Suzhou Happy place

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Well I've been feeling a bit down the last few days, missing lots of people back home and been quite bored and a bit low on money. But I'm feeling better now.



This week is national holiday for National Day....Quite how a day lasts 7 days I do not know, but here it does. That means lots of people are not working this week. That means that yesterday when I went to Walking Street it was the most crowded place I have ever seen! So many people!!! I managed to buy a Sim card finally, so now I am able to use my mobile! Woo!



Today was fun, although slightly expensive. Adam and I went to Suzhou with Lucy and Cherry, two barmaids from Malones. We basically had girlfriends for the day....We had to hold their hands, do what we were told and buy them lots of gifts. We went to a theme park in Suzhou which literally translates as "Suzhou Happy Place". It was not such a great theme park by English standards...I went on a total of two rides. Both were quite boring to be honest. I really wanted to go on a log floom but nope! We split up into groups of 2, Adam and Cherry and Lucy and I. Lucy and I spent most of the day wandering around, we spent a while fishing at this cool mini river with many, many goldfish...And you get given bait, a fishing rod and buckets and you can fish for goldfish and then afterwards take them home for pets which I think is pretty cool. So Lucy now has 12 fish, 3 of which I caught....I was rubbish at it, Lucy was very good! And I will claim my 3 fish at some time in the near future so that I am not so lonely in my apartment.



Adam and I learnt a lot about Chinese girls today. Gaaah! I thought English ones were bad but no, Chinese ones are worse. In England, if you offer to buy something for a girl they will say no no no no, even though they do actually want you to buy it for them. Here, they expect you to buy something for them and if you don't offer they will ask. Not only that, they insist on you doing as you're told. If you do not do so then you will be given the silent treatment and the evil eyes. If you persist you will get given the puppy dog eyes. I don't know what happens beyond the puppy dog eyes because this is where I cave in and do as I am told. I am not strong enough to find out what would happen if I were to be more stubborn....Nor am I brave enough. I have decided that I will leave my pursuit of women here for a while as it will turn out to be quite expensive and I don't have much money.



I'm in a not so great China mood today. The whole being a Laowai is not such a great thing all the time. It's very nice to have strangers say hello to you, offer you help and be very friendly to you. But, their attitude to me to starts to annoy me sometimes. I am a novelty to them because there are not many Laowai in this city, which results in me being stared at wherever I go. For example last night when I was here at the net cafe, I leaned back to stretch and et voila there was some chinese guy standing there staring at my MSN conversations, then he started to read them out to practice his English.....WHAT THE HELL1???!?! I was in an ok mood last night though so it didn't bother me, plus he couldn't understand what I was writing and on top of that, it's not that he was being nosey, he was just wanting to practice his English. And every so often the constant hello's annoy me. I don't know why, they just get to me. A lot of the time they are nice. I sometimes like to respond:



"Hullo! Hullo!



"Oh, Hello!"



"Hullo!"



"Hi.."



"Blah blah blah blah blah"



"Umm..."



"Blah blah blah..."



"I know kung fu..."



"Blah blah blah...."



Then we both walk away.



I will be off now, I'll see if I can figure out how to get photos on these computers...I must find the USB port first.

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