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.