Lunch with an old FALCON teacher

Last weekend was action-packed.  I'm breaking it up into a couple different posts to make it more episodic and because I need to get photos off of Muir's iPhone.  It's trickier than it sounds because he's always either at work or using it to look up words while he's reading.  *grumble, grumble*

Anyway!  I had emailed the FALCON teachers (FALCON being the summer class where Muir and I met) before departing for Beijing to tell them that we had gotten married and send a photo.  One of them, Ding Xuesong, moved back to Beijing after teaching in the U.S. for a while, and she and I arranged a time for the three of us to reconnect over lunch.  She recommended a restaurant in Wu Dao Kou that served Peking duck, a dish that I wanted to try very much, and we spent a few hours eating and catching up.  She has a two-year-old son and had other news to pass along about some of the other students we were in class with all those years ago.  She is still teaching Chinese and just started as a teacher for a year-long study abroad program for high school juniors and seniors from the West as well as Japan and Korea.  It was really fun to see a familiar face in Beijing, and before we said goodbye, Muir suggested that we get together again at least one more time before we leave.  He wants Ding to tell him if she thinks his Chinese had improved.  Muir is still such an eager student. :)  (Sorry, no pictures.  I was completely absorbed in our lunch and didn't realize I'd forgotten to take any photos until later that day.)