Posted a small parcel to Jordan this morning for his birthday and was shocked
to find it cost over $20 – at snail mail rates I suspect! No more parcels from here! They'll have to wait for Don or me to take them home!
Ventured out to the supermarkets again this morning. Took my phrase book into the little local one, pointed to "permission", "photo", "food" and "I want to
post this to Australia". Either my intention was totally lost or the security guard was refusing permission to photograph his zoo, but he shook his head and
pointed up the street. Sorry Sandi! I'll try with an interpreter some time!
Found the big supermarket which is on 2 floors. Blew the budget getting a new purse I can hang around my neck
and a bag for carrying text books etc. (Helen and Matt gave me a lovely backpack which holds my laptop as well,
but for everyday use I need something I can hang in front where I can keep an eye on it!) Got some airtight
containers and a raincoat as well as some groceries. I thought they'd left a security tag on the raincoat, but when I
looked at the illustration it's for fixing the front of the raincoat to the bike basket! Clever little people! Good thing I didn't turf it out!
A lovely young lass who spoke quite good broken English talked me into buying 2 bottles of fruit juice so I could
enter a "game" – told her I didn't have my address but she got me to pick a spot on the board and I'm now the proud owner of a little make-up mirror!
Have just got back to this after being visited by a young girl whose grandfather lives upstairs. She goes to another 
Uni in Nantong and heard there was a "beautiful foreign teacher who is very friendly and speaks very good
Chinese!!!!!!!!!" living here. So she came to practise her English! My Hello and Thank You must have gone a long way!
So that's it from me! Trust you are all well and enjoying the warmth of Australia. Anyone in the market for 2nd hand
thermal undies next year? (XXLarge and they're none too big!) China clothing sizes do nothing for the ego!
Monday, March 20th, 2006
I think I've worked out how come I got pointed up the street at the supermarket – I'd used the post office section of the phrase book to point out "I want to send it to Australia"!
As for my speaking Chinese – possibly the lady whose baby I admired and who I nodded sagely to (after trying to
tell her I couldn't speak Chinese) after she spoke at length to me decided I understood her after all!
The one rumour I haven't sourced is the landlady's son's claim that he's heard my husband is a world famous sailor
who has sailed around the world!!! Maybe he's a fortune teller and that's next year's adventure!
Decided to try out my bike for the first time – and survived to tell the tale! Just did a short stint up past the Uni and
suffered only a few wobbles. Have no idea what the road rules are though, if there are any! There are 3 sections to
Chinese roads – traffic in the middle, bikes, scooters and motorbikes etc on a separate section, and pedestrians on
the footpath – much wider than typical Aussie ones. I expected all the traffic to be going in the same direction but
not so! And the ones coming towards me were on both sides of the track – so who knows ? I'm going to tie one of
Avon's red ribbon bows to my basket this morning because I'll never find it amongst the hundreds of bikes on the racks over here!
Well I had a bit of a disastrous start to my teaching career this morning! Turned up to the staff room and found out
I'd been given the wrong text book – so much for lesson planning! Had a quick read of the correct chapter, spoke to
the regular English teacher (who is the Helen I had been e-mailing) and got her usual approach for the 40+ students
and then proceeded to stumble through to the end, padding it out with some info on Australia at the end!
