garbage

That's the only way to describe the Canaries start to the season. Utter garbage.

A couple of strange things today:

1. We were in the supermarket - think Tescos - and at the checkout Aytun noticed that the person's bag one aisle over from us was moving. We realised it was a turtle that had been bougt for tea.

2. Went out for a drink tonight and were chatting to the barmaid. She asked my name, and Aytun's, and declared about 'Dominic' - "That's too difficult - you must get a Chinese name"!!

at least England are battering the Aussies - I want us to win so badly so I can 'talk' to the Aussies on staff about it all....

Went shopping today, as mentioned, and bought the following:

set of shelves for office, canvas shoe supboard, new speakers for pc, mouse for pc, box files, boddingtons, bacardi breezers, brandy, wine and lots of groceries. All for 120 dollars. Astonishing.

Dom

Lost in translation....

Various signs around the Tiger Hill garden

Tiger Hill

Day off today, so we went out to explore a place called Tiger Hill. One of Suzhou's more prominent landmarks it's about a 35 minute bus ride away from us. We went by bus, the number 46 goes from outside our apartment gates all the way there. All for the sum of 1rmb. Which is very cheap - 8rmb=1 dollar, or about 60p!

There is a 1000 year old pagoda, and some beautiful gardens and walks. Have a look at the pics:

pictures from near our apartment

Canal area not too far from the house - Broadstreet basin??

Aytun on a bridge, blocks in the same area as us are visible behind her

Near the lake, 15 minutes walk from the house

Art??

Who knows what this might represent? Answers on a postcard.

Off out for staff social later. No work tomorrow, could be a late one.....

new school building last Sunday

Many hands hard at work on the new school

The swimming pool - open in late September

How many Chinese does it take to plant a tree....

This was the new school last Sunday, the teachers move in on Monday! They have had a week to get from this to finished. We'll see on Monday how far they've got. There must be about 1000 workers there, men and women - under Communism all are equal and old women carry cement etc too.

Will be awesome when it's done.

humid football

Not too much to add, getting into the swing of things at school, and waiting to move to the new site.

Played footy again today - although it's not too hot the humidity is somethjing else and I sweated like a sweaty baboon in a sauna.

Have got Friday off so will do some exploring over the next few days and will post pictures when we have some.

dom

Some pictures...

Our living room, from the front door

View from the bedroom window

View from the balcony

Aytun in front of a pagoda

Inside a walled garden

Aytun by a canal in downtown Suzhou

They like their bikes...

Went for a medical today - found out that I am 167 cm tall and my pulse was 46 - so the pijo hasn't made me unfit yet! Day off today, so we are heading down town to do some banking and to try to buy SIM cards for the mobiles. We'll see how that goes.

Hope you can view the pictures we have posted, I will try to add them to a Yahoo album.

Dom

90 pence brandy...

don't want people to think this is all about drink.....but 90p brandy??? come on, that rocks baby.

that's all for now. off on tour of suzhou tomorrow - 10p beers and 90p brandy aside, we'll see what else there is.

frankly, if there's only a dead tiger and a small goat i won't be too unhappy.

dom

ten pence beer

A quiet day at the office today. Aytun stayed home cleaning and unpacking and doing boring stuff. Found a shop around the corner that sells 10p beers, so that's got to be good.

Going on tour of Suzhou tomorrow, so should start to find our feet a bit better.

Still wierd to think that we now live in China! When will it sink in?

Saw an old geezer doing stretches in the park this morning, so I guess that was quite Chinese.

Am popping down to local bar later to attempt my one sentence of Chinese - 1 beer please. I can't take a friend cos I can't remember the word for two.

Dom