CHINA 2010 TUESDAY 21st SEPTEMBER

Both of us were up early as this morning is ‘Presentation Day’ beginning at 9am when the students will give their presentations to Management before leaving to enjoy the Mid Autumn Festival which takes place tomorrow. Most of senior Management attended the beginning but due to the typhoon and the delay we had in Shanghai only Capt. Mao remained to the end. A slight delay as Mr. Cai and a few others returned to congratulate the men and have an official photo taken by Yeti.
We went down to the office area to see Helen about our travel plans for Thursday as Mander was absent. (When he got home he found Cindy was not well and had taken her to the hospital.) There was still the Attendance Certificates to be signed by Keith for the students, and one or two of them were still hanging around for their travel arrangements so we let Helen see to them. Finally it was our turn and after getting flight information, and money to pay for the hotel, Helen disappeared saying she had a gift for us. She soon returned with a presentation box of tea for Keith and a crystal pendant for me. We waved to the office staff as we left and said we hoped to see them next year. It was all a bit of an anti climax – not just for us but for the officers who had put so much effort into their course and had done well in the 33 days Keith spent with them.
In the afternoon we had more heavy rain and when it cleared we went for a walk round the block to see what damage ‘Typhoon Fanami’ had caused. The gardeners were already cutting branches off trees ready for them to be replanted as most have shallow roots. At times we had to walk along the road as the pavement was blocked with branches.
Close to tea time I went to Trust Mart to buy a fish for tea. What should have been a quick trip turned out to take well over an hour as I got in the wrong queue at checkout. People are still playing ‘BoBing’ and so many of the tills were occupied by people with trollies full of useful household items. A lady behind me had one of her trollies half full of toothbrushes and toothpaste and I thought was she trying to tell someone something in their place of employment! In front of me I had three old ladies who were giving the young till operator a hard time over a tin of ‘Nestle prepared food for the elderly’ which came with a free mug only the till didn’t recognise it and a supervisor was called. Sheets had to be checked and at last the item was found and the code entered. The old lady had another mug in a box, similar to the free gift and I think the operator had had enough by now and just let her have it putting it in her shopping bag. Then there was the frozen dumplings that her mate had shown her. One of them had gone to get some more but came back with a bag of fruit so ‘my old lady’ went for the dumplings only to find on returning they weren’t on special offer and she didn’t want them! When it came to paying ‘my old lady’ produced a wad of Trust Mart scratch cards but it wasn’t enough to pay for the goods so she had to search her handbag for her purse, then scratch about looking for the small amount of change to settle the bill. They weren’t going to be rushed at packing their few items either. It was dark when I got home!