Song and Dance. . .

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April 8, 2010

I was so tired this morning. When 5:30 am rolled around, I wanted to just pull the covers over my head and sleep for another two hours. Unfortunately, I needed to get my walk done. It was a much colder day than yesterday was. But after I got outside and start walking around my little park I wasn’t cold anymore. I saw many of the same people from the day before. They recognized me and we waved hello to each other. There is this one lady who I see every time I walk, riding by me on her bike. No matter how friendly I smile at her, she never smiles back. She just stares and stares at me as she rides past me and then keeps turning her head to look back at me. I’m surprised she hasn’t fallen over yet! I think I’ll try smiling at her one more time and if she doesn’t smile back I’m going to start doing a dance and singing some crazy song and see what she does then.

Work was busy today. There is just so much to get done in such a relatively short time. But I think we came up with some very creative ideas today. Everyone seemed to be feeling more relaxed by the time we left the lab.

They made another special lunch for me and Danbo in the work cafeteria. I included a picture. The interesting things floating in the soup come from the root of water lilies. They are quite mild in flavor. . .they reminded me of new potatoes both in taste and texture. I didn’t try the shrimp. I’m pretty good with chopsticks, but trying to peel a shrimp and eat it with chopsticks is a little too challenging for me. I’m afraid I’d end up flinging it accidently across the lunchroom and it landing in someone’s hair! (Upon reading this, please refer back to my earlier blog which states that I have a natural talent for unintentionally embarrassing myself in new and creative ways. . .some of you are familiar with the infamous toilet seat cover story. . .a classic example of this unique talent of mine).

Later on the afternoon, Lavinia, had heard that I wanted to go see Chinese Opera. This is a very famous type of performance here in Beijing. She found a nice theatre that not only has Chinese Opera but performs a traditional Tea Ceremony. We are going to go there sometime next week. Hopefully they will let me take pictures during the performance. Oh! And I told you earlier that our lab is going to go out for karaoke. We will do that this Sunday. Only I just found out that it is very different that American karaoke. Instead of going to a bar with strangers and getting up on stage and singing, you rent a special suite with a karaoke machine for just your friends and family and sing to each other!!!!! At first I was a little nervous about this, but everyone is so excited that I figure I’ll just relax and enjoy myself (after maybe two or three beers!). Seriously, though, I think it will be fun. Some of the people are going to sing Chinese songs and some are going to sing American songs.

Okay. . .I’m so tired. I’ll write more tomorrow. Take care!

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