I woke up before the rest of the house
on Saturday. I felt good! I got out of bed and went downstairs,
quietly, trying not to wake the boys or Joanne. She deserved to
sleep in a little before we left. I made a cup of coffee and sat on
the couch. Grabbing my iPhone, I checked the time; it was just after
7am. I thought, I'm just going to enjoy the quiet morning for a
few minutes before I pack. I feel so good. This is going to be a
great day. My heart tapped a calm dub dub as I sat and enjoyed
my cup.
At about 8am we left the house for the
second time. We had gotten to the exit of the compound on the
first departure before turning around, realizing that I had
forgotten to pack swimming goggles. That wasn't too big of a deal;
I just wanted to get this adventure started.
“C'mon, we can do this, all we have
to do is get to highway G1; it goes all the way there, right?”
“Right,” Joanne replied, “but
where's G1?”
dub dub dub
True, we didn't know where G1 is, but I
thought at some level it might impress Joanne that I just thought,
“we can drive East on the 5th Ring and run into it,
right?” She was skeptical, directions are always her domain.
Later that day, after realizing I was
correct, I think she did say, “when did you get good at
directions?” As I said, that is typically her domain, along with
the long distance driving. That's right, even with the broken elbow*
she drove us all the
way to Běidàihé
and back - 600k - over a two day period.
I finished my cup of coffee and got up off of the couch at
around 7:15 that morning. Now, possibly due to the influence of the morning
coffee, the passive dub dub from was a more brisk, dub dub dub.
I was excited, we
are going to the beach, today!
We had grand plans: get up, pack, and
roll out early, not even telling the boys where we were headed until
we arrived. I went from room to room, throwing bathing suits, pjs
and a change of clothes for each into the canvas bags. Those canvas
bags, the white ones with the boys names embroidered in blue, have been to a lot of beaches and today they would be set down
on the sand along the Bo Hai sea.
As the tired-eyed boys excitedly
slammed the doors shut, Joanne backed the van out and said, “so,
what are we gonna do about finding G1?”
“eh, not sure, but I think I can find
it, it's got to be a big road. Don't worry, I'll just call the hotel
and get directions.”
We stopped outside of McDonalds at Euro
Plaza, and while Joanne took Parker inside to get some to go
breakfast, I called the Best Western Qinhuangdao. The first three
transfers were fruitless, as apparently there were no English
speakers on duty that day, but the fourth was a kind man offering his
assistance and his best attempt at interpreting my ridiculous Chinglish.
“Hello sir,” I said, “we are
coming from Beijing and want to come to your hotel, can you tell me
how to get there?”
“No problem, just go to the bus depot
and take the bus to Beidehe.”
dub dub dub
“Oh no, sorry sir, I mean, driving.”
“Oh, no problem sir, tell the driver
to go to Beidehe.”
Dub Dub Dub
“No, I AM driving.”
“Oh, eh, I don't know sir, maybe you
can get a map?”
Dub Dub Dub
“Yeah, thanks.”
I tried, really hard, not to curse when
I explained my phone conversation to Joanne when she and Parker
returned with the McD's bags. I was talking loudly though; the boys
were fighting over the last hashbrown in the bag so I had to talk
over them. I think two out of three were crying. Dub Dub Dub.
Calmly, she decided that we should just
go back home to River Gardens and ask the front desk for help, “they
are usually helpful.”
I took one of those woosah deep
breathes. Joanne looked at me with the eyes, the ones that say, you
alright dude? Chill.
Steven was working the River Garden
desk at 9am that morning. “Hey Steven, we are trying to get to this
hotel,” I said, pointing to screen of my iPhone. The hotel guy's
condescending map comment aside, I had downloaded the Google map directions to my iphone the night before, but I didn't realized until
we were loaded in the car for the second time that the directions
were all in Chinese characters. I don't know any characters.
“Steven, can you just tell me which roads these characters
indicate?”
“Well sir, you know, it may be easier
if you just go down the the exhibition center and take a bus...”
Dub Dub Dub, woosah.
“I am driving, Steven.”
“Oh, really? Oh well, okay, if you're going to do that, let
me go in the back and see if I can find it on the internet.”
Tug tug on my shirt sleeve. “Dad,
you alright, you've been waiting a long time, mom wants me to get
some hot chocolate for the ride, um dad, are you listening?”
“What, uh, yeah, what is is Parks?”
“Dad, I need money. I don't have any
money; can I have some money?”
I breathed out, “uhmugud.” I am
not sure if it was audible. I know Steven couldn't hear it anyway,
as he was still in the back, googgling it, no doubt.
“Sure Parks, just a second, Steven
will be back any minute.”
Fifteen of them. Fifteen minutes of
shifting my weight back and forth, tapping my fingers on the desk,
calling into the back for Steven to just give up on it. Fifteen minutes of looking out the window at Joanne
sitting in the driver's seat and Parker tugging and asking and...DUB
DUB DUB.
I looked up again and Joanne was no
longer sitting in the driver's seat, undoubtedly having moved into
the back seat to referee some argument between Devon and Bennett.
She is good at that, she calms them with hugs. Can you blame them
though? At this point they had been awakened early on a Saturday,
teased up with anticipation of some great adventure, and had been in
the car for almost 45 minutes; we still hadn't left the compound.
Eff it, I thought.
“Alright Parks, forget this, let's go
pay for the hot chocolate.” We walked across the lobby to the
coffee shop.
I chinglished, “Dough chow tien?”
pulling out my clip of cash.
“Jioshrtsi quay.” She spoke too
fast for me to understand, so I waited for the cash register display.
“What?!?” DUBDUBDUBDUB “Ninety
Seven for one black coffee and three hot chocolates?” I wanted to
curse, or at least say “freakin'” as in Are you freakin
kidding me? I stopped myself,
but I was being loud again.
If this timid woman in the barista
in training shirt had just said
“woosah”, I probably would have broken out into laughter, but she
didn't.
“Three Latte's and one Cafe
Americano?” she said pushing the cups toward us.
DUBDUBDUBDUB
“Lattes? No, not lattes, hot
chocolate, for kids! Hai za! C'mon!”
I could feel Parker's pout behind me,
“I knew we wouldn't get any hot chocolates today.”
AHHHHHHHHH!
The hiss of the latte machine sounded
like the steam coming out of my ears as she now scrambled to make
three hot chocolates to replace the Lattes. I thought, why the
hell is she making the milk that hot?
I threw 97RMB on
the counter, directed a, “c'mon, you got what you want, now stop
pouting,” toward Parker and headed for the car. Parker carried the
hot chocolates in one of those cardboard carrying trays, and I walked
quickly, trying to formulate an apology, or at least reassign the
blame, for leaving Joanne in the car with the impression that this
was just a quick in and out stop for directions. As I was nearing
her window and mouthing “sorry”, I was called from behind by
Steven.
“Eh, sir, I found
this on Google, but the printer ran out of ink, so I couldn't print
the map, but this has the directions.”
I gave him a
whatever dismissal and I took the papers.
I heard the first
scream as I muttered, “thanks.”
Hopping to the door
and pulling it open, I looked in on the scene. Parker had his hands
in his hair covering his ears and screaming repeatedly at the top of
his lungs, “SORRY, I am SO SORRY.”
Devon writhed,
holding his shirt away from his belly crying, “it buuuurns, it
burns.”
The brown liquid
covered Devon, the floor of our new car, the ceiling, the back of the
driver's seat, and the seat in which Devon sat. I never even got the
nerve nor saw the point in asking what happened, but I gather that
Parker handed them to Devon a bit recklessly causing the tragedy.
In one motion
Joanne was unbuckling and hurdling into the back seat yelling at all
of us collectively. But she settled on, “why would that...why would
she make it that hot? What the hell?”
DUBDUBDUBDUBDUBDUBDUB
We got in the car
and drove home to get Devon an ice bag, the clock on the dashboard
read 9:14. I looked at my angry face in the mirror.
We cleaned the car, re-walked the dogs, contemplated on whether
we should continue this trip at all, and eventually, after about 15 minutes of mostly silent work, we left for the third
time on our beach trip to Qinhuagdao .
Still bitter I
snarled, “you know, we need gas, I don't even know if we will make
it to the gas station.”
DUB DUB DUB
Joanne flashed a
smile when we pulled into the gas station; the needle on the gas gauge was below "E",
but she cooed, “You know, some day we will laugh about this.”
I huffed.
I hissed back, “Not Today.”
DUB DUB
I waited, breathing
heavily, childishly holding onto my disappointment in the morning's events. After a suitable amount
of bitterness and silence, and the return of a peaceful dub dub, I
ventured a peace offering, “I love you! And, well, at least we have
this?” I unfolded the paper that Steven had printed out for me.
I looked at it,
feeling my heart rate rising again, “What the man?”
Dub Dub Dub
I bit my lip and
shook my head, halfway smiling; I was no longer angry, but now simply
resigned to defeat, “this is the exact same thing I showed him on
my phone. So baby, can you read Chinese characters?”
Joanne turned up
the tunes and we followed our noses around the 5th ring
road until we saw the sign for G1.
We laughed a lot
that day; as usual, she was right!
*in her second bike
accident since being here, Joanne fractured the tip of her radius at the elbow. Read about it at her blog 20to2012
