Sun and Day Dreaming

It's hard to have a negative thought when the weather is as glorious as it is today, it's almost impossible to be anything but happy in the sun! This feeling is exaggerated by the fact that today is the end of my working week, thanks to the Labour Day holiday.

Holidays are a strange affair in China. The general working population have two big holidays a year; the two week Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), in January/February, and the week long National Day, in October.  Aside from these two there  are other holidays, like the Tomb Sweeping Festival we enjoyed in Shanghai a few weeks ago, but they don't really seem to count as proper holidays to me. Any hours or days missed, because of a holiday falling on a working day, mean that those hours have to be made up outside of work hours. Fun. Does it really count as a day off if you just have to stay at work longer another day or go to work on a weekend?!
I don't really understand how school holidays work here but, from what I can understand, they follow the National holidays and then have a summer holiday at a similar time to the UK summer holidays. No half term, no Easter break, just these weird three day weekend holidays. 

That is why there is no school tomorrow and Friday,  but we have the pleasure of going into school on Sunday to catch up Fridays lesson. So while this week may have been mercifully short, next week is going to be a 6 day marathon of English learning fun!

Learning weather vocabulary with a fashion show

But until it comes, I intend to ignore Sunday looming on the horizon and fully focus on my time off. Thankfully the beautiful sunny and hot weather to set to continue over the next few days so we can make the most of our time off.
This time we have no big plans to venture into the unknown outside of Suzhou and instead we are playing host to my friend, Chris, and his friend. Time to show off all that we've discovered in our little city and play tour guide! It'll be nice to be the ones who are the city veterans and know what's going on instead of being the newbies that we are most of the time!

Lion's Grove Garden

I don't feel too bad about not exploiting our time off to explore further afield,  in a little under 5 weeks we are starting our 2 month travels around China. Plans are fully under way and I've been pouring over my guide book compiling an ever growing list of places I want to see and experience. It's exciting to read about amazing places and know that I'm not just reading about them, I can actually go there! They only problem is going to be fitting it all in in the time we have! It may sound like 2 months is a long time to be travelling, and it is, but China is a truly vast country and what looks like a couple hour journey on a map to an English eye is often a hefty journey of 10 hours plus. It all just means the boring element of planning has to kick in as we pour over train timetables and various routes to get the most out of our time.

That lingering feeling of monotony has definitely lifted this week and I am back in the realm of excitement and the promise of adventure. It really does feel like our time for leaving Suzhou is just around the corner. We're about to cross the 3 month mark of being in China and slowly but surely our friends around us are heading home as contracts draw to a close.
This week Kevin, one our beloved German friends, left Suzhou and it's kind of sad. I'm going to miss the ridiculous things he says and his profound and unusual hatred of Hong Kong, as well as the invaluable help he gives us with his amazingly good Chinese.  So with Kevin gone we are a man down and then in a couple weeks Matias will be going too! But like with Jonas going, it's bitter-sweet. It's sad that Matias and Kevin aren't going to be just across town any more but, as it  always is with the people that matter, I know I'll see them again.

Kevin Pauls, at this finest

Right now though all I'm in the mood for is lying in the sun and day dreaming about pagodas and winding Chinese back streets waiting to be discovered...