Sights from the first week in China

We now have our first week behind us in China.  We enjoyed ourselves, other than the daily 93°F (34°C) temps.  Generally there has been a slight breeze, which makes it tolerable if you’re not in the direct sun.  Due to the “fog” that’s nearly always present in China, the sun isn’t very strong as it filters itself past the airborne particles.

The first week was more like a typical business trip than moving to a new country.  Still in the honeymoon stage.  We’re still staying in a nice hotel, eating safe hotel food, and not struggling with much yet.  One thing different is having my daughter along.  It’s not like having beers with co-workers after work, but there are better photo-ops with my daughter.

(Click on any photo to see it larger.)

 

Apartment Hunting

We spent quite a bit of time this week looking at apartments.  We had nine appointments lined up for Tuesday afternoon, but three of them went off the market before noon!  We had even worse luck on Wednesday where we had six lined up and four went off the market by noon.  We went back to take a second look at two places on Friday and asked the agent to start negotiating with the landlord on one of them.

I’ll do a future post going into more depth on apartment hunting in China, but in the meanwhile we are enjoying living in a hotel (for now) and exploring many of the things that are near-by.

 

 

There’s a small temple very close to our hotel.

Nanchang Street

About 1 mile (2 km) from our hotel is Wuxi’s famous Nanchang Street, which is a walking street that has been renovated to look like an old canal village street. The views are nice during the day, but even better at night, so we are planning a return trip soon.  The street is lined with shops, restaurants and bars.

There’s also a large park directly across the street from the hotel.  Many people gather there for Tai Chi, a walk, to ride the miniature battery powered cars, or to fly kites.