Back to school!

That's right.  Tomorrow is Monday and time for Nicholas to go back to school.  It's been nice having us all together for the past two and a half weeks, but it's time for a routine again.  Ryan is certainly ready for Nick to be gone all day.

Last week was a little weird.  On Sunday we gave Li the day off but said that we would need him on Monday, New Year's Eve.  He had already asked for New Year's Day off.  We told the boys we would take them bowling, out for lunch and possibly an arcade or whatever we felt like doing for a fun day out.  Well, Sunday evening Li wrote and said that he couldn't work Monday because his daughter was sick, but that he would work on Tuesday.  I asked him to please find us another driver since we had already been inside for a couple of days (the kids and I didn't go anywhere on Saturday either) and we had told them we would go bowling.  I had even called a hotel near Michelin to make sure that we would be able to come and use their bowling alley, one of the only ones we know about here.  After a while Li said that there would be someone coming to pick us up at 10am.  Sure enough, the next morning, a new driver was here waiting for us.

I am really glad that I have been taking Chinese lessons because, although what I know is limited, it has helped a lot in communicating with the numerous drivers that have been employed to cart us around.  The guy we had this day (I'm not sure of his name) understood when I told him we wanted to go to a big, white hotel near Michelin.  He drove us there and the only problem I had was when he wanted to know how long we would be.  I was afraid he would drive away and we would find out that we couldn't bowl, even though we had called ahead.  I went inside the hotel, a very grand, European looking place, and asked the first guy I saw about the bowling alley.  He said that yes, they had one and it was on the first floor below us and we could go ahead and take the elevator down.  Perfect!  I told our driver, who had followed us in, that we would be one hour so he could go and we headed down for some bowling.  Of course, this is China and nothing is that simple.  We did go down to the first floor and found the nice bowling lanes (two of them) only to discover a sign saying that they were out of order.  I noticed a phone so I called the front desk and a lady informed me that they were indeed broken.  We were not pleased.  Back up the elevator we went hoping to catch the driver before he left (I didn't actually have his phone number) and we were lucky enough to get there in time. We piled back into the van and I proceeded to explain to our driver that we wanted to go bowling and did he know of any other places.  He said he did and off we went again.

Last year, for Ryan's third birthday, we went bowling to an odd place in the basement of a building next to another hotel.  Although getting to the alleys involved a scary escalator and some nasty smells, it turned out to be an okay place.  The kids had fun and nobody got sick so it all worked out.  On this day our driver ended up taking us to this same place but, sure enough, there were chains on the doors and it had been shut down.  Great!  Not knowing of any other bowling alleys we decided an arcade would have to do for some fun and since we were near Taiyuan Jie, we chose a place that Tim and the boys had been to last year with our former driver, Tian Ye.  It was supposed to be easy to find; just a quick drive to Somerset Apartments, take the door to the right, then up to the sixth floor.  We did all that, but when we got to the sixth floor all we saw was men's clothing.  Lots and lots of men's clothing.  We took the escalators to every floor, hoping that perhaps they had just moved it but we found nothing.  The only other arcade we knew of in that area was at Wanda Plaza and so we started walking down the pedestrian street toward that mall.  After about thirty seconds of freezing cold that we were not properly dressed for, we turned around and went back to our van.  

By now it was almost lunch time and rather than tempt fate by trying to find something else fun to do, we decided to just go to Aqua Chinese Cuisine (aka Minakami's) for lunch.  We had a lovely time there, sitting on the floor in our own little room eating sushi, beef and dumplings.  Afterward we went to the MixC mall and checked out the toy stores.  I bought a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle thinking it would keep Nicholas and I busy on New Year's Day and we bought snacks for celebrating.  From there we came home and played the Wii, finished the puzzle in a couple hours, played some board games then sent the kids to bed.  Tim and I stayed up watching television until midnight when it was respectable to go to bed.  And that was our New Year's activities.

We didn't go anywhere on Tuesday but spent Tim's last day off together playing more games and hanging out.  On Wednesday Tim went back to work while I attempted to preserve my sanity with two boys and a dog (Lucy was still with us) at home.  The next morning when Tim went to get in the van to go to work, he noticed that Li was not driving.  It wasn't the guy from Monday either, but yet another driver from another expat family.  He explained that Li had hurt his foot and couldn't work.  Later on in the day the boys and I headed out with this new driver to the science museum.  A friend, who was also looking to get her kid out of the house for a bit, met us there so we could let the boys run around and play with the exhibits.  Unfortunately, the regular part of the science museum was closed (shocking!) so the only place we could go was to the second floor where they had some stuff about earthquakes.  It was interesting enough but I was only able to drag out the excitement for about 45 minutes before the kids were ready to go.  We all headed up to MixC for some lunch and groceries then returned home.  As we got there the newest driver informed me that our regular driver, Li, was going to be out for a month.  He said he could come and get Tim in the morning but after that we were going to have yet another temporary driver.  No problem!

Friday morning I got a call from Tim who was not very pleased.  He had received a text stating that our new temporary driver was going to be Ma.  In case you don't know or have forgotten, our third driver was Ma and he refused to come and pick me up during the day when I asked him to.  He wasn't very reliable and we need someone who will show up on time, especially now that he is driving Nicholas to the bus stop at 7am.  I called the Michelin people and explained that we really didn't want Ma, that we had fired him, and could they please find us someone else.  The lady said "Okay, okay" but by the afternoon we still hadn't heard back from her so Tim called again.  She had misunderstood and said she would call him back.  By the time he was ready to leave work he hadn't received a call so he went out to see who was driving him home.  As it turns out, there are two drivers named Ma!  Current driver Ma is very pleasant and a good driver.  He brought Tim home then took us out to a couple places yesterday, showing up on time and driving in a civilized  manner so I think he will work out fine for the next month.

In other news, our house guest has gone back home to be with her family.  Lucy was very, very excited to see her people on Friday and they were excited to see her, too.  Since she's been gone the boys are missing her but I, if I can be honest, am not.  She is a really sweet and well behaved dog, but I have no interest in having a pet right now.  It is a lot of work no matter where you are but here, living in an apartment, it's just not something I'm willing to take on.  Most mornings it's about -20 degrees Celsius here (although it was down to -28) and taking a dog out to pee and poop in that is just not fun.  I have to admire those people I see out with their animals from my kitchen window.  Where I am warm.

That's about it for now.  I hope you all have had a good start to 2013.