As promised, here are some pictures that Mark and James took on their bike ride last Saturday.

So this is actually a giant sculpture of a compass. Mark's favourite actually (and there are a lot of sculptures in Suzhou). He has always wanted to take a picture like this.

I also wanted to post some pictures of Abigail's room since I didn't get a chance to last weekend.


The butterfly stickers all over her room are from Ikea last weekend.

This week zoomed by. Not only has the school not hired a new music teacher but the other music teacher who I have been helping had a death in her family and she had to fly home this week! I was left with the elementary music program completely in my hands. Needless to say I got through it and thank goodness she will be back on Monday. Everyone else seemed to have a good week. There was a staff social at the school last night and Mark's band (made up of the high school counselor, a middle school science teacher and the head of grade 3) performed. I didn't stay.... I felt anti-social last night. We did go out for our weekly dinner at a restaurant down the street with our friends the Warren-Hurleys. We've been doing this every Friday for a little over a year now. I snapped some pictures.

See, so much more fun than a stuffy staff social :)

So Abigail and I went to the shopping centre close to our apartment this morning. We arrived about a half hour before the doors open so we scoped out the Wal-Mart in the basement. People always laugh when I tell them there is a Wal-Mart in Suzhou so I snapped a few photos. Most of them are of snacks I thought you might get a kick out of.

They have Great Value brand just like in North America. Although I'm not entirely sure what "Candied Haws" are.
Here's a picture of the mall upstairs.

After we walked home we had a really nice lunch with Mark and James who had been making homemade tortillas! We finally got our hands on whole wheat flour and have been loving it! Here's our spread, fresh fruit and veggies, berry dip and curry dip from Laura's epicure, cheese quesadillas with the whole wheat tortillas and baked cinnamon tortillas. We watched Top Chef while we were eating and were feeling quite impressed with ourselves. It's really sad how limited we are here in the far east ;)

I'm a food blogger now! Anyway, we are settling in for the night. Hope everyone is well and a big congratulations to John and Nancy Norwood on the birth of their second son Eli!
Love from China.

I'm back!

I just checked and the last time I posted a blog was last November! So, at my mother's request, I am promising to revive The Smiths in China blog.
We have been back in China for three weeks. This is our third year and it looks like it will be our final year here in Suzhou. It is bittersweet as we have made some good friends and had amazing, life-changing experiences but I don't feel right about moving once James enters high school (next year, yikes) so next summer looks like the best time to move on to another international location. But... more about that later.
The first three weeks of the school year have been busy. James is settling into grade 8, has joined the cross country team and is in student council for the second year in a row. Abigail is in grade 5 and has a new teacher who is from Fiji, she has already started choir and girl scouts and was excited to see her friends after the summer break. Mark started a new position this school year teaching computer technology as well as "learning technology teacher", which means he trains other teachers in how to use technology more effectively in the classroom. I was asked to teach elementary music as the teacher who was supposed to come and teach this year has no showed. Hopefully they will find someone to fill the position soon because I am definitely out of my comfort zone! I am also coaching the high school and middle school tennis teams, leading girl scouts for grades 2 and 3 and teaching a staff step class.
Now that you're all caught up, here's what we've been doing this weekend.
Abigail and I embarked on our third annual trip to the Shanghai Ikea yesterday. The main purpose of the trip is for new staff to shop for whatever they might need to set up their new apartments but anyone can come along and I wanted to pick up a few items. Abigail is always keen to come on shopping trips! The bus trip was about 2 hours, we got stuck in a little traffic but nothing too major. I took this as we approached the city.


Here it is! Looks like the Ikea close to you doesn't it? The inside does as well but I didn't take any pictures of the inside.
Here's Abigail enjoying her lunch of swedish meatballs (fueling up for round two of shopping).



We spent the whole day at Ikea. We were picked up at 8am and weren't home until 5pm. Of course I had to get everything I bought all set up and looking the way I wanted. So we were working hard until bedtime. Here are some pictures of the apartment. I know some of you are curious about our digs :)

kitchen/dining

James' room

I thought I had a picture of Abigail's room but I guess I don't. I would go and take one right now but she's asleep so it will have to wait.
Speaking of bed, it's time to wrap this up. Mark and James went on a 30km bike ride yesterday and explored our neighborhood a bit. They took pictures so I will post those tomorrow night. Hopefully I can get back into the habit of blogging.
Good night!

Thanksgiving

Tis the season of short blogs I'm afraid.

Last Thursday we celebrated our second American Thanksgiving in Suzhou. We actually have more Canadian teachers on staff so it would make more sense to celebrate in October but last year and this we have had American volunteers to organize the event and as a result, the celebration has been held in November. Not that we Smiths are complaining, we have always celebrated both.
So the cafeteria at school was transformed with white table cloths and floral arrangements. Our usual stations of pizza, chinese food and sandwiches served mashed potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin and apple pie and of course turkey!

This is Eileen and one of her three daughters Ava enjoying the dinner. Some friends of ours from Peterborough, Ontario. Eileen is the elementary school librarian and her husband Andrew is the college counselor.

Ava is very entertaining to say the least.
Here's Abby writing what she is thankful for to go on the big poster the school has up to help people from other cultures understand what Thanksgiving is all about.

It was a nice evening. Unfortunately James missed it. He was in Shanghai at a cross country meet. His last one of the season. He ran really well in the 4k event and was happy to end the season on a high note.


So, as is tradition in America, we officially started the Christmas season the day after Thanksgiving. We pulled out the little table top tree we bought from the German superstore last year and hung a few of our favourite ornaments that we brought over with us.

On Sunday I was finally ready to send off Christmas presents so we headed to the post office. I actually got away with putting wrapped presents in the mail this year. I bought some really nice paper at the Christmas bazaar and wanted to wrap the gifts but wasn't sure how it was going to fly with the post office employees. I had heard stories about people having to unwrap before they were allowed to send things off. Luckily that didn't happen. The lady at the post office gave me a form to fill out in french! I guess to her there is no difference so I was a little stressed that I was writing the addresses in the wrong place, hopefully everything arrives where it is supposed to. This is me struggling to remember my high school french!


The biggest news of the week was of course from the other side of the world. The arrival of Lauchlan Jacobs! So we are sending hugs, kisses and congratulations to Laura, Richard and Ryker and can't wait to meet Lauchlan this summer in person.

Have a great week everyone, hope you are enjoying the holiday season!

Michael's visit

Just a quick mid-week blog. Michael and his friend Lisa left today after spending 4 days with us in Suzhou. We had a good time showing them around. It was cold and rainy their first day here but thank goodness the sun came out for the rest of their time here.

On Saturday we headed out to Lion's Grove Garden, one of our favourite places in Suzhou.


Can you see James on top of the rocks? He is in his own world when we go to Lion's Grove. Climbing the rocks and exploring the caves. He loves it.
We did a little shopping afterward and Mark bought me a new teapot. Lisa bought a chinese chess set for her son. We also went to the tailor and Lisa had a dress suit made.
So, we really enjoyed having visitors. The kids didn't have school Wednesday, Thursday and Friday so we are back into the swing of things now and it will be go, go, go until Christmas.

This is my new teapot.

That's all for now. Will blog again on the weekend.

Hi Everyone,
We had a weekend of skyping and running errands. We talked to Trudie and David on Saturday and then headed to walking street to pick up some special Christmas presents that I had ordered (can't say anymore just in case the wrong person reads this). On Sunday we skyped with Mum, Dad and Mason. I headed to the framer's with a friend to have some prints framed that I bought at the bazaar last week. Mark stayed home and watched James and Abigail as well as my friends' three daughters. He did quite well and apparently danced for them to much enthusiastic laughter.
On Sunday night we skyped with Mike, Treasa and Jack who told us it was "a fine day". Love it.

So since I didn't really take any pictures this weekend I thought I would post some pictures that I promised when we first moved in. This is my newly covered couch. The orange is gone!

The pillows I bought from Ikea that were in our window seat at our old apartment looked perfect with the new slip covers. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

This is my new plant stand that I picked up for about $15 US. One of a kind. I thought it was really interesting.

So tomorrow is parent/teacher conferences. The kids don't go to school because the conferences go from 8am until 6pm. Mark is heading to Shanghai tomorrow night for a Texas Instruments conference and will be there until Friday night.

Speaking of Mark, he had told his grade 12 students that if they raised 5000 rmb for a charity that fights AIDS in Africa he would let them shave his head. They informed him today that they had reached their mark. So this was the scene today at break time.


There was some talk about leaving it like this but Mark neglected to see the humor in that remark.

The scene in the hallway. There were quite a few gasps. At least it went to a good cause. Unfortunately he has also commited to shave all his facial hair and his eyebrows if they raise 10,000 rmb. Yikes!

That's all for now. It's a chilly, rainy night so I am off to get into my flannel pjs and curl up in bed!

Love from Suzhou!

trip to Luxiang

I think I'm finally getting back into the habit of blogging regularly. Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself by saying that.

Anyway, another busy weekend comes to an end. Yesterday Abigail and I went with some friends to the annual Expat Christmas Bazaar. I blogged about it last year. It is quite early this year but I was glad because it gave me the chance to buy some things and still have enough time to send them home for Christmas gifts. All the stuff was beautiful. Local artists, custom made jewelry, cashmere, and home made baked goods. Abigail bought some Christmas presents for her friends too. Mark and James went to the dentist to have James' braces looked at, we walked to the sports equipment store to get some warm weather gear for Mark because he is biking into school and back everyday now. At bedtime Abigail talked to her best friend Tabitha who moved to Qatar last year on skype (lots of giggling).

Today we went on a trip out to the country to an area called Luxiang. The trip was organized by the school's social committee so we went with other teachers. James chose to stay home and hang out with his friend Hannah. Here are some of my favourite pictures from the day.


This is what you can see when you walk through the gates. The village is on water. You can't see it very well because it was quite overcast today but there are mountains in the background.

Look at this guy! He reminds me of Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

Roof tops



We climbed up the mountain a bit to look out at the town. This picture really doesn't do it justice because it was so foggy. The mountain is covered in orange groves.

The path back downI saw this on the side of a building down a deserted alleyway. Notice it has the word "Tibet" scrawled at the bottom.

That's all for this week. We have a full week of school and then only 2 days the following week due to parent-teacher conferences and 2 teacher PD days back to back. Michael is coming to visit on the 20th with his friend Lisa. It is going to be quite busy until Christmas.
Have a great week everyone!

Halloween 2009

We are cuddling up in bed watching Top Chef tonight. The weather has turned cold and it is time to turn our a/c's into heaters.

I thought I would post some pictures from last weekend (Halloween). Mark and the kids had a slow morning while I took off to the orphanage. I have joined a group of female teachers who take turns going to help out with the babies. This was my second time. It works out to a commitment of one Saturday morning a month. I was a little nervous the first time I went because I had heard that a lot of the babies have down syndrome and other developmental problems. I pictured a really dark and depressing place. I'm not going to say it's not difficult and it doesn't break my heart but the facility is clean, they obviously receive a lot of donations because the babies all have new matching sleepers and new blankets on their beds. The ayis work very hard and are always smiling, they are saints to do what they do every day. We are only allowed in the baby room and are not allowed to take pictures. I did take this picture as we were leaving the first Saturday I went.
So basically what we do is spend 2 hours in the baby room just holding as many of the babies as possible. There are usually around 20, mostly girls, quite a few with down syndrome, cleft palates and other handicaps. I thought it would be really uncomfortable but they are as sweet as can be. It really just gets sad when I start to think about what a difficult road lies ahead of them.



Ok, on to happier times. I took Abigail trick or treating on Saturday night with the other staff kids. It doesn't look like it from the picture but our group has dwindled down quite a bit since last year. They had about 12 places to trick or treat and the weather was wonderful, some friends of ours had a party so we met up with Mark and James there.
Here we are before we set out for trick or treating. Abigail was a gypsy, I was a mime. I was a horrible mime though, I talked all night. I couldn't exactly stop being a mom!

This is James and his friend John. He was a magician. I don't know why they refused to smile for me.


This is a group of the kids bobbing for apples at the Halloween party. You can see Abby in her hairnet (she had to take her wig off).

So October has flown by and here we are in November. We have a busy weekend starting tomorrow and I will blog about it next week. I have been busy subbing almost every day and chipping away at the online course I'm taking. I am leading a middle school girl scout troop and that started up this week as well. I have a feeling November is going to fly by just as fast as October.

That's all for now. Lots of love from Suzhou............