Tenth day in China [October 10]

[aadler]

We already knew the Yins had plans for us today, so I woke just after 6:00, showered immediately, then woke Susan. We had expected them by 7:30, but Kevin phoned 7:10 to say they had almost arrived and we could start heading downstairs. He and Laura picked us up, but she dropped him off at work partway in the drive; at the Yins’ building, Mei-li joined us and her mother left us, and a few minutes later Logan came out in his car to pick us up. He gave Susan and me each a small bag of hot dumplings for breakfast, then we all started out.

Today we were going to the beach, in the Yantian district of Shenzhen. Not at all like Thursday’s outing, a scenic walkway at the shore, this place had sand and access to the water and buoy-line areas, showers and tourist shops and lifeguard stations. The post-typhoon rains had stopped some days ago (which is why I haven’t been mentioning them); today’s weather was overcast and hazy, cool without being chilly, perfect for a couple of low-melanin tourists at the beach. Mei-li was in a long, light dress flowered in pale pastels — beautiful — and Logan went pretty much directly into the water.

Susan and I both wore swimsuits under our regular clothes; she was more interested in the whole thing than I, but we both went into the ocean. It’s not a big thing for me, so I genuinely can’t remember, but this may be only the second time I’ve done more than wade in an ocean (the first was during my kids’ visit with me at Guantanamo, when I took them snorkeling). Susan kept having her feet pulled out from under her by the waves — and then turned around on the sand by them — before she could make it into the water, and gave up after awhile to go sit with Mei-li by the lifeguard station; I got out up to my neck, before the point where the bottom dropped off, and let the water just move me back and forth.

Once the novelty of that wore off, I went back up onto the beach, put on a t-shirt and a billed cap, and read some more from “Gone Girl”. Logan gave Susan and me a vanilla Coke apiece, Mei-li read from her Kindle, having no interest in getting wet. I observed to Susan that holding onto the buoy cable might provide her enough stability, and shed the cap and t-shirt to help her out into the water. That worked, and we stayed there for awhile, and her reliance on the cable allowed her to do some aqua-calisthenics and stretching. Then three Chinese ladies in bathing caps took turns being cellphone-photographed with her, and the different poses moved her away from the cable and into one of the more turbulent wave transition areas, and then a big swirl turned her around and flipped her over, and she came up with sand in her hair, laughing but ready to call it quits.

It wasn’t long afterward that Logan, too, decided he’d had his morning ration of fun. Mei-li showed us to the showers (and took care of payment), and once we were dry and dressed we spent a few minutes poking through a few beach-side shops, then we were ready to leave.

On the drive away, Mei-li pointed out some of the structures on the skyline for OCT East, where they’d taken us two years ago (2½, actually); I hadn’t remembered it as being that close to Shenzhen. She and Logan took us to a restaurant for lunch (I think the English-language name I saw was Wugufang Diet), a sumptuous multi-course meal that focused primarily on shrimp and squab. The timing of the day’s activities to weather was just about perfect; a fine, misty rain started in as we were leaving the restaurant, and in next to no time we were back at the Yins’ apartment.

Everyone did their afternoon nap; I begged off, but wound up dozing in one of the living room chairs anyway. I roused from that to find Kevin present, done with his day’s lessons.

I read, talked some with him, admired my granddaughter whenever she was brought out by one or another doting caregiver. When the evening meal was served, Logan took the lead in wishing me happy birthday; I turned 62 today, and sroni was the first to serve me with greetings — via Skype, before she went to bed — but Mei-li had been the second, in the car this morning; Susan knew when my birthday was, but had lost track of what was today’s date. After the meal, they brought me out a birthday cake, and we enjoyed that.

To give the Yins time for a normal end-of-the-day, we had Laura (and Kevin) take us home about 8:45 PM. As it happens, though, the drive back was taken up with some relatively serious conversation. The swelling in my feet still hadn’t gone down, after three days (I wore my fuzzy-lined moccasins today, because it was uncomfortable trying to get my feet into regular shoes), and Susan is now seeing edema around my eyes as well. That kind of thing is a symptom rather than a condition, but she doesn’t have the means to assess me well enough to get a decent idea regarding symptom-of-what. She took my pulse when we got back to Kevin’s apartment, and it was 86 and irregular; my normal pulse these days is 15 to 20 beats per minute less than that. What bothers her most is that the edema doesn’t seem to be appreciably less first thing in the morning, after a full night’s rest.

We only have nine more days here, but if it gets worse she may insist on taking me in for a check-up before then.

Susan went to bed around 11:30 PM, but I stayed up reading for another hour before calling it a night.

Next day