The way they do it in Wuxi...

....or maybe it's the way we do it in Wuxi!

Saturday was the hottest day we had had in long while so it was thunder storms and rain for Africa! Endless games of Jenga really helps, as Pete is demonstrating!

After entertaining ourselves for as long as possible with that, we then stumbled across my new wee baby 'Milo' some friends had rescued him from one of the many alley ways of Wuxi and he had just got the all clear from the vet! So gorgeous!

Upon arrival in Wuxi,I had been told not to eat the Kiwifruit as they were not the same as NZ. I met some Chinese girls and they proudly pulled out a NZ Kiwifruit (the Zespri kind). I was so excited, it tasted so good!

Due to Parent Meetings today Tracy and I decided to get our hair done. I was desperately in need of a hair dye and was looking forward to having it just re done the same colour! With the language barrier and the fact that they had done it before I was not too worried, that was until they dried it off and my lovely light hair (that took a year and a half to lighten) is now a lovely shade of chocolate brown..hmmmmm.....thank goodness you can drink beer in the hairdressers, I think it lightened the blow!

A dinner with Tracy (do not mention the 'Merivale Bowl' cut), of amazing egg and chive dumplings off the street helped even more and by the time we got home it was almost forgotten until we looked in the mirror and remembered what humidity does to our NZ hair! Not a pretty sight!

Hair aside the meetings went well..thank goodness for translaters! We are working on interim reports for Friday and I have accepted the job as Head of Arts for Middle School so am beginning to write the curriculum as we speak!

With any luck, I'll be on my way to Qingdao this weekend for seaside fun and beer tasting!

That's how it goes here....

Arohanui,

Love Amy

Backdating

Well,well, well where to start......I am going a bit backwards to catch up on all the crazy events of the last week and the past weekend...GO THE ALL BLACKS!

We were lucky enough to have a long weekend because it was the Chinese 'Mooncake Festival'. The mooncakes are not very appetising but the hot meat ones were delicious! We started the weekend in true Wuxi style at Starbucks, as you can see it was not your typical Starbucks drink...only in China!! Hey, what can I say, Pete received some bad news so we needed to do something to take his mind off it.

Saturday bought about the big match so it was off to the only Western bar in Wuxi with Australia Network to watch the Kiwi's take home the cup. Surprisingly....the Kiwi fans out numbered the Aussies! It was great fun.

Off to the Temple Markets on Sunday to pick up a Diablo......I am going to learn the ancient art of this thing if it's the last thing I do...I can throw it up and catch now....well...I did it once! The Chinese were in awe that a Lawai could do something this Chinese!

Monday consisted of trying the local cuisine (Japanese!) and walking home in the rain with our 'umbrellas'! That's the trouble with Wuxi, it is ridiculously hot and humid, you go into a bar...I mean restaurant and you come out and it is storming and pelting rain!

This week school has been mad, we have a huge performance for the government in the convention centre..trying to get 60 ESL children to earn 'We are the world' in English and to coordinate candles, signs and music has been a challenge to say the least but sounds great at the moment. I have been asked to see if I could run the MYP (Middle Years Program) art, write the curriculum and teach high school art......a load of paper work to look at and consider this weekend..yay me...thank goodness most people are away and I can hibernate.

Speaking of being away....Raihania is here soon..YAY! Bring on Nanjing! We have Mid-Autumn Festival holidays at the end of next week and it looks like 'Qingdao International Beer Festival' here we come!

Life in China is VERY hard,

Arohanui,

Love Amy xo

A school snapshot

This term in the 'Keas' class we are looking at Communication (with others, in modern day, accros the world etc) This week we did Telephones. They were very inquisitive about how a telephone worked so we made some.

Here are my wee cuties (they tell me Year 2's aren't cute, they have muscles..hehe) trying out their inventions! We had a blast!

Comments.....

Hi guys,

Some of you have asked about a comments link, I thought it had one but have tried to make some changes and cross fingers!

I'm not too sure I want to see if I have added a comments box correctly......am sure Dad will have more than a few words OR smart comments to make...YES DAD, I am saving money and not spending it all on drinking! haha!

Hopefully this will have a comments box, if not I will keep working on it!

Arohanui,
Amy

After returning from a whirlwind, exhusting, fantastic and exciting trip around China, Hong Kong and Singapore and after a crazy busy but amazing time back in NZ I have been thrown straight back into living the life in China.

With 8 new editions to the teaching staff and many more Chinese staff it was a crazy few weeks, getting the school and staff ready and getting through our first week with 82 students. Everyone has been lovely and I think the staff will be great bunch of people and teachers.

With a new school year comes a lot of responsibility with my new job role and also travelling to a few conferences and courses.

The last couple of weeks being back have been a lot of fun, very suprising and a tad sad. David had 3 more weeks left in China by the time I returned and after moving in with me for the last week and donning a suit and filling my house with over 150 tealight candles, leaving me flowers and lovely letters, he left to return to Germany 2 days ago.

I have been given the title of Social Coordinator and I am trying to live up to that name by planning lots of trips, dinners and celebrations...not too hard when the rest of the staff are right there behind you, supporting you all the way!

Arohanui,

Love Amy xo