It’s been ages since I’ve posted about life out here in China, so I thought it was time for an update. Going through my pictures last night, though, I realized that it’s going to have to be a 2-parter! There’s just been way too much going on!
April and May were busy and filled with birthday parties and ‘just because’ parties. We had several mini holidays in those months and we made the most of them getting together with friends and cruising around on the Ebikes (I got lots of pictures of Suzhou, so expect a post about Suzhou Must-sees later this week!)
Dave and I also bought a barbecue this spring and had a barbecue party during our May holiday. We haven’t been able to use it as much as we’d hoped because it’s been raining so much lately (it’s the wet season in Suzhou), but in August and September we should be able to enjoy our grill a lot more!
Sadly, as the semester winds down, we must once more grow accustomed to one of the less enjoyable aspects of expat life: many of our friends are moving on or moving away. For a number of reasons, turnover was high at the school this year and more than half of the people I work with are moving on to different schools or different countries. Still, we’ve made the most of our time together and I’m looking forward to all the people I’ll meet next year.
In other news, Hugo and Poe have been wonderful, as always, but we recently ran into some trouble with Hugo’s amputated leg. What turned out to be an ingrown hair caused him 2 months of pain. Our original vet (Beck and Stone…I would NOT recommend these guys!) told us that Hugo had an infection when we brought him in (we were worried about a wound that had developed in his stump). They prescribed an anti-fungal ointment and sent us on our way. Well, it turns out that the ointment they prescribed is designed specifically for injuries that need to stay open…so instead of this wound closing, it kept getting bigger.
After another trip to the same vet and no improvement we decided to get a second opinion. That’s when we found out about the medication…and it turned out at that point Hugo needed surgery to clean the wound out and stitch it back up. He was home for about 5 days after that before he split open his stitches and had to have the surgery redone. When he came home a week later, the same thing happened again and he needed the surgery done a 3rd time. He’s home now, but he spent a total of 6 weeks in a cone, 3 weeks in a cage at the vet (basically on bed rest so he couldn’t tear out his stitches) and he’s turned back into a bit of a grumpy boy in the process. I’ve trained him to be gentle before, and I know I can do it again, but still…I feel awful that he went through all of this. All because of an ingrown hair (he never even had an infection), a bad veterinarian and his clumsy disposition (it was jumping off of furniture that kept causing his stitches to tear).
The moral of my story is: Just because a vet is shiny and western looking (Beck and Stone looks pristine and very professional), doesn’t mean that it’s actually your best option. The vet we are seeing now (Simon Pet Healthcare Center down near Zhongnan Jie station and Aeon Mall) is far more low tech and has a very simple set up, but they are FANTASTIC. They love animals and work to rehome animals that have been surrendered by their owners. They took such good care of Hugo and cost less than half as much as Beck and Stone did. I highly recommend them if you are looking for a vet in Suzhou!
So life has been busy between work (which will be its own separate post), birthdays and parties and taking care of our furry family, but nothing has kept me as busy as my new project. In May I began singing with a band. We go by many different names (there are 12 of us in total I think and depending on who’s playing, our band name changes) but I’m officially a vocalist and I perform pretty much every weekend!
The most exciting gig for me so far was a music festival last weekend called Suzhoubury. The Bookworm is a popular expat hang-out in Suzhou and they throw this festival annually. It’s free and people LOVE it! Usually I sing at restaurants and bars, where we’re sort of background noise, but at Suzhoubury, people were there to hear us perform! It was a tonne of fun and I got to sing my two favourites: Rolling in the Deep and Summer of 69. The wonderfully talented Christina Peters took the pictures below of our event.
So that’s been life as of late. My plan is to write 5 blog posts this week….I was hit by an ebike last night on our way to dinner, and my leg is pretty damaged, so I figure it’s a good week to stay off my feet and blog a little!
