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.