Another Busy day

The guy came to fix the air conditioning today!  Hurray!  He arrived and I was outside waiting for him.  Haha I actually knew him.  He was the one who had installed the air-conditioning in our office.  He saw me and we laughed.  Old friends!  Not sure we were still friends when we got to the fourth floor.  He was only a small guy and his bag looked about half his size and half his weight.  It was a long climb!  When we got to the flat he was straight in there.  He opened up the machine, water poured out, and then he took out the filters.  Even I could see they were filthy.  He cleaned them and gave the thumbs up.  Sorted.

Shortly afterwards Stephenie texted.  The kids would be available at 3.30 pm.  I sat around a while, prepared some stuff and then went into school to get some resources.  Stephanie offered me a lift at 3.30.  I told her I was in school.  At 3.30 she rang me and told me she was outside school.  I wasn't.  I was back home!  Anyhow she picked me up at home and took me to the family.  Today's topic was colours.  We did loads of activities.  Both parents had also asked me to bring some English names for their children.  I brought several.  I dint think they would actually use them, but JiaJia which sounded like JoJo, they loved.  TaoCheng They picked Terry due to teh footballing connections, but Xiao Xiao's mum was not keen on any of the names.  Eventually it was time to stop.  We stopped and..... I was invited out to dinner by the other parent!  She asked what I liked to eat and off we went to a restaurant.  Beef hotpot!  With a huge plate of beef.  There was also duck and other stuff!

The hotpot in the centre bowl contains not spicey and spicy 'soup' for cooking the beef which is on the plate at the top left.  To the right of the hotpot is the duck.  The foreground pink stuff is pickled 'something'.  This was quite sweet, usually it is bitter.  The stuff to the right of it is , I think, lotus buds, and bottom right is a soup.

Not the most flattering photo but left is Stepahine and righ tis the mum of the two kids on the left in the photo below.

Tao Cheng now called Terry, Jia Jia now called Jojo, xiao xiao and 'another kid', she plays football, at the hotpot

Terry then asked me if I wanted to go and see a basketball game with him.  I agreed.  Mum took us next door , bought us some snacks, and then left me with the four kids!  We wandered off to the basketball game.  It was across the main road just beyond the bridge.

Luckily we got there safely!  The game was about to begin.  Inside the building was warm...very warm, no air-conditioning.  It was like me being under a warm shower....and the seats were plastic!  I was thoroughly soaked.  After a while the kids looked bored.  I asked them if that was the case and they said 'yes'.  Jojo asked to use my phone so she could ring her mum.  She did and we left.  Outside we met mum.  Terry said his friend was inside and he wanted to watch the rest of the game.  Mum asked WHO his friend was, and then indicated it was OK for him to stay.  Off we went, back to the family home.  I was hoping to go home,but Dad was there, and it was tea drinking time.

We drank tea.  And then some more.  Another woman arrived with her son.  He was told to go over an talk with me. He did.  He spoke English well.  It turned out that he was the classmate of several kids I knew.  He invited me out for milk tea. 

Jojo on the left, and the other Terry on the right.

We drank milk tea and other stuff and eventually wandered back to the house where I had been teaching.  Stephanie was waiting, and after a short while she drove me home.  A long day