The weekend after the party we went to Beijing for a visit and to discuss with Yuki collage plans. As a 16 year old High School junior (as well as being a junior citizen) she will be doing the application process very soon. We went this week end because the big APEC meeting earlier in the week had shut Bejing down, no factories, school and driving restrictions to cut the Beijing smog. As this picture from the hotel window shows 3 days after the meeting ended it was still relatively smog free.
I mentioned that Ashley’s grandparents were in Zhuhai this week and they went on to Shanghai so they were not in Bejing this week end but Thursday after the party they did come by the plant after we met them for breakfast.
Dinner out somewhere on Friday night and then Saturday Yuki, Mary, Ashley’s dad and I spent a few hours at a coffee shop discussing important stuff.
After planning her entire life we went back to the apartment to meet up with the people that had to work.
Returning to the apartment generates a scene that anyone that has been to Beijing for a visit will recognize with one exception. Since Grandma was not there her duties of making sure there was more food on the coffee table than could ever be eaten was spread around to all in attendance.
Sometime during this gathering it was decided that Yuki and I would go to a movie after dinner that night and the adults would go back home and talk Chinese.
For those of you that have not been there the apartment is near the center of Beijing and and is right next to a big shopping area. There is a mall that is 6 or 7 stories tall next to them and all 4 corners of that intersection have big shopping high rise buildings. So that night it was off to dinner at the Korean BBQ on the 9th floor of one of these buildings where we got to cook our own stuff at the table. Not a big ol TBone but little slivers of stuff. When the time came Yuki and I left to go across the street to the Cinema.
The move was the 3 hour long Intersteller that was released worldwide that weekend. Had lots of good effects and had real astrophysics concepts. All in all a good movie. Their popcorn was like Carmel corn though, but acceptable. The movie got over sometime after 10 and Yuki and I walked home. During the walk she told me she was excited because this was the first time she was able go to a movie at night and was able to walk home at night. Night is study time. So for any of you that have a 16 year old or know someone who does I think we can update the old adage that got repeated when a kid didn’t want to eat their stewed tomatoes and soggy bread, “Eat there are people starving in China”. Now when the 16 year old wants to take the family sedan and perform with The Jack Kochman Hell Drivers and then go to a celebration party at Ed’s Emporium of Lewd Behavior and Disco the responsible parent can just reply, “No, 16 year olds in China can’t even go to the movie at night unless accompanied by a certified Senior Citizen” That should put them in their place.
That ended the evening and the visit. The next morning while getting ready to go to the airport I noticed the Sunday morning Chinese window washing crew work on a building across the way.
The way these guys worked was to swing back and forth left to right and wash in one pass and squeegee in the next while the guys on the roof slowly lowered them. No fancy platforms and safety harness for them, no siree. But of course they didn’t grow up with Jiminy Cricket.
Which also may explain Chinese driving and walking habits. Anyway we got home ready for the last week in China.