It is Thanksgiving weekend and we are staying at a big spa resort in the outskirts of Beijing. These resorts are massive and frequented by relatively few foreigners (I would see two other foreigners over our two nights there out of maybe 2000 people). I find these resorts a nice change of pace for a half day or so, tolerable for about a day, and ready to leave anytime after 24 hours. When we hit the 24 hour mark on this visit, I head out for a walk. It is cold, maybe 28 degrees and there isn’t a lot to see except for the resort and the surrounding neighborhood. The neighborhood is not really a city but is crowded nevertheless. Analogous to a city of strip malls. After 30 minutes or so in the cold I head back inside where it is very, very warm to the point we open windows to cool the air inside the hotel room.

We have rented two rooms, such is the price for having three kids instead of two. In one of the rooms Lydia, Aidan, and two boys are playing UNO. They are unbelievably happy, yelling “UNO!” when they get down to one card and screaming at small victories and pick fours. Lydia is announcing the turns as they come up “Aidan, your turn” and so on. When someone wins there is wild jubilation and then the kids who still have cards keep playing until everyone knows their rank 1,2,3 or 4. Just like in school.

One of Yang’s friends comes in with a bottle of wine and a towel wants me to help to open the bottle. I’m thinking a cork screw would work better than a towel but since we don’t have one she thinks using the towel as a buffer and then slamming the base of the bottle against the wall will work. I try it a half dozen times and then think this is silly, like high school, and give her the towel and bottle back. She goes away and from somewhere down the long hall I hear the bottle slamming against the wall.

Yang invites me to the room where her tennis friends are, six in all. Or maybe it was seven. I tried not to count as I was clearly outnumbered in any case. The girls were deliciously happy. Or maybe devilishly happy. Yang is right in the thick of it. The wine bottle was now open and the girls decide to play charades. They asked me to play and after considering how to mime water boarding I decline. The game continues without noticing me. Later another husband comes in and sits down and then we are both relieved when it is time to put our kids to bed.

The purpose of the weekend getaway was the dual celebration of Yang’s and her father’s birthday. Yang had arranged the whole thing with maybe 40 people coming most of which stayed Saturday night. The main celebration was Saturday’s lunch which was hosted in a large room adjacent to a really large ball room. (a wedding was occurring in the ballroom and the room smelled like baijiu – Chinese alcohol – which is a story for another day). Yang’s father was clearly pleased which is quite a feat and let Yang know he was pleased she gathered so many people on his behalf.

Saturday afternoon was spent at the spa itself, a massive waterpark and separate warm springs. The water in the water park was too cold so we moved the kids into the warm spring section for a few hours. There was a lot of people there and I was happy to shower and get into some clean clothes when it was over.

For the dinner, we focused on Yang and her birthday. Yang’s tennis ladies, Aidan, Lydia, and myself went to a nearby Beijing style hot pot restaurant. Lot’s of thinly sliced lamb. For desert I had brought a homemade pumpkin pie to which we sang Yang Happy Birthday. We had to slice the pie with chopsticks because the restaurant had no knives.

Come Sunday morning there was talk of going to the spa again (we had unused tickets) to which I gave an enthusiastic response “ok”. Instead we just hung out in the hotel room until noon, with the kids happily playing UNO and Yang catching up with some of the people she hadn’t yet spent that much time with. At noon I sped off towards home with the kids and Yang sped off with her tennis friends, perpetually late for a game of doubles.