One of the coolest parts of being an expat is all the people you meet. They come from everywhere. I’ve met chefs from Italy, chemists from New Zealand, PhD students from Turkey and of course, musicians from Portugal, The Philippines and beyond… We all come from different backgrounds and are in China for various reasons, but we all have one thing in common… We’ve all chosen Suzhou as home away from home.
Dave and I at the “Red Dress Hash”. Everyone dressed up in red dresses and fundraised for an Orphanage here in Suzhou. We saw a bit of the city, spent the evening outside walking, and had a great time!
At the beginning of this year, I decided to put myself out there more. I joined several WeChat groups in an effort to meet more people and to become part of the expat community. I started with music groups, because it was something I knew a lot about. I’ve also joined writers’ groups, travel groups and most recently, a Foodie group.
Anyone who knows me knows that I love both cooking… And eating!!!
In the Foodie Group, we all post about our favourite restaurants. Now, whenever Dave and I want to try something new, we check out places that have been recommended by fellow Foodies.
Our most recent recommendation: a Singaporean restaurant in Suzhou Center
A few months ago, I wrote about our friend, Lixia, and her restaurant that specializes in Guizhou food. Before I knew it, I was getting messages from the other Foodies, thanking me for the recommendation. Since then, this tiny Chinese restaurant has become quite popular amongst expats.
Lixia surprised Dave with a cake for his birthday last month
Lixia is easily one of the sweetest and most hard working people I know, so when I learned about a Food & Beverage competition, I got in touch with the organizers and nominated Zou Guizhou for the “Best View” award.
Her award winning view
Tonight, we went to the finals for this award, at The W hotel here in SIP. Lixia won in her category, and we were able to celebrate with her. It was a really fun night filled with good food, great wine and fabulous company.
Kevin joined us for the evening. He is the one who found Zou Guizhou for us 2 years ago
Several of our friends won awards. Larry (on the right) owns the best Vietnamese restaurant I’ve ever eaten at. He’s also a great guy (and Canadian!)
So happy to have Miya back in Suzhou!!!
Larry and Lixia have become friends too 🙂
Some of the fabulous food we had tonight
The best part of the night was when I realized how many people I knew at the event. A year ago, I made it my mission to become part of the expat community in Suzhou… And that mission has been accomplished.
It’s hard to believe that Dave and I have nearly been back in China for a month already! The past 3+ weeks have flown by possibly even faster than our time in Canada did! I sat down today with the intention of writing about Vancouver and realized that until I updated all the things that have been going on out here, I couldn’t focus on another topic. So here we go!!
Here’s a picture of Suzhou’s iconic ‘Pants Building’ being cleaned. Just because…
I’ve Been Performing as a Lead Vocalist!
Until recently, I was working back up or in duets with The Chairmen. It’s been great fun playing with those guys, but when Kit (our fearless leader) approached me and asked if I’d do a duet show with our guitarist, Mark, I jumped on the opportunity. We’ve only done one show so far, but it was pretty cool singing all 3 sets by myself. Best of all, Mark is super flexible about what play, so I’ve been able to do a bunch of new stuff. It was a nice switch up after all the Adele and Stevie Nicks I’ve been doing since May!!
I’m Competing in the Suzhou Expat Talent Show!
This one came about in a bit of a crazy way…Back in July, one of the HR staff at my school contacted me about representing the school at some kind of school district party. I agreed because I knew I’d already be back in Suzhou by that point and all was good. They knew I cover Adele, so they recommended I do “Rolling in the Deep”. I was cool with it.
We ran into our friend, Nick, at the show. He was there on behalf of his new school, Eaton House. (Also, my face looks like that because he was photobombing us)
Fast forward to the day of the ‘government party’…it turns out that this was less of a school district party and more of a ‘government beer party’. There was a full band there waiting for me along with about 100 government officials and 200 teachers (etc) from schools in the area.
I had a tough act to follow…this (rather tone-deaf) district big wig sang some traditional Chinese songs before my performance
The real kicker was when HR Frank told me…about an hour before I went on…that if it went well, I would be representing Suzhou Foreign Language School in this year’s Expat Talent Show. Notice that he didn’t ask…
Oh yeah, and that talent show will be televised and recorded in front of a huge audience. And it’s in 4 days…This band didn’t like me very much…They wouldn’t believe me when I said I did the song in A Minor (I don’t have a terribly high voice) and they refused to play it in my key. I had to sing it high, and I wasn’t as strong as I could have been, but it was alright…I guess…
It went well. Fast forward to 4 DAYS LATER (!!!!) and it was talent show time! There was a mix up with the band (mainly, there wasn’t one) but I lucked out when I learned that The Chairmen (my band) were also going to be performing (the rest of them all work for the same school). They ended up backing me for my song too, and the performance went pretty well! Here, you can see it yourself!!!
To my credit, I don’t feel like I looked as unprepared as I felt! I was very relieved to have Kit and Mark there! I also had a student come to see me perform, which was pretty awesome. I have awesome students. Have I mentioned that?
I have no idea what the results were for this show. From what I understand, they are going to be watching video auditions for the next month, and choosing people to go onto the second round from there. I just hope I find out with more than 4 days to prepare this time!!! I Am Writing for a News APP and a Newspaper!!
The night of the talent show, I received a text message from an editor at Nihao Suzhou, an APP designed to help foreigners in China (it’s actually a branch of Nihao China…every city has their own, I believe). They had been for writers earlier in the week, and I’d inquired along with a link to my blog. The editor liked my work and asked me to write an 800 word piece about anything I wanted. A week later, I was published!
The article was pretty successful and received over 2000 views in the first day. Carrie, my editor, told me to go ahead and write another article if I wanted, and I submitted that one today! Also, she was so happy with the article that she recommended it for publication in the Suzhou Daily Newspaper! So there’s that, too! I Lost the Olympics
Dave and I decided that we wanted to be more social this year, so we’ve been busy trying ot get involved in the expat community. Dave’s joined a gaelic football team, I’ve been doing gigs (and everything else above)…and we subscribed to this really cool website called InterNations.
The Olympic Athletes
InterNations plans all sorts of events across the city. The one we attended last weekend was held at the Kempinski Hotel, where there is a Paulaner Brewery. We got to learn about the ancient German art of beer making and we spent the afternoon playing games with a few friends we’d dragged along, and a LOT of new friends that we met at the event.
The Ladies of our team
Lizz and I, designing our team flag
I did not win. Not by a long shot. But it WAS a blast! And I feel like we met some really cool people. It was definitely a good time and we’ll be attending another InterNations event next Friday.
Mia, killing it at Beer Pong (just kidding…our team only managed to get 1 in, the whole game!!!)
Our team mate, Miguel, playing the 1 game I sat out. I can sip beer…I am not a chugger. I cheered from the sidelines!!
School Started
September 1st was our first day of classes. I am transitioned into a full-time English teacher (no more cooking classes) and am getting to know my 2 new grade 7 classes! So far, my new coworkers are upbeat and awesome, and I’m having a great time!
School Assembly
One of my new Grade 7 writing classes
So that’s been our last 3 and a half weeks! Pretty wild! Now I need to catch up on some sleep…
Another day, another blog post! We decided to change things up and go to a Starbucks out in Suzhou New District (where SFLS is located) because I have a farewell IGCSE dinner to attend later tonight. It’s so crazy that another term is finished! Most of the department is returning next year, but we are losing a teacher or two that I wish we were keeping.
Me with some of my favourite IGCSE teachers at Nathan’s Art show.
Personally, I’m happy to be staying in the department. I really like the administration in IGCSE and next year I’ll be taking over as the grade 7 and 8 English teacher. Right now I only teach 1 writing class but next year I’ll be teaching 3, plus 3 oral and listening classes. I think it’ll be better for me than teaching Food and Nutrition and I know I’m more qualified for my new role. Plus, I still get to keep 2 of my drama classes and I’ll be starting a new Publishing and Editing elective next year (my class will be in charge of the school yearbook, the school calendar and our departmental blog!). Exciting things are in store for me in September!
Although teaching Food and Nutrition wasn’t my cup of tea, the end of the year was a lot of fun!
Neat and Tidy!
The Grade 7 IGCSE boys
My grade 7 writing class is one of my favourites to teach, and I know I’m going to miss them over the summer. These kids are very bright for their age so I decided to teach them how to write simple thesis statements in an effort to better organize their writing. Michael is a student who tends to be a bit of a downer…always complaining about how tough life is. I taught him the word ‘optimistic’ earlier this year and he’s used it every chance he could. This was my favourite use of this word:
This year I see them twice a week, but next year I get them 6 times a week, so I’m pretty excited about that! These kids never stop making me laugh! They are truly a joy!!
Tom from IG1…he may not be the most studious student of the bunch, but he’s hilarious
The IG1 kids standing outside the teacher’s locked office while Nathan and I were practicing our song for the IG2 Charity Show
IGCSE is a really cool department to be part of. Although I mostly taught in the Elite Department this past year, I took part in several IGCSE projects and I ran the school yearbook as well. All of the staff try to provide a well rounded school life for the students and I try to help out whenever I can. But my favourite thing about IG is the way they help out with a migrant school in Suzhou.
One of the Blooper Pages for the yearbook. It’s mostly just Nathan and Adam making faces…but I feel that it well represents the spirit of the IGCSE staff room.
Migrant schools are for children whose parents are from other provinces but who have come to Suzhou for work. They are highly underfunded and the students don’t as good of an education. Each class in our department gets a chance to visit a migrant school each team. This means that nearly every month, my department takes an afternoon to spend time teaching students English. It’s a learning experience for everyone involved because the migrant kids get some English lessons and the IG kids get to see how lucky they are to be going to a school with the resources that SFLS has. We have Nathan (my boss) to thank for this added activity for the students. He’s been working with the migrant school for years and has won awards for the help he’s given them.
Nathan and I performing at the Grade 8 Charity Fundraiser last week
So all these little projects have really filled up my year, but none of them took as much of my focus and hard work than the Drama Festival. It took months of work, hours of writing, days of rehearsal…but in the end, it was all so worth it!!!
I was in charge of everything including writing speeches for the MCs, setting up mini shows between each play and writing and directing 4/5 of the plays at the festival this year. From sets, to sounds to costumes and script…I was involved in all of it! It was a pretty big job…
Because of my background in writing, I decided early on that my focus was going to be on writing the plays and (of course) having them act them out with comprehend-able English. Nathan ran the Drama festival last year, and with his art background there was a lot more focus on sets and props, so it was kind of cool to mix it up this year. I’m especially proud of the way each of my classes came up with their plays:
Step 1: I began the term in February by teaching my students how to write a story. First, we focused on writing good characters and making sure that their characters had depth. Then, I taught them about plot and what a good plot line looks like.
Step 2: Each class was separated into 4 groups and I gave them 2 weeks to write the outline for a play. I gave them free reign on the topics and they came up with very different stories.
The winning Elite 2 Boys group. Vasyli was intense about their play right from the start!
Tracy and Victoria from Elite 1 Girls. This class had the most difficulty choosing their play. In the end, it came down to a few votes….but even the losing teams did a fabulous job presenting their ideas to the rest of the class
Step 3: Each group presented their outline to the class and then the class voted on which play they would do for the drama festival.
Step 4: I took the winning outline and turned it into a play. I met with the students and got a better idea of what they wanted to see in their play and discussed ways that we could add characters so everyone who wanted to act could. Then I wrote the dialogue and presented it to them. Other than a few small details, the students were thrilled to see their ideas come to life on page in proper English.
One of the small performances between plays. This is a grade 8 boy from the Elite Department. He plays the piano beautifully and entertained the crowd while I organized the next play to go up
The sound guys from Elite 1 Boys. This was these guys’ first Drama festival and they were a little less organized than I’d hoped. Samuel is the kid covering his face…He’s in Grade 8 and was losing his patience with the excited boys! lol
Because of the way we did this, there was HUGE buy in from the students at the Drama Festival. Each class was so proud of their play and they all worked very hard to impress all the other students. Here’s the breakdown of each play: Elite 1 Girls Class (Grade 7)
Their play had all the usual school characters: A good teacher, a Bad teacher, rich students, poor students, hard working students, lazy students…
Julia played the teacher-villain of the play (back row on the left). She did SUCH a wonderful job. When she finished her first scene the whole audience went nuts. She memorized her lines within 2 weeks of receiving the script and she had more lines than anyone else in the play
These girls wanted to write a story with a moral, so that’s what we did. They worked the hardest out of any of my classes on their emphasis and pronunciation and the other students noticed. Although their play wasn’t as exciting as a lot of the other plays, they really shone because their speech was so clear. I am very proud of these ladies and I’m super bummed I won’t be teaching them again next year! Elite 1 Boys Class (Grade 7)
Jagger…the evil robot
Adam, Poker and Jagger arguing
Adam and his assistant, Alfred, bringing to life the good robot, Potter
One of the fight scenes took place in a restaurant. It was probably my favourite scene in the play. It was VERY well done by the boys!
This was one of the funniest plays at the festival. Adam, the student wearing the big glasses, is a Drama King! He wrote the outline to a fabulous “Robots and Mad Scientist” type play that the class voted in. There were several fighting scenes (with correlating sound effects) that had the audience in stitches and everyone loved how the Narrator was killed by the villain in the end. I was worried about this play before the festival because it seemed like the students weren’t listening to anything I was saying during rehearsals, but someone was obviously paying attention (probably Adam lol!) and they pulled it together in the final hour! It was an AWESOME play and I’m very excited to be teaching them again next year! Elite 2 Boys Class (Grade 8)
Peter (the boy with the mic) struggles with pronunciation and hates English class. Drama has given him a creative outlet where he’s learning English in a new way. He loves acting and has become quite good! Best of all…his English has improved a tonne!
Vasyli is my star. He was so dedicated to the play that he was spending all his free time practicing, to the point where he didn’t know know HIS lines…but everyone else’s too! One day we were waiting for the auditorium to be unlocked, and he spent the time entertaining the whole class by doing the entire first scene…he played all 4 characters and had us all laughing up a storm.
These were easily the most hardworking students at the Drama Festival. Not only did they participate more than any other class with the writing of the actual play, but they were practicing in their free time and they added so many things to the play that weren’t in the script. They OWNED this play and it was a huge success at the festival.
A brilliant calling card
These boys spent the entire scene like this. They did pretty well to not move, but when they inevitably did, it just added to the fun!
Detective Echo being interviewed by a reporter. William (on the left) is such a humble kid. When I asked him to play one of the leads he looked at me shocked….this kid is a brilliant actor! I don’t know how he didn’t think the class would want him in a lead!
Mike is another one of my favourites in this class (I laugh as I write this because they’re honestly all my favourites). He’s so careful about his pronunciation and vocabulary. He cares such a great deal about everything he does. Such a cool 14 year old.
The Drama Festival was SUCH a success!!!
The story line was very funny and although it wasn’t originally suppose to be a comedy, we were all glad it became one. It was a detective story about a murderer who’s calling card was to leave high-end underwear on his victim’s heads (the underwear wasn’t part of the original script but when I told them they needed to have something memorable in the play, that’s what they thought up….middle school boys are hilarious!!).
No matter how many times I saw that play performed, I laughed every single time. I loved watching them from the side of the stage…I’m so proud of these kids!!!
IGCSE (grades 7-9 co-ed classes)
The plays’ protagonists: Heisenburger and PJ. Tiffany played Heisenburger and did SUCH an incredible job with her lines!
Suzy as PJ…a student in love with socks
Discovering the perfect recipe for candy
The IGCSE play is the one I’m personally most proud of, because I wrote it all myself. The students were in the middle of their IGCSE exams during the festival so they didn’t have time to help as much as I would have liked. Still, they worked hard at remembering their lines and bringing their best actor-selves to the stage.
The end-of-play fight scene)
The heroes of the play: The janitor and Chef
The Blue Candy inspired by Breaking Bad (I used dyed coconut shavings!)
The play was called ‘Breaking Bad: Candy Crush Edition’ and it was based on the television show, only instead of crystal meth, the students were selling a special type of candy that was addictive and high in sugar content. Because the play was set in IGCSE, the kids LOVED the issues brought up (the candy starts as a distraction to break ‘the homework system’ that’s keeping them all prisoner). Best of all, 3 teachers (myself included) made guest appearances in the play. Isaac, the Economics teacher. does body building on the side, so he came out and raged at the students for misbehaving, even breaking a meter stick in the process. Adam’s socks were stolen for candy and I was found crying in a hallway because of all the ants that the candy had attracted into the Food and Nutrition kitchens. Students and teachers alike loved the play and I think it was the perfect way to end the festival. Even Mr. Rehan, who prides himself in being quite serious, sent me a message after the Drama Festival was over saying: “Thank you. In my 2 years at this school, this is the first time I found something so entertaining”. Win for Marie!!!!
Adam playing himself…a stressed out teacher who’s socks have been stolen
So that’s been my spring term! Lots of projects and lots of hard work…but all worth it!
(I am truly looking forward to next year’s Drama Festival already!!)
We fell in love with Suzhou before we’d even moved to China. I did a quick search on the internet for the most livable cities in China, and Suzhou was near the top of the list. From that google search on, I always knew I wanted to live here. Although it didn’t work out for our first year in China, with 2 years of teaching experience under my belt, it wasn’t a problem to find a job here for year 2.
Guiyang is lush and surrounded by rugged beauty
Suzhou is modern and peaceful
Living in SIP, we are surrounded by expats, western food, western bars and English. It couldn’t be more comfortable for us and I sometimes forget that we’re living in China. But Suzhou isn’t only good as a place to live and work. There’s plenty to see here as well, and although tourism isn’t as high as it is in cities like Guilin, you’d have no problem filling a week in Asia’s Venice.
When we first arrived in Suzhou, the tourism board of the city gave us a tour of a silk factory. Suzhou is famous for its silk
We got to tour a factory
A lot of the merchandise was out of my price range, even at factory prices, but I did buy myself a scarf 🙂
Watertowns
Where Guiyang has minority villages, Suzhou has Water Towns. Water Towns are built along the canals and are a peaceful retreat into ancient China. They can be a little over crowded during holidays and weekends, but if you can escape to one during the week, they are a lovely experience. You can get traditional minority candies and food and there are always plenty of little restaurants where you can stop for some food. Water Towns are also nice for shopping and it isn’t difficult to find a shop that sells scarves and other traditional Chinese gifts.
You can go on boat rides along the canals
lots of pretty views
lots of pretty bridges!
small restaurants are scattered along the canals and you can almost always find a patio like this one
They can be a little bit overcrowded, but that’s part of the fun!
Shantang Road and Pingjiang Road
There is no shortage of places to shop in Suzhou. Shantang Road ad Pingjiang Road are both ancient shopping streets where you can find any Chinese souvenir you desire. They’re also great places to grab a beer, hop on a boat and eat some local food. My favourite pass-time on Shangtang Road (we haven’t actually visited Pingjiang yet) is taking pictures. These roads are beautifully picturesque and no matter which time of day you visit, there are endless photo ops.
Although Dave hates shopping and crowds, even he is impressed by some of the craftsmanship you can find on Shantang Road. Jade carvings, paintings and wood art is easy to find along the street. Not only are these things beautiful to look at, but they give you an (air conditioned) escape from the crowds when they get to be too much!
An elaborate stone carving. It cost over 10,000 rmb and I had to pry Dave away from the window he was so impressed by the work.
Parks
What drew me to Suzhou happens to still be my favourite part of living in this city. Suzhou has the most beautiful parks I’ve ever seen in my life. They are a mixture of old and new, with old style buildings and carefully trimmed trees. In some of the more famous parks, the crowds can be a problem, but if you go to some of the smaller parks, they are peaceful and refreshingly quiet.
There are always places to stop and take in the beauty
Dave can never get over the beautifully trimmed trees we see every time we visit a park
Suzhou is modern and peaceful
Circular doorways are abundant in Suzhou Parks and I never grow tired of taking photos of them. Most of the parks we’ve visited have also had rock formations that make mini caves. There are dozens of parks in Suzhou and so far I’ve only seen 3 or 4, but each has been impressive in its own way.
We visited Linger Garden, one Suzhou’s nicest spots, a few weekends back. It was a bit crowded in some areas!
Pretty garbage cans
Circular doorway
Beautifully carved windows are another common feature of Chinese gardens
And if you’ve read any of my other posts, you know that I consider it a game to find all the crazy translations each park has to offer. Here are some from Lingering Garden
Funny
Incomprehensible
Spelling Mistake. These signs were everywhere…some were spelled correctly…others were not.
There are really 2 types of parks in China. There are the walled off ‘old style’ parks that are a step into ancient China…and then there are modern parks that are free and open, similar to the ones we have out West. I don’t often go to those parks, but we had one particularly beautiful weekend back in May where Dave and I, and our friend Michael, spent several hours chatting and walking around Central Park. I ended up with a pretty impressive sunburn, but it was worth the peaceful afternoon.
Central Park is close to our Apartment in SIP. It was opened by the Singaporean President to represent peace
Dave and Michael standing on their countries (in Asian maps, North America is on the right)
If you’re lucky, you may even spot some wildlife in Central Park! We saw this little guy from across the pond…a testament to the zoom on my camera!
Remy the Rat!
Perhaps he’s off to make some Ratatouille
All the Other Cool Stuff
Although we’ve been here nearly a year now, I still haven’t had the chance to make it to some of Suzhou’s most famous landmarks. Tiger Hill is somewhere I was hoping to go this week, but my leg is still very swollen so I haven’t been able to. There is a pagoda there that leans that is pretty cool to see.
A smaller and lesser know destination I HAVE visited is Suzhou’s city wall. It’s located at the Xiangmen metro stop on line 1 and although it isn’t the kind of thing that would take up an afternoon, it’s a nice place to stop during sunset or at night, when the area is all lit up.
The old city wall
Canals are everywhere in Suzhou
So there you have it. These are some of my favorite places to visit in Suzhou. This list will continue growing the longer we live here, but I think this is a pretty good start!
In my next post, I’ll be writing more about SIP, the area where Dave and I live.
I spent most of yesterday working on a post about the last few months at SFLS. Just as I was in my last paragraph, I realized that I am missing some pretty crucial photos from the Drama Festival. Now, I usually wouldn’t let something like that stop me from publishing, but the Drama Festival was my baby this year, so until I get those photos (I did track them down! They’re on someone else’s camera!!), I’m going to leave that post in my ‘drafts’ folder and move onto something I’ve been working on for ages…
A sneak peak of my IGCSE play
A few months back, I published a poll asking my readers what they’d like to see next. It was a 4 way tie, so I made the decision to write about Suzhou…the beautiful city where I live. I’ve spent the last 3 months seeing more of the city and taking photos for the post and wound up with so much material that I’ve decided it’s going to be two posts.
Trust me…Suzhou is worth 2 posts!
Post #1 – So, You’re Visiting Suzhou
My first post will be about all the famous landmarks there are to see in Suzhou. The focus will be on the top places to visit if you travel to this lovely city. The scope will be broader and more geared toward my family and friends back home who we HOPE will be encouraged to come out and visit us 😉
We have a lovely spare room for anyone who wants to come for a visit 😉
Post #2 – So, you’re Moving to Suzhou
The second post will be more focused on the different areas of the city and the things anyone who is moving here should know. There is a huge expat population in Suzhou and every year there are new teachers who arrive, so that post is going to be focused on helping those teachers get to know the city and helping them get settled. If you enjoyed my ‘so you’re moving to China’ posts…you’ll enjoy what I have planned for that one.
Auchan is the Carrefour of SIP…there is a love-hate relationship here….
So stay tuned, friends, family and internet people! I’ll be back before you know it….
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!
Many things have not changed, to be fair. We are still going to After Hours so much that our waitress knows our order and where we like to sit…
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!)
A sneak-peek
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!
We had a Barbecue at the beginning of May. It was a blast!
Celebrating Jeff’s Birthday was quite the event back in April
Jeff and I 🙂
Dave and I
Fun on the Balcony
I made my deviled eggs for Jeff’s Mexican Themed birthday
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.
Cheetar, Adam and Karsten living it up at KTV
KTV bars are so swank! lol
Dinner on Japan Street where you can get all you can eat sushi and tepanyaki + all you can drink beer for about $35 Canadian
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.
At first, he didn’t mind the cone so much
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).
He’s back home now, more handsome than ever
Poe’s been working very hard to keep our spirits up
They had to shave Hugo’s entire stump…the poor guy must be itchy as it’s growing back!
Poe being cute
When we went to visit him during his hospital stay, he clung to me like glue
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!
My first gig at Maestre Brau
I always close my eyes when I’m singing!!!! gah!!!
My dear friend Li who comes to every show that she can.
This little girl loved my voice. She asked her mom to put a stool in front of the stage so she could watch me…..melted my heart!
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.
We were moved inside because of some rain, but the show went on!
A great group! We even got asked to do an encore!
Me and our bassist, Dennis. This guy is multi talented…he also plays guitar and does vocals for one of the mini bands. Great guy
A very cool shot
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!
Be careful driving in China! This guy was entering the street from a back alley and didn’t so much as slow down when entering the road where we were driving. He drove straight into my leg (I was riding on the back of the scooter). The worst part is that when I stood up and was checking to see if anything was broken, he had the nerve of saying it was OUR fault…didn’t even apologize….jerk!
I have about 10 blog posts planned at the moment, but have had so little free time that they’ve all just been sitting in my head Spring term has been a little bit crazy, and when you add in holidays, birthdays and regular life into the mix…finding downtime can be tricky! So, I thought an update on all my projects was a good idea…
Life since we returned from India has been eventful in both good and bad ways. When we got back to Suzhou, I started going to the gym again, but realized that I didn’t have anywhere near the energy I should have. I was actually feeling all around pretty terrible…by the time my lung infection hit full force, my body was having difficulty getting enough oxygen. I ended up at the Sing Medical walk-in clinic in SIP (the area of Suzhou where we live), where I was put on 5 different medication and told to stay in bed for the next week…
The doctor wasn’t sure if it was a bacterial or viral lung infection, but he was fairly sure that it had been building up for some time…I think it began in India…but it might have even been before that.
Since that necessary ‘mini vacation’, life hasn’t really stopped. I’ve been put in charge of the yearbook committee and the drama festival this term (two huge projects!) and I’ve also been helping out with some grade 8 exam preparation and of course, I have all my regular classes as well. It’s been a busy few months!
Brain Storming for the school yearbook. Yearbooks aren’t a ‘thing’ in China, so this is SUPER exciting for the students!
My favourite project has definitely been the Drama Festival. 4/5 of the classes that are participating in the event are taught by yours truly, so I’ve had my hands full preparing sets and props, teaching the students how to write a play, and of course, actually writing the plays. This festival has actually given me the chance to teach the students a whole set of new skills, and I really feel that they’ve gotten a lot out of these projects.
From there, I taught them about plot line and then gave them 2 weeks to prepare a presentation for the class about the play their group thought up
They all took the presentations very seriously and when each group had presented their idea to the class, we voted and chose the best play.
Now we are preparing the play that they chose as a group and they will perform it in the drama festival on April 22nd
Of course, when it came down to actually writing the plays, that was mostly left up to me. So working with their plot lines and character profiles, I got to put my creative writing skills to use! It was a tonne of fun and although it meant spending my long weekend holiday at Starbucks, it was well worth my time and efforts! I am SO looking forward to seeing what these plays look like up on stage on April 22nd!
This project has also given an opportunity to develop leadership skills in many of the stronger students.
Drama has been a blast this semester, and I have to say that Food and Nutrition has been on an upswing as well! Last term, and at the very beginning of this term, I was struggling with keeping the kitchen up to an acceptable standard of cleanliness. My students do alright, but students from the high school were using the kitchen in their free time and leaving quite a few messes to clean up.
This is my favourite class to take to the kitchen. They are learning to be so neat and organized!
I love coming in and seeing that they’ve put their vegetables in bowls instead of just having them all over the counter, like they used to do.
Making spaghetti and meatballs!
This class has been doing so well I actually took them to the kitchen for an extra week.
They LOVED the Jaimaican deviled eggs we made last term, so this term I decided to make some special Easter eggs with them
And when we were finished early (because it doesn’t take 90 minutes to make deviled eggs lol!), we got to work on our play for the drama festival!
And, in addition to the regular challenges you’d expect to face in a Home Economics-type class, there are some serious differences in culture when it comes to health and safety. It’s been quite the battle trying to teach the students about mold and bacteria. While in the past, it’s been perfectly acceptable to just stack up wet dishes into the cupboards (that aren’t finished…they have raw wood inside), the mold problem I faced in September made me determined to teach them the value of properly cleaning up. My students learned these skills pretty quickly, but as I mentioned earlier, I share the kitchen with other classes, and not all of the other classes were so quick to catch on.
Notice the sign?? At least they didn’t put them in the cupboard! lol!!
The worst is when I come in after being out of the kitchen for a week…students often leave behind things like this and they begin to rot. The worst is when I find open bags of bags of pasta sauce or open tubes of mayonnaise sitting on the counter…
My writing class continues to be one of the most rewarding things I do at the school. I love teaching those kids and they’re so engaged and interested in my lessons that they are making leaps and bounds as far as their writing is concerned. My biggest success has been a student named Jared, who went from getting 30-40% on his homework last term, to 75-80% this term! Something clicked for him and now he’s finishing 3rd place in the class on tests! That’s huge for a mainland kid, because it means that he beat kids from Singapore and Malaysia, who have been learning English most of their lives. I’m very proud of him.
A classroom selfie. I very much look forward to Friday mornings, when I get my 80 minutes with these 13 year olds 🙂
And of course, in addition to being an incredibly hard-working group of students, they’re funny too! They played a very cute trick on me on April Fools day!
I came into the classroom and this is what I saw! They had all put their hoodies on backwards and were sitting backwards in their seats. Little Tom was also hiding in the teacher’s desk and he jumped out at me as soon as I started teaching! I screamed and jumped about 3 feet in the air. I’m pretty sure I added about a year onto these kids’ lives with laughter!!
Life outside of the school has been busy too. With both Dave and I having birthdays in April, it’s already usually a busy month. As it turns out, our good friend, Jeff, also has a birthday in April and his friends Matt and Lisa came out for a visit as well, so we’ve been having lots of parties as of late!
Dave and I, reading for the Kempinski
At the Kempinski with some lovely friends!
I made a friend that night…this is my friend Eric’s son, Alex. Such a cute kid!!!
I’ve gotta say though, the best part so far was the one we had last night. I turned the big three oh, and some of my favourite people took me out to Beijiang (a Chinese Muslim restaurant with INCREDIBLE food!) and then to KTV! It was such a great night! I can hardly talk today because my voice is so tired from singing…but it felt so good to be out! I have met some awesome people in Suzhou and last night I felt incredibly lucky to be out with them.
Our dinner group…Jeff is incapable of taking a nice picture :p
Dave and I! Dave did such an amazing job making my birthday special this year! I’m spending 2 hours at the Kempinski spa tomorrow as a birthday gift!
My GORGEOUS birthday cake! It taste even better than it looks!!!
Michael, Karsten and I. Karsten’s rendition of ‘I will Survive’ suited his German accent so well! It is officially my new favourite version of that song!
I don’t know what I was singing here..probably Gaga…I did a lot of Gaga last night lol!
Lizz, Jeff, Dave and Piyush! Some of my favorite people in Suzhou!
Fun picture!
Katie killing it rapping!!!
Dave killing it doing AC/DC! lol
So that’s been life lately….it’s been full and awesome and 50 shades of crazy! Oh, one last thing…I already got Dave his birthday present! I found them for sale on the Suzhou Buy and Sell and I’m SOOO happy I did!!!
Meet Bonnie…
and Clyde!
I’ll be back soon…though I’m not sure if I’ll be around again before the drama festival on the 22nd. As always…thanks for reading!
I love my life in Suzhou. I’ve made some incredible friends and adopted some awesome cats. I’m working at a great school in a well-run department where I am respected and valued. I have opportunity for growth here in Suzhou, both professionally and personally and I’ve even been able to focus more on my health here, going to the gym and being more careful with my diet. I’ll be 30 soon and I need to stay healthy so that my 30s are as rockin’ as my 20s were. Still, today I’m not feeling much love for the Venice of Asia. Perhaps it’s the smoggy weather or maybe I didn’t sleep very, but China is getting on my nerves today!
It didn’t feel great being outside today. I took an underground tunnel most of the way home
This morning Dave and I met a friend for breakfast, and as is often the case with Michael, we got into a discussion about what it’s like living in China. Michael’s still on his first year here and he is still noticing some of the things that Dave and I have learned to ignore and his perspective on life here always reminds me of the things that foreigners live with on a day to day basis out here in the orient.
A Frequent theme in my blog
And all things considered, there really isn’t very much that we need to worry about. China is safe and the people here are kind and friendly, the countryside in this country is diverse and stunningly beautiful and the expat community is quite large so it’s easy to make friends in Suzhou. But, as is the case anywhere, China (and Suzhou) has its problems…
The Great Wall of China
Gardens in Suzhou
Rural Guizhou
The Li River, Guangxi China
The LongJi Rice fields in Guangxi
The Sun and Moon Pagodas in Guilin
As I mentioned earlier in this post, I’ve been going to the gym. I’ve been pretty good about going 3 days per week and although I haven’t lost much in the way of weight (I think I’m building muscle), I’m becoming noticeably more toned and I’ve been slimming down. I’m very proud of the way I’ve been looking lately and I feel good about doing something positive for a body that has treated me pretty well so far in my 29 years. But I’ve gotta say…as much as I love working out and feeling energized, it is EXTREMELY difficult to love Chinese gyms!! Where should I start?.
I discovered, while writing this blog post, that Powerhouse is a chain outside of just China.
The Equipment: Although there are about 20 treadmills at Power House, they only have 6 eliptical machines, 1 stair master, 10 bikes and some weight side to side machines that kind of make you feel like you’re skating. Now, I have no problems with the treadmills…there are more than enough and they are in good shape…but I also don’t use treadmills very often because they kill my knees. So that leaves 20 cardio machines that I CAN use…except 8 or 9 of them are almost always broken. The ones that AREN’T broken are such poor quality that they always feel like they’re about to fall apart underneath you. Out of all the elliptical machines, only 1 of them accurately tracks distance and calories…1!!! It’s the same with the weights and the resistance machines. Many of them are missing pins so you can’t adjust the resistance without first hunting down a pin from some other machine. Plus, nobody puts their equipment away after they use them, so there are random weights just hanging around on the floor…a little bit dangerous…
Standard Operating Practices…
There are 4 machines down just in this shot alone…
Sanitation: This is a big one. There are no towels or spray bottles anywhere at Power House so people don’t clean their equipment like they do in Canada. I can’t tell you how often I get onto an elliptical and realize that the handles are covered in someone else’s sticky sweat. I bring my Norwex towel with me to help with that kind of thing, but it’s still pretty gross. The bathrooms are also pretty dirty. People don’t flush their dirty toilet paper in China (something about the sewage systems not being able to handle it), so the garbage cans are full of that dirty toilet paper. It smells awful and the cans get emptied so rarely that the entire hallway around the bathrooms and change rooms stinks like urine. Not pleasant…
The biggest problem with squatters themselves is that it’s sometimes hard to control where your pee ends up….so most of the time, it ends up on (at least) the bottom of your shoes, and you end up tracking it out of the bathroom…
The People: This is the worst part of going to the gym. I can’t even tell you how many times I haven’t been able to finish my work out because someone is sitting on a machine I need, texting or checking their WeChat accounts…it’s infuriating but I often feel like I’m the only person who cares. This kind of thing was especially bad in January and February, when all the New Years resolution memberships started up. Girls (the worst offenders) would hop on a treadmill and spend 10-15 minutes going back and forth between stretching (on the machine!!) and taking selfies to post on WeChat. This isn’t a huge gym, and while there are plenty of treadmills, that can’t be said about any other machine in the building. Yesterday I gave up after waiting 5 minutes for a guy to get off the crunch machine I wanted to use to target my upper abs. And that one elliptical machine that works…the one I mentioned before…people hog that machine for 50+ minutes…some of them hardly even breaking a sweat they are going so slowly because they are too busy enjoying their favourite TV show on their cell phones.
And most of the time, people aren’t just taking short breaks between sets…they literally use the equipment like public benches…
And this is where the title of this post comes in…a lot of these problems are annoying but forgivable. After all, I know my standards are high…I’m lucky and I was born in a wealthy country where I have the luxury of having problems as shallow as ‘not having cold enough water’. I also know that the sewage issues in China are complicated and that not everywhere in the world is as sterile as North America (it’s weird coming home for visits by the way…everything feels too clean…the whole country feels like a hospital). There are absolutely things that can be explained by pointing out cultural differences…and foreigners who have been here for a while are always quick to point out that you’re being judgmental for getting upset about some of the things we deal with here in China. I always feel bad when someone says that to me, because I try very hard to be understanding of cultural differences…
A picture depicting the difference between line ups in North America, vs the way it’s done in China…I even learned to embrace this in Guiyang and Xiamen (it’s not to bad in Suzhou). I put aside my Canadian upbringing and learned to push my way to the front, just like everyone else…
But this morning, when we were having breakfast with Michael, he said something that really rang true with me during my work out today: When can we stop pretending that EVERYTHING is about culture? How many things can we blame on cultural differences, really?? When does Culture become an excuse?
The Chinese think that drinking cold water is bad for your stomach…so even at the gym, you can only find hot water, or room temperature. At Power House, one of the options is suppose to be cold, but it comes out warm enough to steam up my bottle, sooo…
I don’t think that the selfie taking at the gym is forgivable just because I’m in China and “things are different here”. I also don’t think people have to leave their equipment all over the place for others to trip on. And I definitely don’t think that a gym like Power House, who claims to be the ‘western gym’ and charges western prices, has any excuses as far as buying terrible equipment is concerned. None of these things are cultural…they’re just people being inconsiderate of others. And maybe it’s my Canadian background…maybe it’s just my upbringing…but I really have very little patience for inconsiderate people. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone just paid attention to other people’s needs and tried to be more aware of the world around them?
Another example of this behaviour..some one took off with the school kitchen’s mop over the holiday. There was a water issue in the kitchen and the only way I could get the water out of the mop they left behind, was to take it outside and step on the mop to get the water out…People take things from that kitchen all the time and leave messes as well. I don’t know if they just don’t realize that SOMEONE has to clean it (that someone being me), or if they just straight up don’t care…
So those are my thoughts today. Living overseas can be very hard some days, and although it’s gotten ions easier for me since moving to Suzhou, there are still thing here that tick me off. I guess I still have not succeeded in becoming the Super Wizard that I long to be… a Super Wizard who is annoyed by nothing and can aparate to Canada any time she wants to go to the gym or meet her gorgeous new nephew, Zachary.
Thank goodness I have these 3 to keep me sane!
There’s still more about India on its way! Thanks for checking in!!!
Unlike at the end of many holidays, where I’ve been a little depressed to return to ‘real life’, I am totally thrilled to be back in Suzhou. I’m only one week into the new semester and I’m already finding work challenging, rewarding and fun. The number of students who greeted me by jumping out of their seat and cheering blew me away. How did I end up working for a school with students this cool? I don’t remember ever loving teachers enough to cheer for them!? These kids are just so great…and it helps that I love teaching Drama and writing…and even Food and Nutrition (when I’m in the classroom!!!).
My 7th grade all-girls class. They have improved so much in the kitchen, learning how to clean properly and how to make safe food
One of the girls was looking for extra point on their final exam at the end of last term. It says ‘Love Marie’ in Honey Dill sauce!!
Anyway…after 30 days away from home, Poe and Hugo are very pleased to have us back! Poor Poe was very anxious from us being away, I think, and our first few nights back were sleepless. She needs constant reassurance and is always worried that we’ve left. She wakes us up in the middle of the night…seemingly just to see if we’re there. I wonder what she went through at that shelter to have so much to worry about! Hugo, on the other hand, could not be more relaxed. Although he’s the one missing a leg, you’d never guess that he’s seen a moment of trauma in his life. Nothing phases him…I guess cats are like people in that way…some handle stress better than others.
Hugo, cuddled up and purring like a mad-man
You better not be thinking about leaving me!!!!
I have such a derpy cat!!! lol!!! If this isn’t total relaxation…what is!?!?!?
Hey Guys…where are we going!?!?!?
The following few posts I’ll be putting up will be about some of the most incredible parts of our trip. It felt as though writing about these things from my tablet wouldn’t do them justice…not only because the internet was constantly a struggle and my photo editing tools are all on my laptop (which we didn’t bring along), but I wanted to be able to write about these things with some distance from India. Our trip had a lot of ups and even more downs, but I know that with some distance, things won’t seem as though they were so bad. The following two posts will be about our time in Agra and our time in the Thar desert…and they are both stories that deserve to be to told without residual frustrations tainting otherwise beautiful experiences.
Suzhou’s most iconic building: The Pants
Goodness, I missed Chinese food!!!
I hope you enjoy reading about these adventures as much as I’ve enjoyed documenting them through both writing and photography.
Although my next post was going to be about our trip to Hong Kong, I thought that writing about the Holidays might be a little more relevant. The holiday season can be awful or amazing when you are a foreigner in another country. It’s easy to feel homesick and marginalized when you live in a country where Christmas is important on a superficial level alone, but it helps a lot when you work with awesome people and have good friends to celebrate with. Dave and I were fortunate enough to be part of several events with the great friends we’ve made over the last 4 months. And although our Christmas definitely had some ‘downs’, it was, for the most part, an excellent holiday!
The biggest Christmas tree we’ve seen in China. This is right near Xinghai Square; the metro stop we live near
Some polar bear Christmas decorations outside of a restaurant. They made me feel a little closer to Manitoba
The school held several events around the holidays that definitely helped encourage the Christmas Spirit. In addition to the Lao Wai Holiday supper, there was also a spelling bee the week before Christmas and then on Thursday we had the IGCSE New Year’s Gala. All 3 events were great fun and big successes.
I was asked to present the IG1 and Elite Girls 1 with their awards at the spelling bee. I’m lucky enough to teach in both departments, so it was great being there cheering on these awesome kids I get to teach!!!
The Christmas dinner was both delicious and delightful 🙂 I had a bit of a rough time at the dinner because Poe was in surgury that evening, but it was good to have good friends there to distract me.
My boss, one of the greatet people I’ve met in China, singing his speach. Although he is incredibly humble and wouldn’t brag about it, he does a tonne of charity work here in Suzhou and recently won an award given by the city of Suzhou, for being the city’s most important philanthropist. This is the guy I get to work for. It’s so great having a boss I have so much respect for!
One of the dearest friends I’ve made in Suzhou: Alecia. She teaches Spanish at the school (she’s from Spain).
My favorite of the holiday parties though, was the IGCSE New Year’s Eve gala. IGCSE is the department of the school where I work. Suzhou Foreign Language school is huge and there are actually 3 middle schools within the one larger school. IGCSE is the ‘English’ department because when the students graduate middle school, they receive a bilingual diploma from the University of Cambridge. We have some of the brightest students I’ve met in China in this program and I’m proud to be their teacher 🙂
3 of my best IG1 students. I teach these girls English Writing and they always blow me away with their effort and their participation in class. I couldn’t ask for a better group of 13 year olds!!!
The IG2 (grade 8) clas singing a Taylor Swift Song
Some students did a special dance for ‘Ms. Fang’, the middle school’s main administrator. She’s an incredible teacher and person and the students and teachers all love her to bits. The kids decided to put on a special dance for her (they’re all wearing masks with her face on them) and then they presented her with flowers. It was probably my favorite part of the night
I also got to perform at the gala. My boss, Nathan, plays the Ukulele, so he and I chose a couple of songs and performed them for the kids and parents. It went over really well, and when it was done, one of the IG2 students presented me with a bouquet of roses. It was so sweet!
The roses I received when our performance was done 🙂
One of my students, Ken, took some shots of Nathan and I with his Iphone and edited them. I think he did a pretty nice job!
The school hired a photographer for the event, and she caught this picture of me as I walked in. The reason I look so happy is because when I walked through the door all the IG1 kids got all excited and started shouting “Ms Marie’s here!!!!!” They know how to make me feel loved!!!
We look far more professional than we actually were!
The gala finished with Abba’s ‘Happy New Year’, which I may now never get out of my head! They asked Nathan and I at the last minute if we would sing the first 8 lines of the song solo, so I had to learn it over night. I was so stressed about the whole thing (Abba is WAY out of my range) that I lost my voice! Luckily, I found it the next morning, but it was still a bit of a scare!
Nathan and I with all of the IGCSE students! It’s unfortunate that none of the other IG teachers could make it to the event (they all work in multiple departments and couldn’t get their classes changed). I’m glad I was able to attend, though!
But the school was not the only place where I was able to celebrate the holidays (don’t worry, Dave and I DID see each other!!). We were invited to, and organized, several events with friends. Just like we would back home, we ate FAR too much and spent great time with great people 🙂
Isaac and Adam making friends at Bei Jiang; one of our favorite restaurants in Suzhou
Our new friend Amanda ADORED Hugo. He was pretty happy to curl up with her all evening!
Dave and I, while being told to stop being mushy in front of the others at dinner lol
Our Christmas Eve dinner party 🙂
IG Life 🙂
Me with Ivy and Sherry! I work with these lovely ladies. They are both fantastic teachers and some of my closest Chinese friends.
Christmas Day was a lot of fun as well. Dave and I got dressed up and had dinner at the Kempinski Hotel in Suzhou. We ate far too much (again) and then head out to The Camel (a bar in SIP) to meet some friends that I met in Shanghai.
Presley, Sarah, Zoe and I 🙂
The Kempinski. It was great, but we definitely missed the one in Guiyang.
New Year’s Eve was also a nice evening out, though I didn’t take any pictures. We hung out with my favorite Suzhou-Canadian: Jeff. Whenever I miss home, I hang out with Jeff…he is basically every Canadian stereotype personified!
This is basically Jeff
Of course, I can’t exactly say that our holiday season was everything I had hoped it would be. The pollution from Beijing made its way down to Suzhou and Dave and I both got pretty sick from it. My skin was very irritated by the smog and dust and both of our lungs suffered. We really do love our life in Suzhou, but when we decide to move home, it will probably be because of the smog. Coming from small town Canada has left me with high standards as far as air is concerned, and Suzhou doesn’t cut it.
The first of these pictures was taken over the summer, when the pollution was very low. The second was taken when it was at it’s worst. We base the air quality each day on whether or not we can see the ‘Pants Building from our apartment.
We bought PM2.5 masks on Tao bao , as well as an air purifier for the apartment. Of course, neither arrived until the smog cloud had passed, but atleast we’re prepared for the next attack on oxygen!!
But the smog was the least of our holiday worries. We had Poe scheduled to be spayed on December 23rd, and although she was in heat at the time, we needed to get the surgery done so that she’d be healed in time for our departure for India. We read about it online and everything seemed like it would be fine. The surgery is a little more complicated when a cat is in heat, but vets do the surgery out west all the time. So we went ahead with the surgery.
Our Sweet Poe
A few hours after her surgery was over, we got a call from the vet telling us that she had to go back under because she had internal bleeding. 2 hours later, we found out that the vet had accidentally damaged her spleen during the original surgery (he has apologized profusely for his mistake and has admitted that it was due to his inexperience…inexperience we weren’t actually aware of…). As a result, Poe lost her spleen and we came pretty close to losing her.
They had her on an IV drip. She spent her first day there hiding in the litter box.
She become much more alert when she saw us there
She was so swollen! The stitches look much better now
Now, anyone who is not an animal lover may not understand where I’m coming from here, but Dave and I have really fallen in love with that cat over the last month and a half. She’s such a little ray of sunshine…very affectionate and always purring. She became part of our little family so quickly and we were so terribly worried we’d lose her.
She really is my little sunshine!
The veterinarian did come through for us though, and he saved our little Poe. She spent 3 nights at the hospital and we visited her between our holiday parties whenever we had the chance. The nurse there commented on how much higher her spirits were when we were there, which made us feel like there was SOMETHING we could actually do for her.
Visiting her at the vet
Poe came home on Boxing Day and is still recovering. We try to keep her out of the cone as much as possible so she can get some good rest and feel comfortable, but she’s a cat…so bathing is inevitable. Her spirit is slowly returning and she’s becoming playful again, which is wonderful to see. Hugo rather enjoyed being an ‘only cat’ for the 4 days she was gone, but he’s adjusting to her return. And as much as he tries to pretend he hates that little black ball of fur, he was worried and searching for her the entire time she was gone.
Hugo, unimpressed that the ‘black one’ has returned
Poe, unimpressed that she has been ‘coned’
Poe, trying to block out all the ‘human’ around her.
So I guess our Christmas story had a happy ending. 🙂
The best present I got this Christmas was to have Poe back home safe and sound, but I did score some other shwag as well! The beautiful wallet and book were from Dave (he also got wii controls so we can play on his computer) and the painting is an original from my boss, Nathan, who is quite a talented artist! I also received a lot of chocolate and other goodies from my students. The cat key chain was given to me by Ken…one of the coolest 13 year olds I’ve ever met. My whole class was worried sick about Poe. It was very sweet that they cared so much!
I’ll be back soon with some stories about Hong Kong!
