Sunday – land early, endless lines at the airport, arrive at Ascott hotel, kill 5 hours in the lounge before gaining access to our room. Sleep. Dinner at Highline restaurant at the hotel. Confusion over what to do with the cups of warm water served at the start of the meal.
Monday – Minhang suburbs. Visit BISS Puxi (British International School Shanghai Puxi). This school has been recommended by quite a few Swedes, and they did not disappoint. But, it’s in the suburbs, over an hour from Kristian’s office. Lunch a Panlong Tiandi. A new water town area, made to look like the ancient, traditional water towns. Afternoon visit to SCIS, closer to the city center. The admissions guy did not make a very good impression. Mostly listing what is included in the tuition or not. The school seems nice and also comes highly recommended, but the outside environment can not compete with BISS.
Tuesday – Britannica School, not too far from SCIS, I believe. Maybe even more centrally located. But being driven around in a car is quite disorienting, so I am having a hard time keeping track. Britannica accepts everyone. The interview went well. No homework obviously impressed the kids. BUT. There was an unexplained empty room labelled as the isolation room. That’s a bit chilling. And the summer holidays according to their schedule are a few weeks shorter. Lunch at a Japanese mall. YCIS, a school from Hong Kong. But the campus for secondary school is a 10-15 min walk away from primary school, and ALL kids have mandatory violin lessons up until year 4. Mandarin class every day. It seems like a great school, but culturally too far away from what we come from.
Wednesday – Pudong. Dulwich and Wellington. Two enormous schools located on the Pudong side of Shanghai. Both impressive with their huge campuses and all the facilities one could ever dream of. Wellington is only a 5 min walk from Kristan’s office. But it is so huge. In each year there are almost as many kids as the entire school the girls come from. That’s a different kind of shock. And since it has gone through massive growth, the stability may be lacking. Kristian has a dinner to go to with colleagues. The girls get our nails done at a salon next to the hotel.
Thursday – a morning to sleep in. Shanghai Natural History Museum in the afternoon. And some general sightseeing.
Friday – Looking at apartment options across town. Nothing in Minhang, since that is too far out to fit in the schedule.
Saturday – back to Sweden we go. Our heads full of questions and not many answers.
Boynton Beyond Borders 