Why Crocs are a Better Choice Than Flip-Flops

We had our staff outing on Wednesday, when we closed the restaurant down at 3 pm and all of the staff (70 people or so) got on a rented bus and headed into Beijing to a restaurant of the boss’ choosing. There were massive amounts of food and it was all you could drink, so I got to watch a large portion of the staff get drunk -- which doesn’t take much for most Chinese people. Before dinner there were some team building games and speeches and after dinner the restaurant put on a whole bunch of dance performances and had some of the audience get up on the stage. They even got Jim (the big boss) up for a hilarious belly dancing routine. At the end, everyone was dancing on the tables. I sat with Jim, Tang Liang and Julie -- because Jim said he wanted to speak English -- which was quite awkward -- but got to mingle later in the evening. I am currently the only person who doesn’t speak Mandarin, so there was a lot I didn’t quite get, but it was fun all the same. We made it back around 11:30 pm and I was off yesterday and today.

Li Dan invited me to her house yesterday so I got up shortly before 10 and went to meet her at the bus stop. We took the bus into Huairou and her mom came to get us with an electric bicycle truck. We sat in the back and she drove us to Li Dan’s uncle’s house, where we had lunch and then went fishing. We started off with nets in a very shallow part of the lake, catching super tiny fish. I wasn’t actually half bad at it -- until I fell that is. Now here comes the key part: I had been wearing runners when I arrived, so I had changed into a pair of Li Dan’s flip-flops for going into the water. When I tripped, I didn’t actually fall over, but I rammed my foot into a rock while trying to catch my balance and got a small stone stuck under my big toenail. It bent my nail back and there was a fair amount of blood. As you can probably imagine, it hurt...a lot.

We got out straight away and I washed my foot off before Li Dan took the stone out with a toothpick. We cleaned it as best we could and Li Dan thought I should go to the hospital. I wasn’t too keen on this and her cousin said she thought it didn’t look too serious, so we decided to wait for night time and see whether it was going to swell much. It didn’t, so it will probably be okay, but I do think it’s a bit infected.

We decided to play it safe after that and fish with a rod from the shore. I didn’t catch any fish that way, but we had a nice relaxing time. Li Dan taught me some more Chinese words and I helped her with her English. In the evening, we headed to her mother’s home, where we had a huge meal full of wonderful food. An old colleague from university came as well and he practised his English on me. After dinner, we went to Li Dan’s house and reviewed my new words before going to bed. She is a very good teacher.

We got up around 9 this morning because Li Dan had to work. She only gets one day off a week because the glass shop has shorter hours. She made us noodles for breakfast and then we headed back towards Mutianyu. I had a quiet day today, cleaned my toe with Polysporin when I got back and made some pasta for dinner.