The Long Lost Postings

Well I haven't put ANYTHING on this site since Christmas and New Year. It has been one of those things at the back of my mind throughout, but I just never get around to doing anything about it. Well the summary of what I have done over the past half year is quite easy really. Jessica came over for 3 months from the Chinese New Year holiday. During the CNY holiday we just hung out in Guangzhou getting re-aquainted and eating in nice restaurants, shopping, etc. It was great, as we hadn't seen each other properly for a long time!! For the past 2 and a half years we always saw each other on holiadys, so it was nice to be in a "real" situation in Guangzhou. During her stay we had two more holidays. One was in Zhuhai, a place just over the way from Macau. We went there by bus and it took about 3 hours. We stayed here http://www.zhuhai-holitel.com/english/index.asp It turned out to be a nice place for what we needed. The weather was not great so we hung out in the hotel quite a lot.... they had go-karts, a bowling alley, snooker table etc. etc. so we had some funny moments doing these things and just hanging out in the grounds. Would go there again for a short, relaxing style holiday. The hotel had a dim-sum restaurant that was actually pretty nice (mmmm. I love dim sum). The funniest part of the whole holiday though was the trip back on the bus. We were sat on the back seats and there were a Chinese family in front of us. Now the mother kept feeding her young toddler food right from the start of the trip to keep him quiet. The grandpa rightly kept reminded her that if this continues the boy would have to relieve himself and this would proove a chore on a bus. But the feeding continued and yes, the grandpa was right!! So I thought OK, they'll take him down to the toilet and sort him out - no problem. How wrong I was... a plastic bag was readied and the grandpa proceeded to hold the boy over this plastic bag for him to do the dirty deed... right in front of where I was sitting. Well lets just say I was pleased that the kid had solids rather than smelly liquids in his bowels, and the experience was quite as bad as I expected (apart from one golden nugget dropping onto the floor when grandpa's aiming skills gave way). So ordeal over, on with the journey. Literally a few seconds later it was time for round two. A family further down the bus decided to relieve their young companion in the same way.... a baby girl no less. The bag of wee was carefully tied and left for some un-suspecting soul to discover. I can tell you, I was relieved to get off that bus :)

Me and Jessica also stayed in Sanya, Hainan Island during the May holiday. We stayed here http://www.rendezvoushotels.com/hainan/ for three nights. We had a great time, which basically consisted of eating way too much at the buffet breakfast, lounging around at the beach and drinking coffee and eating cake. It was a relaxing break and Sanya is the ideal long weekend away beach holiday from Guangzhou.

Me and Jessica went with the Camms (a husband and wife teaching duo at the school, who I hang out with quite a bit) on a weekend away to a place called Foshan. We were warned by some more cynical members of the staff at school that this place is "a dump" and not worth the bus far. We still went though, and had a great time. In fact we want to go again some time and see more. It is a place with a lot of history, and its only a 40 minute bus ride from Guangzhou. The thing about it as well is that it has a different feel from Guangzhou. More like a town feel rather than a city feel (although the traffic there was still pretty crazy). We went to see temples, an old pottery kiln and walked down pottery street ( a place I have ear-marked to go back to and kit out my apartment with cool vases and pottery plates, figures). We also found some really wicked chunky reclaimed woode furniture :)

Anyway, I will try and get some links up for these places on the "My Pictures" link on the right hand side of this page. Then you can see what these places are all about. Although, to be honest I don't think I took too many pictures of Sanya and Zhuhai.

Jessica is back in Taiwan right now, and I am here working down the last 4 weeks of the school year. It's crazy that my first year in Guangzhou is coming to an end!! Jessica will come back to Guangzhou after the summer, after I have negotiated a summer of travelling home and going to Thailand. Next year I will move into a new place. This apartment is way too big and way too annoying (the management company are rubbish here and everything in my apartment is breaking, and they charge crazy money for bills). So I will moving into a nice compact apartment for next year. I am planning what I can buy for my new pad.... a flat screen TV, a srround sound system.... the options are endless :)