Day 58 ~ Week ending August 11

After church on Sunday and after the weather had cooled down a little, we decided we needed to go for an exploratory bike ride.  We feel like we are kind of just going to places that we know.  We had heard that Suzhou is the Venice of China so we figured there must be some pretty cool places on the waterfront. This is one of the neat buildings.  Very oriental.

Jinji Lake

Ben is a friend we made through church.  We traveled with he and Jace on some of our shopping trips to Shanghai.  He was also a player in our Catan game at the Preston's home.  Donn was the winner, of course.

Funny, but with Suzhou home to over 6 million people we saw him twice on our hour bike ride.

Taken from our apartment window.

Just to be on the safe side, I had registered with the US Embassy.  On Tuesday I received the following e-mail from them:  This Emergency Message is being issued to alert U.S. citizens residing or traveling in the Shanghai Consular District, which includes Shanghai, Anhui province, Jiangsu province, and Zhejiang province, that the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau is tracking Typhoon HAIKUI across the East China Sea.  At this time the storm is expected to make landfall along the southeastern coast of mainland China and is expected to bring heavy rain and strong winds across Shanghai and coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces from August 7 to August 10, 2012.  We will continue to monitor Typhoon HAIKUI and will issue updated messages as needed.

Rain water on floor in family room.

The weather was so bad for three days, that I didn't go out.  We found that our apartment is NOT rain proof but having leaks in the following locations:  family room, hallway , dining room, and patio roof.  The water just drips out of the air vents onto the wood floor.  My guess is that they will never figure out how to fix it.  Hopefully we will not have too many typhoons while we are here.  The saddest part was all the damage to the trees along the roadways.  I also saw several road signs blown down on my way to the market.



On Saturday we headed to the Metro for a trip to the Silk Factory.  This is a huge tourist attraction for most visitors to Suzhou.  You can buy all kinds of duvets, scarves, and clothing.  Since we were in a hurry, we just browsed through quickly.  Most things here are very cheap.  Silk items are very expensive.  Here are just a couple of pics.

We were a little late for our badminton date.   We tried to get a taxi, but they were all busy so we jumped on a bus.  We were in good shape until the bus turned right.  We quickly got off at the next stop and backtracked to the main road.  Finally we jumped in a tuck tuck not realizing that we were only 3 blocks away from where we needed to be.  

Saturday evening we went to an excellent Korean restaurant named Pankoo.  It is so cool because you have a charcoal pit at  your table and you cook your own meant and veggies.  Everything was delicious.  This is Lim's family (Lim, Brendan, Christopher, Jenny, and me.)  Lim and Jenny's children really enjoyed cooking all the meats.



We also found out this week that there was an engineering error on the Pants building and they have to demolish the entire building and start over.  We've heard that they have around $14 billion into it.  Some heads are rolling at the government offices and lots of businesses are in huge trouble.  It really is heart-breaking.

Day 51 ~ Week ending August 4

On Sunday night our China telephone rings.  Donn answers it and the caller asks for him by name in Chinese, of course.  Anyway he can't understand what they are saying and tells them he doesn't speak Chinese and hangs up.  We don't think too much about it until the next morning when he gets up to shower and we have NO water in the house.  Apparently it was a phone call telling us that all the water in the entire building is being shut down.  Thanks heavens for the water cooler that also serves hot water.  About an hour later the water comes back on; but it was the most disgusting water I had ever seen.  It was brown like--well you get the gist.  It took almost 36 hours to get clear water running through the taps again.  

On Tuesday I had a second interview with GIST International College.  I am to met with the head honcho ~ Dr. Chong.  (Side note:  My first interview with with Dr. Wong.)  Anyway it was a very difficult interview.  He sat behind the desk mumbling softly with his hand covering his mouth.  I am not sure how many questions I answered correctly because I SERIOUSLY couldn't understand what he was asking as he had a very thick Chinese accent when speaking English.  At the end of the interview, he says, "Well where do we go from here?"  I didn't mean to be flip, but I replied, "I think that depends on you."  

Anyhoo I received a job offer, but I decided to turn it down.  The hours are long (from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.) plus I would have to ride the local bus back and forth everyday.  That in itself would take 45 minutes each way.  If the pay had been decent . . .

In working on getting our Z Visa, we had to have a physical.  Ours was scheduled for 9 a.m. on Friday morning.  It was very interesting.  We went with William.  (He is a summer intern at K2 who is learning to speak English.  He is a junior in high school.)   Anyway we went from room to room having the following things done:  stomach ultrasound, blood pressure, dental check, chest X-ray, height and weight check, heart check, and then blood work.  After we were all finished, they gave us this nice box of medicine samples.  It appears that it is good for any health problems that we may have in China.  There was also a very handy card inside telling us what to use all of the medications for.

Our Parting Gift from the Red Cross