While We Wait

Well, we've been in Beijing for about 3 1/2 weeks now. In that time, Bethany has been to the doctor for regular weekly check-ups. Everything is looking good so far. The only major unknown is when the baby will come. In a very Chinese fashion, the baby hasn't called or e-mailed to tell us a few weeks in advance exactly what day she'll arrive. Most likely, she'll probably just let us know on the day of. "Hi! I'm coming to the city tonight. Drop whatever else you have planned, and let's have dinner!"

And so, we have very little planned each day, besides waiting, resting, reading, and enjoying our hobbies. What hobbies, you say? Well, besides drinking coffee at Starbucks (mine), looking for rice porridge restaurants (Bethany's), and being on the computer (mine again)... we've decided to use this time to keep up our music skills.

We don't have a piano where we live. But we both love playing the piano. So, we found a piano center down the street that gives lessons, sells pianos, and - most importantly - has piano practice rooms which you can use by the hour. 10 RMB (USD $1.50) per hour. And so, since we found this place a few days ago, we've each been practicing an hour of piano a day. We might just do this every day until the baby arrives. The last time I practiced piano for an hour a day, 3 days in a row was... when I was taking lessons 20+ years ago. And I'm not even so sure that I ever did 3 days in a row back when I was taking lessons.

Having access to a piano has been so nice.

But in addition... I have also missed my erhu dearly. Figuring we would have much to carry - here and back - I decided against bringing my erhu, which means no erhu practice for 6+ weeks. Well, as of last week, I could take it no longer. So... we also found another place in town that sells and rents erhus. And I rented one for a month, for about USD $20. It's an ok erhu, but at least it allows me to keep it up while we're out here. I'm pretty sure that baby has missed hearing the erhu too.