At least there was some mulled wine, han knit socks, chinese crips and arches, the famous Suzhou calender and a lot of other stuff.
But the christmanss market was only the starting point. Right in time before the th december we had a christmass party at friends of us. Once again a real multi cultural event, as always. And also right in time, before all the people are leaving Suzhou.
Stephan just recovered from the swine flue - more or less - so he was only allowed to water. No mulled wine. But, well, the others didn't care about having some....
One very important thing is the secret santa. Not the german standart one, which is boring in any way, but the special rules of Australia. That's very simple. Everybody brings a 10 RMB gift or somtehing, he want to get rid off and puts it under the (nearly natural) tree
After that everybody draws a number and the first one is choosing a gift. Under heavy observation of all others.
Obviously there was only very worthy and wonderfull gifts. After choosing one, best you can do is hiding as discreet as possible, because.....
...the next one to choose a gift can also steal a already unwrapped one from somebody else. Well, what to tell, the christmass time makes people friendly, everybody cares about the others, no bad thoughts at all, but stealing gifts seems to be ok. There you detect the real character of people ;-) But after the 3rd theft of the gift, the thief is safe. More often it isn't allow to steal anymore.
The victims of the theft are allowed to choose another present from under the tree - or steal some other. Unbelieveable how funny santa secret can be.
Massimo prooved then his competence as Santa. Just crying out some terms and he acted as perfect as possible. For example: "kung fu Santa, Dolphin, tourist, pineapple, some vegetable, shagging rabbit,..:" let's stop here. Well, mulled wine let people get really creative.
After all the exhausting stuff - hey it was serious businees, no fun at all - Massimo prepared Pasta Aglio e Olio con Pepperoncine. Real italian stuff from real italian guy.
But this was only the begin of the Christmass Parys. On Friday is the combined fare well and christmass party of 2 colleagues of Stephan. Saturday follows the charity christmass ball of the EAS (hey, nobody told me, that there is a dress code!!!!) and in parallel there is also Hannuka. But this is another story.......
Shoe fassion...
...and how you can harm your feet on voluntary base....
