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Patrick and I are having quite a nice break from the internet at the moment.  Although I miss being able to speak to friends and family easily, we have much more time to speak to each other when there is no internet connection nearby…

Hefei weather is still a little difficult to get used to, with huge thunderstorms that shake the buildings and heat that dries the footpaths within minutes of the rain stopping.

We have at least been able to spend lots of time shopping for furniture while the weather is awful, and have found that Chinese furniture can be just as beautiful as the furniture we can buy at home, but is much cheaper. 

Really looking forward to moving now!

I’m still getting used to Hefei. Some things I love about it… some things are making me almost constantly irritated at the moment.

When we first arrived and spent a few hours looking at houses I got terribly overheated so Patrick’s mum took me for a three hour facial, hair wash and massage to cool down. This I can get used to.

The fact that there is an internet cafe policeman hovering about behind me at the moment and apparently checking I don’t break any internet laws is a little odd.

I am not sure what sets off their alarms, but every now and then, the staff will start yelling and Internet Cafe Policeman runs off to shut down someone’s computer.

I love the fact that unlike Tokyo, everything is open all the time, and we never get shuffled out the door early because a place is closing. If we are hungry at 3am, there are plenty of places to choose from.

I’m a little annoyed that after only three days here, my shoes suddenly look 15 years old. The place is just so unbelievably dirty. Keeping our apartment clean is going to be really hard work.

I love that when we go out to eat, we order what we want whether it is on the menu or not, and no one minds one bit if it isn’t.

I don’t like days when it is 38 degrees, I am grumpy, dripping with sweat and clearly not at my best, and everyone is pointing me out to their children. Generally, I much prefer to go unnoticed when I am looking like shit.

Finally, I love Hefei, because the people are happy.

Hopefully after I have been here a while I’ll soak up this attitude and stop whinging about the small irritations in life…

Patrick and I are in an internet cafe in Hefei now. It doesn’t seem like so much time has passed since this was part of our daily routine, but we haven’t lived here for over three years now.

Nessa’s comment on my last post made me realise that I have never really written an awful lot about what Patrick and my plans really are.

This is mostly because we don’t often plan things, we just do them, and if we do make plans, we generally change them.

We are now living in Hefei. It is Patrick’s hometown, about 2 hours drive from Nanjing, or 45 minutes flight from Shanghai.

I can’t remember why we initially decided to leave Tokyo for here… I think the main reasons included the fact that our apartment here is due to be completed in two weeks, the people here are always friendly, and we can be even lazier than usual because living costs are low.

I think another reason is that we are restless, and always looking for the next thing to do.

We went to see the apartment today, it is very close to complete, and it is amazing. After our tiny little shoebox of a place in Tokyo, this is an absolute mansion. I think it should be enough to keep us in the one place for a while.

Once we are settled, Patrick is going to start working with his parents, and I am going to spend my time cleaning the mansion and learning how to sew using all those pretty craft books I brought back from Tokyo.

Patrick’s parents own a construction company. (So I have been told… I have never actually seen any of their cranes for myself, and if there was ever a Chinese family that looked like the Sopranos, this one is it.)

So… Patrick will be working in “construction” and also hoping to start his own business at some point. If he does well, I would like to open a cafe here too, there is a serious lack of good coffee in Hefei.

Another big reason we returned to Hefei is that we haven’t had a wedding yet.

We married over 3 1/2 years ago, but didn’t quite get around to the ceremony and celebration part of things, so this October, we will get properly married Hefei style.

This is our plan so far, it will probably change, but we will stick to it as long as we can.

I might not get much of a chance to update my posts much until we move into our new place and connect the internet, but I’ll try my best!

So after just a few tiny complications, we have made it to Shanghai.I am glad to find I can still post to my blog and to Flickr… just can’t see what exactly I am posting, so please let me know if the photos aren’t showing up or if I have completely mislabelled them all.

It turned out that the airline staff today weren’t as lenient on us and our massive amounts of luggage as check in staff usually are, and we paid an extra $200 for our excess baggage. I can’t complain, as I hate to think how much we have got away with in the past.

We have enjoyed a couple of days of weather in the low 20s in Tokyo, and had both subconsciously begun to think that summer was ending. We were horribly reminded that this isn’t so when we arrived to a sauna at Shanghai airport and a forecast of 38 tomorrow. Oh dear.

Patrick was a little surprised to find that he is seeing China through Australian eyes now. He looked at me sideways when our taxi stopped next to a group of people standing about in their underpants to see if I had spotted them.

“Now I can see that is a bit weird.” He said.

He also was a little concerned when we went downstairs to eat and he watched his meal being prepared, not quite to the standards of hygiene he has become used to.

I think he will get used to it soon.

We spent our last evening in Tokyo watching football. Pretty good way to say goodbye really.

The match was Manchester United to Urawa Reds, clever Patrick got us tickets before they sold out.

We got ourselves Urawa fan tickets and arrived an hour and a half early to get good seats, looking forward all the time to clapping and singing our evening away with all the mad Urawa fans.

Unfortunately, it took almost half an hour for us to get the ball, so for the first 20 minutes, the stadium was filled with silence, broken by the occasional boo and whistle.

Not quite the atmosphere we have become accustomed to.

After Urawa scored a goal (a bit out of the blue) in the 26th minute or so, we all cheered up and sang a little, but it soon became apparent that the majority of the crowd appeared to be supporting Manchester United.

Traitors!

A little disappointing for our last Reds game.