My Funky Chinese man visit.

I had a great relaxing day today. I got up at 10ish after a late night for our friends 30th. Our gas ran out this morning so Kane had to make his poached eggs in the microwave, as a result they were more rubber eggs! I headed down to the neighbourhood centre and could only get money out of one ATM, the other had ran out. So it gives you an idea of the growing wealth here. I went and put 200RMB on my mobile phone, got some yakult, a dish cloth, some oats and a bucket from the supermarket and then headed home, when I got back I had to visit my funky Chinese healer who proceeded to massage, cup, needle and hammer my back for 1.75 hours! Luckily there was a Chinese man next to me called Lu who just happened to attend university in Melbourne a few years back and we chatted away. He works for a US company here and hurt his back while playing table tennis. He got the cups and needles, but the healer man used electric pulses on the needles on him. He wants to do the same to me on Wednesday when I go back again. If he can heal my neck or my back, I'll gladly go back each week!!!!

I saw some great photos from Robbies wedding today - thanks Tricia. If you like to have a look go to Trish's facebook through mine to have a look. The red bridesmaids dresses were amazing.

OK, have a great week children :)

Flights are booked!

We are coming home!

(Albeit for 6 weeks)

School has booked our tickets yesterday. (It's getting closer!) QF102 on the 30th June and return on QF101 on the 19th August.

I have continued to feel really unwell this week. I have caught this nice little bug and have been feeling rubbish ever since. We had Parent/Teacher interviews on Tuesday/Wednesday this past week and only went to school Wednesday because of this, by Wednesday night 7 pm, I had to go and tell the Head of Primary I wouldn't be in the next day - I had no voice and felt revolting. Ever try being around 16 8-9 year olds when you're sick? Forget it! And it was a full contact day on Thursday too. So I stayed at home and felt miserable by myself. I needed to pay the Ayi who was coming to clean the house while I was at home and I couldn't even bring myself to go and get some money out. So she fluffed around me for two hours. I went on Friday, but only had the kids for 2 hours and 1 of those hours was free play because I felt so yuk! So being sick on top of a sore back is not good. I feel like a walking disaster.

Last night we had a Primary vs Secondary Netball match. I was so disappointed to miss it, it ended up being a 16 all draw. So many people could not believe how fast the game went. So it was nice to see people realising how hard I work in a game. It was funny though watching teachers who have never seen of heard of the game trying to play especially when Basketball is so widely played in the world. Everyone just expects it to be similar when it's really not. Here are some pics of the action.



I got invited to go tea picking at East Mountain today. It sounded like heaps of fun, but because I was sick I wasn't going to be able to make it, which I was really disappointed in. Luckily it has rained today and they have had to reschedule. What luck :)

Kane is playing in a basketball tournament today. I might be able to go and watch if I am up to it later. His team was to be called Domination! But, the high school ESL student in charge of inputting team names go it wrong and called them the Dalmations! So the male adult team members have decided to go along with it and have names on the back of their shirts from the 101 Dalmation movie like Wags (Kane), Hot Dogs, Nipper etc.

We have a 30th birthday party to attend which should be fun, hopefully I can go for a little while. This girl is a good friend from school whom I've been walking with on Sundays. She is from New Zealand and has the most amazing apartment and view with her boyfriend, you can see the whole lake uninterrupted from their 19th floor lounge room window - it's great.

OK - I think that's it for today. Mum got her Visa delivered yesterday so all is good there. I can't wait for visitors!

Happy Easter Kiddies

Kane and I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter. As there are no Easter eggs in Suzhou, we celebrated in the only way Kane knows how...



Poached Eggs on Toast!



Happy Easter!

xxx

I'm feeling sore an sorry for myself ;(

Last night we went out for dinner for our friend Sherry's 30th Birthday, Sherry was with us when we went to Thailand. We went to a Thai place in Suzhou and had a wonderfully delicious meal and then headed out to Bar Blue in downtown for a few drinkies! At 12am Kane and I decided to call it a night, Kane had a soccer tournament on today and I was training for the Triathlon at school. Morning came around and Kane managed to sleep in and nearly missed his ride to the soccer and I continued to sleep. At 9.30 I got up and got dresses etc, had some water as was feeling dehydrated and had breakfast. Headed out the door at 10.00 and rode to work. The damn tyres were flat on the bike and so it was quite hard going, but luckily work is only 2.5km away. I got changed and swam 2 breaststroke laps for a warm up and then 10 laps of freestyle. I did 3 laps without stopping today, hopefully I can do 4 next time. However, stopping was needed at the end of each two laps thereafter! I got out of the pool, got back on the bike, asked the guards to pump up the bike tyres and rode the 2.5km home in the wind. Got upstairs to our apartment and then headed to the gym and did 3.5km in 24mins at 8.0kmph. All up did it in under 1 hour and although it wasn't pieced together exactly how a triathlon would run, it does show that I can do all three disciplines within a 2 hour block.

OK - here is the problem, upon stretching to my toes after run- TWANG! There goes something in my lower back, the tenderness was immediate and now. I wasn't even stretching hard I was only just bending into the stretch. I am now walking with a big hunch as correct posture, bending over and squatting hurt and I am also leaning to the left when standing. What a funny sight I am. But it is hurting lots, even after 4 neurophen over 5 hours.

So, very disappointing, I was really looking forward to playing tennis tomorrow and then going for a walk at 3pm around the lake with some girls from work.

After the back incident we went to a fancy restaurant for lunch today as it was cold and rainy and not at all nice sport watching weather (We meaning all the wives/girlfriends that had fiances/husbands playing soccer today). The food was great. We ordered off a lunch time dim sum menu and it was quite reasonable when main meals at dinner are 300RMB! I only paid 50RMB with a split bill.

Dim Sum, but not the ones we ate today.

Kane is still out at the pub after his tournament and is supposed to bring back some dinner for me so that I don't have to cook. I might relax and take some more pills!

Cheers

Kelly

Mum will be here in 4 weeks!

I can't believe how fast time is flying. In only 4 weeks Mum, Dave, Michael and Lachie will be here for a visit and they will be staying for 3 weeks. Time soooo flies. One lady at our school said that the time after Christmas goes so quick - she's is so right! I am so looking forward to having visitors - our first since we left Australia. We are going to Xian to see the Terracotta Soldiers and Horses and then onto Beijing to see the Great Wall, Forbidden Palace, Olympic stadium and a traditional tea house ceremony. We have 3 spare days in Beijing to see and do what we want as well. School has been able to organise tickets to the Shanghai Moto GP for Kane, Dave and the boys, so they are pretty psyched for that too. After that Kane and I have 2 weeks without visitors before his Mum and Gary come for a week as well. After that I think we only have 4 weeks of school before the end of the year and we cane come home to plan our...

WEDDING!!!!!

I'm not too excited eh!?

I am in a triathlon in about 6-7 weeks. I am only doing a mini version of 250m swim, 10km bike ride and 3.2km run. I can piece together the run at the moment, 2 laps non-stop in the pool, and haven't even thought about the ride yet. I need to do that soon. On Saturday I will do a bit of a practise run with a short swim, a bike ride home and a run on the treadmill. It won't be the whole distance, but it will give me a really good idea of where I'm at in terms of realistically finishing the real-deal. Kane is also going in the triathlon. He is in a relay team and is only doing the swim leg, but still he has to swim 30 laps non-stop.

So there is this weeks update, parent-teacher interviews next week on Wednesday/Thursday. Currently I only have 9 parents signed up. Hopefully it will stay like that :)

Shopping in Shanghai

This week we, (a few girls and myself) decided to head to Shanghai for some retail therapy. It is amazing how shopping can make a girl feel happy. I would really like to know if anyone has done a study on why it work so well and gets the happy vibes flowing.

We decided to head to 4 places. First we headed to Decathlon. Its a huge sports store with everything you can think of. I think it's a European store, but awesome and so cheap. I got some bathers, 2 tennis rackets, balls and 2 trackie pants. Love it. All for under $120AU

Our tennis rackets

The we headed to lunch at a restaurant called Element Fresh. It has a really good healthy menu. I got some clam chowder, which was so yummy and filled with veggies, it came with a crusty roll. We want one of those shops in Suzhou!

Next was the copy markets where I got two new style handbags and two cheap purses.
These are the two bags I got:




Finally onto Ikea, another great store where I got a plain white dinner set, a ventruvian man silk screen by Leonardo deVinci, King bed doona cover set, and a few odds and ends. All for under $180AU

I told Kane the statue above represented us!!!! LOL

I had the greatest day and was so tired by the end. It was a pity the boxing was on today (it gets in the road of everything) as we could have played tennis. But instead I went walking with some girls from work and headed down town to picket up some pants I've had made by a tailor.

Tomorrow I have my Chinese lesson out in downtown Suzhou. We are going to buy Chinese food from the food stalls near Suzhou University and ask "what is in it?"and "I want".

Nighty-night.

Warmish weather

It was a warmish day today. It got to 22, but the website says it felt like 27 outside. The weather is definitely improving though it is supposed to rain fro Sunday - Wednesday next week. I went for my weekly foot massage tonight that costs about $7AU, (it was one the rare good things about China) Lovely!

I came home and cooked a wonderfully nutritious meal of chicken, cabbage, yellow and red capsicum, snow peas and broccoli with brown rice. The sauce was sweet chili, oyster and soy sauce. It was really yum. Look how good it looked:

I'm pretty bored eh???!!!! But isn't Kane lucky - no wonder he's bulking up.

Kane and I are in training for the school triathlon that is to be held on the 9th of May this year. At the moment I will be doing the swim leg in a team situation. It is 10 laps (short length) or 30 laps (long length). I don't know if I want to do the run/bike, but did hear today that three pregnant ladies are doing it, so it kinda puts me to shame eh?!

Tata ;)

Dinner at Erin and Ron's

Last night we went and had dinner at Erin and Ron's, both teach at SSIS. We had a great dinner or brushetta, tomato, bacon and feta pasta and cherry, chocolate cheesecake. We had punch, lemon drop shots, wine and also played Skip-bo. Thanks to our pressie from Luke and Trish :)
The power went out for about 2 hours so dinner was by candle light and it was starting to get really cold too!

This morning Kane has a bit of a headache and just came back from the gym. I am trying to get some songs onto my ipod which is harder than it sounds as they are downloaded from Limewire and itunes doesn't exactly recognise them... great!

We need to go downtown later because I had some pants made at a tailor last week. I hope they're nice.

Wotz New?

I hadn't heard a single thing about the hijacking of 11 Australian tour guides in China until it flashed on the news this morning on the ABC news on PBO (Australian channel). Xian is also where Kane, myself and my family are going in May to visit the clay soldiers. Then Nan emailed to talk about it today. Funny, I'm in the country and had no idea. Like I have said so many times before, we are so removed and isolated due to the language issues that we have no idea what is going on except in our own little world. So what has been happening in our own little world?

We have been thinking about moving to a new apartment after the July/August break for various reasons. We are quite far out where we are at the moment. It costs a bit for a taxi to where most of the other teachers are and that is also where most of the amenities are as well. It currently takes an hour to get bread! A taxi from here to downtown is @40RMB, from where everyone else is is cost 10RMB. Socially it would help I think too.

Down side -

No satellite TV (no football!)

No central heating

Have to get up earlier to go to work

Get home later from work

We are not 100% decided, but are leaning towards in town rather than staying put, but as I type this I start thinking... am I over-reacting?

Anyway this is a photo of the place we are looking at. A bit messy, but they weren't expecting us.

We had Sushi rolls for dinner tonight. Don't worry... all ingredients were cooked. We had cooked prawns, carrot, cucumber, yellow capsicum, the seaweed paper, rice, soy sauce and wasabi. I went down and got the ingredients, prepped them and then Kane rolled them all. Here is dinner:

2nd time today!!!

OK - I went for my walk, 1.05minutes, pretty impressive, I will be sore tomorrow. I didn't see anyone whizz - damit. But I was still a spectacle!!!!!


Here are some of the photos from my school trip on Wednesday.

Wen Temple - Scholar and temple

Scholar

The only photo's I got from Canglangting have children in them so I can't post them.

A bull at Panmen

Panmen Pagoda

Waterfall in the garden at Panmen

Panmen fort - They were practicing for a movie the day we went.

The gates at Panmen for blocking entry/exit and taxes on the canals. Below is the lake t Panmen
That's it. I have more but I can't post them. The tall girl in the last photo with glasses on, she is Australian, Ann from Brisbane, she's like 6 foot something!

The weather is improving slowly

Today... I can see sunshine! The sky is blue (as blue as it gets through the pollution in China) and it may even be warm in the direct sunlight. You may notice that I am still sounding apprehensive and a tad cynical, and you would also be correct in thinking that I may even venture out into the Chinese air to attempt some walking today.
As we are in the middle of nowhere out here, I still feel a little anxious about walking by myself as for blocks and blocks, there are still marshes and workers with no buildings and not many cars. Anything could happen and no one would really know. I have to rely on the idea that I am a guai-lou (white ghost) and I am just stared at by most Chinese as if I am a hideous creation and still a bit of a spectacle. It may even humor me to count how many Chinese men was wizzing by the side of the road today... I might count that and let you know.
On Wednesday, all the Grade 2's and teachers at school went on a trip around Suzhou to look at it's main tourist attractions. We went to Wen Temple, Pan Men and Canglangting. Each place is the oldest of it's type. This is what I found on the web on each place because when we went there, everyone was talking in Chinese. There is very little English writing to read and because you are watching your kids attentively, you miss a lot of stimulation.

Wen Temple

Literature God’s Temple, or Wen Chang Dian. In the ancient days, scholars who studied and sat for the Imperial examination would come to the Literature God’s temple to pray. Wen Shu Pusa, the God of Literature, chose the official rank of scholars in Imperial China and protected the fate of those who were chosen. Today it’s not unusual to see concerned parents and nervous students paying homage to the Literature God before sitting the exams in their high schools or universities. Frustrated novelists or journalists with writer’s block might also be seen pacing back and forth on the temple grounds, muttering to themselves and lighting incense.

Panmen Gate

Located at the southwest corner of the city, the Panmen Gate was first constructed in 514 B.C. The much younger present one was built in 1351.Consisting of both land and water gates, which are rarely seen in the rest of the country, Panmen Gate towers in a majestic manner. Inside the gate are the Ruiguang Pagoda and Wumen Bridge, which, with the gate, make up the three Sights of Panmen.

Canglangting Pavilion

Not only one of the four most renowned Suzhou gardens, Canglangting is also the oldest existing garden in the city and a model of Song-dynasty gardens. It was first constructed in the 10th century, and Su Shunqin, a poet of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), gave it this name, meaning Surging Wave Pavilion. Its layout broke away from the traditional style of encircling tall walls. The garden is also an excellent illustration of "borrowing scenes" with the distant views seemingly within the garden. The rocks, winding corridor and flowery walls are the three characteristic features of Canglangting.

I honestly found each place somewhat disappointing. Coming out of winter, each place was dull and grey. It was cold and we were hungry. The temple was something to look at, but it was the stone tablets in a hidden room that they showed us that were of interest to me. We got to see the oldest map of the stars, the oldest map of China, the oldest map of Suzhou old town and and ancient inscription of the line of emperors, all inscribed on stone tablets. We were not allowed to take photographs of this - I got into trouble ;0. Canglangting was so small, cold, grey and bland. The kids were more interested in a talking bird than anything. Pan Men was probably of the most interest, it was big, with a huge pagoda, a lake and big fort for protection. It had the Panmen gates still there and that was really interesting.

My photos of the trip are on the computer at school and when I go and watch Kane play soccer today, I will get a copy and add them to this page.

Cheers,

I'm off for my walk...wish me luck

Kelly