It's Begining to Look a Bit Like Christmas...

two days after the fact. It never really does look much like Christmas outside the apartments of those of us who celebrate it, anyway. The Chinese decorate a bit and play Christmas songs in stores and such, but they don't get any days off. Actually, that's pretty nice for us because we do get time off fro school and work, so we can go to all the gardens and tourist destinations when everyone else is at work, so it's empty. The weather's been really nice, too. It's great.

My mom bought a guitar for herself, and I want to learn how to play it, too. Right now I only know a few chords, though. I also want to start playing piano again, if I could find music I liked which was at my level. Then I'd be able to play three instruments, including my violin.

Christmas was great. We had pain au chocolat for breakfast of course, and our traditional pork roast. It was delicious. (My dad is an amazing cook.) We went Christmas shopping in this little underground shopping center in Shanghai, and we found some good stuff there, like Axis & Allies (a WWII board game) for John. My dad also ordered books, clothing, and things from the U.S., so I got this shirt. It's awesome.

We'll be going up to Beijing and Harbin for a few days. Harbin is where they have an ice festival with buildings and sculptures made of ice. I think the festival itself doesn't start until after school starts again for us, but we can still go before when they're finishing up everything.

It's going to be cold.

It did snow today in Suzhou, but not that much. It melted as soon as it hit the ground. My mom and I went to the Lions Grove garden to see it in the snow and take pictures, but the snow wasn't heavy enough to get a good shot of it. Oh well.