Out and About

Last week we went into the town center for a walk around and a little shopping. We really enjoy all of the bustle and seeing so many different interesting things. China had such a long history and it is amazing to see buildings that are still standing after hundreds if not thousands of years. The people selling stuff on the streets are all really friendly. Here are a few pictures we took of the trip:



Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

One Year Ago Today.....

Today was Tabitha's first birthday. It is crazy to think about what was going on a year ago and that so much has happened in the last twelve months. Tabs has coped so well with all of the change. We are just so blessed to have her.


We had a bit of a party for her earlier today, with all the people from our "small group" coming round. We decided that we would do a roast dinner and split the responsibility of who cooks what between us. Bunny, who lives 3 floors below us cooked the chicken, Yorkshire puddings and gravy. Our friends from down the road, cooked roasties and pumpkins and we did more roasties and some veg. It all worked out really well and it was great to be able to catch up with all of the people in our group.

Aaron and Lois got back yesterday, it was great to see them. They are working at getting a flat now. They also lent us a camera and so we can post a few pictures up again now, which is grrrrrreat.

Tabitha seemed to really enjoy today, although she doesn't really know whats going on. It all ends a busy week. I really now need to focus on studying because I have hardly done any in the 3 weeks break we have had so far and I only have 2 weeks left!

New Year Fireworks

Yesterday was Chinese New Year. This is the biggest celebration in China. There is a real sense of togetherness among the Chinese people. Before I came to China my preconceptions of CNY were that of big carnivals with dragons and stuff in all of the streets. It is actually quite the opposite, all the people in a family will make a real effort to get home from wherever they may be and spend the time inside with the family. It shows the huge importance that family still has in the center of Chinese culture.

One way that the family will celebrate is by setting off fireworks. On Wednesday night they were going off from about 6pm until 2am, non stop. Seriously; bonfire night or even our New Years Eve can't compete with the amount of fireworks going off. The problem is that they tend not to go for the pretty ones instead just endless roles of firecrackers and bangers. They were constantly so loud that we had to turn the volume of the TV up to full blast. It was like being in a WW2 film. Jen slept really badly that night as we just couldn't get Tabitha off to sleep, I seemed to fare a little better. Heres a little clip to give you an idea:




I can't believe the ignorance to safety when handling fireworks that people here have. I have seen loads of children, under 10 years old lighting and throwing fireworks around. In one instance I was in an elevator with a child of maybe 7 and his granddad. The child had a toilet roll tube with paper on each end and a fuse coming out of one end in one hand, and a lighter in the other. The kid was teasing his granddad lighting the lighter and holding it near to the fuse. I was thinking, if he accidentally lights that fuse what do I do? Try to hide in a corner or try and stamp it out?

Then that night our next door neighbors' young grandson was firing rockets, bangers and other little fireworks out of their 12th floor flat window.



Yesterday was also Jenna's birthday. We went into the center of the city and had a nice time and then in the evening we had a treat...a lovely meal at Pizza Hut....very posh.