So much to do on a saturday

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Oh my goodness, we seem to have fitted so much in today! We went to the Expat coffee morning at the Coffee Bean again and met our friends, Suzanne, Emily and Nathan. We met sonme of the people we met last week again, which was nice. They have so many top tips to help us...we need to sort out getting Chinese characters on my mobile. There is a text message service which you send a message asking where a place is and it sends you the address, then you reply with 'c' and it sends you the address in Chinese. Clearly this is essential when you are trying to tell a taxi driver where you want to go!

We left a bit early today so we could go and buy a soccer ball each for the boys and then we went into Zhongshan Park across the road and had an "explore". The boys played football and were at one point joined by a local boy who was keen to play, but wasn't playing soft rules! The grass was really wet tho after all the rain we have had this week. We had a bit of a picnic to keep us all going and I tried the milky tea in a bottle, which is cold, but yummy....more like a milkshake really. We had a wander around and found some bumper boats which we had a go on...they were really good fun but a bit manic and we really did NOT want to fall in the murky water!! (See the photos!)

We went back to the Sand Picture stall and all the kids (including Ian!) did another picture, before we went back to Suzanne's place for a rest as it was just so hot and humid and we were all getting tired. We had great fun, especially as she had wine!!!! I have to say one glass went straight to my head but it was lovely! By about 4pm we were ready for tea, so we went exploring to Yu Yuan Gardens. At this point, we have to say "Hats off" to Suzanne as she managed to get us to this restaurant there which was amazing. It is a dumpling restaurant which has won awards and is brilliant and really reasonable. We all tried dumplings with different fillings and liked at least one kind each. After dinner, we had a wander around the area which is so lovely and quaint. As the photos show, there are loads of traditional buildings and it was just getting dark so the lights were coming on. There is loads of shopping to be done but we were kind of swamped by offers of "Bag, Watch, T-shirts, shoes"???!!!!! Once again, the kids got mobbed for photos and we have started thinking about charging!

Well, we have just got back now and it is late so this is not going to be long...we are moving out of here at 9.30am tomorrow into our new place and we still have to pack!

Hope you enjoy the masses of photos and we hope the next blog will be from our own home!
xxx

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