My pottery!

These are some of my finds from yesterday. The first one is a blue crystal vase. It has these vibrant blue crystals on it. Apparently it is very difficult to make, as you have to carefully fire it to a certain temperature and remove, so it's is very time consuming... so the art teacher said. I got it for RMB45 - $6. Would be worth a couple of hundred in the states a reliable sources told me!These two wee a little more expensive, RMB 120 - $20, I just loved the colours in the vertical lines.
This is my authentic Dingshen teapot set. Th teapot is so small, the red thing in the corner is a coaster. It's only as big as a medium sized coffee cup. This is handmade and has a small dragon on the lid o the teapot. I watched these teapots be made and it is tedious work. The tea set and the wooden draining board were RMB250 - $40.
This is the little dragons head close up.
Oh and I didn't get this this weekend, I got this last weekend - My plant!
Kane is off at a antique market this weekend, so who know what we'll get next!

Dingshen Pottery Village

Today I went on a trip to Dingshen. A smallish village about 2.5 hours away from Suzhou. Dingshen is known for its teapots, which are famous all around the world. There was even a photo of the Queen drinking tea from a Dingshen teapot. Today I managed to find a small teapot and 3 glazed vases. All for under AU$80. Most of the teapots are made from terracotta and so are very dark in colour, all have unique character, the one that I bought has a dragon on the lid of the teapot. It was a very long day, but definitely worth doing. Here is a picture of the teapot factory 'sweatshop'!

This is a photo of Dingshen where I bought my teapot set. A very authentic picture of China life!

Two of our favourite places where we live

These are some of our favourite place in SIP (both in the same neighbourhood), the furthest being 300m away. The first one is our Muslim restaurant. No one speaks English (or Yingyu, as I learnt last night) but they always try to talk to us, Kane especially. The ladies are not very talkative, but it may be part of their religion. They are a family business with brothers, wives, sisters, a grandmother and some children, all pitch in to run the business. The 'man', there are several, but there is one in particular who is the boss, he'd only be in his early 30's takes most of the orders and money... no paper needed to write down orders. It is a dirty little shop, but it has character, pictures to choose your food from and it's cheap, our favourite meal 'la mien' RMB9 a meal, that's only $1.80. Here are some more pictures that I took walking home from la mien, it's only around the corner. The first one is walking past some shops, our Muslim restaurant is snugly tucked in behind these shops on the right.
One is of a building site. We are getting a new shopping mall right next door. Yes there are those 'China' wheelbarrow bike everywhere! This man on the building site was very happy to have his photo taken. I wonder if he knew his image would be splashed over the Internet.
The others are of the road towards our Neighbourhood centre (shopping centre), the view of our apartments walking past them and a few from the front of our complex.

Our apartment block is the taller one directly to the left behind the building in the middle. It's sort of hidden by the tree.

Oh... PS - The bloke walking in many of the photos with Kane is Bruce. He is from Canada. He lives in the same block as us and also teaches Grade 4 with Kane.

Wow!

Hello everyone!

How to know you are loved?

Go home to Australia and you will know you are loved :)

I am so sorry to everyone who checks this thing regualry only to find it hasn't changed. We really need to make more of an effort. Kane and I are so removed (well, it feels like it) over here that we forget that their are people who love and care about us so much.

Ty and Zoe... Your wedding was so amazing! It was more beautiful than I ever imagined and it is good luck for something unusual to happen on your wedding day (the rain - not the other women in Ty's life!!!!) I have been telling everyone how fantastic your bridal waltz/dance was - truley a highlight. I am so glad that I came back for this special event and it made me realise more than ever how important you both are to our lives. I'm so sorry Zoe for crying at outside the church and at the breakfast the next morning, but everytime you said 'we miss you both so much', I wanted to agree but I think I would have started bawling even more.

We miss everyone back home, and it made it so hard to leave on the Tuesday - yes Marty they played the Melbourne Cup in the plane.

Congratulaions to Robbie and Lisa on their engagement, we wish you all the best - please have you wedding in our holidays!!!!!!