A short trip – Suzhou
Remember, last year, I blogged about our trip to Hangzhou. This year, we decided to check out Suzhou. She is a major city located just outside Shanghai. If you speed, you will arrive in a 1 1/2hour drive. Considered one of the two most beautiful cities of Shanghai. Perhaps, time has changed.  Clearly, she should not be compared to heaven. Well, I haven’t been to heaven but when one uses heaven as an analogy, it often refers to somewhere nice. My definition of a beautiful place has to mean “in its rawest form, the beauty stands out”. I find Suzhou too commercialised to be classified as a beauty. Well, you can disagree with me cos’ afterall, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.

Journey with me through the city of Suzhou…

This is a (huge) wedding car and the green coach is a sleeper coach. Take a closer look, the upper deck is the sleeping cabin


Mother and child selling oranges along the road. Two elderly women selling their vegetables outside a petrol kiosk.

China is not just about the rise and rise of billionaires. Having stayed here for almost two years now, I have seen what real poverty is like. It is more than just a great divide, if not curbed, it can be a mammoth problem. If you have read about the crisis in the Middle East, you would have known how it all started…


Not exciting, not vibrant to be called a night market. Hangzhou has a more colourful night market

 
Trying my best to excite the kids. But… I finally succumb to them.
Yes, can give it a miss, if you haven’t got much time

I think the most exciting part of the trip was the visit to the silk factory.

The wax museum with all the hands-on gadgets, if you may call them


Silkworms feeding on mulberry leaves. The cocoons


Manually sorting out the good from the bad cocoons. Labour intensive work. Now you know why silk is so expensive


Soaking and washing the good cocoons before bringing them to the production floor


If you stare at it hard enough, you will be able to see the silk thread. The lady manually pulled out the thread from the cocoon and attached to the machine. No easy task. People like me, with no fine touch, I would probably take a few days just to finish one cocoon of silk


The silk yarn…weaved into silk cloth before various designs were printed on it

The next time you go and buy silk cloth, make sure you do not demand for an unreasonable price. It is an extremely labour-intensive job just to get the silk thread out from the cocoon. To know if you are really getting the real stuff, use two fingers to run down the fabric. Next, rub both fingers together gently, your fingers should feel smooth, like baby skin.


Morning market. Fruits of all sorts


Fresh cucumbers for sale. After shaving off the skin, the locals just crunch on it, treating it like titbits. HEALTHY!


More fruits and vegetables. We bought pipa (loquat) home. They were very fresh and juicy. Notice the weighing scales that was being used. The kids were amused


This is much more interesting than the night market. Lots of nick-knacks for the mother and children



These are common water village which can be seen in Suzhou. Just need to visit one, they are almost identical



Lots of ancient architectures were still kept

I must show you this beautiful hotel which we stayed for two nights. It is one of the most beautiful hotel with a special character of its own. Presenting…the Suzhou Pan Pacific Hotel




The exterior. Special isn’t it? Made me feel like I was living in the Forbidden City

We were upgraded to a suite (life's little surprise from God) and the kids were most excited…

The bedroom. The mini hall cum study. That’s Kai, pretending to be a CEO. Ann was there but sneaked off as I was taking the picture cos she didn’t want to be seen as his subordinate. LOL


The jacuzzi which became the kids’ swimming pool. Can’t blame them…it has been a long six months of cold weather. A nice little balcony. Inside those windows, is the jacuzzi

My verdict of Suzhou…
If you only have time to tour one city, just go for Hangzhou. There really isn’t anything outstanding over here. Gardens and lots of gardens are their main attraction but really if you have seen one, you have seen all.
*Note. This is the post which I have written for the third time. It was frustrating losing it after finishing it... twice. So I hope you have enjoyed it *wink*

My little miracle, the little stall holder
This day, my little princess decided to run a games stall. She did up the whole thing herself. From the props to the games to the running of the stall…


Do I need to explain?


The owner and her games


Prizes to be won…all handmade by Ann, the princess

This is the distinct similarity between Kai and Ann. They are very imaginative and creative. They can come up with anything from nothing. I pray that this characteristic of them will help them to survive the harsh reality of life when they grow up. It is only when you are able to see something out of nothing, you are ready for all sorts of challenges.

My little miracle is now my little ballerina
Since the day Ann participated in the year-end school concert, I have been asked by teachers and parents if Ann had any formal dance training. No, Ann has never had any dance training. She is quite a handful and all we ever did for her is to send her for pottery class which she loves very much. When they knew that Ann has no dance training, the Head of the Primary School Division came and me that I should consider sending her for formal training because she seems to be a natural dancer.
I was indeed proud of my little girl but at the same time, I  didn’t want to plunge her into something which she may not enjoy. I spend sometime observing her and found that not only does she enjoy dancing but she also enjoys musical. So I decided that I should really give her a try.
I started looking for the right dance school since last year but somehow, just couldn’t find one. They are either too far or the teacher does not speak English. Ann speaks Chinese but she is more comfortable with English. Finally, the long search ended.
I brought her for two trial classes. One was for the hip-hop dance class, the other was for the ballet class. I was expecting her to chose the hip-hop class as she is such an active girl. She surprised me by choosing the ballet class. Of course, I am very happy with her choice!

 
There…my little ballerina


Erm…hello, my little princess, it’s ballet and not monkey’s bar
(see what I mean when I say she can be a handful)

Sport’s Day – Kai’s
I always make it a point to be there for the kids’ school activity  especially those which they are involved.
There I was at Kai’s Sport’s Day. I couldn’t believe that he has grown so much. Really, I will one day be the dwarf in the family with all these towering figures…


Part of the crowd and the marching in


Waiting for his turn…off he went


Look at those L-O-N-G legs of his…am I not a dwarf beside him when he turns 21!


Prize giving – with the help of those long legs, he received a silver

You know what was most exciting about the Sport’s Day…the mother of all events…The teachers vs parents relay (bravo, bravo…)
As there were insufficient parents, I decided to take part to help make the numbers for the parents. Those of you who have known me long enough, you would know that I was the athletic type… almost three decades ago. To participate in a Sport’s Day was history. But you know something (ahem), I could still balance the bean bag on my head without once dropping it. In the end, the parents won…hands down. Bwahahaha


My gold medal – three decades later

Blogger’s biggest nightmare
If you have noticed any difference in my current posting, that was because my old blogging software collapsed on me. YES!!! After all the writings and inserting of photographs and saving it, it went kaput. Dead. Blank. Arrrgh…. I have since changed my blogging software to Windows Live Writer. I hope it will make me happy for a long time.

Happy Mother’s Day

Ann made these bunch of flowers and card for me on Mother’s Day. As for Kai…boys being boys, he thought Mother’s Day is on the 15th of May. Haiz…Mother’s Day or not, I am forever a mum.

Driving in Shanghai



Yes, our definition of driving in Shanghai. This is a four-seater trishaw.

No, we will never attempt to drive here. Traffic condition is just too stressful for us. Just last week, on the highway, we saw three separate accidents happened in just one straight road.

Time flies...
Days, months, years seem to fly away musch faster as we age. Dh celebrated his brithday recently and we had a simple celebration at home with a party of four!


Chocolated banana cake with melted dark chocolate coating. Finally dusted with coco powder. Sinfully good. From where? Of course, Shirley's kitchen


Forever family.

The joke of that day was there were candles but they could not be lighted up. We didn't have any match sticks or lighter. No one smoke in the family and the stove runs on electricity (Bwahahaha)