Here is the promised picture of Em from Saturday’s trip to the water park:
As you will note, toddlers are not known for their fashion sense or ability to chose just one item to wear at any given time! (She didn’t actually wear her trousers or tshirt in the water, but she insisted on wearing the swimvest in the car on the way to the pool.)
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We went to Merry Super Happy Water Park on Saturday with about 60 other westerners from ISB and WAB. We all drove in a big long convoy of about 14 four wheel drives and must have been quite a sight for the guards at the gate to the car park.
The water park is huge with numerous pools, one of which is a very large wave pool complete with huge, floating human/hamster balls. There is a great water castle for the kids to play on, but it is only great until you get up close and see how rusty it is. M didn’t really get into the spirit of things and stayed close to her mother and me; maybe she was thinking she didn’t want to get a tetanus shot. Despite being a bit substandard, we had a fun time and if the kids were a bit older it might be worth going again.
Leaving was a Chinese experience all of its own as I had to line up three times to give things back, update my account and pay. Sheesh, what price full employment.
ISB = International School Beijing
WAB = Western Academy Beijing
My old friend Glen died of a massive heart attack last night. Bradley and Samantha (his young kids) and Lee (his wife) will surely feel something that no one else can even go near right now. I always say that I never know what to say when something tragic happens and again I really don’t know what to say. Anything just seems kind of lame.
Glen was about the same age as me. Is it selfish of me to relate it back to my own situation or is that just a natural reaction? I’m gonna go home and hug my kids.
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Yesterday afternoon I went with some colleagues down to the Pomegranate for a few drinks. It is quite a western enterprise but is situated inside the local village which means that as well as the toilets being frozen and the taps not working, we were also evacuated because of a gas leak. We moved on to King’s Bar (which is owned by one of the teachers at my school) where the toilets were also frozen.
In our compound everything is working (or at least the Chinese version of working) but as I wander through the village and see how frozen everything is I wonder how much of their stuff is still working.
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Google is getting ready to stop filtering their content on the Chinese version of their search engine which means they will be blocked by the government here, so they will instead pull out of China. The white house is backing Google’s desire for a free internet, which is interesting because the Australian government is getting ready to control what is available for Australians to see on the internet.
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