The giant of Wuxi came..and went. (Marcus)

In what became a lightning tour of China, Nick came and went in what felt like the blink of an eye. But we had fun! It was great to see him, as for the uninformed he has been living in the UK(for just over a year now), so every visit however small, is a treat.

We brought him with us from Shanghai to Wuxi, that was cooking in 38 degree heat. A school and local district tour was in order, and I was actually somewhat disappointed by the lack of staring! I think most people were too hot to be overly bothered - or my other theory is that with three of us, we have more numbers on our side so the starers become the miniority when it's small groups versus us.

Unlike the school, we are absolutely not proud of the giant golden apple. If you come visit us however, you WILL be photographed in front of it.

He did get some stares in KFC though when I returned to the table with my food and promptly dropped my large pepsi into his lap. LUCKY for him it bounced on his..crotch, then exploded on the floor. It could have been infinitely worse ;)

Wednesday was a day spent in the city. We took him for a quick meal of pizza at a new Papa John's restaurant in town, then all around the Nanchang(whatever it's called) Temple market - a good 'Chinesey' place to check out if you're only in town for one day. Here we browsed through the stalls when it started to rain..hard. Taking shelter in the middle of the market in what is quite a nice little pond area, we settled down to do some..GOLDFISH fishing. Yes that's right, we fished for goldfish.

I never thought I would actually do something so stupidly well stupid, but yes, I can now say I have fished for goldfish. It was a lot more challenging than I would have thought and I dare say addictive. It is highly likely I may be back there tomorrow at dawn trying my luck. The three of us sat down under the shelter of some large umbrella's(it was pouring at this stage) and drooped our tiny hooks into the ponds. It was looking grim until as per usual, I came through with the goods and hooked an absolute whopper! It must have been all of 5 cm or so! Courtney hooked the next one, leaving Nick questioningly his masculinity..fishless. Finally, after what felt like hours, Nick hooked a fish which I had to kick in the camera's macro lense to capture on film.

As it was still raining, we caught a cab to a German beer garden set in a traditional looking Chinese building/teahouse, then at night we headed off to TGI Fridays - what is frighteningly becoming our dinner destination of choice. Here many beers and cocktails were consumed whilst Nick picked up a fanboy; one of the TGI staff who we think was wanting Nick to go skateboarding with him.

After dinner we walked around the city, Nick happy to pick up the entire Bond movie series for a whopping $10.00 AUD or so and showed him some of the cooler shopping areas which are all nice and lit up.

Then it was home and well Thursday we just had a look around Decathalon(big sports shop) and headed out to Metro to grab some food but the weather could not have been more feral. The sun was potent as hell and the humidity was what you'd called textbook unbearable.

All in all it was a quick few days, but super damned awesome to spend some time with my brother and I'm already missing his consistently great company. We will do our absolute best to make it over to the UK and visit him next - though after our China venture, we're a tad broke.

One cool thing about Nick's visit that we didn't realize - what must seem completely abnormal to him, feels completely normal to us now. With someone like him here, completely new to the whole China experience, we suddenly get an idea at just how much we have settled into what used to feel like living on Mars. From the language barrier to be the only foreigners, it's strange to suddenly have a benchmark to compare ourselves to.

Safe travels back to Australia and then the UK, little(6'5") brother!

Nick doing what Nick does best. Here we introduced him to Mons(tm) at one of our favourite local restaurants. ** Yes yes I know what it's real name is, sheesh.

Booyah!

Goldfish fishing. At this point I was feeling pretty happy, as I didn't realize that the only photo that had been taken of me with my monster catch was on Nick's phone, and he wouldn't be able to get it off it for weeks!R%!%&()&!)(!!!!

Score! Courtney's catch was almost half a mouthful! Mmm Mmmh!!

This shots decieving. While it looks normal, we actually had the triple telescopic binocular lens attachment on the camera in order to see Nick's fish!

Nick with his fanboy, Hugh, behind him.

And last but not least, it's always a pleasure to be woken up at 7am in the morning by marching students shouting, YI ER SAN SU!!!!(1,2,3,4) first thing in the morning.