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.

You want Hello Kitty on the hood of your car?

It's cold right now. Really cold. The weather here fluctuates a ton; just a few weeks ago it was warm out, and then it was cold and wet again, then a bit warmer, and then today it was raining. Chinese weather is crazy. I guess it fits in with the rest of the country!

My bed has been bugging the heck out of me lately, because the mattress itself is rock-solid (no figurative language here, it literally is rock-solid), and the only way to deal with it is to use a mattress pad, except that obviously the mattress-makers and the mattress pad-makers obviously didn't exactly collaborate, because the pad is ever-so-slightly bigger than the bed and is constantly sliding down. Plus, my dad insists that I have my bed pushed completely against the wall, except that if it's against the wall, my blanket can't go over the edge of my bed and that really bothers me. I hate sharing a room, especially when I'm in a tiny apartment and it means that I literally never get any personal space except for when I'm in the bathroom. And when my little brother doesn't bother to knock enough, so he frequently walks in on me while I'm in my underwear, I've got problems, especially when he (or my mom or dad or whoever) fully realizes that I'm getting dressed, but walks off and leaves the door wide open, anyway.

I don't really have too much else to say, because I've been thinking about my drawing and everything recently. John says that I need more pictures on my blog, but that's because this is a word blog, not a picture blog. Anyway, that said, I haven't had much luck thinking of things to write recently. But there have been increased sightings of Hello Kitty-themed cars in the vicinity; three, to be exact. The first one was green with white Hello Kitties on the hood and doors (we have seen this one multiple times, because obviously whoever owns it lives in the apartment complex next to ours), the second one was white with a pink Hello Kitty on the hood, and the third, and most horrifying, was white with pink Hello Kitties on the hood and sides, plus about fifty Hello Kitty bobble-heads and such lining the dashboard. This one was stopped at an intersection, and John and I took note of the fact that there was a man driving. Unfortunately, I haven't ever had my camera with me. The Hello Kitty cars remind me of how I've seen the red Beijing Olympics logo on a couple of items it should never go on, namely another car and a grand piano.

Blue Skies!

The sky is blue! I'm happy!

A lot of the time the sky is covered with clouds. Or smog. I'm not sure which, they all look about the same. But lately the skies have been at least somewhat blue, and today there wasn't very many clouds and it was warm, so it felt like Phoenix when the weather is really nice.

The weather changes very frequently here. Our first week here it was totally rainy, then it was just plain hot and humid, then rainy again, then cool and sunny, just plain cold, and now sunny and warm. And this is over only eight weeks. Since the weather is so crazy, I've gotten used always having an umbrella with me. Weird, being from Phoenix and all.

I was sitting out in the apartments' garden today on the grass with my blanket, and, seeing as I had my camera with me, I figured that I'd take some pictures of the sky and the trees. Notice that some of the leaves have turned red. Isn't that great?

The pictures are all from around Suzhou. Some were taken today, and others were taken two weeks ago when we were taking a Sunday walk.