Letters to Nigel

Upon returning to school this year, we learned that a colleague had gotten rather sick over the summer and needed to take some time away to get healthy. Not wanting him to miss out on all the fun we have over here, I've been writing him some random updates of our shenanigans. For your reading enjoyment, I am reposting them here as a new series: Letters to Nigel*.

Hello from the Yuquan Lu.

Our Handler found a Groupon for the water park for 58 kuai, so he organized a trip. The only thing is that the tickets had to be used by the 15th. Since next weekend is a holiday (Moon Cake Day), we had to go this weekend.

We met at 9:30. By the time everyone showed up, it was 10, and we headed over to the park.

It was madness. Groupon is big, and we were not the only ones with the coupon.

Two hours later, we had our tickets and headed inside. (Smashing wandered off at one point and came back with 10 cans of beer, so at least we had some refreshment.)

We took a quick dip in the wave pool (along with 200 other Chinese swimmers), and then headed over to the slides. E., K. and L, and I went to the one with the 8 slides. Two hours later, we got to the slide. Along the way, we stopped a travesty. This gaggle of girls cut in ahead of us, claiming that they had left one person in line. We called bullshit (having been standing behind the guy with the plastic bag and the girl with the towel hanging out her butt — to protect her legs from the sun — for the previous hour and 45 minutes). The two ahead of us agreed, and waved us forward. We then waved forward the guys who had been behind us. The next thing we knew, a couple of employees of the park were there yelling at the girls and kicked them out of line! Score 1 for Western queuing. Not that it will do any good in the grand scheme of things...

At the top of the slide, I noticed that two of the slides were blocked off. Two months and already the place is falling apart. The smaller of the the vortex slides (the one Smashing got sent back down because he was by himself) was also closed.

We got some (crappy) food, and checked out the line for the big vortex slide... E. and I agreed we weren't waiting another two hours (plus) no matter how good the slide is.

We took another quick dip in the wave pool (A. and K. were definitely in with the crowd getting knocked over by the wave) and after almost thinking someone had stolen my flippy-floppies, E. and I took off.

I got home at 3:30, having gone down all of one slide.

It was still fun. The sun was shining and the air was relatively clear. It was definitely Chinese wacky. After 7 weeks in the States, there is no easy way to transition back to this madness. I spend a lot of time giggling to myself. 

*All names have been changed to protect the innocent (and the guilty).