Ah Friday again! (Marcus)

Actually it's good Friday today..I think. I was completely oblivious to the fact that this weekend is Easter until yesterday when I think Courtney mentioned it. If not for that, I would not have had a clue. I feel so oblivious to what's going on back home sometimes it's not funny. It's like we're in our own little bubble world - us and 4 zillion Chinese people.

This Friday marks day 1 of month 2. I can't believe we have been here a month now, eesh! I guess we have well and truly passed the early days of initial culture shock. Actually in hindsight I would have to say we're quite a way passed it now. Sometimes things can feel quite sucky, but I think we've found a bit of a groove and are coasting along in it.

Courtney is sick again unfortunately. More cold/flu like symptoms which she likely picked up from one of the students as there's quite a few sick at the moment apparently. Ah the joys of dealing with like 1500ish different kids per week...maybe even more.

So Wednesday, the 19th - or was it Thursday the 20th..one of the two, marked us being here a month. We feel a lot more comfortable than we did initially(Other than Courtney being sick again) and this week's lesson for the senior students has been quite successful. I taught it four times today and I have to say that by including a game or two into the mix definitely scores us brownie points with the teens.

Tomorrow all of the students we teach - Senior 1, Junior 1 and Gifted - actually, maybe only Senior 1 and Gifted - Mr Pan said around 900 kids - so yeah, not Junior 1 - are going on some big 'hike'. I asked Mr Pan how far it was and got about 7 different answers so lost interest. One of the students today told me its 12 km - I figure 6km there, 6km back. The students are going, and all of their teachers.

I am actually tossing up going - (Courtney isn't due to said illness) - because I think it might be a good chance to 'socialize' with some of the students and teachers and well, it might be fun. The only thing that worries me a little is my left foot. Since breaking it when I was a teenager, it can unpredictably become suddenly very painful for absolutely no reason, but generally when walking. So I will have a think about it and will see. If I go, I will take the camera along, because who knows what I will see on the trip. The thought of 900 kids alone crossing the streets around here cracks me up. Mr Pan said the teachers would guide them across - ie stop traffic etc, but China being China, most vehicles will continue on regardless..so yeah, that'll be comedy.

If I go on the walk tomorrow, we will go to WuXi city on Sunday - or if i don't go, we'll go Saturday. We really want to buy a new top or two each, and I really need a new pair of shoes. Living in the same 4ish tops, and same two pairs of shoes is really wearing them down to hell. The shoes you buy from the cheap market style places are really kind of crap. There's a few big department stores - actually that's not true, there's a LOT of big department stores in WuXi City, so I am sure we'll find something.

Right and finally, to prettify(tm) this wall of text, here's some photos - taken using my mobile phone(so sorry the quality isnt as good).

Have been trying to get a closer shot of these kind of guys since arriving here but never have the actual camera when we see them. You have to admire their loading skills. It's not dangerous or anything cruising around with that kind of load. I should start an album dedicated to stuff we've seen on the back of trucks and motorcycles alone. I think my favourite is still one we saw after being here a few days where this guy is riding by on a scooter with a huge pane of glass horizontal across the bike..down where his legs were.

This is apartment construction as I have mentioned before. You see these ALL over the place. So many it's hard to comprehend. It goes from being a fugly mess covered with bamboo scaffolding and the like as you can see above, and suddenly turns into hey presto new apartments.

Ok I mentioned this traffic jam the other day. The photo doesn't really do it justice. This is outside of Metro. The car's here are basically banked up. To the left you can see car's pulling out of Metro, blocking a bus and a lot of other traffic behind them. It was grid-locked like this for over ten minutes. Why? Because the stream of cars on the right would NOT, repeat NOT let those cars cutting in..in. And of course those cars tried to cut in regardless - they couldn't give a rat's ass what they were blocking. This is what I love about China, it's every man for himself on the road. There were at least 5-10 passenger busses caught up in the jam, it was lovely.

And last but not least, there's nothing quite so refreshing as Acid Milk. Mmh Yeah.

Vindication! (Marcus)

I think that yesterday I turned the corner and actually became a teacher...or an asshole, either way, it was great!

The lesson I put together this week for our Senior 1 students(the 17-18 yr olds) has been quite difficult to actually teach. On paper it looked great. It was mostly pilfered from the web-site I joined and adapted slightly. It's tricky with our students(and i suppose all students) as we have to make what we teach them relevant to their cultural perspective or situation.

The subject of the lesson was Recreation, and well, this I think was a mistake from the beginning. In my mind it was an important topic to touch on as it lead to many western examples - western culture supposedly being interesting to most of the students(So the teachers keep telling us). When we tried to lead class discussions, it didn't work out well.

The problem here is these guys are really, really missing out on an important part of their lives. The amount of time they are in class or being forced to study is positively ridiculous. I don't have their exact schedule, but they're basically up at 6am every day, have to then do excercises, eat then it's basically off to class. Some days have things like sport and yay cleaning the school grounds amongst the lessons to mix it up a bit. Each day they dont actually finish till 9pm, and I think that lights out for bed is about 9:30pm. Their actual classes finish about 6pm I believe, when dinner is(5:50pm precisely from memory), and then they have to do 'self-study', which is sit in the class room and do homework and things like that. Now I don't know about you, but to me, it's ridiculous.

When do these kids actually get to be kids? They don't. They have to squeeze in their 'recreation' when they can. They only get approximately 4 days off a month as actual weekend time. They have all the same interests as western kids. They like to read, watch movies, play sports, play computer games, shop, listen to music - it's just that they're not actually given any time to do it - or basically minimal time weekly, tops.

I know this is a product of what you would have to call over-population. These kids have a great chance to really succeed in the future, whereas litterally millions don't have any chances. But either way, it's a raw deal when you look at it. And you can see why my lesson on HEHE Recreation didn't go over particularly well. It wasn't _bad_, it just didn't get the response I would have liked. One of the activities which involved matching words into their relevant Sport, Movie or Music category was quite successful.

Anyhow - and I feel like a bit of a prick now recounting my tale after that little description above!

Each class has the 'typical' students. The one's who are..well, the ones who are basically me back in school. The one's reluctant to do work. The one's sitting in the back corner chatting and outright refusing to do any of the things asked of them unless forced. The ones who speak in Chinese until you patrol near them in which case it's suddenly, "What is the most popular sport in China?" then reverts back to "Ni hao! blah blah blah"

Whenever I deal with these kids I try to remind myself, yeah, they're at that age...the age I was once at, they're teens. They have teen attitude. Although infinitely easier to deal with than what Western teens would be like(anyone watch Summer Heights High?!), they're still a handful and difficult to find the right activities and spoken things for them to actually get involved and participate.

So anyway yesterday I had two classes with the usual suspects up the back, doing their thing. It makes it very difficult for me as it's hard to ignore them and continue on with the class when they so blatantly are choosing not to do anything I tell them. In something that involves writing, I walk up to them and say - Guys...write it down...and they hurry to it. 3 paces away and they're bullshitting around again.

So yesterday I took the power back and I think somehow turned into a teacher(or a prick :)). Usually when people are asked to read things out(which is every class), they do so at their desk. But today? That all changed. Today a new Marcus rule came into place.

We did what was previously an unsuccessful activity. Getting them to go through a long list of questions in boxes and fill them out about their peers. What sport do they like to play/watch, what movies, what books etc etc. Half the class always did it, the handful at the back...naaah.

New rule - you come out and stand IN FRONT of the class on the teachers platform and read it out. But who did I pick? Firstly someone I knew who had done it - then I picked two who had written absolutely nothing. I couldn't keep the grin off my face, it felt wonderful. They came out, read - what i assume they made up on the spot - hands nice and shakey, then I clapped them along with the class - ahh encouragement.

Class number 2? 2 who had done it, and 3 specifically who had done absolutely jackshit after being asked twice in my rounds. It was priceless.

I am pretty sure they got the message, and if they didn't, it doesn't really matter as no matter what the activity is next time, they will be up there again, and again, and again and again until they actually DO SOME GODDAMN WORK!!)(($!)(*%&

Mosquitos = Suck (Marcus)

Ok straight up, there is one thing that is really starting to shit me in this place - the mozzies. I have just been swiping at one for the last five minutes and it keeps getting away. I remember waking up in the middle of the night last night, my little finger so itchy it was actually keeping me from getting back to sleep. I HATE the bloody little bastards. We have a can of Raid which is good if you can see them. We bought a little device which plugs in, which you slip a little tab of something onto it and it smells - there's absolutely no english on the box, and while the product is made by Raid, I cant find them on the Raid website. I might upload a photo. If anyone knows what the hell they do, please let me know. I think the smell it emits either keeps them away from that particular area or poisons them. God knows.

In the apartment we had a few actual holes to the outside world - yeah, real great design. There was one hole which was recently drilled through the built in balconey for the air conditioner/heater unit. There was one that's been here all along, and i suspect the main source of mozzies. In the bathroom behind the toilet, there was a hole through the floor which the washing machines hose goes out. I have stuffed plastic bags in both holes to 'seal them up' - until I can find something more permanant anyway. There's so much water in this part of China, SO much water. Every area we have been in is cut up by canals and large pools of free-standing water which i assume is used for farming of different varieties. Consiering how dirty it is, I am not surprised it will be mozzie infested. Then there's also the school's lake which is a stones throw away from here. So yeah, joy.

The last occupant of this apartment obviously enjoyed them too, as the almost every wall in every room has at least 4-5 squashed mozzies on them. At least I have basically no care for this place. We were given it filthy, and that's how they will get it back. I have no intention of being careful with the walls and whatever else. I hope to add many many many more mosquito carcasses while I am here.

Rich man, Poor Man (Marcus)

This evening after we had finished with our three classes of the day, and I had enjoyed my third and final coffee, we walked over to the 'front door' supermarket. The school's campus has two entrances; the main entrance known as the 'front door' and the...see if you can guess the name of the other one? Yep, the Back Door! Both entrances have a guard station and some of the most friendly security guards ever. Every single time we pass them they make sure to give us huge smiles and a wave. One day we even brought them back some snacks which we aren't sure if they appreciated or not.

Actually that reminds me, the other day we came back from the shops (to them it must look like we're setting up our own supply chain as we are always coming in with bags and bags and misc items), one of the guards calls us in. We go into the guard station and he has written something down on a piece of paper. Twice he has a word in what looks like attempted English, one above the other, then beside the top one, there's chinese characters. To me it looked like he had seen us, had been meaning to ask us something and quickly wrote it down. The thing that had me stumped, was the english word looked like this: ozedolar - like..aussie dollar?! but Ozzie or somesuch. Anyway after about 3-4 minutes of language barrier failure, we smiled and walked on our way. This is where it's extremely frustrating not being able to speak a conversational level of chinese. It feels really awkward when you simply can NOT understand what the hell they are saying. I think I expected more people in China to at least have basic english knowledge - and by basic I mean really basic - but it is surprising as most actually can speak precisely 0.0001% english, and that is HELLOOOOOOOOOO.

* For the record, I am not one of these American style people who arrived here expecting everyone to speak the aryan language of English.

Anyhow the two supermarkets are seemingly both from the same chain, Shanghairuhai or somesuch. The back door one is basically just a supermarket with some street food vendors out front. The one out the front door is a whole lot different. Both of them aren't across the road or anything, but they are approximately the same distance away. We cross the road(no small feat here), walk down one block, then it's on the corner across the road - demanding another street cross(which again is no small feat!)

The front door supermarket rocks - plain and simple. It's a much larger supermarket for one, but the cool part is the fact it's upstairs. Below it is a massive fresh food market. The fresh food market is where we have been buying slowly increasing numbers of produce. This combined with the supermarket upstairs(which is actually kind of Western style - devoid of english or western products though of course) and the fresh food market, it's a great place. The clincher here is the 'food street' that runs beside it. Now this place just outright rocks. This is the kind of place I am going to miss most when we eventually head home. Here you can buy a massive assortment of 'cooked on the spot' goodies. From sweetened breads, to omelette style pancakes, to the freshly popped honeyed popcorn that Courtney has basically been living on. Stuffed buns, dumplings, fresh fruit, you name it, it's here. It has simply the best atmosphere and is full of some of the nicest people.

On the way into the supermarket there was a beggar. We have seen a few of them around - in the Shanghai train station and sometimes around this supermarket. There is something about these beggars that really gets me. Mr Pan said something when we passed one in the car one day that really stuck in my mind. He said, "When I am working, I like to give them a coin." That comment is so China to me. China is so diverse, from people have incredible amounts of money, to people who are so poor we can barely comprehend it from our comfortable western lives.

These people are _so_ poor. Not only poor, but they look incredibly weathered. These are not dole-bludging druggies like we'd find back home - homeless by choice(and I know not all homeless are there by choice) - these are people who are impossibly poor for some reason or another. Everyone here works their fingers to the bone until the day they die. For someone to beg like this, we can only guess the situation behind it. They might have injured themselves so they couldn't work or something similar. Either way, these people still don't look like they are complaining. They are just there. They don't hassle you or follow you, they just sit or stand there with their bowl, hoping people will help them. I have been trying to likewise give them coins when I see them as I did tonight. I dug through my coins the other day to give some to a beggar but he was gone by the time I got back.

When we drive around the place - in particular between campuses, when you look down some of the side streets, you see shanty towns. You see people washing their long black hair in a bowl by the side of the road. Some of these people live in absolute squalor, yet next door are some quite modern looking highrise apartments. I cant help but think that every time we complain about something in our place, these people are a stone's throw away, likely without running water or electricity.

So when I see these beggars, I like to give them a little. To us, it's absolute peanuts, to them, it might be the only meal they have that particular day.

We were at the lights the other day, returning from the other campus and this old man..he must have been 90 or so, seriously, this tiny old man came walking across the intersection. Across his shoulders, held on a stick(you would have see the way they carry things on TV), he's bearing two huge sacks full to the brim with rubbish. It looked heavy as hell, and he was stooped over almost in half. He would likely return home and pick through his stash for things that can possibly be recycled or sold. You would never see this kind of thing back home. As hard as this old guy likely lives, I bet he's never once complained about his lot in life. This is one of the things that constantly strikes me about the Chinese, they just are who they are.

Special for you my friend! (Courtney)

So we have been shoppping up a storm of late...well actually, everyday it feels like we do shopping of some sort! Most days see a trip to the market, or to get street vendor food, or a popcorn run. And then there are the days when we trek out to get things for the house and random outings with Mr Pan. It feels like we do more shopping than teaching at the moment! So I thought I would do a post purely on our most recent purchases...

First, some Shanghai treats...

A couple of small painting we picked up at a market. Supposedly the fish mean

fortune and the blossom...hmm..happiness, good luck?! I reckon you could point

to a discarded piece of rubbish around here and it would have some "meaning".

The cutest dolls ever...end of story. Of course they are Japanese, not Chinese. Underneath you can see our rather large collection of pirate dvds.

Next, our recent adventures to the shopping mega mall of Wuxi. This place is seriously HUGE...

We wanted to get a remedy for the mosquitos...turns out a good old mossie net was in order! I have NEVER, EVER been involved in a more frustrating transaction. Mr Pan wanted to buy two as well, so we just said we would get what he was getting. Mr Pan is a wonderful man, and our one true friend in China...yet by the end of this I thought I was going to have to moonslap him, he annoyed me that much. He simply would not believe that we have a "big" bed, insisting that our bed is small and trying to get us to buy the smaller net. Our bed is absolutely huge, and there was literally nothing we could do to convince him. We said that the bed is bigger than Marcus, tried everything...nope, your bed is small you must buy this one. I am saying no, we are not buying the net because it is too small. I pull out the big net. Mr Pan takes big net from my hands, puts back in the box and replaces it with small net.."you buy this one". No Mr Pan, I want this one!!!! In the end, he called someone (yet to find out who this mystery person was) to confirm the size of our bed. We were like, we know how big the freaking bed is!!! We sleep on it every night! Whoever the person on the phone was confirmed the size of the bed and we were then allowed to purchase the net. Not before a round of haggling. I am not kidding when I say we were in this store for half and hour arguing over sizes and prices...needless to say it was after this that we went home. In complete disregard for the net it lies abandoned on the floor of our bedroom.

Here kitty kitty! Our new kitty bank...yup, it's a money box!

We bought a couple of rugs from the floor. I love the fake persian look...different, noice..

And of course the never ending supply of snacks that enter our house. Seriously, Marcus and I should not be able to go the supermarket together, as all we return with are snacks. You could not believe the quantity of candy, cakes, and just general sweet things that are available here. The supermakets are basically for toiletries, dried goods, chips and snacks. No actual "food". So next time you are at your local Safeway, take a look at the size of the fruit and veg section. Now remove every piece of fruit and replace it all with lollies. I'm not kidding you...

The very tasty looking animal biscuits and coffee gum. In reality, both bad.

Unfortunately the camera is full, otherwise I would also show you some of our other purchases, including the "special" pot Mr Pan made me buy yesterday. "Very famous in China!" (as is everything mind you). So I had to buy this special pot to make porridge for breakfast. Mr Pan thinks it is very bad that I eat cereal for breakfast, and that I should be making porridge. He raved on about this pot so much. Turns out, it is your standard pressure cooker. Of course, as all things go, Mr Pan came over this morning to give me a cooking lesson on how to use the pot (which nearly resulted in us setting the pot on fire, surprise surprise!). Tonight we walked up to one of the supermarkets to purchase all the necessary ingredients..namely red and green beans to put in the pot with the rice. I'm not such a fan of this idea for breakfast, so managed to sneak in some dates, sultanas and dried bits of peach!

Speaking of cooking (Mr Pan actually assured me today that the pot would not explode whilst he used it), we all remember the first day when Mr Pan exploded the microwave. Even now I could laugh uncontrollably remembering this. So we brought this up with Mr Pan the other day, saying how we thought it was really funny and trying to explain that Australians have a funny sense of humour. He says to us (read in a Chinese accent), "I feel very very bad that day, very sorry for you that I did that. I go home to Oolan (his wife) and say what happen. She say to me, Zili (his first name) you are a fool!!" Marcus and I are killing ourselves laughing again and he is deadly serious. The emphasis he put on the word fool, I could just imagine Oolan berating him!

We have also bought a very cool teapot, and a couple of tea cups. I am planning on buying many more in our time here! Along with a couple of plants, a vase for flowers, and quite a bit of decorating with all of your photos now on the walls. Yesterday we also got our hands onto the extra mattress thing for the bed, it has made a big difference, the bed actually has a bit of give in it now. It's still not ideal, but it's definately better.

Finally, a shot of a swan. Why you ask? Well at the school, around the lake there are all these black swans, and white swans. They pretty much keep to themselves, the black swans doing their thing, the white swans equally preoccupied. So the other day I was pondering whether they ever cross bred. The reason this came to mind, was because as I went to class on Friday I was crossing the bridge with a whole bunch of students when two of the swans got a little amorous. You had to hear the outburst from the kids!! So it got me thinking. Sure enough, a couple of days later what do I spy...a half and half swan! He seems to hang with the black swans, but kind of always towards the back. I wonder if he knows he is different?! Those mixed race swans!

Until next time.... =)

Massages, Metro, Mosquitos and (Blind) Men (Courtney)

Hey, I'm an English teacher, I'm supposed to be able to aliterate!

So it's Saturday night, about 7:30, and for want of nothing better to do I thought I would make a blogpost. I suppose you could say our social life isn't exactly "rocking" at the moment. But at the same time, we are both happy to have a night in just relaxing at "home".

I'm kicking back on the wooden couch, listening to the soulful sounds of Gotye, a bit of Bic Runga and Sarah Blasko thrown in to the mix, and am steadily making progress on the first bottle of wine I have seen, let alone drunk, in almost a month.

I suppose I should apologise now incase I start to ramble, as I the wine seems to be going straight to my head ;-) So much so that when I went to pour myself a second glass, I accidentally opened the second bottle I bought...which now means I have two open bottles of not great wine in the fridge, which will surely go off over the next few days..and will see me having wasted quite a few Chinese dollars!

Alas..

Tonight was supposed to be English corner, which we ditched. Well, to be honest, I ditched, and will happily cop any wrath that comes our way. Marcus was quite looking forward to English corner, which I admire him for, as I am yet to muster the same enthusiasm. Marcus forced me out of the house at 5:30, we get to English corner and there are no other teachers. I'm already not wanting to be there (I was acting somewhat like my sulky, attitude prone "Class 15" on Friday mornings...I'm sure my parents will be able to picture my teenage mood...), and the thought of attempting to run this by ourselves just simply does not appeal. The last one we went to probably attracted 100 kids, not a lot considering we tackle class sizes of 55 alone. So really, it's nothing we couldn't handle together, but it's just that one extra expectation that gets to me. And as Marcus has mentioned before, it's all the good kids that attend, which only compounds the guilt of not wanting to be there. But we did the right thing and showed up, but shortly headed home when we realised there were no other teachers there. Who knows what took place after this, as I'm pretty sure the kids either didn't know what to do or just ran riot at the thought of having 90 minutes to themselves with no adults watching them. I have no doubt we will hear about this at some point in the following days.

So I'm quite happy to say I'm at home on SATURDAY night, and not teaching. As mentioned above, I've been having some dramas with Class 15. They are my first class on a Friday, and due to timetable changes, means that they are the first class I roll out our new lesson to. So my lack of confidence, combined with never being truly ready for a new lesson, along with their attitude generally results in mayhem. I haven't been able to put my finger on it until yesterday, whenI realised what the underlying problem was. I've noticed that the girls in this class are unusally cheeky, they have an almost "flirtatious" attitude, like they are going to get out of high school and go a little crazy. So yesterday whilst they did the first activity (or pretended to), I counted the kids. Out of a class of 52, only 14 are girls. There are THIRTY EIGHT boys in this class...and that is where the problems begin. The boys have somehow corrupted the girls and turned them into terrors. If this was Australia, I have no doubt one of them would be pregnant by now. Of course though, as always happens, the classes we expect to be bad and visa versa, never really happen. So on Friday, I have class 15 in the morning, then class 8 & 2 in the afternoon. Class 8 & 2 are my faves...yet this week they let me down. It was as though Class 8 had conspired against me...as they sat in utter silence for 40 minutes. I'm not kidding. If you have some spare time over the next few days, attempt to fill 40 minutes of silence in front of 55 kids...not quite my idea of how I like to spend my time. Literally not a peep. Class 2 bouyed my spirits...but only slightly. I left feeling as though they all hate me. Bring on Monday hey!

On a happier note though, one of my girls in Class 8 last week asked me to help her pick an English name. This is a daunting task! Well duuuhhh says everyone with a child. So I told her I would come back this week with a list of different names and their meanings. I saw her after class yesterday with the list (go me for remembering who she was!), which contained all sorts of names. Top of the list was "Sarah", which I must admit I did unashamedly push. So I am happy to report she chose the name Sarah!

Last night Mr Pan took us to a massage place just down the road - so close you couldn't imagine. We have actually walked past this place, and after we had been there, found it somewhat unbelievable that we hadn't noticed! So we both received massages off two blind men, massage seems to be a fantastic job option for the blind of China. It makes perfect sense really, the ability to feel and define things with their hands so much better than a seeing person. And from what we can gather, it seems a safer environment, where they would be paid a decent wage and looked after. After all, there is no social security system in this country, it's every man for himself, which is a harrowing thought for the number of disabled and just hard done by people in this country. So we were led up about 3, maybe 4 flights of the steepest steps I have ever encountered. I was barely managing them myself, when I realised the man in front of me was blind, and then all I could think was how does he navigate the way back down?? We were massaged in a double room, which was good as it allowed us a couple of sneaky, laughy looks at each other at the beginning. The Chinese simply do not understand the meaning of relaxing, there was so much noise throughout the massage...but it's something that you eventually zone out to around here! A little while into the massage, the man I had, something on his belt area started talking, like a transistor radio. I was lying there with this thing yelling Chinese in my ear, thinking jeez!! The noise! Of course the next time it went off I picked up on the words and I realised it was actually a version of a watch telling him the time, and then I proceeded to feel like the biggest, meanest idiot for the rest of the massage.

The massage was great. But it was in all honesty, the hardest massage I have ever had. I seriously thought he was trying to push me through the table. At one point I feared my ribs were going to snap, and then he put so much pressure on my back that my windpipe was actually cut off for a good 15 seconds against the face hole. It was intense!! My back today is very tender, and I think if I actually looked might possibly be bruised...but it was all worth it and we will be going back very soon! It was so good to find a place so close to home, as our district Dong Ting sometimes appears a little lacking!


The weather over the last few days is slowly improving. Actually, it's improving quite fast, but is a bit sporadic. Spring has officially started, and the temperature is definately on the up. We had a couple of days during the week that were about 20, however the nights are still very cold. The grounds around the school are looking greener, with leaves and flowers springing up. The weather is still unpredictable though, and we had a couple of freezing/raining days during the week, which we anticpate will continue as we have been told a couple of times that "we must still look after ourselves" during spring as the weather can still be very cold. With the turn in the weather comes another unexpected happening...mosquitos! Yes, whilst it might a chilly 16 degrees outside, it appears that the mosquitos are ready to unleash their reign of terror! We should have known, when you consider the walls are covered in splattered mosquitos, but really expected it not to start until closer to summer. Needless to say we are both sporting some bites (HOW do they get under the doona?!) and will be asking Mr Pan tomorrow to let us in on whatever bit of Chinese wisdom he can to allieviate the problem. And knowing Mr Pan, he will have some obscure remedy!

Speaking of Mr Pan, he is taking us shopping tomorrow to some market to buy cheap rugs. We have this large expanse of fake wood floor in the apartment and think that a couple of rugs around the place will make us more comfortable and absorb some of the echo factor that the apartment has. At the same time we are going to ask him to drive us to the German emporium, otherwise known as Metro. We caught the bus there this afternoon to get some bits and pieces, and decided that we want to get a vacuum cleaner (hang the expense!) and this incredily luxurious looking extra fluffy mattress top for the bed! We have been thinking of different ways to make the bed more comfortable, and short of sewing together a huge quantity of cushions, we figured there must be something we could buy that would be bed size. Well we found it today in Metro. They come in these huge zip up bags, and are like a quilt, but filled with a foam substance. We think it will be just enough to make the bed more comfie (and if not we will be going back to buy another...). I actually patted it and told it we would return tomorrow. Turns out the damn thing costs 1000 yuan...Mr Pan is likely to fall over when he sees this figure..but it is highly worth it. Keeping in mind 1000 yuan is not even $200, but it seems a lot when you put it into perspective of other things.

Anyhoo, I'll leave it there for now before my fingers get the better of me ;-)


Perhaps it's time for another glass of wine?!

Pan Park! (Marcus)

Courtesy of my mobile phone ninja photographic skills - here I was able to finally capture one of Mr Pan's superb parking efforts.

Last night we went to have our first massage in China in what turned out to be a hellishly cool place. For FOUR DOLLARS Australian we had a 30 minute massage from two blind men. It seems the blind here are put to work as masseurs and I have to say the neck and back massage I had was fantastic. Gentle and it felt expert. Courtney said her guy was trying to push her through the floor he was massaging her so hard.

Anyway the guy I had was great, gentle and felt like a complete pro, touching on all the muscles of my neck and back indivually. This place also does Acupuncture too I am told. The whole place was very large and multiple levels - oh and warm - something that's not common in China, as even when it's freezing they seem to love letting in air via open windows.

Anyway this is Mr Pan's parking effort. His car is the blue, new looking Peugeot. There was a small gap between two cars - nothing like just jamming yourself in between them vertically!

And on an unrelated note, here is the side of the box of tissues on every table at one of the small local restaurants around here. "Just for you. I like to eat the biscuit, I to love the imagination." I don't just think, I KNOW there's a little something in that for all of us.