Today's post-church activities included a visit to a Suzhou post office and eating at a local noodle shop for lunch.
On Friday, my Chinese lesson included learning the words for "read newspaper". During that lesson, I asked my Chinese teacher whether it was possible to get a subscription for home delivery of one of the daily English language Chinese newspapers. She told me that you can buy a subscription at any post office. So today we asked our driver Michael to help us subscribe to the "Shanghai Daily" at the Suzhou Post Office. Early indication is that this was a success. I paid for a year subscription for 700 RMB (~$100). The subscription is scheduled start on January 1st - apparently you can only get home delivery to start on the first of the year. Whether it starts showing up in January remains to be seen, but I am hopeful that soon I will again be able to read the newspaper as I eat my morning oatmeal each day.
We then asked Michael to suggest a fast and cheap lunch spot. He took us to the nearby noodle shop called Lu Chang Xing, which turned out to be an excellent cultural experience, if not a culinary dream for all of the kids. Maria and Marco loved it and so did I. The soups were very flavorful and there is a good challenge to eating soup with chopsticks. The restaurant would certainly not have passed any U.S. health department inspection for cleanliness, but the entire meal cost only $7 U.S. for seven people. Kathleen, Joseph, and Juliana, however, were not impressed.
On Friday, my Chinese lesson included learning the words for "read newspaper". During that lesson, I asked my Chinese teacher whether it was possible to get a subscription for home delivery of one of the daily English language Chinese newspapers. She told me that you can buy a subscription at any post office. So today we asked our driver Michael to help us subscribe to the "Shanghai Daily" at the Suzhou Post Office. Early indication is that this was a success. I paid for a year subscription for 700 RMB (~$100). The subscription is scheduled start on January 1st - apparently you can only get home delivery to start on the first of the year. Whether it starts showing up in January remains to be seen, but I am hopeful that soon I will again be able to read the newspaper as I eat my morning oatmeal each day.
We then asked Michael to suggest a fast and cheap lunch spot. He took us to the nearby noodle shop called Lu Chang Xing, which turned out to be an excellent cultural experience, if not a culinary dream for all of the kids. Maria and Marco loved it and so did I. The soups were very flavorful and there is a good challenge to eating soup with chopsticks. The restaurant would certainly not have passed any U.S. health department inspection for cleanliness, but the entire meal cost only $7 U.S. for seven people. Kathleen, Joseph, and Juliana, however, were not impressed.
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