Two great friends, one great day!!!

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On Thursday, 10/15, I got busy again and saw two of my good friends! I met Li Li (Lily Li) when I came to Beijing in 2007. At that time, I went to the Zhongguacan Toastmasters Club (<<<link), which was having their second meeting ever! Lily and her husband, Gamp, were two of the primary founders of that club, which is located in Beijing’s equivalent of Silicon Valley. Last year, she had a baby girl and put her career on hold to become a full time mom (which is a career in itself!).

Lily and Iris

I think Lily is an amazing lady, who is very fluent in English, but loves Chinese culture and history, and also is very artistic and has a great sense of design. I learn a lot from her whenever we communicate.

I visited her in their condo in NE Beijing and got a little glimpse of how life is in this type of accomodation. Gamp was away on a business trip, but his parents were there, having just arrived the day before to stay for a while and get acquainted with their granddaughter.

The family is all from Sichuan and their nanny is a great cook, so she made us a great lunch. You know what that means….another food picture!!!

Great Sichuan Food

After that, Lili and I went for a walk in the park in front of the condo and talked about life and what we’ve been up to. I really enjoyed our conversation, as I always enjoy discussing things with people who are intelligent and creative.

View of Lily's condo park from 30th floor

After our talk, I got a great surprise! Guohui, one of my former coworkers at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), who had moved to Los Angeles and then to Portland, Oregon, was in Beijing at the same time as me. I wasn’t able to get in touch with her as we had arranged to go to dinner on the 14th, so I thought I wouldn’t be able to see her. Well, the surprise is that she called and she and her family were free that afternoon and evening. So, I bid adieu to Lily and took the subway to meet Guohui and her family…

Scott, Guohui and her son

Guohui’s husband is really nice and we got into a long conversation. He is an oceanographer who studies currents, temperatures, etc. (like El Nino). They have two children and another Chinese couple they know with ties to Florida and a child of their own joined us to go to dinner. I can see that children are a full time job! Like Lily, Guohui dropped out of the workforce in order to take care of her children.

Guohui's friend's child, already a chopstick master!

Once again, I had a wonderful meal with wonderful friends (two gratuitous pics!)…

Another great meal with 3 types of duck!

Scott, Guohui's husband and friend

After dinner, I headed back to the Templeside Hostel and went to sleep.

I have really been so lucky to have so many wonderful Chinese friends. My next post will be a break from the narrative of my trip to discuss why I like China and the Chinese people so much. Many of my American friends have only heard bad things about the Chinese from the press and our government, so I wanted to give an idea of why I think the country and people are so great…