It's been awhile so I thought it was time to catch up. As most of you know, it was my birthday last Monday (we won't say which one) and coincidentally, also my first day teaching! On Sunday we had brunch at a TexMex place and went into Old Suzhou to do some shopping. We found the Sephora (make up place) and a nice department store. Here are the kids in the rickshaw we took while shopping around town (always an experience)
So my first week teaching high school english went well. I have grade 9s and 10s. Mark and I have quite a few of the same students which is fun for them (and us I suppose). We had a rainy week and the weather continues to cool but not to an uncomfortable level yet. We hear from other teachers that it's coming.
James joined student council this week. He continues to make more friends and is showing a lot of improvement in cross country. He has three meets coming up in November, one with another international school in Suzhou and 2 in Shanghai. He is making his grandfather proud I'm sure.
On Friday the kids were aloud to wear black and orange to school for Halloween instead of their uniforms. The staff kids all got together for some trick or treating in the evening. There were about 30 kids in all. Quite a big group. We had a good time and got some very interesting chinese candy to try!
Here are the kids walking to the complex where they trick or treated. James was the "grim reaper" and Abigail was a pop star. We got some interesting looks from passers-by!
This is Abigail's new friend Tabitha. She is from England (but was born in Singapore). She had her first sleepover at Tabitha's a couple of weeks ago.
Here is the group. There are some older kids that weren't there. Most of James' friends opted to go to the middle school dance so he was one of the older ones there. I thought costumes would be pretty scarce and we would have to get creative with what we had at home but as you can see, it wasn't really an issue. A lot of the british and australian kids were celebrating halloween for the first time so that was neat.Yesterday I went with 8 other teachers into Shanghai to do some early Christmas shopping. We went to the Children's Clothing Market and the copy market. The children's place was underground and had every designer label you could think of. Rows and rows of shops where we spent about 2 hours. You have to bargain in these places which I'm really bad at. Since there is a language barrier, I basically pass a calculator back and forth with the shopkeeper until we are both happy or I choose to walk away. It can be exhausting but I was quite successful.
The copy market is 4 floors of watches, designer bags, silk, shoes, and clothes for adults. This is where the locals tend to be a little more aggressive. They shout "hey lady" as you walk by and try everything in the book to try to get you to buy what they have. I was actually quite proud of myself for surviving that place on my own but still unclear whether I got ripped off!
Mark had the kids and 2 of their friends for the day and once I got home we all went out to dinner at a Korean restaurant with another family from school. Here is the only picture I took at the copy market. A man carving a gift I got for Jack (I'm guessing he doesn't read the blog).
So that's all for now. Apparently there is a very important horse race this Tuesday in Australia (both Australia and New Zealand take the day off), so Mark is being pressured to participate in horse betting. He'll bet on his horse tomorrow and then watch the race on Tuesday night with everyone at the local haunt Mr.Pizza. They'll also be covering a different race from the other side of the world so we will be tuning in to see how that goes. Should be interesting. Lots of love to everyone. Take care, and thanks for all the birthday wishes - they are much appreciated!
