As Bon Jovi Says, “We’re Halfway There”

It’s really hard to believe, but today is already the halfway point of my assignment in China. The time has really flown by. I’ve been working long days and having a lot of fun when I can, but because each of the days are so packed, it doesn’t seem like it’s really been two weeks.

I’m glad that it’s going fast, because it is hard to be away from home. One of the few downsides to not traveling as frequently leading up to this is that I’m not used to being gone… Then add on the fact that this is the longest work trip I’ve ever been on. I definitely miss being home. I miss Korey and the kids, but I’ve been pretty fortunate to be able to talk to them most days and get surprisingly good video quality on WeChat the times that’s worked out.

Figuring that it was going to be a packed weekend with my birthday, I decided that skipping the morning run and getting an extra 45 minutes of sleep would be a wise decision. And it definitely was. Getting a bit more sleep was certainly welcome.

At Han Te, we’ve been starting off our mornings by observing and helping them with their morning stand up meetings. It’s been really exciting to already see them put many of our recommendations into practice. They’ve definitely improved communication with one another and have better visibility of how their projects are going. Unfortunately, today that meant that they had a deadline that was going to be tricky to make, so we decided to postpone our workshop until next week.

In the end, that turned out to be a good thing because that gave us some time to work on some of the other deliverables we needed to prepare. It also gave us some time to get through some technical issues with Maria’s laptop which decided to lock her out this morning. It took a few hours to get the unlock token we needed, but once we had that, we were able to get things going again.

For lunch today we ventured out to a new noodle place that had been too busy the last few days. The only downside was that it didn’t have A/C and it was again really hot out. And while the noodles were delicious, eating hot soup wasn’t helping.

We spent the rest of the afternoon working on presentations for the following week and getting the final prep done for tomorrow’s community service event. Katherine and Zoey wanted to go over the presentation one last time to make sure that they were prepared.

At the end of the day, we went to the Golden Beach near the development zone that we saw the first day with Han Te. The only problem was that the same hoards of seaweed that were on the beaches in down were also out there.

Still, we decided to brave it (and get what would be a very expensive seaweed bath in the States for free). We stopped at a coffee shop to change, and then the three of us took turns swimming while the other watched our bags. There were some tables and chairs there, but the guy was trying to rip us off, so we just sat in the sand.

The ocean was great! There were some small waves so I could do a little body surfing, and just play in the shallow water. Matthias and I also had a seaweed fight (like a snowball fight, but with seaweed). It was really a blast. The only downside was that the seaweed got everywhere. I really felt sorry for Maria knowing how bad it was going to be to try to get all that out later. Reason number 487 of why I’m glad to be a guy. Showers on the beach were supposed to be 10 yuan, but since we didn’t have any money on us, the guy just let us in. Everyone here has really been so nice.

After the beach, we took the car Katherine arranged for us back to the hotel so that we could get cleaned up. Matthias and I went back to the usual spot for a couple of dishes and beers, and then we caught up with Maria to go back to Club New York.

The three of us had a blast. The same band plays every Friday and Saturday night, so they now recognize us, Hussein now let’s us open a tab — it’s just fun. Matthias was really in his element tonight dancing, so he even got a nickname from the band — Mr. Energetic. He even made friends with some locals.

When midnight rolled around, they told the band that it was now my birthday, so I was serenaded by the bar and even got some massive sparklers / fireworks to swirl around while everyone was singing. While I would have rather been celebrating at home, if I had to be anywhere else in the world it would have been right there as it was a really great way to start off my birthday.