Hi, thankyou for your blog entries. It was great to hear from you. We are at Ning's parents new home where Tom and Ning are staying while we are in Chengdu. This is a more modern apartment with internet access so have a bit more time to write a message.

It is unbelievably hot and humid here!!! The humidity is really quite tiring and difficult to adjust too. I am just getting used to being really sweaty and smelly all the time and washing clothes everyday. However, we are all the same so nobody notices, too much! The city of Chengdu is huge with a population of 10 million people!! Everywhere there are people and bikes and cars and shops. The shopping is amazing - the amount of shops and variety of goods for sale is incredible. They really like their shopping here AND it is all made in China - no need to hunt for authentic goods. Kathy and Fiona have been measured up for tailor made traditional Chinese dresses and I am having a jacket made. Beautiful silk fabrics and so much variety!

We have been introduced to the Chinese game of Mah Jong and managed buy ourselves a set for $13 Aus - so cheap and a fun game to play. We are just learning a basic version at the moment and still haven't quite mastered the scoring system - I just need to find an instruction manual in English to help me out.

Tom and Ning have been very busy since they arrived with appointments with the wedding planner and photo / video sessions. They have spent 2 whole days travelling around the city to various locations, getting changed into multiple outfits and having photos and a wedding video taken. I'm sure the photos will be amazing but in this heat it is very tiring for them. Fancy spending 2 days just on wedding photos! It makes our 1-2 hour session between ceremony and reception pretty tame.

The rest of us have been touring around various sites in Chengdu. The city itself is very very busy but we have visited some historical sites further out of the city that are extremely beautiful. We drove through some areas close to the epicentre of the earthquake and there has certainly been a tremendous amount of damage and still a lot of rebuilding going on.

Despite our misgivings the food has been really delicious. Ning's parents have been really going out of their way to cook less spicy food and choose less spicy food at the restaurants. They even took us to a Chinese Pizza Hut to have a steak! Oh no, we keep trying to tell them that we like to eat Chinese food! But they worry that we will be hungry. Anyway, no tummy bugs yet - mostly just adjusting to the heat.

For my work colleagues, I have discovered a whole new approach to toilet training - skip the nappy stage entirely and just let the children squat in the street! Or squat over the toilet (or more like a hole in the ground) with your child and 'wee' together'. It seems to be a very public process - going to the toilet and hygiene is highly questionable.

Yes, so many different experiences - quite challenging but awesome and having a great time just the same. We are off to Beijing on Monday for 5 days and then back to Sichuan to travel to Laoshun and then back to Chengdu for final wedding preparations. Wedding being held on Saturday 12 September.

Love to you all.

Debbie and the troops.