Nan'xun

I am having trouble adding pics to this blog. I have actually been trying for a few days. I have lots of Nan'xun, another small town I visited on a school trip last Sat. The problem is that when I upload it I get computerese instead of the actual picture. Then I decided I should leave on in case it comes through properly on the blog itself. It was a little different than other water towns I have visited because of the garden ares and because the people must be new to tourism. Everyone was staring at the strange looking Westerners, they all said, "Hello" to us or "Ni hao". Children, teens, young and old. It was quite interesting. The gardens are more prominent here, we actually spent most of our time in the gardens instead of in the shopping area which is the opposite of usual. The gardens are also natural - rocks, trees, grasses and hills - not manicured. They were quite beautiful.
We went on a boat trip on the canal. This canal is what all of the water towns are built on and I understand in the past the canal was an important water route for travel. I met a woman named Cathy on this trip. Her daughter also teaches at Yew Chung at one of the other campuses and Cathy is visiting for 3 months. She is a retired teacher so has started doing supply work for Yew Chung while she is here. She is of Italian ancestry so we hit it off and enjoyed the day together.
I think I didn't tell you much about Mike's last visit to Shanghai but we had a great time together and as always, I'm always glad to see him go. He does make me step outside of my comfort zone and so I experience so much more than usual but he also likes to bug me like attaching clothes pins to the back of my clothes or hiding on me or doing a hundred other annoying things. He also takes over the computer and leaves a mess in his wake. I can hardly wait to see him again. I miss Doug even more since I haven't seen him since Christmas and he doesn't seem to want to come for a visit. The travel bug seems to have left him although he is in Vancouver presently. Richard and I have talked about visiting Vancouver this summer also.
Friday was Global Child Day and there were big celebrations at work and after work. The Canadian teachers put together a Canadian booth which worked out very well and was a lot of fun. The parent group POP (Parents of Pudong) organized this event and they did an excellent job. There were booths from countries all over the world. The children were given a 'passport' which was stamped at each country as they travelled the world and enjoyed activities at each. In Canada, they could play hockey or make a Canadian flag. The food provided by parents from all of these countries was great. Six weeks, 19 reports and 19 portfolios to go and 1 year is done. It's been a fantastic year but I can hardly wait to be in Canada again.