Germanyyyyyy - unbelievable how many Germans followed the soccer championship here in Suzhou. Even more unbelievable that we had the chance to see so many matches with the german team, who would have imagined before. In every bar and restaurant were live broadcasts of the games, the flags and vuvuzeelas were sold out ant the atmosphere was superb.
One highlight was definitely the match vs. England. The odds were not too good for the german team and then it started with a real English goal from Germany. Wow.
There was no reason after the world championship to stay at home. We found a new old bar called "Bruxelles Chocolate Bar". It's already open since three years and it's a funny mixture of Bar, Club and chocolatier. With Belgium chocolate. Unfortunately also with Belgium prices.
Since the ExPo in Shanghai opened we have another phenomena here in Suzhou: blue sky and a nice view. Really, the government decided to show only the brightest sides of China so they came up with a plan, which factory is allowed when to produce and in parallel they moved plenty of the heavy industry to other parts of China. Hopefully it stays also after the ExPo ends.
The next highlight was Stephan's birthday. No worry, it's not the 40st yet, so you didn't miss a lot. We had some party at Harry's (where else ;-) and Stephan got a real home made german chocolate cake from friends. Sigh, so nice live can be.
Since longer time we also visited the crown plaza hotel again for the dinner buffet. It's absolutely yummie and this is common knowledge nowadays in Suzhou. But with a reservation a couple of days before it's possible to get a table there......
What else to do in the hot summer time? It's not a good idea to stroll around outside for long, but there are some air conditioned cafes and bars so it's possible to go out.....
The next visitors here in Suzhou will be pretty surprised how fast the sky scrapers are growing. The whole Skyline looks different week by week. Additionally the metro is under full preparation and shall open mid of next year. This will help pretty much in the daily traffic jams, we hope.
Being now more than two years already here, we're now the experienced Expats. A lot of our friend s are about to leave in the next time, so are Gabi and Bernhard. But before they leave, we bought the most comfortable sofa from them and kicked out the old one from the land lord. We would have preferred to sit on the sofa at Gabi and Bernhards place, but at least we had a really nice farewell party.
last week we went to Shanghai since a long time. We had to go to the embassy to get our Passports expanded and there for you have to come in person. At least it was the possibility to check out the new fast train connection.
There are two new train stations in Suzhou. That's perfect in theory. The new main stations is not yet connected to the main roads, so it takes more than 30 minutes to go there. The train takes then 20 minutes to Shanghai. Hmmm, we see there some room for improvement.
Being in Shanghai we took the opportunity for shopping. We wanted to get some decent lighting to be able to take photographs at home like in a studio. Well now we have the equipment and as you see, after 250 trial shots the results are not too bad.
Out other plans, our next holiday trip and other news are a completely different story......
sun rise...
...are currently the most exciting things in Suzhou. Due to
the ExPo a lot of productions are shut down so the sky is nearly clear.....
