Turtles

One of the first places that we went to was Chaoyang Park which is a big park in the east of Beijing (close to our apartment). It contains: The Sony Explora Centre which is a hands-on science experience and one of Tristan's favourite places; lakes where you can hire gunboats and huge inflatable, translucent rolls that you climb inside and make move over the water like a hamster in an ball (Tris & Verity got very hot and giggly doing this); you can fish for goldfish in the pond and you can pay for additional amusements (Theo enjoyed shooting his first air rifle) and we were all stunned by the ride known as 'Battlefield of happiness'.

The Chinese are not sentimental about animals; live fish are sold in supermarkets in containers no longer than their bodies and Verity & Theo discovered a man selling turtles who was keeping them in a very small box. We are sentimental about animals so we bought three, two of which are still going strong. They're actually red sliders or terrapins and they live for 40 years which is, umm, longer than we intend to be in China - we are avoiding this subject at present.

Finding schools

We'd arrived just as term was due to start so we had to find schools at speed. We'd applied for an American school before we left the UK but when Verity and Lou went to visit it they decided that it was just too much on the big smile and soooo cute side. Tris and Verity joined Harrow International - an English school with two sites, one in the city which Tris goes to and one miles out of town where Verity goes. Verity's had just opened, had very few pupils and felt a bit odd when we first went there but she has now got lots of friends and likes it. Tris loved his from the start and it really seems to be working well for him - the teachers are very keen and the Head is the best we've ever met. Harrow had a class for Theo but it only had a few children and we thought it would be good for him to be with more children and to learn some Mandarin so he has Joined Dulwich College Beijing's bi-lingual kindergarten.

Each school had buses which collected and dropped-off the children and, within days they were putting on school uniform, rushing breakfast and disappearing before 8 each morning. It was a shock for Theo because he had only done three mornings a week in the UK and he was suddenly leaving before 8 am and arriving back at around 4 each day; however, we've now moved closer to his school and he has made friends and is much happier.