School ski trips continued, to several different areas in the Beijing region. Steve (and his camera) chaperoned once, on this Saturday at the Yu Yang resort. You can get a sense of the craziness of the beginner slope, above left, but the one advanced trail -- the only trail served by a chairlift -- was blissfully empty. Luckily, the kids I was skiing with were easily able to handle the advanced trail, so we stayed there all day. Most of the day I was with Rachel and her buddies, one of whom is a German girl Rachel’s size who was fond of telling us how much better the skiing is in Austria. (Rachel replied that it’s much better in Vermont, too, thank you very much!) Rachel’s in the pink helmet, in front, in the picture above; Vera from Germany is showing off to Rachel’s right, and Sam is right behind Rachel.