News from China, Day 9 - Doctor's Appointment

Today Jaime visited the doctor ! Melissa took her to a local clinic on the bus with many of the parents. Went they got there, a cluster of four nurses dressed in blue stripped her down and took all the biometrics, and then a very nice man named Dr. Zhao listened to her heart and lungs. He declared her to be in perfect health (except for a slight redness in the back of her throat from her cold), and filled out all the appropriate paperwork for Canadian Immigration.

While all this was going on, David and Emily went wandering around downtown Beijing, browsing the shops for CDs, musical instruments, tea sets, and GoreTex jackets. No one was hit by any cars, which was a small miracle. The driving is quite different than Canada ... to quote one of the members of our group, the lines on the road are merely a suggestion, and the red octagonal signs are stoptional as well. Anything with 2 or 3 wheels seems exempt from traffic laws, as are tour buses. We saw our tour bus driver pull the manoeuvre of the century ... a U-turn from the far right-hand lane on a busy 8-lane divided street through an intersection with a red light and between clusters of pedestrians crossing the street. We almost applauded. He's a great driver, and he would have lost all his demerit points long ago in Ontario.

We got a little tricycle rickshaw tour of the off-the-beaten-path parts of Beijing, a Kutong neighbourhood. Our driver was a guy named Kong (but his first name was neither King nor Donkey) who spoke excellent English and explained the finer points of the architecture as we passed by. He certainly earned his pay that day, hauling all four of us in his rickshaw. At least one of us, and we won't say who, is not that light to begin with, and so poor Kong had to stop for a drink of water halfway.

The day ended with a trip to an acrobatics show. Words fail at this point. Acrobatics seems like the wrong word, but we're not sure what the right word would be. It was like nothing we've ever seen before. It made America's Got Talent look like a joke (which, come to think of it, it does to itself already without any help, so that's not saying much). The performers at this show were kids, some as young as 6 or 7, up to teenagers. They did absolutely unbelieveable things to ambient dance music, to which words don't do justice. We saw a 7 year old little guy do a headstand on a ladder which was balancing on a tight rope - no joke! We saw 8 people on a single bicycle, and as if that wasn't enough, 4 more hopped on for a total of twelve ! We saw two little girls, one up in the air on the foot of the other, spinning a total of eight umbrellas between them ! We weren't allowed to take pictures, otherwise we would have devoted an entire blog post to it ... it was simply stunning. Jaime took it all in at first, and then lost interested toward the end.

Aside from missing the boys back home, we are having a great time. Actually, a nice Tim Horton's coffee would go down really well too. Tomorrow we are attacking the silk and pearl markets, in hopes of finding deals on, well, silk and pearls. And maybe some electronics too. Stay tuned, only two more days in Beijing !