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!!!!!!

Not Posting much lately hey?

Lion Grove Garden - Suzhou
Kane and I at Lion Grove Garden

We are having so much trouble with blogger being blocked in China at the moment. Some times we can even get into this page to write anything - so I will now!


We are going really wll at the moment, school is in it's 7th week and we have got so much to do. We do't have our kids nearlly as much as we did in Australia - We teach them only 25 out of 40 periods each week, which is a problem because yo feel like you do soooo little to teach them and you get really good at doing nothing - but no time to spare!!!!!????


It is starting to cool down now, it was 21 today and I was feeling very chilly. Kane played Soccer at school and they won 8-1, a big thrashing. We went out last night and I am still feeling verrry seedy, have totally wasted today I suppose.


We are really looking forward to coming home in 3 weeks for Ty and Zoe's wedding, I think the dose at home will help to break this very long term up.


Take care Kelly

Hey everyone we had a great day today. The school called classes off today due to a huge typhoon that was expected to hit China. At one stage the winds were travelling at 175 mph but we didn't get much at all. I think it was called typhoon wipha. Anyway got to go. Congratulations to all the mitta boys/people on a fantastic win in 2007.

Full School Week Over

Well I have jut finished my first school week with children... And I am exhausted.

My kids are gradually improving their behaviour, they are still very noisy, but are sowing signs that they are willing to conform to my expectations. I had them out SILENTLY walking the corridors Friday afternoon, in a straight, single file line, (how it is done here :0) We did this for 30 mins and they definitely got the idea that walking all over the hall yahooing all the time, dawdling and not concentrating is not what I believe is good enough, especially when nearly everyday children get mixed up because they are not CONCENTRATING!!! Rrrrr

Kane has had a dose of food poisoning or I think it might be the IBS that he had a few years back rearing its head. He does say he feels better today though. (Ok, I've been told... not IBS, food poisoning ;)

I went to Ikea yesterday in Shanghai and bought up! I got bath mats, shower curtain/rod, dish drainer, VODKA, choccies, chop sticks, bathroom caddy X2, BED OVERLAY (I slept really well last night), plastic tubs, finger puppets, table place mats, a cutlery draw insert and I'm sure something else that I can't think of. Had a great time and spent less than AU$200.

We went grocery shopping today at Metro (a cash and carry without the millions of Chinese) and spent 1400 yuan, just under AU$200 as well. Has been good to get into the routine of it all, waking up, work, home, gym (some nights), dinner, Everwood episode and bed.

We may be going to Shanghai this weekend to see a women's world cup soccer game and then staying in Shanghai for the weekend, back 12pm Sunday, but this all depends if my shipping HAS to arrive next Saturday, if that is the case, no Shanghai.

I took some photos on my journey home from Shanghai yesterday... Enjoy.

This is the average place the Chinese live in, I'm not sure how old it is because the quality of building is very poor.

Out in the suburbs (or the distance the suburbs would be in Melbourne) are these little villages dotted all over the place. But in between are new factories or...

New building sites for apartments.

I am sure those people from big cities are used to big motorways, but I was amazed. (I'm sure this is nothing compared to Beijing)