in the car then took us to Nanjing Road. Shanghai’s primary shopping district. We are not particularly into shopping so this didn’t hold too much interest for us but for those who look to peruse the stores this is the place to buy virtually anything you might want. Prices were about the same or a little less than American prices.

Next off was a Dim Sum lunch. In this case a fine example of why I am here to check things out before bringing dozens of students here next summer. The food was really not good — this placed has just been scratched off of the itinerary. The first unsatisfactory meal we have had since arriving.

After lunch we headed to Xintiandi which means Old Meets New. Here there is a small museum which shows a typical Shikumen dwelling for a middle class Shanghai citizen in the 1920s. The rooms are small but comfortable and the ingenious design allows for quite comfortable living quarters. The information boards as you enter the museum proudly extol the fact that thousands of Chinese families were successfully relocated to allow the modernization of this area to occur in the mid 1990s.

Xintiandi is an area where the old peasant dwellings have been demolished and the materials were used to create a modern upscale shopping and restaurant district. It is very pleasant to walk around and contains all the usual Western stores (Cold Stone Creamery, Starbucks, department stores). A quick check in Starbucks for a price check revealed that a large coffee was 21 Yuan which is just over $3 — you are certainly paying for location here. All the restaurants were also very expensive so we skipped the idea of stopping for a coffee break and moved on.

On the walk back to the hotel we went through the People’s Park and enjoyed watching the young children play in the fountain while a few older men flew their kites. Our idea of an impromptu visit to the Shanghai Museum was also scratched as the line went half way around the block. By this time it was mid afternoon so we went back to the hotel to put our feet up for an hour and organize our evening activities. We were without a guide for the rest of the day so we had to make our own arrangements for evening dinner and entertainment.

We decided on combining dinner with a visit to Jin Mao tower, Shanghai’s second highest building. A 25-minute taxi ride across town to the financial district cost us 24 Yuan (about $3.50). It was then up the banks of elevators to the 86th floor. The cost of our meal at this high rise restaurant was obviously going to be higher due to the fabulous view, but at 350 Yuan ($50) for both of us I didn’t think that was too bad. Right next door to the Jin Mao tower is the newly constructed Shanghai World Financial Center — the building that looks like a huge bottle opener. There is also a hotel from floor 54 on up with an open lobby extending over 30 stories in the middle of the building. Peering down the center of the building is extremely daunting, especially if you are a little uncomfortable with heights as I am.

It was then back for another cab ride to the Lan Xin Theatre for the 90 minutes Shanghai Acrobatic Show. A real tourist’s trap — but also a lot of fun! Young acrobats constantly surprise you with their energetic feats and amazing balance. Probably the most memorable part was the three hoops fixed one on top of another and a constant array of acrobats flying through the hoops at great speed as they performed somersaults, back flips and tumbles through the hoops.

By the time the show was over, the jet lag was beginning to kick back in and we barely managed to keep our eyes open until hitting the pillow at 10 o’clock at night.

Steven Payne

Yu Gardens

Typical Shikumen Dwelling

Shanghai World Financial Center

Site Inspection Trip

Arrived safely in Shanghai at our hotel. For this site inspection trip my wife, Ena, has joined me (at her own expense of course). Rick Dillard, the president of American Classic Tours, will join us in a couple of days when we dig deeper into the planning.

We are staying in a Howard Johnson Hotel, although the level is significantly higher than what you would find on the side of a freeway back in America. The hotel we will stay in for the YOSA tour next summer currently has a construction site in front of it so the local tour company who is looking after us, Asia Getaways, decided we would be more comfortable here. I’ll get to visit our planned hotel in a couple of day’s time.

Once we freshened up, we decided to go out and explore and get something to eat. The concierge at the hotel’s front desk suggested a good restaurant about 10 blocks away. He hailed us a cab after having written down the name and address of the restaurant for the taxi driver. The 10 minute cab rise cost us a total of 11 Yuan ($1.60) and our excellent Chinese meal was 74 Yuan for both of us ($10.72). To soak in the atmosphere we walked back to the hotel passing a modern shopping street as well as some more traditional stores which are just about 12′ by 12′ with a family sitting around a table watching grainy TV sets or playing mahjong.

Now it is off to bed to try and recover from the lack of sleep on the flight over.

Steven Payne

6-Story Barbie Shop in Shanghai!

View of Shanghai Skyline from our Hotel

A Day at YOSA’s Music Learning Center

As some of you may already know, YOSA launched its first Music Learning Center this September. Inspired by El Sistema in Venezuela, this after school program offers free instruction in violin and cello to students on the West Side of San Antonio. Held at the Good Samaritan Community Services Center, the program now serves 122 students.

Yesterday I had the chance to scope out some of the classes and meet these wonderful kids. I quietly observed from the back of the room as the students trickled in, neatly placing their belongings in the appropriate bin. They picked up their instrument (color coded for them by size) and sat down impatiently waiting to play “Ode to Joy.”

The MLC is led by Maggie Raveneau, a sharp, young cellist who some of these kids refer to as “Mom.” Maggie played games with the kids and had a “cellos vs. violins” game. The kids had so much fun that by the end of class, they begged to stay for the next class!

Maggie’s advanced group got to do “art attacks.” An art attack is when the class picks random places at the Good Sam Center to play the music they just learned. The kids feel so proud playing the music they just learned in front of their peers. But more than just learning an instrument, these kids come together every day after school and are in an environment surrounded by love and appreciation.

I encourage everyone to drop by and say hi to these kids. I guarantee you will leave a changed person.

Until next time,

Nicté
Marketing & Community Relations Manager

Don’t forget about our parent’s meeting this Sunday on the Beethoven 5K!