Lion's Grove Garden

This morning we went to visit the Lion's Grove Garden which is one of the famous gardens in Suzhou. We had heard about it from some friends and the weather was beautiful so we decided to check it out. I took about a billion pictures. Here are some of the best ones of the garden.

It was quite a big garden and it is full of huge rocks that are supposed to look like lions (hence the name). James and Abigail had the greatest time climbing and exploring all the different pathways and caves. James is convinced that the Amazing Race has to come to this garden!
We again, were the only westerners around so attracted quite a few stares. An older chinese couple saw Abigail and asked if they could take a picture with her! Bizarre.
So the week went well. James had a friend over yesterday and is at another friend's place this afternoon. Abigail was invited for a sleepover on Thursday which is a school night but since it is at the elementary principal's house I thought I would allow it. Mark is participating in the SSIS faculty pub crawl tonight. Visiting 5 or 6 bars in one night enjoying discounted drinks with his coworkers. Hmmm, think I'll stay home. It looks like I will be trading in my kindergartners for high schoolers after this week. I have been asked to teach high school english for the next three months while a teacher goes on maternity leave. Yikes! That's all the news for now. Love to everyone from Suzhou! Just in case you haven't seen enough, here are a few more pictures :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

OUR SHIPMENT ARRIVED!!!!!I stayed home on Friday to receive our shipment. We sent it off on July31 so we were very much looking forward to some different clothes to wear as well as our belongings. The shipment arrived just in time for Thanksgiving (Canadian) which was nice because I had a few decorations but added to the stress a bit because we invited a Canadian family over for a turkey dinner and the apartment looked like it had exploded! Anyway, we pulled it off(i.e. stuffed a lot of things in the master bedroom!) This was my first turkey and of course I had to choose to do it the year I move to China! We did find a frozen 13 lb turkey at a western market as well as stove top dressing and gravy. I am one of the few expats that has a built in oven, most have glorified toaster ovens. So with much nervousness and a lot of guesswork I prepared my turkey (and very much missed my mother!) Here's the turkey thawing in my bathtub!
Here's me in my very tiny kitchen, basting my turkey which barely fit in my very tiny oven. Luckily Mark did not humiliate me by taking my picture when I was freaking out taking all the gross stuff out of the cavity!
So other than the turkey taking a really long time to cook (our guests waited for 45 minutes), everything went well. We had fresh rolls from the french bakery, fresh potatoes from the vegetable market downstairs and my Canadian friend brought homemade pumpkin pie. Here is a picture of the kids table, Abigail and her new friends Emma and Ava ( I was too frantic serving and clearing to take a picture of the adult table)

So the apartment is looking more like home now. The kids' rooms are finished. I always leave the master bedroom for last so it may never get done - it didn't at our last place. Anyway, here are the kids' rooms since I didn't include them with the other pictures of the apartment - you should be able to figure out whose is whose!
That's all for now, we're off to bed. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, we miss you and love you and most certainly are thankful for all of you.

Shanghai!

The week is in full swing. Sounds like things will go full force from here until Christmas. Abigail's homework has begun and James has 2 projects due. I am subbing 2 classes in the coming weeks (step classes) which should be fun. The weather has cooled down quite a bit so I am really nervous about when our shipment will come as it contains all our cold weather clothes! We are now hearing maybe Friday if all goes well.
Anyway, I promised a blog about Shanghai. We boarded the train from Suzhou to Shanghai in the morning on Chinese National day (Oct.1). We paid a little extra for "soft seat" tickets which meant that we could bypass the crowd outside the train station and sit in a quiet, smoke-free waiting area. The train to Shanghai was a little under 1 hour.
Once we arrived we checked into the Zhao An Hotel. A 3 star hotel that was recommended by some teachers mostly for its location because it is right next to the subway (or rather on top of the subway). Unfortunately the duplex suite I reserved had one large bed and that was it (woops). We headed for the Superbrand Mall which I had learned via the internet was a large shopping center with a Toys R Us and many western stores including a good book store. Abigail was given money for her birthday so it was first on our list.
Saying the subway was packed does not do the situation justice and that's all I'm going to say. Abigail had a successful shopping trip, James was given some new lego and I found english magazines!! So from there we headed to People's Square which was another trip on the subway right into downtown Shanghai. The park was quite crowded so we walked around a bit and then hid from the staring crowds of people on the roof garden of starbucks where we had dinner. The picture above is James and Mark enjoying a much needed rest.
We decided since we were so close we would head to Nanjing Road, a pedestrian shopping street. Something I've learned since arriving in Suzhou is most Chinese cities have what they call a "walking street". This is a street of shops that is (mostly) blocked off from vehicle traffic. So obviously the bigger the city, the bigger the walking street and we decided to see what Shanghai had to offer. Here are a couple of pictures I took at dusk...We did manage to make a few purchases but did not stay long and walked back to the hotel in order to avoid the subway
The next morning we ate a very strange buffet breakfast at the hotel and headed for the Shanghai Aquarium which is supposed to be one of the best in the world. Again the crowds were unbelievable but we enjoyed the exhibits. The best part was an underwater tunnel that you can view from a moving sidewalk, we all commented that this was an excellent way to set up viewing because you are right next to the glass and no one can cut in between you and the fish. The pictures don't do it justice but I'll post a few anyway...After the aquarium we headed for the Shanghai Sculpture Park, another place I had found online before our trip. Unfortunately, due to a language barrier with our taxi driver, we were dropped off at the Shanghai Sculpture "Space". Oh well, we'll save it for our next trip. Here's a picture of Mark with his favorite sculpture, and the one good thing I can say about the Sculpture space is: it wasn't crowded, we were the only ones there.We finished our time in Shanghai with some shopping in the french concession and then boarded the "fast train" back to Suzhou, which was feeling like home after being in Shanghai.
We will go back to Shanghai but not for awhile and definitely not during a chinese holiday!
It was an adventure and all part of the experience that is China!

Abigail's birthday!

On Monday we went to the Baitang Arboretum. We were pleasantly surprised and had beautiful weather. There were parks, sculptures, gardens, fountains and treehouses. On the left is Abigail and James driving us around in a four seater bike we rented (scary....not feeling too good about the upcoming teenage years!) and on the right a view of the lake with the city in the background. We are definitely going back with Claude and Lynn. Apparently it is like a completely different park each season.

Tuesday of course was Abigail's birthday! After talking to all 4 grandparents on Skype we headed to Suzhou Amusementland. Expectations were very low but this place was amazing! It was crowded because of the holiday but it was also huge. A complete rip off of disneyland, they even had It's a small world with the boat going through the different parts of the world and the song playing! Don't know how they get away with that one. We hiked up a hill and took a cable car down (Abigail begged to go on the parasail but her mean mother refused). After a brief period of loving rollercoasters James is back to not enjoying them at all. I think a particular ride on PEI this summer ruined it for him. After amusementland we went home and watched Nim's Island (a present from James), then walked to singha plaza for dinner at Mister Pizza (where they serve chinese, malaysian, thai and indian as well as pizza, burgers and fries). The day ended with fireworks on the balcony (just for Abigail of course!)




The view from the top of the hill we hiked up. You can see the parasail on the left.


These are pictures from the illusion house we went in. It is just basically one kodak opportunity after another but the pictures looked neat.
We had to take a picture of the It's A Small World for Mike and Treasa.

On the right is our eight year old and Mark at Singha Plaza.






We are just back from 2 days in Shanghai but I am going to write all about that next time. It was exhausting, and we'll just leave it at that. Thanks everyone who sent birthday wishes for Abigail. Hope everyone is well!
Love, the Smiths