Farewelling Rob.....

It's hard to believe that a whole month has gone by with Rob here. We spent his last weekend here in Shanghai, seeing a few sights and enjoying lots of conversation over bottles of wine. It is so great to be able to go to Shanghai and enjoy some amazing restaurants, there are so many to choose from compared to Wuxi!

Goodbye China, Hello Europe!

The weather was absolutely beautiful - crisp, cold days and blue skies. Perfect for wandering around the tree lined streets of the French Concession and sitting in the sun drinking wine! On Sunday, we visited the Shanghai Art Museum, which is housed in a beautiful old English building which used to house the Shanghai Racing Club in the early 1900s. We were able to enter the museum, despite the entry sign declaring 'no psychopaths allowed (if showing minor symptoms, please be accompanied by a guardian)'!! We saw some amazing and some very strange art and managed to purchase some great books for our school library.

Beginning the weekend with a bottle of white and some delicious Thai food Sunday also brought about another new experience for me, one that I was slightly terrified of - getting a bikini wax done in China! And I had every reason to be terrified - as with many Chinese things, it was a very inefficient and painful process but I won't scare you with the details! We caught up with Ash while in Shanghai - enjoyed a long, lazy lunch in the sun at Element Fresh. He is great, working (and playing!) very hard as always. Continuing drinking with red wine on a roof top bar overlooking the Bund - it was cold! After buying up big on gluten free pasta and Australian red wine at the City Supermarket, I was in a panic to get to the train when I discovered that I clearly did not know how to read 24 hour time - I still had 3 hours till my train left! Obviously, another bottle of red wine needed to be consumed while we waited for the train, reminicised about Rob's time in China and planned for his next visit (bring on Tibet 2010!)

Enjoying the sunshine and a healthy smoothie at Element Fresh

After a very tearful goodbye to Rob, I discovered what it really means to be stared at in China - a semi drunk, crying laowai carrying a box of pasta, wine and books onto the train back to Wuxi is bound to attract some attention. Gunnar was there to comfort me when I got back, but unfortunately he has caught the horrible tummy bug that seems to be going around at the moment, so we were both just as sad and depressed as each other! No more Davidson visits till May next year, will just have to get busy planning a white Christmas in Tibet and January skiing in Japan - it's a hard life here!