On Suzhou

Double click and look for the tiny yellow spot...

The easy answer is to direct people to our new home is that it's 80kms west of Shanghai. A couple of times I saw looks on people's faces ranging from "oh, so it's in the Styx" or "oh, it's in the country side"...

A little bit of background. Suzhou is a fairly large Chinese city with around 10million people (roughly the amount of people in Gauteng). It is economically vibrant and has been identified as one of the twelve economic zones in China. It is known as the "Venice of the east" due to the fact that the old city is built around waterways and canals.

What is appealing about Suzhou is that it has a rich history dating back as much as 2500 years. It is world renowned for its gardens and it is one of the "1000 places to see before you die" according to Patricia Schultz. The beautiful gardens in Suzhou have colourful and descriptive names such as "The Humble Administrator's Garden" or "The Master of the Nets Garden".

We will be living in an apartment close lake Jinji, one of the smaller lakes in Suzhou. The apartment complexes in Suzhou have names that make you giggle such as "Golden Love" and "Join in the Grand". We will be living in in a compound called "Horizon Resort". The area where we will be living is known as the Singapore Industrial Park (SIP). It is a massive 200 square kilometre development of businesses, apartments and light industries, mainly aimed at attracting foreign investment. There are roughly 20,000 expats in Suzhou. The SIP is vibrant with modern wide lane roads, bicycle paths and a "nice big city feel" to it. When we were there in October we noticed at least two Starbucks in the area (or "Starbucker" as it is known in China).

The children will go to a British International school called Dulwich College. It is a satellite campus of Dulwich College London. It is a relatively young school with about 500 kids. We like the vibe and the teachers and we're sure they'll fit in nicely. They also place a"cap" of 30% of a nation per grade. In so doing you do get a true international school in stead of a situation where one nation "dominates" the school culture. Children don't go to school during July and August, mainly because of the hot summer. Tannie Bettie (the children's au pair) volunteered (and we accepted), to spend the holidays with us in Suzhou!

Suzhou has steaming hot summers (38 degrees with 100% humidity), we are a bit worried about that! Winters are freezing and snow is not uncommon...

The idea is that Irene and I will take turns to return to SA every three months to keep in touch with the business and obviously to align our work in China with the SA operation. We are still in two minds over whether we want to take the kids with us on these trips.

I can report that since my last post, our Chinese "invitation" has been approved and we should have our visas in our passports, this time next week!. Also we have booked our tickets and our departure date is the 30th of March (a blue Monday!). Our friends have done well to relieve us of our "load of stuff" and our first couple of steps on the journey of a thousand miles have gone without a major hick-up.

Chat soon!

Rihann