Cassy and I enjoyed the most magnificent weather this weekend. Cass came with me to the beach on Saturday, Carl leading the way in his car. As we got closer to the coast, Dan called and said he’d just arrived at the activity centre at Jinshan and that conditions were, “Sweet!”. We arrived to find a beautiful deserted beach break, breaking on the bank out the back and going both ways on the wedge. It was reasonably small but enough to be perfectly enjoyable. There was not a cloud in the sky, warm but not intense winter sun and exceptionally clear water (this means that there were only a few foreign floating objects visible!)The three guys went out and caught wave after wave, Cass read her latest “House and Garden” magazine while perched on the concrete wall to the side of the beach (the latest in her subscription had arrived on Thursday). She also managed a few good surf shots, which were promptly transferred to Pointyhat, and a few others I’ll include with this post. Dan’s wife, Niccy and the 2 kids chatted for a while before exploring further up the beach and the surfers enjoyed one of the best surfs they’ve had for ages. Great stuff! Cass and I lingered a little longer at the adjacent Jinshan harbour and checked the coast guard and fishing boats and I again trotted out my rather unconvincing patter about the benefits of living here and traveling to school. I don’t even know if I believe it myself actually: it seems very romantic at times though I have to admit!
We had an excellent meal at the Royal Host on Saturday night and both opted for the big thick NZ steak, cooked to perfection. The scooter zipped us all the way home, and even though it was a little chilly, the bike seems to fly along ever since I decided to pump the tyres up! It’s not that I didn’t know they needed air, but just that the air outlets at the petrol stations here are either non-existent or extremely hard to spot. Suffice to say, they’re VERY pumped up now! We’d just settled in when Josh’s girlfriend Kristen, who had flown up for the weekend from Singapore, rang up to invite us down to the bar for a couple of drinks. As Cass was smothered by cats lying on the lounge by this stage and couldn’t face the cold again, I drifted down and said “hi” and had just three beers. On my way home, at about 11, I noticed that the piles of rubbish for the rather irregular City cleanups had grown exponentially and the “night-feeders” were all over these piles. No they weren’t vampires or anything squalid or sinister, but rather scores of local folk scouring the junk piles, inspecting, saving and discarding: it was a bit surreal in the middle of the night, but I remember doing the exact same thing to partly furnish my house in Japan some 20 years ago!
During the week, my kiddies had a field trip to the local fire safety museum, which was a lot of fun for them. I’ve included a shot of lots of them practicing an emergency call! Also, Cass by a Jinshan fishing boat, Me surfing at the activity centre, out of the water with my new board and Cass outside the Royal Host on Saturday night.