Nathaniel and Sheree back in Australia

Every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday I catch the BDA bus to China World Trade and then walk to my E-Tower for my Mandarin lessons. The bus normally takes about 50 minutes to get into the city. Normally I just listen to music, memorize Chinese characters, read books and ignore everything that happens outside the bus because of this I missed a small minor difference between the Australian roads and the Chinese roads that makes a major difference. About three weeks ago it started getting cold and on the first really cold day there was a fog. On that day the traffic was really bad and it ended up taking over 90 minutes to get into the city. Now that isn’t really news except for the fact that it was almost all spend at freeway on ramp. Why? Well in China they put the onramp about 50 meters before the off ramp. This means that all the cars trying to get off the freeway need to avoid all the traffic coming onto the freeway. Traffic often comes to a standstill for 50 meters with virtually empty road after the off ramp. It gets especially when there is a traffic light just after the exit because then people are basically stopped in front of the cars coming onto the freeway. In Australia you have the off ramp before the on ramp. This means that the cars coming onto the freeway are able to fill up the spaces left by the people exiting and you don’t have the mess that you have over here.

On Tuesday and Thursday I’ve been going to school with Sheree on the School bus. I tutor a grade 9 boy for about an hour and then spend the rest of the day studying Mandarin in the park right next to the school. I’ve really enjoyed going to the park. Every morning between 7am and 10am there are about one thousand people in the park participating in various activities. There are groups of people playing cards around a collapsible table or a park bench. I don’t know what they’re playing yet but I’ve been them playing the same game at the markets when it’s quite. There are also old people that play Chinese chess on the special Chinese chess tables setup in various locations throughout the park. There are about 200 people there are learning ballroom dancing. Then there are another 100 people that are practicing more tradition Chinese dances on the other side of the square. In another part of the park there are people playing Hackensack in groups or three to six people. There are also a number of groups that singing every morning. There are also about 80 people that practice some form of martial arts. There are also about 20 men that bring their birds into the park every morning to sing. Now on top of these activities there are families walking around and other people relaxing, painting and reading in the park as well. The thing that impresses me the most is that all of this is happening when it’s about 5 degrees. It’s really nice seeing a park being used by people and people smiling and having fun.

Another Update,

Where to start, a lot has happened: some good and some bad.

Firstly our little kitten Mao Mao died last Saturday. He had been sick for a while, but he wasn’t in any pain as far as we could tell. We gave him a good home and it was much better than the life that he would have had living in the adoption home. I miss him and occasionally I see something that reminds me of him, a particular place he would sit, or something he would play with. He was our little boy.

So that was the bad news, now for the good news…we have a cat. Our Ayi (maid) saw how sad we were and got us a new cat. She has white fur (just like my old cat back home, Mindy) but it’s short. She has yellow/greenish eyes and her name is Mi Mi. Ayi got her from a breeder friend that she has. But I haven’t even got to the good bit yet. She cooks for us on Thursday so she brought the cat over on Thursday. She put him of the couch, went about her cooking and cleaning, then when she went to give him some food, she couldn’t find him. When I got home she was frantic speaking really quickly in Chinese (which I don’t understand) and looking really worried. It turns out that the cat had gone missing. She didn’t know where the cat was – I helped her look everywhere, but I couldn’t find the cat anywhere either.

So to cut a long story short, the following day (24hrs later) when I got home from school – we found out that the cat was stuck in part of the wall. We had to literally pull the fake fireplace (it’s a one piece and just plastered to the wall after building) away from the wall to rescue the cat. She had been stuck in a space about 20cm x 30cm x 1m high for about 24 hours. It was tall, but not even wide enough for her to lay down. She came out very scared and timid, and also grey from the dust. She’s settled in okay now though. It’s nice to have a cat in the house again.

Okay in other news…We’ve made some new friends, 3 Canadian girls who live in YiZhuang also. They teach at the local kindergarten. They’re cool girls, and our ageish, which we love because we have really been lacking contact with people our age. They have been coming to church with us and last week we started up our own cell group in YiZhuang. We have it on Wednesday night. First we go out for dinner together, then we join together (either their place or ours) for Bible study, Worship and Prayer. It’s awesome getting to fellowship together and grow in God. So far we have about 5 to 10 attendees.

Church is good. We have regularly been attending BICF every Sunday morning. It’s cool being apart of a Multicultural congregation, however it’s not like Citipointe. I miss COC, it was my home for sooooooo long. I had, and still have, many friends their. But I especially miss Citikids. To all my Citikids people reading this…I love you and I hope everything is going GREAT!!! We have been asked to join the children’s church program over here, but Nat and I have decided to have a break for a while-besides the cell group is enough for now.

The weather is getting heaps colder now, the wind is icy but the sky is blue. It’s deceiving when you look out the window after a shower – you think wow it’s gonna be a beautiful day, but then you see the trees shaking violently and you know otherwise. Today Nat and I bought hooded Billabong jackets, we paid $27 AUD in total for both. I also got a pair of Louis Viton Sunglasses for $4.50 AUD.

It’s Autumn over here something that I’m not used to living in Brisbane (The Summer State). The leaves have been changing colour; from green to yellow, now red and brown. But with the windy weather over the weekend, I think all of the leaves will be on the ground tomorrow. We have been wearing our jackets (double lined) with gloves and beanies (especially at night). I have become a fan of my scarf collection even more and occasionally been adding to it.

So what else to tell you??? Oh I saw the strangest thing on the way to school the other morning. If I was the woman who did this, I’d be hard-pressed to come up with an excuse to tell my husband. Somehow a lady had managed to drive her car up onto the centre guard rail. She must have been going really fast because she hadn’t really done much damage to the front end, just somehow got it airborne and ended up in a 45 degree angle form the road. I managed to get an AWESOME photo from my camera phone…It’s one of those times when you think ‘Only in China’.

And lastly (mainly for the guys) there was A1 car racing in Beijing over the weekend – but not just in Beijing in YiZhuang about 3 blocks from our apartment. It was amazing when we found out. A1 is similar to F1 but they race in countries, not in car makes and models. We didn’t hear them much though as we weren’t home much over the weekend.

Well that’s all from me for now. Praying for you all regularly, and I hope that everything is fine in the land down under.

Lots and lots of Love from Sheree, Nat and Mi Mi xxx