Out with the old and in with the new. It’s amazing the amount of clutter that seems to appear when you are on the move.  I even got rid of clothes that I hadn’t worn for a while and yet my suitcase was bulging. Mind you the thermals that I bought for winter take up a bit of room. This morning I packed them away because it looks like the warmer weather has arrived. On Tuesday it was 12c and today it’s 30c, so I’m taking a punt that I won’t need them for a while.
My new host is Judy and she lives with her mother and her son. The apartment is on the 11th floor and it’s the top floor of this building and the highest in the complex.  It’s 2 storey which is unusual and I am lucky to have the bedroom with en-suite. The room is large and there is even access through the laundry to the outside balcony.
The living room is full height and it makes the place very open and pleasant,  good Feng Shui here.
I slept like a log last night,  the bed is nice and hard and the neighbourhood was also quiet, although this morning I did hear the rush hour. But there was another noise that I heard and that was of the song birds that the next door neighbour keeps which was quite a pleasant way of breaking in a new day.

The last apartment was small but I was on my own and now I am in a bigger apartment but I have company which I’m still getting used to of course, I just hope I don’t piss them off too much. The deal here is much the same as the last time which is I help the son with his English and I can keep the roof over my head. so I’m hoping I will be here for a while.

I’ll be heading back to Australia in a few weeks and so I hope they don’t kick me oot at that point and ask me to find another place to go.

Pictures to follow

I thought I would have some western food today and so I settled for Tuna Salad,.Pizza and a glass of red. Delicious 😆

I thought I’d start packing up my things for the move on Friday so I’ve started with my whisky  it’s one less thing to carry if I finish it before I go 😆😆

I have been living in a very comfortable apartment near public transport and shops for three months now and it has been great. I’ve lived here rent free and in return I have given English lessons to the families children, which I may add has been a little challenging at times. However the flat that I live in belongs to the grandmother of the family and she has been staying with the family over winter but now she wants to move back and I have to go. So this is a tad inconvenient to say the least, I mean I have gotten used to this lifestyle and now I have to move on which is a bit daunting when you live in a city like Suzhou, because it is a very expensive city for property. I think this place would be even more expensive than Sydney for a half decent property. Yes you can pick up cheap accommodation here in the older parts of town but to be honest you would not want to live there if you are a big softy foreigner like me.

I need a real toilet, not one of those holes in the floor to aim at first thing in the morning, besides I’m not sure how long my knees would last before they gave out on me which could be rather messy.

I like a nice shower, not a wet room like so many place are. I want to live in a place and to a standard that I am accustomed to. And before you criticise, why don’t you come here and live for a while. I know I wanted to come here to live like a local but I have my limits you know.

So wouldn’t you know it……….last night I met with Judy who said she would be able to offer me a room and I said that was great and we headed off to the south of Suzhou city. This area is near Shihu Lake, this is the place I went to the other day for a wee stroll, so it’s far away. However, later this month line 4 in the metro system opens and this place is about 5 mins walking distance away so it’s all good. We went to the top floor, I’m in the Penthouse for cryin’ out loud………can you believe it?, can I believe it?

This is a two story 3 bedroom large apartment and it is lovely and the room on offer is upstairs. I have my room and an en-suite to boot and I can walk out and have breakfast on the balcony, although you can’t see much at the moment because of the low cloud and inclement weather, but I’m on the top floor over looking the city and of course looking down on the peasants below. Pictures to follow when I actually move in 🙂

The sun was shining and so I decided to go to Shihu Lake. This is a very a large lake to the west of Suzhou. I have been here before and I never had the time to walk around the lake, however today the sun was shining and I had the time.

Today is a holiday, it is the Qingming festival and so the park is very busy indeed, but it’s such a large park that you can still walk freely. When I got to the coffee shop I was surprised to see it rather empty so I popped in for coffee. It’s a pity the coffee didn’t taste as good as the view.

I think it took me about 3 hours to walk around the lake, I’m not too sure but I was listening to Pink Floyd while I was strolling. I listened to the Division Bell and then the Wall so I guess that would be close to 3 hours.

This bridge is unusual because it has 3 platforms meeting in the middle.

The colours of spring are also in abundance, but today was good because the sun was shining and I finally managed to shed the jacket and beanie although I still had the scarf on for a while.

On my way to the 24th floor this morning I thought I would take my camera and show you what the Chinese use the fire exit for.

Not every floor has junk on it but the surprising thing is that it’s the top floors that are the culprits and they will be the ones at most risk if they ever have to use the stairs in a hurry.

I’m glad i live in the 4th floor which is actually the 3rd floor because they don’t have a ground floor here as they start at 1.Understand?

I decided to walk back to the apartment as the sun came oot and I thought I should walk of lunch and so here are a few pics on the way home,

And then for a wee snack, a jian bing

I was invited to TEDx in Suzhou today which was am event that I’d wanted to go to before.  A young friend that I met a few weeks ago whilst helping her and her friends with a documentary they were making for university.She is one of the organisers of TEDx . I had a great seat and I even had a translation headset because not all the speeches were in English. 
It opens with a performance by the Suzhou Youth Orchestra which was very good, although I can’t remember the piece they played. When the second piece starts two male dancers come in stage and perform some contemporary dance which no one I spoke to had any idea what it was all about.  It looked like two gay guys prancing about the stage, maybe china is becoming more open and tolerant.

We had 12 speakers and it was hard to enjoy the Chinese speeches to be honest. This was partly due to the translators that were not very good. One girl was struggling to translate one of the speakers because he was talking too fast. I know it must be a difficult thing to do and I’m not blaming her in any way.  But to be honest what is more difficult is to listen to the way many of the Chinese spoke. They shout and do not talk in a normal voice, but then again many Chinese in everyday life do the same. This makes it very hard to enjoy and then with the bad translation to boot I was wishing I’d brought my ear plugs.
The English-speaking speakers talk in a more ambient way which makes for easy listening. Now of course you may say,”Well you can only understand English or your biased and that’s why you say this” Well it may be but it’s also cultural differences at play. There were two speeches by an old Chinese woman and a young Chinese guy and both speeches were great,  this was because of the content, the translation and the delivery. It was easy to enjoy because it felt more natural and they were not shouting. 

After the speeches we all headed to the Novatel Hotel for a buffet meal which was absolutely marvelous and it was great to eat nice western style food and I finished it off with ice cream and it was delicious.

We often see stories in the media about the IRA and of course after the death of Martin McGuinness there have been many people talking about his days in the IRA and what will come of it now after his death.
I was out the other day in a shopping centre near my apartment in Suzhou and was I surprised to see this store selling clothes instead of Arms and other weapons. 

It looks like they have diversified there business model.