| Hello all, as you know, we will be getting married. For those able to join us, St Cosmas & St Damian Church, which is opposite The Greyhound pub, can be found
here
The reception is just a short stroll down the road in
Adastra Hall.
Also just up the road is the local travel agent. As we already live together and are planning to go and work abroad we are not having a traditional wedding list. Instead if you feel that you would like to give us something we would direct you to Bath Travel where you can purchase gift vouchers and all of these can be spent on a honeymoon.
Bath Travel We look forward to all our friends and family joining us for this celebration. Accommodation in and around Hassocks
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Link to Declan Casey''''s photo albums |
| Recorder |
| Fred, click here |
We are in Shantou, Guangdong province. A small city of about 3 million people, and about five hours up the road from Hong Kong. Sadly the bus is the favoured link between the two as the train takes an unbelievable twelve hours and flying is always expensive. The area is prone to being in the path of the odd typhoon or two, thankfully Taiwan shielded us from the worst of Longwang, the recent supertyphoon, but when it rains it really rains, the heavens open with no let up. BUT When it''s not raining it''s normally really hot. Usually in the low to mid thirties. Very nice indeed and I''ve only burnt twice and both times when it wasn''t sunny. Go figure. It has to be said that there isn''t a great deal to do here, nothing wonderfuly touristy but there are some really nice parks where you can escape the noise and chaos, both of which are in abundance, a load of shops, restaurants, bars, markets where you can buy just about anything that lives or grows and apparently four cinemas. The whole city is generally relaxed and the people can be very friendly and helpful or they can just stare, run away, giggle and hide or whatever else springs to mind, but mostly they are nice. Some proper infomation about China and Shantou can be found here and a panorama of the city taken from Queshi scenic spot here (hover on the image then click the icon to view full size - it's a biggie) |
| Click on a subtopic above left to view its articles |
A quick tour of where we are staying. Starting with the master bedroom ![]()
Ok so it''s just a bedroom but it does have an ensuite with it''s own GAS FIRED SHOWER !!!!!!!!!
![]() The bathroom is a wet room but thankfully it has a western toilet for which I am very grateful. The main space is the huge living room, big enough to have two seperate areas for if you want to watch tv/dvd's or just chill and read a book. ![]() In the quieter end is the kitchen, small with very low work surfaces designed for short Chinese people. They are even too low for me! but as we eat out most of the time, the amount of cooking we do is limited enough for it not to be an issue. I'ts normally cheaper to eat out with the only problem being which restaurant to choose. Ho hum. ![]() At the other end of the flat is the balcony, second bathroom and third bedroom. Look, the plants are still alive. ![]()
So it's basically nice, big and clean with cheap bills. |
| On Monday 24/10/05 the whole team visited Piaoran pavilion in Queshi, pronounced "chair she".
This is a really lovely part of town, very peaceful and picturesque. The climb up to the pavilion takes you through parts of the side of the mountain making for an interesting walk as you go under huge boulders and through cave sections. When you reach the top you are rewarded with a completely undisturbed panorama of Shantou. We spent quite a while relaxing, eating lunch, playing games and spinning poi enjoying yet another hot sunny day. It was an excellent way to shake the sizable hangover we aquired going drinking with one of the students the previous night.
![]()
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lizzie bought a guitar!!!! |
| A short video clip from the back of a motorbike/pedi-cab thing. Sorry about the quality, it was taken with my phone and we hope to get a better clip soon. Also this was shot at one of the quieter times but we don''t always have a camera with us on the odd occasion we use a pedi-cab.
|
We went to the Chaoshan food festival for lunch, lots of food from local restaurants was on offer, you get to watch the chefs making the dishes and try some really interesting things like oyster omlete. Surprisingly nice. The candied fruit sticks were lovely as were the green vegetable pancakes but the sweetcorn jelly was a little strange but at least it was made with real sweetcorn.
|
| After we left the food fair we wandered a local market street, all the usual clothes, shoes, bags, useless bits of stuff etc were everywhere and then we saw some cages. Cages that were far too small for the inhabitants. Most of the cages had puppies, one had five cats in it and then there were a multitude of very small fluffy rodent things. There were also many birds from budgies to tiny parrots (they were parrot coloured) and many other species beside, some looking decidely wild. If anyone has any knowledge on how to get a tortoise out of China in one piece, please let me know.
|
| Shots of the office.
where we park our bikes, run by the most unsociable man in China
The scary poster that greets us every day
Demi running the reception desk
one of the classrooms
some of the childrens work
Dora's office
the staff room part one
the staff room part two
the student common room
the interview room
our view from the staff room
another view from our floor
|
| This is taken from an actual product found in the supermarket, it''s for children, have a guess at what it is from this wonderfull description.
This kind of product can develop well the children’s
begin abilty, combining a different patter, still
ising beneficial to the thought ability of the
exaltation child with develop the child think the
elephant ability.
Allways nice to know what you're getting
Things can be misleading sometimes though
A bit worrying first time we saw these
At least they're trying
What this phrase has to do with loo roll I don't know. Perhaps if I use it my mind will be acted upon and then I will be enlightened
Rather aggresive toilet roll |
| My aunt Janet sent me a Christmas card hoping we enjoy our ''different'' Christmas.
Different it certainly was. The day was started with a trip to the doctor for some cold/flu medicine, followed by some shopping, yup, we went grocery shopping on Christmas day. Next a bit of general laziness with a few glasses of wine before going out with a couple of our students. We went to one of the best restaurants in town, there are no menu''s, all the food is plated and displayed and your order is taken as you wander around. You can choose from numerous live fish as well, pick the one you want, they grab it, whack it on the head then cook it for you. Some of the chopped bits on the ice table were still moving. This food is FRESH.
Long story short is that we had the strangest Christmas dinner ever.
cuttlefish
The only dish I''d had before was the fruit platter and thankfully everything was most enjoyable. After dinner we went to a KTV venue, this is karoke but on a massive, massive scale. You get your own room, computer controlled video screen, free food and waiters on call, we started singing a bit but it ended up like having our own pub, choose the music you want, veg out on the sofa's, chat and drink whilst someone else clears away the empty bottles (no draught beer it seems in China). Absolutely nothing like a karaoke night back home, we had a silly string fight and the waiters didn't bat an eyelid !!!! even when they were clearing up the aftermath.
One of the shopping trolleys of beer we had delivered
some of the silly string related mess.
|
||||
Random image of random madness that surrounds us everyday here
|
| We went to ''Hayley Cafe'', (yeah I know I need to take a picture of it), for dinner today and had burgers.
Check this out for presentation: |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A grim miserable day |
| In no particular order, some photos of our friends who made it to our leaving do.
|
| Mapopolis maps major roads GBR.zip |
|