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We went to dinner at the hotel yesterday evening and both stuffed ourselves silly.

I was a little spoilt when we stayed at the beautiful hotel in Suzhou, as they had beetroot in their salad buffet. Now the beetrootless salad at our hotel is just not quite as satisfying as it was once before.

Ahhh, beetroot, I miss such a pretty coloured addition to my meals.

The sashimi was so good I wished I hadn’t eaten anything before hand and they had all my favourites for dessert, so I quickly forgot about my initial disappointment.

The best part of all, was that after dinner I got to choose another treat from the bakery, so today has been Rye Bread Day.   Poached eggs on rye for breakfast, salad on rye for lunch and a peanut butter on rye sandwich while contemplating what to cook for dinner.

That seriously is very, very exciting.

My parents asked before they came to Hefei if there was anything I really wanted them to bring.

The little bag they gave me of things from home had me squealing with glee, who would have guessed these items could have made me so happy.

There were lots of books of course, so now I am treating them kind of like I treat a box of chocolate; I am putting them on the shelf, appreciating how lovely they are and swearing to savour them and make them last, then finishing them off all at once.

There was also a tub of body butter that I reluctantly left behind when we had no luggage space on the way to Tokyo. It is Jasmine Tea (flavour?) by MOR, their products are beautifully packaged and all smell wonderful. I have missed it so much every time I have had a bath or wanted to pamper myself just a little.

There were two bags of Clinique samples, I am going to have so much fun playing with them all! They will all look lovely in the compartments of my bedroom table.

There was a packet of Blu Tac, one of the most useful inventions in the universe, yet to be known in China apparently. Sticky tape just doesn’t cut it.

Most exciting of all, there was a bottle of Jif!! Yay!! I was so desperate for some decent cleaning products, the ones here are all completely useless.

Also included was my favourite pair of sock-slippers, which are going to be so nice in winter. Unfortunately, they must still smell a little of cat, as Chandler tries to eat them off my feet each time I wear them.

I can’t wait now until I have a few free hours. I’m going to scrub the bathroom, stick the bottoms of all our picture frames to the wall so they stay straight, rearrange the compartments in my bedroom table, have a shower then cover myself in Jasmine Tea body butter, put my slippers on, and read a book.

Ha! This is the life.

I’ve just signed myself up for an Amazon.com account.

I’ve no idea if books sent to our address written in English will make it here, but I am getting rather desperate.

I survived in Japan by borrowing books from other teachers’ collections, but having no English speaking friends or colleagues here makes that just a little difficult in Hefei.

In Melbourne I worked part time at the local libraries whenever I had spare time or felt the need for some extra cash, so always had access to an endless supply of reading material.

FREE reading material.

What a luxury!

Scanning through the books on Amazon, trying to calculate shipping cost, wondering how long I will have to wait for my purchases (up to 40 days they say) and if they will ever even find their way here, is bringing me to realise how bloody wonderful the library really is.

It is unimaginable to me now that I could put a few (or 20) books on hold online, then just wander down to pick them up when they arrived at my branch the next day, not paying a cent for any of them.

Sigh.