It was late afternoon when we took off from Xi'an so we arrived in Ningbo very much into the night. Driving down the highway Michael pointed at a building off to the left that looked like a 15-story white house, and said "Oh, there's our hotel!" We laughed at his sense of humor.
But he wasn't joking. We entered into the lobby....
For most doors at hotels you have something that looks like a credit card and you slide it into the slot and your door opens. Not here. First of all, the cards they gave us felt more like carbon fiber... and second: to open the door, you just sort of swipe the card in mid air below the handle of the door and poof...open sesame. Then you open the door to see what is usually the best suite of any hotel. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the bathroom, but simply put I would be willing to eat in there. Model credit goes to Richard Olsen.
The next morning we headed off to a famous, still active, Buddhist Temple in Ningbo.
They had a big courtyard and several buildings, all for a different purpose. No matter what religious affiliations you have, this was a really cool place to see.
Next we went to a very ancient house that had been turned into a museum. But it wasn't exactly a house... it was more of a... as if a zen jungle and several courtyards and pathways made one big love child. This place was HUGE. It was filled with ponds, trees, sculpted rocks, and various other decorative designs.
To tour through the entire place took us about an hour and a half. By this time it was about mid-afternoon, and Justin's high school was within walking distance. After several blocks we were welcomed by this nice sign!
We were able to have lunch at their cafeteria!
After that we met with Justin's students and they gave us tours of their campus. I was toured by this nice kid, who I am currently emailing!
Next we went into their concert hall to rehearse. We sang the 2008 Olympic theme song with the Ningbo choir and their band.
After the 3:00 PM performance, a nice girl showed us all a powerpoint presentation of the things her school has been up to in the past few years.
After that we headed down to the main floor for a "post-performance" that consisted of songs, games, and discussion. I have a few videos from that that I would like to post but there are a couple network problems right now. Hopefully I can share them in the next post. For now, here is a picture from one part of the performance as Caleigh and Lindsay talked about things you can do at Proctor!
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