TV shoot weekend

We started shooting on Saturday morning, at the kindergarten. I asked the principal if it was OK and luckily it was. The kids kept their cool and Lexie did really well in class. The difference between the first and the third class is huge! At the start of the lesson the teacher does a roll call and the child has to walk to the teacher to get a sticker. The first two classes I had to walk with her but now she ran over. The only part that doesn't go smoothly yet is saying "xiexie" (thank you) for the sticker. Lexie did give the teacher and everybody in the class a huge smile. The teacher took that to be "xiexie" instead of saying it out loud. Picking up the baskets with lesson material and giving them back again is going much better.

Chilling out on mommy

After class Lexie went with grandma to join a big group of mahjong players. Haiwen and I continued the shoot. We did some interviews in our house and then Molly came by for a pretend massage. I called a student to come by for class and that was filmed as well. The student waited for me while I was playing clarinet on the balcony. The director thought it would be too boring to shoot everything inside.....

The crew left and we finished the rest of our lesson. I was super tired afterwards. It was fun but hard work and all in Chinese!

Cool umbrella to play with

The family is super busy now because the new coffee shop is opening very soon. The grandparents and Haiwen have been going there a lot to help Qiang.

On Sunday morning I took Nicole (NL) to see grandma's old house in Liwan. It was a typical Chinese affair with Lexie, Haiwen, grandma, uncle and auntie ;) The crew filmed us as grandma, Nicole and I walked up to the house. Nicole really liked it a lot because it is something you can never see as a tourist. Grandma gave us the grand tour (hehe, the house is rather small) and did very well with the camera. When the director told her he wanted to film her earlier in the week she refused, claiming to be too old and ugly. She turned around 180 degrees and seemed to have a good time :)

Grandma was right that foreigners indeed like 'old' stuff, hahaha. It came back in the interview with me as well. I told them that we like places that have a story and history. The bling bling new buildings are cool but they can be found anywhere in the world.

Then it was dim sum time!! 

'Yes, I really like dim sum because it is a very traditional Cantonese pass time. The food is amazing and it is nice to chat with friends and family' if you catch my drift ;)

Grandpa and Qiang joined us as well. We went to the Hilton because that is very close to the new coffee shop. After lunch they went back to work.

Grandpa took the TV crew to ZhongHai (where the grandparents live) and we drove back with Lexie and grandma. The director wanted me to play clarinet in the garden, pffffff..... so natural, ahem.

Lexie was getting tired (me too) but we managed to finish the garden part of the shoot.

Mom, let me play!

The last bit consisted of a few more questions for grandma and me in their house. 

It was a bit tough in the end but we made it!! I only had to do 2 retakes in the whole weekend and those happened in the final bit because my brain was slowly going off line.

The director was very happy with all the material :) I took Lexie home for a much needed nap and she fell asleep at 15.15. She woke up a bit at 16.15 but after a small cuddle continued sleeping. I was really tired too so around 16.40 I joined her. Next thing I know is that we woke up at 18.00.......

Grandma texted me that they were still busy at the shop. I was in charge of dinner all of a sudden. It was too late to cook something because Lexie was already super hungry. She texted around 17.00 but we were snoring away then. We went Dutch with a sandwich with stroop and cream cheese. She gobbled it all up happily.

I figured Lexie wouldn't be sleepy at 20.30 so we went to visit Nicole (CH). The cat's toys and basket finally got played with ;) The cat never uses them, haha.

Around 20.00 we heard the neighbours coming back and they came in for a visit. All of a sudden Lexie started to fade fast and she just sat on the couch staring at Lynell and Tony. Time to go home! Once in bed she was out in seconds.