On 17th September six students and two teachers from the Nord Anglia Spring Bud school in Wang Family Village near Tianshui in Gansu arrived in Shanghai  to see our school and the city.

Why had they travelled from Tianshui to Shanghai? Well, two years ago, after the Wenchuan earthquake our school helped to build a new school in their village and because this year is a special year in Shanghai, due to the Expo, we decided to invite some of the pupils to come to visit Shanghai for their very first time.

On Saturday September 18th my mum and I took them out for the day to visit the Pearl Tower and The Bund. We met the children and their teachers in Peoples Square. Dai Laoshi from the primary school introduced us and I thought the children all looked a bit scared. It turned out this was the first time they had been to a big city.

We had an amazing day where the students and teachers experienced many firsts. It was their first time on an escalator, a metro train, a lift and a ferry. This surprised me because these are the kind of things that I use all the time without thinking about it.

Despite having to queue for ages everyone really enjoyed the Pearl Tower, even me, and I had been up it before. There is a cool new bit with a glass floor that everyone was scared to walk on at first, but after bravely stepping on to it the people from Gansu wanted loads of photos taken there.

We ate a mountain of dumplings for lunch, and no one could understand why I didn’t want any spicy chilli sauce with mine because everyone in Gansu loves to eat spicy food, even the children.

By the time we had walked along a very busy Bund the children and teachers were getting very tired. They couldn’t get used to having to dodge the crowds of people and all the cars but they thought the buildings were beautiful. We all decided it was time to head back to their hotel so they could rest before going to Expo the next day.

All in all, I really enjoyed my day (but my mum was the one who did all of the talking in Mandarin). I was really glad to share some of my favourite parts of Shanghai with my new friends and I hope I get to go to Gansu soon to see where they live too.

(See some more pictures of the visit in our photo gallery)