View From Above

What's going on y'all? I hope things are good. We have had a good week here. As mentioned in previous posts, Gabe started swimming lessons this week. They have been interesting to say the least. The class is with all older kids and one teacher. So Gabe kind of feels out numbered. The teacher is a Chinese guy who's motto is "Throw them in and they'll figure it out." He may not actually throw them in but, that's his mind set about learning to swim. Don't get me wrong, he's really nice. I think it's partly a culture thing. They don't really baby the kids over here. If a kid is scared and crying about swimming....they just drag them on in. Kicking and screaming. And if a kid can swim above water and they are wanting them to learn to swim underwater, they just push them under and hold them down 'til they start swimming. Forced learning I guess you would say. While I always thought it was kind of a cruel thing to do, I'm thinking there must be something to it. Over the past week, the improvment the Chinese kids have made is amazing! Each of them are much more advanced than they were at the begenning of the week. The ones who "sorta swam" are truly swimming. Correctly and everything. The ones who couldn't swim at all are "sorta swimming." By that I just mean they don't have great technique but they are doing it. And the two who were totally terrified are perfectly happy and attempting to swim. Really, maybe there is something to this "suck it up and do it" mentality. Gabe isn't swimming yet, but he has gotten braver. He doesn't really enjoy the classes, too much commotion. But he has learned to kick his feet. I don't know if we will be going next week or not. I think we may just on our own....when there are less people in the pool.

Last weekend we took a family outing to Shanghai's famous Pearl Tower. The Oriental Pearl Tower stands by the bank of the Huangpu River. The tower is 468 meters high. It is the highest TV Tower in Asia and is the third highest one in the world. In the tower, there is a double-decker elevator which can hold fifty people at a time and two high-speed elevators which run at a speed of 7 meters per second. The sight-seeing floor in the upper sphere is 263 meters (about 862 feet) high and 45 meters in diameter. It's one of the best places to get a bird's-eye view of Shanghai. The view was totally amazing. It was not the clearest day when we were there but it was still great. Here are a couple of pictures.







The last picture shows the Jin Mao Tower and the building being built next to it. The Jin Mao tower is 88 stories tall and is currently the fifth tallest building in the world. The building being biult next to it is the Shanghai World Financial Center. When completed, it will be the tallest building in the world with 101 stories. Hopefully we will go up into the Jin Mao tower soon. I'm sure it will provide another great view of this amazing city.

Hope y'all have a great week!