Fascinators and the Other Curiosities on Wedding Street

In my mind I have created short bucket list for my time in China and my experience as an expat.  This year I am very excited to attend my first Melbourne Cup (horse racing) party with some of the women from our apartment compound and to cross another thing off my list.

Part of my ensemble will include a fascinator, which as my Australian, Scottish & British friends know, is a headpiece.  To shop for a fascinator two friends and I headed to Suzhou's Wedding Street to go on a treasure hunt.

As the name suggests, Wedding Street is lined with little shops selling wedding dresses.

Before my friends and I had started exploring the first alley, this gentleman came up to me and motioned that he wanted to have his picture taken.  I was happy to oblige!

We saw all kinds of dresses.  Some were very fancy, others were whimsical and a few reminded me of the 1980's.

We did find a handful of shops that sold hats, headpieces, fascinators, jewelry, feathers, bows and costume jewelry.  Being in China, the majority of what we found were limited to red (China's favorite color) and white (a now-popular bridal color in China).  We did find a few other choices and we enjoyed trying on the pink, purple, blue, black and green fascinators we found.

I felt very Jackie O with this hat/fascinator on.  And, I also realized how desperately I need a hair cut.  Yikes!

A few choices of fascinators...

Another bridal shop in the row.

It looked like several of the shops had additional dresses on the second floor or were sewing dresses.  I took this picture right after someone had thrown a bunch of scrap fabric out the window to someone waiting below.

Feathery and pink, but not my favorite.

I like purple, but I don't think this is "the one".

Peeking down another alley

And, I now know where the scrap fabric and discarded mannequins go for their final resting place.  I only saw two rats as we were wandering around.  It's fine.

We asked one shop owner about hats and she took us through this little hole between her shop and the one behind.  I felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

The streets around the bridal shops were just as interesting.  Tour buses coming to unload people on their way to visit Tiger Hill, a lady selling scarves, a vendor roasting chestnuts and the hustle & bustle of a busy street.

I ended up purchasing two fascinators, a pink one and a red & black one.  I'm not sure which one I'll wear (I need to decide on my dress first).  The race is next week, so I need to decide soon!

Big Pants Update

No, this has nothing to do with the status of my wardrobe, thank you very much.  "Big Pants" is the nickname given to the large gateway tower that is being built across the street from our apartment compound.  I'm sure the architect is thrilled by that nickname.

Here are some side-by-side shots of what our views of the neighborhood were when we moved in 2011 and what it looks like now.

Looking north at the Korean neighborhood center:

2011

2014

Looking down at Modern Ave:

2011

2014

Looking out at Jinji Lake and RainboWalk.  All of the

trees in the park between the Crowne Plaza Hotel

RainboWalk have been removed.  And now, there is

temporary housing for the workers where the 

weekly laser light show took place.

2011

2014

 Looking south at the "Pants" building.

2011 the building was just getting started and you
could still see green grass.

2014

2011

 My view from the girls' bus stop before we left for summer holiday:

And now, everything is several stories taller:

The view from our living room.

I think this will become a road so the workers can drill
underneath the intersection.

This used to be a park along the lake.  The blue houses
are temporary rooms for the workers.

Cranes & concrete

Can you see the yellow helmets of all the workers?

This is the intersection I have to get through to
go on my run.  I try and time it just right.

This is what the finished product is supposed to look like.  Our apartment compound is to the right (north & across the street) of the Big Pants arch.

One Month of School Completed; It's time for a Vacation!

No really, this week is vacation.  All of China will be off celebrating a national  "Golden Week" and we'll be getting the heck out of dodge.  It's been a busy first month of school, I do think a break sounds good.  

ChinaBean headed back to her little preschool at the beginning of September.  Could she be any cuter?!  She attends a Chinese preschool three mornings a week.  If you ask her, she eats rice and soup every day for lunch (which is probably true).

ChinaBean was walking home from school pretending to talk on her wooden iPhone.  She's a woman with a mission.

EBean was very excited to be recognized as her class's Golden Child.  She was honored during the weekly school assembly for her perseverance while trying to write sentences.  We celebrated with the traditional visit to Cold Stone.

EBean has also been taking swimming as part of her PE classes this term.  She loved it!

Nice form EBean!

Girl Scouts has resumed.  This is the start of my 4th year as a leader!  Now I have a better sense of how women end up leading for 20+ years...they must have several daughters too.  LBean is a second-year Brownie and EBean is finally a Daisy.  The poor girl has watched her sister do activities and make crafts for the last three years and she is super excited to be an official member this year.

Our troop has grown so much that my friend Sarah will be leading the Brownies and Juniors and I will be taking on the Daisies.  We have around 21 girls in our lovely troop.

Bridging ceremony.  Time to welcome the new Brownies. 

EBean playing a game at our first meting.

 Each class at the girls' school takes a turn to give a class presentation at their school's weekly assembly.  LBean's class performed at one of the first assemblies and I think it's nice to get it out of the way.  Her class performed a skit, sang a song, and showed a video about endangered and extinct animals.

LBean with one of her closest classmates

Taking a selfie

Class 4D at Dulwich

LBean's entire grade took a 3 day, 2 night school trip.  The kids were bused to Taihu, a lake situated about 1.5 hours from Suzhou.  They took a ferry to an island called San Shan where they learned about ancient temples, hiked a Buddha trail, picked oranges, made s'mores, watched a movie, took a night walk, and lots of other interesting sights.

Packed and ready to go!

Selfie has been mastered.

I was teasing LBean about this picture.  I asked her if she
realized that this was someone's underwear.  She said
that one of her teachers made a joke about the undies being
ancient artifacts!

Let's see, I know I'm leaving out something...homework, after-school activities (knitting & ballet for LBean), lunch-time club (ballet for EBean), violin practice, birthday parties, orthodontist appointments, colds, strep throat for me, and on and on and on.

Maybe we really do need a vacation...