amidst the pollution

What to start with? Here’s the list: last night’s game, trip to Tokyo, SMOG.

I’ll hit Tokyo-Trip first since it’s all I’ve been doing for the last 45 minutes, and for the 2 hours in between kid and adult sleep for the past three nights. Sigh. Okay, so because Chinese New Year immediately follows the volleyball season here, going south and beachward for a holiday is almost out of the question; hotels are packed and flights are expensive. I mean, I’m sure if we really looked we could find a hotel room somewhere, but then it would be jammed with other people and it may not be exactly what we want. (Example: We found cheap flights to Singapore through Aeroplan, but the hotels on neighboring Indonesian Islands are completely full – so says the travel agent that I’ve been back-and-forthing with, trying to make this beach-vacay work. Rrrrrrr….) Anyways, so our Plan B was to just fly home and vacay from there but then… we had the idea of taking a short sojourn to Tokyo; we loved it there so much and Nao is there and it would be so awesome to see her and eat all of the fabulous food (a few examples: donuts, sushi, bread, basement food hall offerings, tonkatsu, donuts donuts donuts). I’ve been looking on Aeroplan once more, trying to avoid a minimum $2100 trip (not including hotel) for four or five days in Japan, but unless we want to book a SEVENTEEN HOUR trip (direct flights take just over four hours), it may not happen. Sad face, sad face sad face. I’ll keep looking though, and then, if it just ain’t going to happen, we’ll look at flying back to Toronto February 8th-ish.

I did catch warm-up last night - it was good to see so many fans out!

Now, to what should have been my first order of business: last night’s match, game one of the finals! The guys played really well, but lost in five. I was so sure that they had the fourth set – they served for match point at 24-23, but it didn’t happen. The fifth was kind of a catastrophe, with three missed serves in a row and a few more here and there. Steve played and played really, really well, so that’s really the only positive point we can run with here; wait, nope, it’s not. The home team pushed Bayi (the army team) to five sets and played well for most of the match – at least (I hope) they should have a good deal of confidence going into Saturday’s game. They have to win to push the series to a third game which would follow on Sunday. Shanti and Carol and I cabbed to the gym with the kids, but I only lasted one set before I had to find my way home with Alana; the gym was packed, it was loud, she was sniffly and beside herself with tears, and I wasn’t far behind. I’d never seen her so upset before! It was horrible. I tried calming her down outside in the hall, but with no heat and lingering smoke from all of the men who light up in between sets, it just made matters worse. Plus, the air quality was hazardous and you could see smog hanging in the gym – not. good. So I left Hendrik with Shanti, and Alana cried and cried until we got home, and then cried some more … but settled down nicely after a bit. Steve left just after lunch today - they’ll be in Suzhou for a few days before the game this weekend. But it’s the last road trip before our big one home. That’ll be interesting, getting everything rallied up around here – packed and sold or dealt with. Jobs jobs jobs!

today's view from Hendrik's bedroom window

The smog has been horrible, once again. Our purifier is running full blast all of the time, and besides the trip to the gym last night, we haven’t been outside in four days. (What do we do? Run in the halls, go to the pool, play with play-doh and colour; we do jobs, make forts, “do crafting”, cook, eat, nap, look at pictures, make signs, workout, and read.) Both Hendrik and Alana have been sick, and though I think it’s just a cold, I may be wrong (headline from CNN: A Beijing pediatric hospital says it has treated a record 9,000 children this month for respiratory illnesses, most of which doctors and patients blame on the smog, Xinhua reported.). It’s been interesting living here and I’m very thankful for this adventure, but I’m excited to be homeward-bound soon. Stay tuned!

from L-R: cooking "beets sleets and gleets", wearing the Leafs, looking good in a new hoody, and out for a walk on the 26th

hendrik always has quite the crowd watching him at this store - salespeople and shoppers alike!

(apple pie cake) mickie, is that you? YUM. we ate his ears first.

allllll hendrik