I guess this is winter

It’s been a bleak weekend weather-wise in Guangzhou, but if this is the brunt of winter I’ll take it. It’s a little chilly, but I’ve been wearing flip flops for the greater part of February, so that’s just awesome

Canton Tower in today's fog

There is a big rainy season here and I’m not sure when it starts, but Saturday and Sunday have been drizzly. It’s sweatshirt weather, but really, nothing more.

The fog was the big thing. My view out of the bathroom window was a bit obscured this morning. The top of the 100-story Canton Tower was obscured by fog and clouds!

Been a nice weekend to just hunker down and stay home, but I’ve been out more this weekend than usual.

Saturday morning we had a visiting Marine chaplain and held a Bible study with a potluck breakfast. I went all out and made a casserole with eggs, ground pork, potatoes with onion and peppers and sliced cheese on top.

The sliced cheese, a small package of 10 pieces, cost THREE TIMES as much as the pork, which, unlike Morocco, seems to grow here on trees. Well, maybe not, but it’s not hashuma and everyone eats it. I probably had a half a pound in the egg bake thing.

Canton Tower at night. View from my toilet.

No leftovers, either, but I need to manage my morning time a little better. For some reason, I thought if I woke up at the same time as usual, started my hour and a half gym routine at 6:30, I’d be done at 8 and would have time to throw together the already-sautéed potatoes and pork with just-scrambled eggs, top them with the cheese and stick them in the oven for a good 30 minutes before walking out the door at 8:50 for the 9 a.m. service.

Wrong. Somehow, the hour and a half didn’t end until 8:20 and I was totally pushing it to get the rest done, which also included taking a shower while the stuff baked. And I was really baffled by my oven, which I hadn’t used before. I had to guess on the Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion.

As it was, I think I only heated it up for about 15 minutes, but it was warm enough. Marines eat anything.

View from my front. Lower left is my office.

Saturday night, in the drizzle, I walked over to another one of the apartment buildings and went to an Olympic-watching party. There was nothing on live at the start of it (I think we’re about five hours ahead of Sochi, maybe) and we had a rough time finding the opening ceremonies on some place we could stream, but we did OK.

Once the real games started, we watched the women’s mogul and the men’s biathlon. I’d never really paid much attention to either. To me, winter Olympics = hockey.

Anyway, I’m not sure how long I watched the biathlon, but I never saw a US competitor. The Norwegian guy was awesome and one of the Czech guys spooked me because he never even blinked taking his five shots, but how come the U.S. doesn’t rule in this? We have guns. Heck, snow and guns are what North Dakota is all about.

Also, the U.S. ice dancer guy, Charlie, needs a haircut. Oh, my. He looked like a bad imitation of Colin Firth. I watched this today without sound (might have been a tape delay) and all I could think of was they must be skating to the sounds of “Beauty and the Beast.” Between the locks and the little tux, that’s what he reminded me of.

Same view at night.

Anyway, I got home Saturday late, then talked to Leanne until 1:30 a.m. and therefore slept late on Sunday. Since the weather is the same as it was yesterday, I haven’t really been motivated to do much. My Internet has also been wonky – I tried Skyping this morning and got cut off, then couldn’t get connected again – and basically all attempts to go online have been slower than normal, which is already pretty slow.

This week is going to be brutal and if I get through it, I’m good. If I get through next week, I’m gold. The Motown presentation is the 20^th and after that I should be all right. That weekend we have a road trip planned, too. Once in a while the office offers a trip and this one is three hours away somewhere, so I’m going.

Next weekend I am off to Hong Kong again so that I can pick up my new orthodics. I hope they work for me; my feet have really hurt on the elliptical. I’m doing pretty much the same thing I did last time: going Saturday afternoon and coming back on Monday. I’m not, however, getting my train ticket in advance. The service charge is about half the cost of the ticket and there seem to be enough available when you walk up, so I’ll just do that.