Change in Weather

Hi all. Sorry it has been so long since posting. Today's weather was great, it was nearly seventy degrees. I am hoping the nice weather is here to stay. Yesterday was Sunday, which meant no work for us (we worked on Saturday). The weather was nice so we walked to a grocery store about 20 minutes from our house. On our way back, right in front of us a minivan turned in front of a scooter, which ran into the side of the van. It was a relatively low speed accident, and I didn't think much of it. Jane, however, noticed that on the scooter was a woman and her baby, about one year old. She ran over and helped them up, and both of them appeared unhurt. Jane then yelled at the guy to watch where he was going. He apologized, but you could tell that he felt 'inconvenienced' by the accident. Drivers here are pretty bad, many people have only recently gotten their licenses after never driving before. Couple that with the general feeling that they own the road, and there will be accidents. (It is really annoying, but it seems like if someone can afford a car, they are better than the ones who can not, and therefore they always deserve the right of way). Well, with everyone appearing OK, we headed home, took naps and played the rest of the day.
There were two other weird things that I saw. This morning I saw a couple walking back from the fruit stand, and walking behind them, carrying a bag of fruit in its mouth, was their golden retriever dog. There is nothing specifically Chinese about this, but it was a pretty amazing sight. Another thing was when I was walking to the bus stop. A cab driver pulled over to the side of the road, while his fare waited in the back seat, so that he could pee in the bushes. This is China.
St. Patrick's Day starts here in 5 hours. Jane has planned a night out at a local pub. I would say only one out of five hundred people know anything about St. Patrick or St. Patrick's Day. If we take any pictures tomorrow night, I will be sure to post them here. Regardless, here are a few random pictures from the past week or so.

Above is a picture of Jane and a few others whom we went out with the other week. The bald Chinese guy to her left owns DM Pub, a bar that we go to sometimes (He has asked her to drum up business for him). We went there and Jane met the other people in the picture, I believe the guy is from Switzerland. This picture was taken well after I left (I was feeling like I had the flu). We are going back to the pub tonight for St. Patrick's Day.


Here are pictures of Evelyn and Dan. With all of the toys that we have bought here in China, they still favor this old toy from the United States, in which they cook us imaginary meals.

Here is Etain dressed up like a pretty pretty princess.

Here is a shot of Evelyn acting tough. She is actually acting out a scene from "Annie", when Annie is about to beat up some boys for picking on her dog. In the movie, Annie makes this face and says "Anybody else... Then get lost". Evelyn does the exact same face and the exact same line. Very funny.

Here is Etain enjoying the nicer weather out on the playground in our apartment complex.

Dan went to a birthday party the other day for Anetka, the girl from the Check Republic who came to his party (pictured above at the far left). Dan wore his tie, since it was a special day.

Dan and Etain playing in our toybox. Last week, we did a spring cleaning of our apartment. The toybox received a major cleaning.

Here is a picture of the kids playing video games at an arcade in the mall in downtown Changzhou. It is very large, with an indoor skating rink and two floors of games. Dance Dance revolution is the most popular game. The people that do it are excellent, the dance for about a half hour without ever making a mistake.

Here are the girls hanging out. Evelyn is in one of her self-chosen outfits. Etain was halfway through getting dressed.

Here is a newer complex across the street from us. This picture was taken from inside our complex. We live in a pretty nice, upcoming area of town. As I think I mentioned before, Jane says it reminds her of Manhattan.

Here are the kids hanging out on one of the sculptures in our complex. Between the eight buildings are small lawns. Our kids like to play there, as they are some of the few lawns in Changzhou. I don't know if this is allowed, but they do it anyway.

This picture is not very good because of the odd lighting, but it is a picture of Jane and Dan buying fruit at the fruit stand near our house. This fruit stand is less than one block from our house, and we can see it from our kitchen window. Unfortunately, there is a canal between our place and this stand, and to get to it, we have to take a seven our eight block route to get to the bridge crossing the canal.

Well, the weather has been great for two days. It is about 75-80 degrees. Hopefully we can pack away our winter clothes for good. We will try to take pictures tonight and I will post again soon.