It is a long time coming, but we want to thank Cathy and Jike for visiting us last month! Cathy is one of my very good friends from grad school at MIT, and Jike is her husband. We’ve known them for over six years now.
They came into town during the long National Holiday week just for a day. Since Jike was visiting his family in Beijing, they took an overnight train to Dalian on Wednesday night, and flew back on Thursday at 11:55 pm.
Magdalena and I picked up Cathy and Jike from the light rail station in Kaifaqu mid-morning. Alex had to work that day, and Lucia was also back in school , so the first thing we did was go to Intel to get a tour from Alex and have lunch there. Then we went back to our house and hung out for a very short while before walking the boardwalk to pick up Lucia from school. The day was gorgeous, and Cathy and Jike got some photos that I had been meaning to take, so that was nice. We had plenty of time to chat on the walk too!
After picking up Lucia, we went home and hung out until Alex got home. Our ayi made dinner for everyone and after dinner Cathy and Jike showed the girls how to do Chinese calligraphy! Lucia loved it, and took to the brush like a natural! After the girls went to bed we had more time to visit with our friends before their short trip was over and our driver took them to the airport. It was funny, because as Cathy and Jike obviously speak fluent Mandarin, they were able to converse more with our driver and ayi than we had been able to in the past six months! My ayi told Cathy that she thinks I spend too much money on fruit – probably because I usually buy at the grocery store and you can see the price on it. But she buys at the outdoor markets and probably bargains it down. I have actually been shopping more at the markets since she told me that… sometimes it seems cheaper, and sometimes not. Oh well!
In general, we were SO happy to have our friends visit! We only wish they could have stayed longer. They were are our first visitors but hopefully won’t be our last!
It was gorgeous the day they came:
This sign is hilarious - if I need some "Trouble-Shutting" I'll be sure to go there!
Chinese calligraphy with Master Jike:
Lucia learns from Cathy:
Thanks for coming, Cathy and Jike!
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