Day 3-5

The next days were devoted to getting AF in school. Shen picked us up in the morning and we headed out to the ISB in Shunyi. Traffic was good and took us about 35 minutes. We went to a parent and student orientation in the morning for new HS students. We then went to Pinnacle Plaza nearby for lunch at Little Italy. Food was pretty good (spaghetti and meatballs and Fried mozzarella) with Evian for 105 RMB ($13). We then went back for Math placement testing for AF. While I waited, I had Shen take me back to Pinnacle Plaza to shop at Jenny Lou's which has mostly western US grocery brands.

The next day we went to school to work with HS counselor on AF's class schedule. A school emergency in the counseling office meant we would have to wait 1.5 hours to see a counselor. You can imagine how unhappy I was with this. It did not seem to phase AF as she brought a good book to read. We finally got through the process but it was not a happy one. The school is totally an IB school and coming in at the senior year presented lots of problems for her course work. Not much we can do about it. We'll have to explain on college applications.

While we were at the school it rained very hard with severe thunderstorms. When we left the school there were some mudslides in the road from some of the constructions sites, what a mess. It did not stop the bikes or pedestrians from getting where they needed to go. It has been quite rainy our first few days which is unusual this time of year. We have yet to see the sun throught haze or rain clouds. The humidity is extremely high.

I went to dinner with a new Beijing collegue. He was kind enough to meet me at the apartment and took me to an excellent local Tapas restaurant. He gave me the low-down on logistics in the Beijing office and talked about the CBRC. He has been here for 12+ years and speaks Mandarin fluently. He and his staff will be a big help to us here.

The next day we took AF to ISB for a student orientation where she loaded her meal card and received photo ID. She also got to meet some of the new kids. We then went back to the apartment. I decided to go for a walk around the area to get a better feel for the neighborhood. Lots of cool stuff.