Today Madi and Kier took their cousin to school with them. Cali and I took the grandparents to the Deli Jasmine and had a very long and leisurely breakfast. There is one table in the back of the restaurant next to a little pond, that you wouldn’t know is there. It has four lounging chairs with cushions and a low table.
Cali got great one on one time with her grandparents. Cali wanted Grandpa to tell her everything he knows about Japan. But only everything. He drew her all sorts of Japanese characters that look like pictures. They did that for a long time, then they did origami until Cali got mad that she couldn’t fold a crane without assistance. It was time to move on, and it was practically lunch time.
My brother bought Cali a fan that she has wanted for a while. She was pleased with her good fortune of having this particular uncle.
We then went for lunch. Not kidding, it’s all about the meals. We went to Chinitas, the restaurant owned by the mom of one of Kier’s friend’s. We got lots of good and interesting food. I got an amazing potsticker, noodly dish. Bonnie got tofu fried on a skewer, Cali got egg salad but declared it had too many spicy herbs, Paul has something that looked very interesting.
After lunch we went home, got stuff for the older girls to change into, because we were going zip lining. We went up to the school to pick up the three in school, then tried to get tuk tuks. The first guy that arrived didn’t know where the Nature Reserve was, which surpirsed me. But then a few more stopped and they didn’t know either. Then one pulled up and said, “Cables Extremos?” “YES!” But by now, there were 5 tuks surrounding us in the street, all the drivers were crowding us and trying to get us into their tuks, one guy was calling his friend. I wanted to first see if the tuk driver knew where he was going and then confirmed it was 10Q since it’s out of town. A policetruck stopped by to see why there were now 8 tuks surrounding us. I suppose we each could have taken a private tuk at that point. The police, convinced we were just silly confused tourists and not starting some kind of tuk riot, left.
We could hear thunder in the distance, not the best ziplining weather, but we decided to go anyway.
Kier, Paul, and I took one tuk. Just as we started up the mountain, the tuk’s clutch blew. It was a burnt smell. He didn’t want us to get into some other random tuk, and called his buddy. Perhaps they split the fare, don’t know. We waited for about 10 minutes for that guy to show up, as the camionetas (chicken buses) roared by us. Paul and I debated if we were safer in the tuk, which could be seen, or standing plastered up against the rock of the mountain. The guy’s friend showed up with a 1 year old little boy sitting on his lap while he drove.
When we got to the Nature Reserve, the others had started to wonder what happened to us. All was well. The grandparents were the only two who were new at zip lining, the rest were veterans. Once the gear was on they all got a tutorial and short practice run to learn how to brake. I stayed with all the bags of stuff, including the girls’ school stuff with laptop. I’ve gone before and it kinda terrifies me. Dad and Sandy went zipling and last time Paul’s mom visited us, she went as well. The girls have rockin’ brave grandparents, that’s right.
After the time it takes to hike up the mountain, I could hear them whizzing along. Everyone has their different zip lining happy call. Cali’s is a happy high pitched scream, Kier does a “woohoo,” Madi just does silent prayer. After they completed the run, the thunder cracked and it started to rain. That didn’t keep the guides from taking the next group of 6 people up the mountain to do their run in the thunderstorm. Lightening zip lining, yikes.
We all tuked it back to PanaRock and had the place to ourselves. We took a couple of hours to eat supper. The older girls told us about the school day. Madi and Kier each had to say 3 things about their cousin to introduce her to the school. They also played telephone with the phrase, “Welcome Madi and Kier’s cousin to the superduper fabulous IES school,” which turned into “falalalala.” So apparently it was a successful day.
My niece bought a little purse on the way home and my brother looked in the fabric store for shirt material. Then we went home. Another extremely full day.