A day in the life

Apologies for my long absence, we had to work last Sunday, so I really didn't have a day off in the past 13; this has been a long two weeks. God knew when he was doing when he commanded us to rest on Sundays - it is for our own good!

The following post was inspired by a facebook message from one of my good Aggie friends: exactly what do you do all day anyway? Well, right now I am sitting in Subway, eating a roast beef sandwhich and using the wireless internet.

Yesterday was an interesting day, here was my schedule:

5:40 AM Wake up, fall out of bed, get half dressed, and exit the hotel room.

5:50 AM Stumble into the hotel resteraunt for a breakfast of bacon, sausage, eggs, strawberry yougurt, rice, dim-sum, leeks, cantalope, watermelon, and bran cerial (to make sure the intestines run smoothly today.)

6:20 AM Return to the room and brush teeth, finish getting dressed, and exit hotel room.

6:25 AM Return to the room to retrieve my work ID and my bike keys, which I forgot, and then exit room for the last time.

6:30 AM Exit hotel, get my bike out of the hotel’s shed and ride to work, weaving through bikers, incompetant car drivers, and pedestrians along the way.

6:50 AM Arrive at workplace, get hardhat and gloves from my locker, and go through security.

7:00 AM – 5:25 PM Work: tie rebar, haul rebar, bend rebar, climb rebar all day.

12:30 PM – 1:15 PM Lunch on site. Today’s was uncharacteristically good: chicken (?) strips, ham and maynnaise sandwhiched, broccoli, salad, and jello.

5:25 PM Hop on my bike and cycle to the “Crawfish Hole” for dinner. This resteraunt has a Chinese name, but we call it by this one because of the cajun-style prawns it serves. I had sizzling beef (18 RMB) vegtibles (6 RMB) and a .5 litre bottle of Tsing Tao beer (3 RMB.) 27 RMB comes to about $3.40 US.

6:40 PM Cycle to the cleaners to pick up my cleaning, find out that I mis-communicated with the owner and that my two dress shirts would be ready tomorrow, not today (My limited Chinese language skill was at fault here.)

7:10 PM Cycle to the nearest clothing store to buy a dress shirt (80 RMB) because I am going out dancing this evening.

7:20 PM Return to the hotel, lock up my bike, take a quick shower, get dressed, and leave my room.

7:40 PM Return to my room to get my camera (which I forgot) just in case of good photo ops.

7:45 PM Meet one of the guys which I am going out with, fortunately, the other three are also late.

7:50 PM Another of my friends meets us downstairs.

8:05 PM We get tired of waiting for our fourth friend and leave without him.

8:20 PM Beijing Taxi drops us off (28 RMB) at Salsa Carribe for free beginner Salsa lessons. Unfortunately, the rythem for salsa is not much like Texas country dancing – I felt like a fish out of water. Dancing is still fun though, and there are plenty of Chinese dancers here worse than I.

10:15 PM Leave Salsa Carribe for the hotel.

10:30 PM Arrive at the hotel, put away my laundry which was done for me, change and brush teeth.

11:00 Go to sleep.