In Japanese, Wednesday is "water day"

Eager to get the day started, I was up bright and early Wednesday to head out to the much-anticipated "friendly swimming competition."

We met Mike and the others at the office at 7:50 . We hopped into a couple of cars and rode about half an hour through town. When we pulled up I couldn't believe that we were anywhere near a pool. There was a very tall building next to a hutong, a sign of the rapid development in China in the last 20+ years.

Hutongs are strips of buildings, where often the roof is not more than 7 feet off the ground, which house shops, restaurants, and usually people, too. Most of the small buildings are not more than 10 feet by 10 feet, and many are significantly smaller.

But back to the swimming. We walked toward the skyscraper, through a breezeway, and suddenly there was a recreation area with tennis courts, basketball courts, and -- you guessed it! -- an indoor swimming pool.

After getting changed, which by the way is an experience in itself since there is no modesty in locker rooms in China, I moved into the pool area, where I sat for at least an hour and a half before anything happened. Then the competitions started, and I sat and watched as the many older people from other companies competed. There was only one other person in my individual 100 meter race, so I could have at least come in second. But I knew that if I did that I wouldn't be able to compete in the group relay, do I told them I couldn't do it.

And boy was I right. I was the third person in the 4-man relay. By the time it got to me, we were probably about 10 meters ahead. Mike said that at one point I was at least 20 or 30 meters ahead, but after I swam about 35 of my 50 meters, my knee gave out and I couldn't kick anymore. I basically had to doggy paddle the rest of the way.

Fortunately, we had such a lead that my awfulness didn't cause us to lose, and we easily secured first place. After pressing me to compete for the past two weeks, Mike kindly helped me out of the water and massaged my knee, and to really make up for it he produced a few bars of Dove dark chocolate. All was forgiven.

Brian and Dan both did very well, despite our expectations at practice. Dan came in 3rd, and Brian in 4th, in the men's 100 meter individual competition. Their men's relay team finished 2nd.

After the competition, I told Mike (second row, far right) that the company should reward our accomplishments by buying us a delicious lunch. He said we'd have to ask "the boss" (in the white polo above, he is apparently from the finance department and able to make decisions), who agreed to take us out. We went to have hot pot.

Before I talk about my experience, I want to share some information about hot pot, which led me to be very excited about eating this famous meal. Hot pot involves a table with a pot of boiling water. You are then given several choices of raw meats and vegetables, and as I have always seen it, these are on kabobs. You dip them into the boiling water and cook them on your own. Before I left Chapel Hill, Ellen Ambrose, who studied in China last summer, said that I had to try it. Almost every American I've met has mentioned it, so it's clearly a Chinese experience. I was excited to finally be trying it.

Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed. As it turned out, it isn't all that tasty. It's a neat concept, but the water just cooks all the flavor out of the meat. It is possible to have boiling sauce, not water, in your hot pot, but our co-workers said it was probably too hot, and only two of them ordered the hot sauce. Maybe I will have the opportunity to try it with the hot sauce later on, and I will enjoy the flavors more.

As for the spread, they ordered a lot of food. I'm not sure what it all was, but they ordered beef, chicken, maybe ham, some kind of seafood that I think was scallop, and shrimp. They also had sweet potatoes, mushrooms, lettuce, tomatoes, and bean sprouts, among other veggies. Those were all to cook, but there were plates of food that was already cooked or made to eat raw, including pickled carrots, cucumbers, a concoction of bean sprouts and peanuts, some salad and some broccoli-like vegetable.

But my favorite was something I think will be hard to describe. It was described to us as a sausage and rice patty or pancake, served with garlic dip. It didn't really taste or look anything like sausage, and it was fried and crispy like a potato chip. It was really, really good.

The other fantastic part of the meal was the drink. It was sweet and sour plum juice, as we were told, but it was orange, not purple so I'm not sure if there's a translation issue or not. The juice is a traditional summer drink, and it was very delicious. I had at least 3 glasses.

After lunch, we returned to the apartment to shower, and then back to office, where I attended another video class with Dr. Tuggle. I received a story to edit, but after that the day was over.

Today I haven't been given any assignments, but I did spend a few hours with Dr. Tuggle learning to operate a camera. Turns out the operating is pretty easy; it will be the editing that's challenging.

The best part of the day happened just now, when Celine came to tell me that if we work on stories on the weekend, we will be paid 200 yuan for every 1,000 characters of the story we write. Now I'm more motivated.