The Weekend

Friday night I went to happy hour at the apartment bar. AF is still at school and won't be home until 7pm. One of the residents at the apartment is an awsome piano player and was playing a lot of jazz. I met an interesting family from Tonga. Joe is the family of 9 children and he also has some cousins living here. His wife is the Tonga Ambassador to the US and is UN ambassador. She is staying in NY with a few of the kids. Nice people. They mentioned there is a BBQ next Saturday. That will be another nice way to meet some new people.

I called AF to come down to the bar and listen to the piano. She stopped by and mentioned to me that we needed to get up early and go out to the ISB for varsity volleyball tryouts.

Saturday morning we got around to take a taxi at 8:00am. The first taxi driver had no idea how to get there even with directions from apartment concierge. The second driver said he know how but then started asking me for directions. I called the concierge and handed the phone over the driver. It was a 106RMB ride. We got there at 8:30 a little early which was ok since AF was not feeling real well. . The practice went from 9:00 to 11:30. She had a really good showing but still lots of girls trying to get on the team. There are at least 30 girls trying out for the varsity team.

Our biggest worry was how to get a taxi going back to the city. Luckily we walked out the gates of the school and a taxi came by. The street by the school is not very busy and certainly does not look like a place that taxis go by often. Hope we are as lucky next time.

We got back to the apartment and ordered club sandwiches at the deli. Really hit the spot. It is an interesting sandwich with lettuce tomato, ham slice (I think) and a fried egg.

I had problems with the work blackberry today. I had a hard time sending and receiving messages. I received a nice invite to meet with the Shunyi families but got it too late. AF decided to stay in and do some college application work. Thought I would meet CB for dinner since he just got into town and is by himself but he had already gone out to Shunyi to hang out with the two families.

Sunday, AF still did not feel good so we skipped church. The cleaners came into clean this morning and I did some laundry. I then decided to leave the house and do some more exploring. I walked to Houhai Lake wich is another touristy area that has shops, bars and restaurants. It was a great walk with nice windy, dry warm weather. Lots of great sights along the way.