Guang Ming Lei Lou

---

Guang Ming Lei Lou, directly means Bright, brush, 3 rocks sunset....As a phrase it means Promising, open and upright and that means something good and that is where my name, Xiao Lei comes from. So that explains why each time I tell a chinese person my name they say it is a very special name! Yay 😊, I'm quite fond of that name. I must thank Lucy at Malones for giving it to me!



I was eating breakfast yesterday in the noodle bar I frequent and some guy started talking to me in English. He was the one who explained the meaning of my name to me and he even paid for my meal! How nice of him. He did start talking about Taiwan and Chairman Mao, he gave me the impression he was a very proud chinese person and would not take too well to anything the slightest bit negative about China. But he was a nice man who just wanted to pratice his English and has left me his phone number so I can meet up with him again when I get a mobile. That's the second person waiting for my number, the other one is Pond who I met in Malone's a while ago...I wonder if he'll still remember me...



I finished work quite early yesterday, and so spent most of the afternoon, about 3 hours in total cycling around Zhangjiagang getting to know the place better. There's a mahoosive sports complex somewhere very close to Cheers...It's actually massive and consists of many buildings. And theres lots of pretty parks with strange chinese exercise equipment which I seem to enjoy. One thing I really enjoy is the treadmill thingy, but instead of running your legs are swinging through the air...I can't be bothered to describe it in detail right now but I think they would be a lot better for you than regular treadmills because they let your legs swing which can improve flexibility, it's quite therapeutic and theres no impact on your poor shins and knees so no long term damage. Another one I was playing on was the spinning thingy, which is basically a circular metal plate large enough for a person to stand on and you just spin. That I imagine would strengthen your abdominals a little bit.



Yesterday I also started to learn Chinese characters, that is going to take me a very long time. It helps a lot for reading, I can read some of them better and it is quite relaxing writing them down aswell just because it's a piece of art basically. I sat in a garden yesterday practicing them, I was sitting on a rock above a waterfall, it was so beautiful. But I couldn't escape the fact that I was in a city because there were construction works in the background with lots and lots of noise. Even so, it was still quite peaceful there.



I can't remember if I've mentioned this already but we played our first football match the other day. We played two matches, and won both and I scored a goal, an awesome goal aswell! I was quite pleased! However, I was wearing the wrong footwear and have a nasty sore spot on one of my toes. It was also really tiring, but great fun! Next match is on Wednesday, so I may have to buy some new trainers for that.



Payday today, so as soon as a member of staff can help me I will buy a mobile phone! Also, it's National Day next week, and we get the whole week off YAAAAY! Adam and I are thinking of heading over to Suizhou, which I've heard is very beautiful. We'll probably stay there one night then head back to Zhangjiagang.



I have a lesson in a few minutes....Yaaaaay. Little kids really do drive me crazy, they don't want to learn anything and I have to teach them. I'll be off now, bye bye!

---