Shenzhen

Our our long flight to Shenzhen was uneventful (that's a good thing!) We were all afraid to see the hotel because the Nanning hotel was the best ever! The people were great, our room was great... but a lot of the rooms were moldy-ish! The first morning the kids had a press event/photoshoot at the hotel. Then w took off to check out the city.  We found a Mexican restaurant called Amigo's; it was pretty good! And then we found a ColdStone!!!  Yeah!  We found a subway station and went to Windows of the World. It was great  We took a tram around it to see what it was all about, we saw all kinds of miniature villages from around the world!  We spent quite a bit of time at the Alps, an indoor skating rink and skiing "hill"!  We ended the evening...where else...at the arcade! 

 Opening night was VERY special because they had some children who were victims of the earthquake give flowers to our kids at the end of the show! The kids were in several newspapers!

Saturday morning the kids were bussed to a press event for one of the presenters. They sang two songs answered a couple of questions and then came home.  There were 2 shows that day and 2 the next so we were extremely busy! When we had free time we walked around the city but saw nothing much new anymore!

Monday was a "Golden Day" - no press, no play! So we took off for "The China Cultural Center".

We took a tram through part of Shenzhen to the Center.  Once the kids found the water park, there we stayed most of the day! We went to see "The Dragon and the Pheonix", the most spectacular show that I have seen since I saw  Cirque du Soleil "O".  It had everything in it from dancers to acrobats, fire and water (falls and rain and fountains) and horses and unbelievable costumes and great music!  we bought the CD to show you guys!

Matthew's been doing a math program this summer, and he been very diligent since we've returned to China, trying to do math three days a week between the shows, the press, and sightseeing.  On the last night in Shenzhen we had a cast and crew meeting.  We all found out that we would be returning home once again on August 22!! Broadway Asia couldn't book us for six weeks but had 10 weeks booked later in 2008 into 09. The Company decided to close this leg of the show until then.  We're all invited back but since Matthew is pushing 5'6" as we speak, I'm not so sure he'll be an appropriate Friedrich in 3-4 months!!!! But we'll see! We can't wait to get home though!

So after the meeting we all discussed our mixed feelings about the announcement then left for Guangzhou the next morning!

Nanning

Nanning has been wonderful!  From the minute we arrived at the hotel (a Best Western) it's been a treat.  Our rooms are great and  the hotel has a huge pool and they kept it open late for us because we didn't arrive until close to 10pm.  We had huge picture windows with great views. Thankfully we got to spend a lot of time in this great hotel here in Nanning!

On the 9th the kids had a press event at one of the local schools. The kids participated in a music class as well as a Chinese class!  (I videoed some of it so you could also hear what was going on but I separated the videos from the pics in case it's hard to download - be patient, with the videographer also!!)

Matthew's birthday was also today, he had a wonderful day, "the best birthday ever"!  Shawn, Jack and the kids managed to send flowers to the hotel! Emily managed to sneak in a gift right under Matt's nose!  Caitlin and an gave him a CD of Erhu music and some of the other cast brought him some candy, cookies, pool toys!! The party continued with pizza, fruit and soda's out on the back patio!  I had ordered 2 cakes, one chocolate and one vanilla from the local Walmart (that was the best I could do on such short notice since the Walmart was right next door) and they we're great! Then the hotel made a beautiful cake for Matt and THEN the Presenter sent over a cake with his hospitality group from the theatre!   So Matthew ended up with 4 birthday cakes!!!  It was great to have a Broadway type cast sing "Happy Birthday" to you!

The best part of the night was when Amy (our resident Trumpet player) gave Matthew his gift.  She had carried the Erhu  from Harbin, through the airport as one of her carry ons and we carried her carry on. Matt even helped her with what he thought was her trumpet several times!   He had asked for an Erhu since Chengdu, even when we were home he mentioned several times that he hoped we were going back so he could get an Erhu! He was so excited to got it!

The crazy part is that our Presenter Mr, Sheng is a VERY accomplished Erhu player and just returned from playing a concert at the National Theatre in Beijing,  He gave Matthew Erhu Lessons!!!! Mr. Sheng began Erhu at the age of 13, so he really pulling for Matthew to do well.  We went a second day, for 2 hours each day!  It was very generous of him to give us his time like that! He is the head of several National and Regional Arts agencies! After the lesson we went around downtown Nanning. Check out this Majong table!

We only had 3 shows in Nanning, it was a very old and musty theatre.  Opening night, I sat with Peggy, the 5th grader that was Matthew's translator at the school event.  She brought gifts for all of the kids and Maria and Capt.  Also one for me!  How sweet.  She gave Matt and extra special gift, a Chinese characters writing book, a special paint brush and some ink!  He was thrilled because we had seen this at the school! I'm sure Nanning will be one of Matt's favorite cities in China!

Around Harbin

The Harbin theatre was great.  It was attached to the hotel, the stage door leading to backstage, was in the hotel lobby! Opening night was exciting because the cast was ready to get the show up and running again. It was amazing to see how much Matt grew over the hiatus! I managed to film Elsa and Max's songs..I love them and they are not in the movie.  It's funny how the Chinese do not respond to these songs because they are not as familiar as all of the others, but they are really clever and entertaining...(the songs not so much the chinese!) We were in the second row so I attempted to film the last scene, which is practically in total darkness. After the show we went to MceeDee's! Woohoo! And had a very eventful after show event! (hehe)  We walked around Harbin but  Tom's World (arcade heaven all around China!) was a hit the next day.... 

On Friday the 4th of July we went to see the Siberian Tigers.  It felt like entering Jurassic Park but it was filled with all kinds of cats! Matt got to hold a baby Tiger, it was the highlight of the day!  We all gathered in the morning to take a bus to the Tigers. It was a wee bit cheesy entering the park but once we were in, it was compared to Jurassic Park (according to Matt!)  We saw Five year old tigers, Mature tigers, African Tigers,  lazy  Jaguars,  Leopards, and LIGERS!!!  Matt even fed a tiger! That's ok to watch but if your week in the stomach ( or if you simply love ducks) don't watch the following....Duck vs. Tiger!    Guess who wins! We loved seeing the tigers "Safari Style".  On the way home we stopped at a large park.  We couldn't stay that day but we returned on July 7th. It was a fun filled day. We just happened to get the best taxi driver in Harbin and when I started to take pictures on the way to the park, he decided to give us a tour and show us extra items such as another Russian orthodox Church, a Mosk, a very ancient prison as well as the first cinema in all of China! Then we went on to the park which included some fun and games for Matt as well as a cable car ride over the Song River, driving around the park in a rented coup and taking a ferry back over.  We ended the evening eating at a great Russian restaurant!  The kids happened to make the newspaper a couple of times.

We're Back!

Hello all,

We made it to Harbin after a great trip to Beijing -only to find out THEN that we didn't have tickets to Harbin!  Our bag tags said Harbin, our confirmation said Harbin, and my receipt said Harbin... just Air China didn't have us anywhere in their computer!!!  It only took 4 hours to straighten out the mess.  So, we left Friday morning at 6 am from Logan and got to our Hotel at 10 PM Saturday night.  That's like 30+ hours! It's crazy.  But it was better than what the rest of the cast had to go through. Due to delays in Shanghai some of them didn't get in until 4 am on Sunday and they left Friday from the States too!  The kids started rehearsals Sunday at 1 pm.  Us parents walked around Harbin.  It has a lot of Russian influence so it is different from the western cities that we have been to. We visited beautiful St. Sophia Church, which was located at Zhaolin Park, which is where Harbin holds their annual Ice Festival it is so famous for.  Next to the church there are these two "bird ladies" that sell food to feed the pigeons.  The also have trained to pigeons to fly up to the stoops of the church as well as fly in a group around the park.  The funny thing is there is NO pigeon poop around! HHMM?  We walked toward the Songhua Jiang (Songhua River) down Toulong Jie (Toulong Street) to Stalin Park which runs 26 miles along the riverbank so needless to say we only saw a small portion of it.  However, we did see the Flood Control Monument, which was amazing because it represents the height the floods in the 50's reached!  We went back to pick up the kids for their dinner break and we went to an absolutely delicious Dumpling house!  The following day, the kids had rehearsal again from 11-6 so we just went around town... always the adventure!  The buildings are really pretty here and you understand why Harbin has been called "Little Moscow" and "Paris of the east" in the past.