Saturday Out and About

I took a new route this morning to Yucai Elementary School for the Saturday morning English class.  Last week I rode in the rain to and from the school, so today's sunny weather seemed particularly beautiful, as did the trees on this street.  Nanshan Mountain is in the distance.    Checking behind me as I stood by the curb, I realized that a car had approached, stopped and was patiently waiting for me to get  moving so it could claim the parking space where I was standing.  How delightful not to get honked at, I thought.  Probably because I'm considered elderly and feeble, though.  Not so delightful.

The young man in the white polo is Jersey, a school friend one of the English tutor organizers.  He came to perform card tricks for the 6th graders during the last half-hour of class today--he was good!  The boys were a particularly enthusiastic audience.  I asked Jersey where he learned his tricks.  The first few he got from the internet, he said.  Then he met some other guys who also did tricks and they taught each other.  I should have asked him where he got his name.  He did  mention that he was born in New York City and that his parents came back to China when he was a few months old.

On the way home right outside a supermarket were these fellows selling fresh sugarcane today.  The couple on the right carefully selected two canes.  The vendors then made short work of peeling it, whacking it into foot-long sticks, and bagging it up.  I see fresh sugarcane for sale often and I suppose I really should give it a try, but the idea of eating a stick of sugar, even if it's fresh,  doesn't appeal to me very much.

That's rice for sale in the big bin at the left.

The group of ten marching in formation (sort of) and shouting responses to their "commander" at the left I think are security personnel for the apartment complex next to ours.  I'm not sure if they were doing coming-on-duty warm-ups or if they're in training.  I smiled when several little kids and the dog, some pictured here, chased after them and began running between the two rows, messing up the marchers' attempt to look serious.

The pink and white structure in the background is a commercial building on the fishing harbor.

Late this afternoon the fishing boats in the harbor a few minutes' walk from our apartment building were anchored in threesies and foursies.  I was wondering if they did this just to be congenial and to talk fishing business, after working alone all day.  Later I watched a few fishermen that pulled up closer to the shore.  They weren't talking, they were busy pulling fish and critters out of the nets.  My next theory was that they organize their boats into these side-by-side parking groups to leave pathways open for boats that need to move.