We arrived at the home of Yuzhi and Jianjun (parents of Anqi - see June post) the day before Ian's 87th birthday, so we'd insisted that it was our custom to take everyone out to dinner on our birthdays. This was the only meal we were allowed to pay for during our two week stay with this generous family. Anqi's brother, Liujia (2nd from left in the photo) and his three friends joined us, to celebrate their success in graduating from high school and gaining places at universities. Liujia and one other were going to Wuhan to study engineering, the boy on the right was staying in Zhengzhou to study computer science and the boy next to him, who had done particularly well in the gaokao, was going to Shanghai to embark on a multi-disciplinary foundation course. On the morning of Ian's birthday, Yuzhi, who spoke no more English than I could speak Chinese, took me out for the day. She just beckoned and I grabbed my purse and phone and followed her out of the door, with no idea where we were going nor for how long. We took a bus to the city centre and went round various shops, had coffee in Starbucks, and caused much interest and laughter in a huge supermarket looking for a particular brand of biscuit that Ian had liked in Beijing. Failing to find it, we bought him some chocolates and then spent another half hour, involving more misunderstandings and laughter as I tracked down the ingredients for Ian to make his own oatmeal cookies. We went for a pedalo ride in the People's Park (and I'll write another post about the People's Parks including those in Beijing, Chengdu and Kunming). Yuzhi phoned Liujia so he could tell me about the Er'qi tower, which I shall write about in my next post.
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