ByGD
I’ve already shared how a birthday party created a figure skating monster. The monster was fed the following spring when we traveled to China and visited Qingdao’s brand new MixC Mall, which housed an Olympic size rink. While part of the rink was blocked off for a dancing walrus, my daughter taught herself to skate in a pair of rental skates and summer capris. It was her second skate, and my first inkling that figure skating would become a major part of our lives.
ByGD
Several years ago, my youngest daughter was invited to a birthday party at the ice skating rink. The hosts were kind enough to let my older daughter tag along. The youngest didn’t really take to it, but the oldest did.
I didn’t want my kids to commit to an activity that required me to drive to the suburbs regularly. But after a couple years she wore me down. Two summers ago, we started going to the rink on hot days. That fall, she signed up for group lessons. A year later she had graduated from the basic skills class and we hired a private coach for weekly lessons. This summer she will participate in her first figure skating competition.
I didn’t know when I snapped a cute picture of my girls skating at a birthday party that I was witnessing the birth of an ice monster.
ByGD
I’ve mentioned before that animal care standards in China are not quite the same as in the U.S.
And I’ve mentioned their shopping malls that put ours to shame.
These two facts collided on the third day that my daughter and I returned to the brand-new MixC mall in Qingdao. She wanted to go ice skating. The mall had only been open for a couple of weeks, and on this Sunday it was celebrating the new ice rink. So, while she and dozens of others skated, a corner of the Olympic-sized rink was walled off from the skaters. Shoppers piled up along the rink wall to watch the show. First some penguins were trotted out on the ice to run around. Then a trained walrus from one of the city’s multiple aquariums was brought out. Among the walrus’ many tricks, he was trained to dance to the then-top hit “Gangnam Style.”
My daughter and hundreds of local shoppers were charmed. I was so shocked I didn’t even think to complain that it should have been the Lobster Quadrille.