I celebrated yet another birthday in East Asia and this year
we decided to go bowling after of course eating a good meal at a nearby foreign
establishment that serves up some good Mexican food, well almost good. When you come from Texas it is pretty hard to
find some good Tex Mex anywhere around the world, and believe me I have
tried. Our choice in going bowling turned
out to give us a fun and interesting experience. Bowling is not a common game in this country,
however, I have seen bowling allies in several cities I have visited or
lived. So visiting a bowling alley in a
country that has yet to fully embrace the game produces some awkward yet cute
situations. Our Sunday morning fellowship
joined my husband and I as we stepped into this bowling alley, a first for us
in this city. We didn't know what to
expect and we were delighted to see how clean the place was and how organized
they were in running the place. We
started to play our game and about fifteen minutes later a large group of
locals walked in, taking up the next three lanes right next to ours. We were amused as we watched them enjoying
what seemed to us to be their first time to play this game. At first they started to pick through our
bowling balls we had previously selected for our own game to use in theirs and
so after some repeated explanation they understood not to take our bowling
balls. One young man fell down as he
attempted to bowl, he stood right back up and we were relieved to see he was
okay. Another young lady had a unique
style in her game and soon one of the workers there took responsibility in
showing them how to bowl a ball. We also
noticed how they were not going in any particular order, they just took a turn
whenever they wanted to and then I saw that they had not even put their names
into the computer that kept score. At
one particular time when it was my turn to bowl, one of the other young men
released the bowling ball behind him instead of in front, causing the ball to
roll away from the lane. No one was
hurt, thankfully, and all had a good laugh.
All of this put a smile on my face, getting to bowl with good friends
and at the same time delighting in watching the local people enjoy a new
game. The picture I have attached shows
their excitement in learning to bowl with every one of them refusing to sit in
wait for their turn and instead are standing next to each other to play the
game. Not that it’s important to this
blog, but I won our bowling game and by only one pin.. my husband took secondJ . I’m pretty sure he let me win because it was
my birthday.
