Burger king and a school visit

Warren took me downtown today to burger king, this did not exist before and neither did the massive shopping centre where it is housed. The burger were big, I would say that my hand would have spanned across it so pretty big, small fries and a coke cost 50rmb or a bit over $10. It was a busy place although we were the only Westerners. While we were eating we counted eight delivery drivers came in to pick bags to deliver, we knew that they were delivery people as they were still wearing their bike helmet.

Leaving the burger king, we decided to see what was upstairs and we saw our friend coming across the floor. She just happened to be there during her lunch as she had been wanting to buy a new winters coat, had been to several stores since it had turned cold and today was her purchasing day. She took us up so we could give the final verdict. It was a very nice long grey coat which looked very good on her. After she bought it, she took us along to show us  her school. She had bought this school with a school friend and his school friend so three of them own it.

Its very nice with cute little rooms, they teach 4 to 14 year olds, English, Chinese, mayhs and science plus drawing and painting. It is an after hours and weekend school,  many parents use these type of schools for their children to improve their grades.

Haining

We borrowed a car yesterday and drove up there to Haining. We had been there before, taken on a bus trip by the school to visit a leather factory outlet. I bought my leather gloves there for a small fraction of what would normally be paid for leather.

There were two green dots caches that we could only get by going by car. Four of us went in a little kitty mobile, it is a small vw all prettied up with hello kitty stuff. Three westerners and one China friend who was interestted in learning about our hobby.

The first one took us to an anicent village, what a surprise, we had no idea that it was there.

There were a couple of school groups visiting and they were keen to chat with us and have their photo taken with them. Unfortunately we didnt find what we were looking for but it was a good day out none the less.

Bu yao

We went to visit a friend and her little boy yesterday, he is two and a half. He speaks quite well for his age and yesterday his favourite word was bu yao or No in  English. Kids are the same all over what ever langage they are speaking.  He could also tell us spidy man, he was watching the movie Spider man.

We had taken lunch of KFC and while that would seem to be easy, it wasnt. I saw advertised 30 pieces of chicken for 169 rmb, which sounded a good deal. There were five of us for lunch and we wefe thinking left overs for dinner.

First could only order that from app on phone no problem. With help Warren down loaded the app then had to get kfc menu, time to pay for order and payment had to be made by Alipay on phone! A couple of customers who spoke English had helped out and they ended up paying for us and we gave them the cash.

So much stuff now is done by phone.

Photo taken near their flatkfc

Our apartment

We had seen photos so we had an idea of what to expect. It is bigger than I had thought with plenty of cupboard space and a large bookcase.
Two air conditioners, one in each large room and a overhead heater over the shower. Unlike our last apartment where we had tp swish the water down the drain after a shower, this one has two sliding doors and very nice tiles.
There is a king size bed, very nice. In fact we are considering buying one when we get home, it would be very good for the hot nights that we have in summer.

Rain and cold

I had been checking the temperatures for Shaoxing over the past week before leaving and it was quite nice, similar to what we were experiencing at home. 24 or 25 degrees.
Bah humbug as soon as we arrived in Hangzhou it has rained each day, today was the coldest so far at a top temp of 12 degrees. I only ventured out twice, both times for meals and it was bitterly cold but at least no rain. It us a standard practise to carry an umbrella.
In saying that, it is their winter but I would have liked a few more days to get used to it.

Packing

I hate packing for a trip, I always take too much stuff. This time I decided to write a list.
An online friend did this for a 4 week trip to the UK. Her list was 4 of everything,4 knickers 4 bras, 4 pants, 4 of jeans and 2 warmer pairs, 2 tshirts 2 long sleeved shirts, one jacket and one jumper, two pairs of boots.

Mibe did not look loke that. I had the pants, thats fine, 4 pairs of  knickers get rwal, I would have to wash every couple of days, especially if the weathwr was cold and or wet.

As we are working some of the time need to be a little better dressed and to be warm although the weather is much the same as what we are having at home now, which us unusually mild.

So I have socks stockings, boots, singlets, jackets gloves and then there is the outer wear. I packed Saturday night, then repacked Sunday afternoon, on the way out of the bedroom this morning, I was undecided do I take another cardigan, I grabbed a long scarf and waiting at airport I am already wearing jt as it is cold.

I am sure there will be things that I dont wear but just got to cater for all events. My suitcase weighs 14.5 kgs, computer bag is about 4 and my tote bag with books and jackets plus slip ons for the plane 2 kilos, hopefully all will be good. Nine weeks of wearing the same things, yuck

Murder on the Orient Express

A movie based on an Agatha Christie novel. Since earlyhigh school when we studied one of her books for English I have been a big fan of her books. I have most of her novels abd re read them every so often.

I usually am not that keen on the movies as the actors seem to be cast to look very much alike and it does become hard to work out who is who.

Well, this movie was pretty goodJudy Dench is in it and I dont think I have seen her play a bad part., I did remember the who did it but not all the whys and where fors. Very good with a small cast and set on a train.
Tonight four of the actors and the director were on Graham Norton and thet all said that it had been fun to do.

Melbourne cup

I had volunteered to do the catering for MC lunch for our Red hat group. As there is so much on, on that day it is usually a small group so I didn't think it would be a hassle.

I made the food all low carb, healthy fat which is how I am eating these days. ( I did relent and make a cake/slice for dessert) which is basically no bread rice pasta potatoes or sugar, there are other things that are not on it or to have in moderation

Menu was meatballs, a recipe from Jamie Oliver, very simple, mince a can of cannelloni white beans and pesto, I made a tomato sauce to have with them, there were also salmon and tuna cream cheese balls with an avocado dip. Stuffed chicken breasts, devilled eggs, two pizzas, one vegetarian, cauliflower rice and a green salad and finally a plain quiche, no meat. One of our members is a vegetarian.

i was going to take a photo but being summer time, need to cover and put it in the fridge as soon as possible although the weather was kind, often Melbourne Cup day is very hot.

this is one of the pizzas that i had made for us before. it is called fathead pizza, what a name. The base is made of mainly cheese with some almond flour to combine it. because of the base one piece is usually plenty and filling. we had sweeps and as usual i didnt win but it is always fun watching the Cup and the fashions and the weather as Melbourne weather usually turns on the day.

Out for lunch

Warren got home from tennis and we had a cup of coffee and I went back to writing. Tomorrow I may not get much done so was preparing and besides I had a couple of good points to expand upon. Lunchtime almost and i had no idea what to do for lunch so I suggested that we go out for lunch.

Great says yhe master of the house as he could feel a bacon burger calling him. We went to food court to get his burger, i didnt know what i wanted. Wow, the chinese baymarie looked good. That was it, it looked good, i soppose the meat was okay but just about all was coated in batter.

Warren took forever to get his burger, i had almost finished mine by the time he got his and said that it wasnt worth the wait.

And another project is completed.

I love working to a time frame although I haven't had much to do with one except to suggest it be done before we leave home again.

The history on it. We thought it would be nice to have a fountain in the back yard, I always liked one of those wall type things with the water sprouting from them into a pond. I got told no way.  had to rethink, Bunnings had small fountains but they required a pump and electricity points etc etc so a fountain went in the too hard basket.

Last July we were at the local farm fest and a place had all types of garden accessories including solar powered fountains. This definitely sparked our interest so we went to inquire and ended up buying for approx $60.

Next thing was we needed something for it to go into and another few months went by, until we saw a big pot plant at Bunnings but of course it had a hole in the bottom of it for drainage. Master of the house said that he could fix it and with some selastic he did. of course then it needed to cure and it has for twelve months.

Friday

was a mild day and I was busy writing, it is November so down he trots to Bunnings to get cement and he finished it off with another trip to Bunnings to buy potting mix and some plants.
Lucy was tired after her walk this morning, the bamboo is for her benefit, hopefully she wont put any bones in there.

I had to wait until the sun got high enough around eight o'clock for the fountain to operate.

Shopping by/with phone.

We were out of milk again this morning so on a spur of the moment I decided to do my shopping today instead of Monday which was the original plan. I know I always pick up more things so going for one item wasn't going to work.

As I am doing some food for Melbourne Cup, I quickly wrote out my plan and from that, I wrote a shopping list of  what things I needed and yes, made sure that it was in my bag.

I ticked the items off as I got them and there were a couple of things that I realised I needed for home that I hadn't put on the list.

Looking at my trolley which was only half full, I grabbed my phone to check the time, why I don't know because I didn't need to be anywhere at any particular time. Shopping centres don't seem to have clocks up on the wall any more.

I scrabbled around in the bottom of my bag as the phone wasn't in the pocket that I had started to put it in. Then it hit me, it was at home in the bathroom charging! My first thought I would ring Warren and ask him to either bring my phone or come and pay for the groceries, slap to the head, of course I couldn't ring him as I didn't have a phone and probably only had about $30 in cash, definitely not an option to pay cash for the groceries.

Just then a supervisor walked past me, she had money bags from the check outs that how I knew she was someone of importance. I put my case to her, saying that I would be back in fifteen to twenty minutes. I really did not know how long it would take me to get home and back.

Drove back into the car park in twelve minutes, shopping trolley was there minus the fridge stuff, they had put that into a bag and into one of the big fridges. Phew, I really didn't want to have to do all that shopping again.

Note to self make sure phone is in hand before going out especially as I now keep my cards in it.

Nanowrimo starts today!

I have a few ideas but haven't done anything about it yet.

Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month, the idea is to write a novel of 50,000 words in one month, November, that is 30 days. Its only 1660 or so each and every day.

If that is achieved, then the author can have their novel put into novel form ready for sale or whatever for free.

I have done it for the last seven years and been a 'winner" each time although I have only gone on and had the first two published, the rest are still on the computer.

They suggest just to write for the month, get the words down then edit it after and boy oh boy does that take some time to do. I tend to leave it alone for a month or so then reread and correct/edit.

If one is a winner then one has until the following June to get the 'manuscript to the web site who does the final 'getting the book together."

I need to get started but as always I am thinking of other things that I "need" to do first! I promised myself that i will start at 9 am, its now four minutes away and I am thinking of a coffee that I need etc etc.

The house is quiet and there is no excuse really, I tell myself that I dont have to do it but that doesnt really cut the mustard.