June 23rd

Ok, in China so far for today, June 23, the team has travelled to the Summer Place, a pearl factory, Olympic Village and a silk factory. The Summer Place is a grand and spacious garden created as a birthday gift for the emperor's mother. On one side of the garden there is the mountains and on the other there is a lake. Chinese Feng shui all the way. The team went on a short boat around the lake as well as took a team picture in traditional dynasty chinese garments. Courtney and Colleen were the emperor and emperoress. Within the garden there is the long corridor with over 5000 paintings of traditional stories depicting the history of China. Within the pearl factory, we were educated about the different types of pearls, fresh water and salt water pearl. We were also taught how to identify fake pearls. The silk factory was an open market where you were able to bargain for a your price. The sales people are very aggressive, and they want you to buy their products at their prices but you are always about to lower the price. The Olympic Village was amazing. From an athlete's point of view, you think about the best of the world and how they walked where you were walking at the moment. They were standing in the middle of the Bird's Nest, and you wonder what they thought. In the Olympic Village we visited the Bird's Nest and the Water cube. There were synchronized swimmers practicing. A lot of the comments made by the team were " this is where Michael Philips swam" or "this is were the best of the best dove" and so on. Every member of the team seemed to be wide eyed and amazed by the Olympic Village.

Anna Lau, K'11