You say 'play with me, I say Sesame'

Day 10 - Friday 6th August. Theo said he thought we should have a lazy day today and I agreed. The pollution had rolled in on Wednesday and was particularly hazy yesterday and today - to the extent that we could not see buildings that made up part of our normal skyline. We watched some of Toy Story in the morning, played, had lunch and then went for an earlier ice-skating lesson at 1:30. Theo had the same instructor and is doing well on the ice - it is amazing how much progress he has made from his original entry onto the ice on a chair. He can (with arms extended and very slow slides) go about 1/4 of the rink on his own. He seems to enjoy the ice skating which I still find an odd activity to be doing in the tropical heat. After ice skating we saw the rest of Toy Story and then watched a new Sesame Street video. To Theo's delight it included the songs: "you say play with me, I say Sesame" and "Be my Echo." For someone who rarely watched television programs today was a real a treat for Theo. We briefly went outside to the playground but found it to be not that great as some of the equipment was broken. Also, it was weird as everybody stared at us as we were the only non-Chinese people and nobody said anything to us. We only stayed about 15 minutes as a thunderstorm looked like it was about to start. Indeed it did - we made it back to our apartment just in time.