Hey there folks....well, it's officially the end of the year here for me in shanghai....i have three weeks left of school and then i am done...its been a crazy end of the year and really, it's time for me to have it be over....the kids are fine, i am fine, i just want it to be finished....6 classes of only 8th grade has almost been the death of me....the kids who have me during the 5th and 6th class of something now know it, as i am not so excited when i get to them...which i know is not fair, but its the way the cookie crumbles.....at least we are studying human body now which means we have a bunch of dissections to break things up....just last week we dissected pig hearts....next up....rats....should be interesting.....but really...i would like this year to end.....
for this update coming from china it will be about two places i have been in the past two months...indonesia and suzhou - a water town, in china...most of my time in indonesia was spent on the island of lombok, and really i did much of nothing....i needed a relaxing, no running around kind of vacation, and i got it....i also was in jakarta visiting friends, as you will see from the pictures....and then last weekend i was in suzhou with three friends for girls weekend out of shanghai....we had a blast....so on with the pictures....
this first shot is the beach just in front of the place i stayed....it was great because you could catch a ride to the gili islands with one of the boats like the one you see in the top part of the shot, and you could watch the kids play...and their relatives were surfers....so whenever it was high tide, they would be out there catching waves.....plus, they ran two local cafes on either side of where i stayed that had tasty food and cold, cold beer....it rocked....
as the sun went down, the beach vendors would start their walks home....just like in many countries i have been to, the ladies carried their wares on their heads....i am always amazed by this ability...as i cannot carry anything for a long period of time on my head...i know some places they use a ring of fabric or rubber to help things stay up....but i did not see them here in lombok.....
one of the cafes i had traditional indonesian food in had these license plates on the wall as decoration...i came to find out that the owner was an american from california....i was so excited to see the pennsylvania plate :)
early morning view of the black sand beach....i know it looks grey, but really it was black...and there was a reef just off the beach about 30 feet (10 meters) away that i snorkeled over.....it was such a relaxing vacation after a year of busy vacations and busy school time....i loved it.....
in indonesia, there are quite a lot of chinese....many immigrated there to get away from the craziness of the cultural revolution....so of course there are quite a few chinese graveyards....these tombstones were huge and very, very colorful....height-wise they were about as tall as me....and wider than me stretching out my arms....they were covered with dragon and whatever chinese horscope animal was for the person who died and lots of chinese writing.....they were really cool.....i have never seen them like this in china....but really, i have not looked for them.....
the first afternoon i was in lombok there was a HUGE commotion on the street....i came to find it was a wedding....a buddhist wedding...in the picture above, the groom is the dude in the peach colored shirt and sunglasses, under the umbrella....his bride was about 20 feet (7 meters) in front of him....also under an umbrella....and everyone was celebrating....
at the end of the parade was the band...all dressed in red, and keeping the beat....i asked if all weddings were like this, and was given the answer of only the buddhist weddings....lombok is mostly muslim with its religion....but the place i stayed at was buddhist....an interesting mix in my opinion....but you definitely heard "call to prayer" five times a day....the wedding was just an added bonus....
i figured i needed to end this post from lombok with a beauty of a sunset....taken from my lounge chair overlooking the "adults only" pool and the beach....nope, it doesn't get any better than this....
from lombok i went to jakarta to see friends of mine who teach there....this is julie....who can FINALLY walk....woot!!!! i saw her in china over her october break, so it was fun to check in and say hi on my break....
and i got to hang with dana....we realized it had been almost 5 years since we had last seen each other in romania....man, how time flies.....it was a fun visit with them both and now they have become friends and diving buddies as well....love it when that happens....
i have to say i was not a huge fan of jakarta, as the traffic was literally insane....but indonesia is a terrific place...bali, lombok - i recommend them both....you also have to love a place where you can use a 100,000 note and it is equivalent to approximately 10 USD....crazy that....
the second set of pictures were taken in china....i went to suzhou for a weekend with three friends of mine here as a girls weekend away....plus, one of the three is headed to a new country next year, so we wanted some quality time together....so we left the city in style....we took the bullet train (40 minutes) and reserved first class....little did we know we would be the only four people in our car and have these lazy-boy styled seats....they reclined and had reading lamps...it was nicer than most flights i have been on this year....it was incredible and very executive-like.....
suzhou of course has some shopping available, just like everywhere in china and i just couldn't pass up the chance to shoot the fine "chinglish" translations on these shirts...."playkiss - blayboy" and "Junp! get your wish" - what????
suzhou is a water and garden town located just outside of shanghai....so many people go there as tourists and walk the canals and take in the different gardens...we kept it simple and mellow...we walked the historic canal at night and then did one of the top 8 gardens in the morning....but one that was not crowded...which is a very hard thing to find in touristy places in china....there are always crowds....this was a place along the canal we stopped for a drink....
suzhou is also known for dumplings, just like shanghai....but i have to say the ones they were selling on the streets were much more creative than the ones in shanghai....in the picture above you can see the shark dumplings, the canoe styled dumplings and my favorites - the little pig dumplings....i usually cannot eat many of these because they are filled with meat, but i definitely could appreciate the artistry of these particular dumplings....they also had little apples and oranges dumplings...and just so you know....the cost - 3 kuai - or 50 cents....love it!!!!
i got a nice shot of the canal and one of the stone houses along it at night....the reflection turned out well and shows what type of houses you find along the canals....they are well lit and very quaint....
gardens, as i am sure many of you know, are quite important to the chinese and their living spaces...it has to do with feng shui....so this was the garden we visited...it was amazing in that it had all of the important elements featured - water, wind, plants, stone - and was small and beautiful....this was the main water pond with coy fish as you came into the front of the garden and house....
they usually have very cool stones in these styled gardens...they look kind of like lava rocks with their crazy shapes and random holes....i liked this shot.....
the gardens are free to visit for the locals of suzhou....so we wandered into the midst of this intense card game being played....there were also some families there having a picnic....it was peaceful and green and breezy and the air was sooooooo clean and easy to breathe....so very different from shanghai....a perfect spot for activities such as these....
in this shot you see the three friends i was traveling with - tina, julia and sandy....they make me laugh when i hang with them and do not teach at the same place as me, so rarely do we talk about work...i have had a great year having dinner with them....thanks ladies for the awesome time :)
i realize this is not my traditional last shot with a drink, but i really liked the way this turned out...this is a doorway in the garden we visited....it kind of reminded me of a cartoon character's head....but i just liked that i could get off the ground and be in the middle....suzhou was a great short trip from shanghai and i had a wonderful time away laughing and talking with the three women i went with....what a weekend away :)
so i am going to try and get one more update out about shanghai before i take a break for the summer...it should be out sometime in the next three weeks, fingers crossed....i have a bunch of funny pictures i would like to share from the past few months...like a pair of dogs in a baby carriage wearing baby outfits - the chinese and their dogs.....so keep your eyes open for the next one....
i hope that everyone is well and happy and enjoying their starts to summer or winter, dependent of course on your hemisphere.....things here in china are cooler than normal, for which i am appreciative....and things are moving like a speeding bullet train towards the end of the year....this summer for me will be an east coast one....i will mostly be in the philly area, and hopefully will be visiting NJ, NYC, DC, pittsburgh and possibly boston....so if you live in one of these places i will be in touch....feel free to contact me if you wanna hang and know my schedule....all the best.....
