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Eighth day in China [October 8]
I was up by 6:20 AM (Susan was already awake in the living room), finished with my exercises by 7:00 (she was asleep again by then).
Mei-li texted about 8:30 to ask if we wanted to go there today, even though Kevin is working. We agreed, there was back-and-forth, it was understood she and her mother would come to pick us up at 10:00. Kevin’s apartment is in Bao’an District (roughly comparable to a city borough; Shenzhen has six districts), the Yins live in Nanshan District. We could have made it by subway, as Kevin did day before yesterday, but they said that would take too long. Good enough.
Susan and I brought in yesterday’s laundry. As sometimes happens when the humidity is too high, the clothes weren’t completely dry, but — following previous advice from Kevin — Susan used a hair dryer to finish drying the pants she wanted to wear, and I just laid out my clothes inside to finish drying and selected other clothes from my suitcase.
Mei-li texted from the parking level almost exactly 10:00. Susan and I went down and rode to Nanshan with them. Visited with Amber at the apartment, had lunch, and I napped for an hour (while Susan watched online TV episodes on her laptop). Mei-li brought out a couple of Kevin’s books for me, both by Gillian Flynn, and I got caught up in “Sharp Objects” (which I had actually read before, back when I had no idea who Flynn was).
In the mid-afternoon, Mei-li and her father drove us to the shore, only a few miles from where they live. It was a developed area, concrete walks and rails and walking/biking ramps. We looked at the water and the Hong Kong and Nanshan skylines, and that was pretty much it. Susan took a photo of a crane (or egret, or some such) and called it a fun outing. I was less … affected. Nothing bad about it, but the whole thing struck me as kind of packaged and sterile, barely worth the drive. And then we went back to the Yins’ apartment.
Kevin got in from work. We had dinner together — Mei-li and her mother had acquired steak and potatoes for me and Susan, though I actually prefer their normal food — and I read some more. At 8:00 PM Laura and Kevin drove us back to his apartment, and we settled in for the night.
Susan went to bed sometime after 10:00 PM, while I finished “Sharp Objects” before calling it a night.