Meeting with Jenny and Jason

Well.

The past 2 days we have been with our good friends, Jenny and Jason, that we taught english to in Taiwan and have moved over here to their new sticker factory outside of Shanghai. It's been great but we are on our own again.

We were able to get ahold of them on Friday and they came into Shanghai and picked us up from the hostel. So there were a few other things we wanted to do in the city but it was cut short which is ok because cities start to get a bit too much after a few days. So they came in and found us. They have a driver and he drove us all over the place for 2 days. First thing Jenny did after seeing me was give me a little packet of jewelry she had got for me...pretty ugly stuff but I wore it with joy while we were with them. Their english has slipped a lot since we were with them last so Mike had to do all the talking which I think was very tiring for him. But they spoke to him a lot about selling stickers for them in the states so there are some exciting potentials there. Lucy and I have been all lined up to design cool stickers to sell to the masses. Fun to have that connection.

They drove us out to their factory which is sort of in "factory world" I don't have time to really explain what it's like but they are everywhere and everyone works for one. You can distinguish them by the color of their tops and they almost feel like high school uniforms...this is where everything we use is made. Right here in Factory world. The signs even read" Welcome to city of happy export to world" and such. They took us back into Suzhou where we went to some gardens and other really cool little canals that we had missed on our own. Then they took us to one of those wonderful (:() restaurants that I am still stuffering post traumatic stress from Taiwan...pigeon, crab, duck, beef, fish, I mean could they eat any more meat...it was all really grosse but they were so excited for us to be there so we got it down somehow...I have had worse. Then they took us to a hotel and paid for two rooms for the night. They really treated us well.

The next morning they picked us up early, took us back for a tour of their factory, talked more sticker talk ( sort of felt like we were on a business trip) and then they drove us out to this Lake where we picked oranges from a grove. You can do the oddest things with chinese people. Then we drove back into Suzhou (a really cool city) and went to this huge garden that is really beautiful full of paths, temples, little forests and the perfect example of chinese landscape gardening ( suzhou was once like THE garden city). We got some nice pictures that I wish I could load up but it's not working out. After that they took us to pizza ( the chinese version of pizza) but quite a welcome meal and then dropped us off at the Suzhou hostel which has THE hardest beds I have evern slept on...might as well sleep on the floor. I have bruises on my hips! The streets right outside our hostel are FULL of little shops with label clothing for cheap...not dirt cheap but much much cheaper than we would pay. It's cool and last night we wandered around frinding some really cool clothes for Mike (that we didn't buy) but maybe we can get him something cool. It's just that we can't bare to put anything else in our little bags. Too bad we still have weeks left eh? Got some nice mango and strawberry drinks and enjoyed a bit of window shopping.

Today, we are thinking Hangzhou...a city by a lake. We'll see where the train takes us....we need to do laundry...stinky stinky. It was so much fun to see Jenny and Jason. They were so kind and so generous to us. So if anyone needs some stickers printed (preferrably orders over 40,000 units) let us know because we have a hook up in factory world China...i like the idea of designing cool stickers and maybe having to come stop by the street of designer clothes every year! It's worth saving up for it.

That's about all. Probably over on my time in the internet.

-c-