Having tried and been unsuccessful at getting tickets for the bus in advance (I tried with my minute Chinese, a English Chinese dictionary and a copy of lonely Planet China, the day before) we caught the bus to a traditional water town from the Ming era, located only about 35km from Suzhou. The name was pronounced “Jo-Jung” (Zhou Zoang) and it had been made a world heritage site a few years before. The bus journey was uneventful as we drove through endless d...

Today was my first and last day at the other kindergarten. My boss had a friend who also runs a kindergarten not too far away and had promised to lend me for one afternoon a week. I was picked up by the principle, Annie, and taken to her place. It was about half an hour’s drive in the direction of the painting street, she was very impressed with my knowledge of where I was when I pointed it out. It turned out her mother lives on painting street and she grew up ...

Today was my first and last day at the other kindergarten. My boss had a friend who also runs a kindergarten not too far away and had promised to lend me for one afternoon a week. I was picked up by the principle, Annie, and taken to her place. It was about half an hour's drive in the direction of the painting street, she was very impressed with my knowledge of where I was when I pointed it out. It turned out her mother lives on painting street and she grew up th...

Today we decided that as it was the last Saturday we would be in Suzhou and it was close to Kelly’s and my birthday’s we would have a birthday party. I had to work and so did Paul and Kelly so, on my lunch break, I popped out to try and find Kelly a present. I had seen a little shop inside the Tesco at the end of my road by work (Yushan Lu – Amber Mountain Road) that sold lovely hair things so I went in to see what was what. I found out that if you bought o...

Today was meant to be my day off, but as I was off sick for a day last week they asked me to work. I told them I was busy in the afternoon but I could work for half a day and I would leave half a days pay. I don’t think his is correct and I should have been able to take a day’s sick leave especially as I had a contagious stomach bug, so if I had gone in I would have undoubtedly given it to someone as well as thrown up at work, but never mind. I am keeping the...