Visitors from Zhengzhou

Last year when the college administration at LongHu found that we would not be renewing our contract for the following year, they asked if Peter would be willing to correspond (by email) with prospective new teachers. And so we came to get to know Jenny and Ian from the Gold Coast (Queensland, Australia) who later took our place at China Australia College near Zhengzhou. It was rather fun, after all the to-ing and fro-ing of emails, that last weekend they were able to use their four-day weekend to visit us here in Wuxi.

It was lovely to talk "Oz" for a bit, to use all the idioms and expressions we are comfortable with, without having to explain ourselves. And to compare notes about how things were, and now are, at the college at LongHu.

We went to see the "Big Buddha" again, because everyone who comes to Wuxi has to see that ( ... but if we get any more visitors we'll point the way and they can go see it by themselves.) This time it was a cool, slightly drizzly day. So the bus was much less crowded.

We got there just in time for the fountain-and-music show.

Then we climbed up and saw the fat buddha with all the naughty babies running all over him.

We touched the hand,

but didn't damage it ...

And we found out where baby braziers (crucibles?) come from. (Can you see the little one under there?)

Then we climbed up the steps to admire the view.

There are always people lighting candles, and there are large tubs of water under the dripping candles to keep everything safe. But someone manage to set light to the wax floating on the water, and there was a funny incident to watch from our vantage point as a man ran inside to get a fire extinguisher, which he handed to this young girl before getting himself to a safe distance.

As we headed out of the Ma Shan area we were assaulted on all sides by desperate salespeople huddled in their little shops nearby, desperately wanting to sell a few artefacts or souvenirs to over-generous tourists. We are not at all sure what punishment we avoided at this shop:

So finally we all headed back to our little apartment. After climbing all those steps, Ian and Jenny slept soundly despite the hard bed. It is a special two-sided mattress, with a hard side and a soft side. The hard side is just wood with cloth stretched over it. The soft side has a thin layer of foam under the cloth.

The next day we wandered through the wet city of Wuxi, and Jenny bought herself a new coat. Then it was time for them to catch the sleeper train back to Zhengzhou. Overnight, while they were on the train, the temperature dropped dramatically both here and in Zhengzhou - winter arrived!