Barbara's Farewell

Barbara's contracted ended on the 26/09/08. She has been here 12 months!

Andrew had been trying to get Barbara to commit to date so he could organize a farewell for her. Barbara set the date as her last day of her contract and gave Andrew a list of people to invite. She invited some teachers from the school and some other foreigners who she has met during her 12 months in Tai'an. Of the 8 invited 6 attended.

We enjoyed dinner at the Potato Restaurant - that's English for 'dong bei fan dian'. We ordered 5 dishes; fried potatoes, onions and peanuts (Specialty of the house), mutton, green beans and the BBQ duck. The food as per normal was sensational. The company provided an enjoyable dinner.

At 8.45pm I went to pay the bill as Andrew was keen for the second phase - bowling. Unfortunately Laura could not join us as she had lesson plans to prepare for her weekend classes.

We left the restaurant and jumped into 2 taxis. Neither taxi driver knew where the hotel was. Barbara was able to direct the taxi driver as she had been there on 2 other occasions. Andrew and Blair's taxi was lost. They contacted Barbara on her mobile and we had the bell boy from the hotel speak to the taxi driver for directions.

Whilst waiting for the second taxi to arrive a young Chinese lady (Maggie) approached me to ask if she could help. I explained to her what was happening. I discovered through our conversation that she was an English teacher in Qingdao and was in Tai'an for an English competition. She has invited me to come to Qingdao. That could be a problem. I won't want to leave Qingdao. Anyway we exchanged contact details and if I have some time I will take her up on it. Although this next week will be my last week of holidays before I come home.

The second taxi had arrived so we went to the third level of the hotel to the bowling alley. We had heaps of fun and heaps of laughs. Polly tells us she has never bowled before. Well she did good. She got a strike and a spare. Not bad for a first timer. On the first game up until the seventh bowl she was coming second. I pulled out my best with a strike and went on to win the first round. Pure fluke!

Polly didn't play the second round. I became the 'ten pin bowling queen'. I have never been any good at ten pin bowling but I pulled out 3 strikes in my second game of which 2 were consecutive. I went on to win the second game as well. This must go down in history because I don't think it will ever be repeated!

So after dinner and our 2 games of bowls we jumped into taxis and made our way home. It was a good night with lots of laughter.

Thanks Andrew for arranging Barbara's farewell.

For me, this is the first of many farewells for Barbara this week. She is here until the 05 October when she will leave to go to Beijing to catch up with her sister and brother in law and do a 2 week tour of China.