Today we decided to have a boys day and a girls day. Paul and Vincent opted for beer and movies and sent us girls, me and Kelly, away to do something girly. Well Kelly and I had been researching Spas for a couple of days as this was our plan. We had found one in the Suzhou Industrial Park, SIP, which isn't as it sounds full of factories it's more like a retail and housing park. There was a fabulous man made lake on the way that was so big I asked Kelly if it was ...

Today we put our plans for yesterday into action and walked to the zoo. The walk there was very picturesque and it wasn't too far so we decided not to get a taxi, besides we didn't know how to say 'zoo' in Chinese! We walked briskly along the river bank and as I had my camera we stopped for a while so I could try and take some artistic shots of a Chinese style gate reflecting in the water. It was getting hand numbingly cold after ten minutes though so we went off...

Vincent had a bad back today so our initial plans of going to the zoo were changed to a day resting and trying to stay warm. The cold has been quite a shock to our systems so we wanted to have a day of pottering around the house, watching Andromeda and being under duvets. We got quite a bit of cleaning done and sorted a few hundred more DVDs but mostly rested.For dinner this evening we were invited out with some of Paul's friends, but we had to get there ourselve...

Paul had mentioned to us that he knew of an Auchan hypermarket nearby so today we decided to go there and stock up on some important items. One thing we were sure we needed to get was a large DVD wallet for Paul. The hypermarket was a crazy nightmare. The thing is the Chinese don't think its rude to grab you and move you if you are in their way, for example a little old lady trying to get past me on the pavement might seem to 'push' me aside. It's kind of annoyin...

Today we decided to go to Walking Street. We got a cab there and Pauls recommended we look in the shops and have fun spending our money. When we got there it was almost lunch time so the hassle of finding something vegetarian was top in our minds. We walked down the pedestrian street looking at all the shops - amazing after being in India where there are just a few little shops dotted around even in the busiest areas. The prices sadly were not favourable. Even th...