Team Wuxi is go!: The weekend...(Courtney)

Firstly some announcements...

Happy Birthday Sarah!! We hope you had a great day and are thinking of you! Looking forward to our skype celebration xx

Congratulations to Adrian and Naomi!! Little Mahalia Eve arrived on Thursday afternoon after a long labour and emergency c-section. But after all the fanfare all are doing well. We look forward to seeing some pics and of course meeting the little bub in person! xx

So the weekend is drawing to a close, sadly as obviously this means the beginning of a new working week. Even more problematic is the fact we are yet to do any lesson planning for this coming week. Oops! Normally we try to get the lessons out of the way by mid week but we have been very lazy this week. Alas, I'm sure we will come up with something in the morning. But this week is also the May Holiday so I think we finish up about lunchtime on Wednesday - woo hoo!! We have no plans for next weekend, other than doing some sightseeing in Wuxi and hopefully finally find a few of these so called gardens we hear about.

But enough about next weekend, let's talk about this weekend. We have had another busy weekend but a very good weekend. Friday night we caught up with Matt and Abby at an Australian bar for ANZAC day drinks. A couple of teachers from Abby's school also came along. The bar was...odd. It was like we had been transported to a pub in outback Queensland, yet with Chinese people, which would obviously never happen in outback Queensland! A lot of older western men with their Chinese wives. Each to their own but it's just that boring steriotype that is inescapable around these parts! Anyhoo, it was good to hang out and have a few beers. Marcus and I had gone to one of our little restaurants for dinner beforehand then managed to flag down a taxi on the street. We still have no idea how to ask to go to the city, but I had a business card for a city teahouse in my bag. I asked the driver to take us there and no problemo, he knows where to go. Of we go on our way, but as we are driving down this narrow chaotic side street the driver slows and starts pointing at a shop. We are like, ah, no not exactly where we want to go. I start fumbling around for my little phrase book to try and find the word for downtown, thinking oh good lord he's going to make us get out here! Then he ducks into the shop and we think, ok he must be asking for directions. Nope...he's getting himself some dinner!! Only in China could these things happen. Funny how you just go with it as well. If I was in a cab in Melbourne and the cabbie suddenly decided on my money to stop and get some food I probably wouldn't be too impressed!

But the best was yet to come. Once he starts driving, we get to this large intersection. Our side of the road is completely banked up, no one is moving. No problemo...the driver just pulls onto the other side (this is one of those large roads with a big barrier down the middle) and drives for a good couple of kilometres down the wrong side of the road! Now, we do spend an abnormal amount of time on the wrong side of the road here, it's just the way things are done. But this was something else! And he drove at normal speed with cars coming straight for us, just casually flashing his high beams to warn people. Anyhow, we made it out alive.

Whilst the taxis might be an interesting experience, we haven't yet been game enough to jump in one of the bicycle rickshaw things. We see too many of them laying on their sides...generally underneath cars...

So we hung out at the bar for a couple of hours before heading off after the band started. It was so loud and just killed the conversation entirely - which is hard when you have only just met the people! We called it a night as we had to be up early for the Chinese extravaganza wedding of the century on Saturday. I'm not kidding when I say it was one of the highlights of our time here so far and I am so glad we got to experience the glitz and glamour of a modern Chinese wedding. It was surreal and hysterical - I think every photo of me I am basically killing myself laughing. But we will do a separate blog post on the wedding as we not only have photos but will hit you up with some spectacular videos too!

The rest of Saturday was spent hanging out in the sun and a bit of a walk, whilst Marcus got over the affects of quite a bit of rice wine! He claims to have not been affected much but he literally did not shut up talking dribble for about 4 straight hours. Yup, sober as a judge ;-)

Whilst inside I could hear our little trio of boys playing outside our window. These three are always together, messing around. Sadly they don't seem to have much to play with, but they make do with things they find. We saw them a couple of weeks ago playing hide and seek in the bamboo, with the "seeker" clearly cheating and looking as his friends ran to hide. But by far the best was when two of them were out playing, when one had the call of nature. So he started doing his business only to realise how much more fun it would be to chase his friend whilst peeing and try to hit him!! Oh did I laugh as they ran around. So I can hear them playing and I stick my head out the window. One of them has found one of those silver reflective things you put in car windscreens and is protectively carrying it around. The other two are attempting to climg a tree - their favourite pasttime. Suddenly one of their fathers comes looking for them, so of course they attempt to hide as all children do...

Very cute!

Then the boy with the windscreen thing decides to climb the other tree with the windscreen thing of course...

Step one..climb tree.

Step 2...position windscreen thing.

Step 3 - oh no! It's blowing away!

Step 4 - Ah, nap time with my windscreen blankie!
I absolutely love these boys.

Today we were up bright and early for our next Chinese language class (side note...there is a monumental amount of fireworks going off right now. They are right next door and they are going to town!! The funniest part is that they have set off about 5 car/scooter alarms under the teacher's apartments...you want to hear the noise as I type this, the loungeroom is flashing with colour, they love their fireworks!) Neither of us were really in the studying mood this morning, so the three hour class felt like about 5 hours, most of which we spent praying the teacher wouldn't ask us to pronounce things. Very glad when it was over! After class we headed to Matt and Abby's, as Abby had extended an invitation to all of us to come to their place for lunch. We had a great afternoon at their place chatting with other people and eating some very yummy, home cooked food. We spent a lot of the time sharing our experiences of China and funny things that have happened, along with various teaching stories. I hope we didn't bore Matt too much with all our teaching stories!

We were talking about how fascinated the Chinese are with us all (you had to see the looks we got as 8 foreigners all walked to the bus stop!) but the best story fell to one of the guys, whose name I simply cannot remember and feel bad for not remembering. He is from the UK but I think originally from Kenya. The little group we had was quite multicultural, between Australia, New Zealand, America, England, Pakistan etc. So this guy looks so completely different from the Chinese and we got onto hair cuts. Someone says, I just have to ask you- how have you gone getting your hair cut?? As obviously this guy has lived here for 3 years and has an afro - something that has to be tended to at some point! He starts to chuckle as we ask whether the people were just fascinated by his hair. To which he replies, well, yes, the whole street attended the hair cut!! Ha ha ha...I can just imagine the Chinese yelling to other shop owners, on their phones to friends and family "you gotta get down here and check this out!!" They would have just been overwhelming in their curiosity. He was saying one little girl didn't believe his hair was real and would only believe him once she was allowed to touch..and pull it!! She was convinced once she couldn't just pull the hair off his head. Ah the Chinese...such an inquisitive people!

So the weekend was really good. We ducked into Carrefour which is a large French supermarket opposite Matt and Abby's to check out what they sold. A lot of good things but like everything it's either expensive or we can really get by without a lot of it other than some "necessities". We found deoderant there so bought some for the hell of it seeing as though it was there in front of us and we are yet to find any anywhere else.

Oh, and Matt and Abby live on the 13th floor of an apartment complex closer to the city. It's got quite a view - Chinese style of course. Whilst we were out on the balcony, we noticed kites being flown from a nearby park. Nothing unusual in this. Until you realise the kites are above the buildings!! They are so high I don't even know how the flyer could see where the kite was in amongst the smog and glare. Not to mention how big the spool must be holding all of that string..I can't help but imagine some huge wheel and crank winding it all back in. They must have been a good 20 floors above the ground. Kite flying is a pretty popular thing around here, and is definately something we will do before we leave!