November camping

Just like in the states the boy scouts go camping on a monthly basis. This month troop 12 hooked up with troop 88. We found a place out in the countryside that offered archery, laser-tag, kayaking, hiking and an empty field to setup camp.

Several of the scouts started scouting in other countries and have joined our troop. We have one boy from Australia and another from the united kingdom. Scouting in these countries is very similar, but they do have their own books, ranks and merit badges.

The Australian scout brought his handbook and it was very interesting. We were working on totin chits and he dove right in with the rest of us. To give him credit under the australian system we had to make a few judgement calls about rules like "know your local knife safety regulations" and "your local firecodes". You'll notice the US handbooks don't emphasis knowledge of the local laws for knife safety. Perhaps they should?? We had some fun deciding if local meant, china, the US or Australia.

While it rained most of the day, the Puxi troop managed to sweep the Pudong troop 3-0. For those of you new to Shanghai Puxi means "west of the Pu river" and Pudong mean

s "east of the pu river". The word "xi" means west, "dong" means east and "pu" is an abbreviation commonly used for the the Huangpu river.

There was a climbing wall, but lets just say it didn't pass our safety inspection. There were also no helmets, ropes or other safety gear anywhere we could see

The course itself was quite elaborate, with bunkers, walls, trees and other assorted obstacles.