last day

And so my parents’ last day in China dawns- dry, blue sky, but thicker smog than yesterday. We need a breeze- I don’t want to send them off in the kind of thick haze that had me rushing to the pharmacy for some Ventolin (available over the counter here!) to keep Dad’s lungs working last Wednesday.

There’s talk of more shopping today. I would’ve thought yesterday’s trip to Xiushui would’ve been enough, but more on that later. There’s also talk of getting photos printed up ready to give to less technological folks back home, but lzh reckons they won’t be able to get that done in time, at least, not for a reasonable price. I dunno, in my experience, in China anything can be done in time so long as you know how to go about it. We’ll see.

All I know is that when I get out of class at three-ish, I’ll come home and make sure Mum and Dad have all the photos they need on their new external hard drive and all the places they visited are marked off on the map so they can show my siblings.

Then I’ll finally get around to getting this new webcam of mine up and running. It feels odd sitting here with this webcam looking at me, kinda 1984-ish. But it hasn’t even been plugged in yet, and in fact, I’m not even sure the cable is long enough- some rearranging may be necessary. It’s supposed to have a microphone built in (so yes, Shushu, we’ll get Skype and we can talk), and apart from getting Skype, I might also trying adding some actual voice to a couple of new voicethreads that are slowly fermenting in the back of my brain. Voice in a voicethread, revolutionary concept, I know.

Hmmm…. I’m not sure the problem embedding voicethreads was properly solved. I might have another go at that, but then again, I don’t really care. Sending people over to the voicethread site is fine with me, after all, voicethread is a really cool tool.

Anyway, enough rambling. The good thing is Mum and Dad seem to be enjoying their time in China. Hopefully today continues that trend and they leave on a high note.

Only hassle is their flight is bright and early tomorrow morning. Well, it would be bright and early if it were summer- sunrise will probably happen when we’re on our way home having seen them off.

About the Author

wangbo

A Kiwi teaching English to oil workers in Beijing, studying Chinese in my spare time, married to a beautiful Beijing lass, consuming vast quantities of green tea (usually Xihu Longjing/西湖龙井, if that means anything to you), eating good food (except for when I cook), missing good Kiwi ale, breathing smog, generally living as best I can outside Godzone and having a good time of it.

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