Laowai, Work, and Photos

The last few days have been rather uneventful. With most of my apartment finished, I have very little left to do but clean (which I have been procrastinating quite well on).

I met with Claire for drinks and checked out a bar called Havana, which feels like a bar in a Western country. The bar is owned by an American, a Dane, and a German. We think the German guy was there the night we went because there was no one who spoke English except for the waitresses (everyone else spoke German…).

My stomach decided to take the next morning to act up, but I had to go to work at the Wuxi main office near where Claire lives. Finding the place was quite an adventure, as the entrance to the building is at the rear, but since I left an hour and a half ahead of my meeting, I got there with plenty of time to spare. While I was there, I talked to Kenya, our Counseling Quality Manager (CQM) for the province, and Helen, the person in charge of my counseling office at Tianyi high school. Both of them seem like great people and I look forward to working with them in the future.

That evening Phoebe brought me some stomach meds (yes, they do have my acid reflux medication here in Wuxi…go figure) and by the next day I was well enough to go to the bank. I now have a bank account with China Merchants’ Bank, which is a 10-15 minute walk from where I live (or about two minutes by car).

The rest of my time has been spent sitting around watching Netflix. Not necessarily the best pastime, but I do need some down time before office life starts and I should at least pretend to clean my house. As a consolation prize for me not doing much, I’m including pictures of the finished parts of my house. Pictures of the bathroom and my living room will come later, once the sofa has been reupholstered and my shower stall-thing has been put in place. 

I'd also like to point out that I just added TWENTY-ONE photos of my house and the surrounding area, so don't expect buckets of photos on later posts...

The view from my balcony:  

 The red buildings belong to my school, while the darker colored buildings in front are part of my neighborhood.

 The more expensive large-family housing units in front of my relatively tall building:

 My school. This photo includes the library (in the back) and the teacher's apartments (very selective and coveted) with the lake in between:

 The dorms for students and young teachers. The students stay at school during the week and go home for Saturday evenings with their families:

 Our track, field, and new gym (which teachers can't really use):

 My bed + window:

 A view from the other direction. My bedside table has a pile of stuffed animals plus a photo of me and Julian:

 The view out my window:

 My guest room/office/storage room:

 The view out the guest room. My desk is right in front of the window:

 My kitchen:

 Two burners and no oven. I see a toaster oven in my future:

 The view out my only kitchen window:

 The view out my stairwell window. Along the canal bank on the near side are personal gardens. Also, the multicolored water is not naturally that way. There's a lot of oil and I suspect other chemicals dumped in this canal:

[photo update]
A somewhat good photo from my balcony on a decently clear night: