Weekend.

Deb and I had talked about trying to get a night where just the two of us went out without the kids. We had planned on saturday night but at lunchtime on saturday the school informed me I had some extra classes just for this weekend. Most of the teachers had been given extra work also. A recent high school graduate was leaving on monday to go for an entrance interview at Hong Kong Baptist Universiy and wanted to brush up on her English before she left. Her "sister"; really her cousin, also attended these sessions also. The girl's name is Ci Ci and her cousin on the right is Ivy. Ci Ci wants to study, live and work in Hong Kong doing broadcast journalism. She says she passed the English proficiency test to enter the school which is taught in English. I wish her the best of luck in the pursuit of her dream. After she had eight hours of sessions on saturday until 8pm she decided to cancel her last two on sunday. This meant that Deb and I could go out to dinner sunday evening. We had wanted to go to a barbecue place near our apartment but they told us they did not have any openings for the two of us when we arrived. They might be reservation only. We will have to try to eat there some other time. We walked on down by the river until we found another place we wanted to try. We saw this was a hot-pot after we walked in and sat down. One of the girls greeting people spoke some English and showed us to our seat and then helped us order. They placed a big, two compartment dish on the cooker in the middle of the table. One side was spicy and the other was not. We had ordered potatoes, beef and salad. The potatoes were like thick cut 'Ruffles'. The beef was cut very thin like deli sliced cold cut sandwich meat. Both were raw and we cooked them ourself at the table. The salad was just a few different types of lettuce and other plants without any dressing. Some of it was bitter and some of it bland. We won't order that again. The beef and potatoes were good. We also ordered some peta like things with beef and onion that were already cooked. I enjoyed them. The best part of the meal was the watermelon at the end. The bill was less than $20US. We joined about 15 to 20 thousand Chinese down by the river to enjoy the cool evening air. On weekends at different spots along the river there are marching and dance troops performing. These troops vary in number from just a few to several hundred. People will always join in when there disc jockey starts playing the music. The songs are very long and each song has different steps. They will do this for hours. We watched one troop dancing. It was much like line dancing. Altogether we had a good few hours without the kids. Susan does a great job taking care of her sister.