One small thing about our return.

Moving back from China the majority of our belongings were packed up several weeks before we left and shipped on a slow boat. We still had far too much luggage at the airport as we mentioned, but overall we thought that we did a fairly good job of packing. All of our summer clothes are packed in a container, and since we were doing our last minute purchasing of almost an entire wardrobe of tailor made clothing most of my regular work clothes were also packed up and shipped. We were just informed that our shipment has cleared US customs and is now in transit to Chicago, but since we are still just in temporary housing until we can move back into our condo in April all of our stuff is going to go into short term storage.

One thing that we hadn't really thought about turns out to be one of the things that we complained about while living in China - doing laundry. Tina was glad to have a washer and dryer in the apartment, mostly to have the dryer so that we wouldn't have to hang up all of our clothes up and wait for them to dry. The downside to this is that our nice new tailor made clothes had never been in a dryer before...

So my six pairs of new pants all came back from the cleaners just a little bit smaller, having shrunk after being introduced to the dryer. It looked like I had suddenly grown 3" since moving back, and that forced me into having to head out and buy all new pants. Between the tailor and now I've purchased more pants in the last three months then I probably have in the last four years.

Tina with the tailors that made a lot of the clothes we brought back.

Tina's also seen some shrinkage in the pants, but most of hers were made long so she could wear heels and thus it's not as noticeable, and the majority of her tailor made clothes still packed in our main shipment. She sees it more in her shirts, now being a little smaller, but luckily the shirts that I had made didn't seem to shrink too much and they are still perfectly wearable.

We should have seen this coming, we had mentioned it before and even talked about taking material to a hotel so that it could be washed and dried before taking it to the tailor, but in those last few hectic weeks preshrinking material somehow slipped our mind. Something to think about if you are trying to save money by having clothes made while in a country that's mainly without dryers.

Nancy and Barb's big adventure - the continuation

After our night of heavy drinking on Tuesday (what were we thinking) we left on a "3 hour tour", drive that is. We drove to the country and saw the Hakka houses or round houses as they are known to many tourists. Imagine a house that is so big it can hold upto a 1000 family members! Imagine no running water! Imagine no indoor toilets! They are quite something to see, let us tell you, but we could not imagine how they did it. Today many of the young people are leaving and going to school and they are not coming back to the Hakka's and many a falling apart. However, there are 20,000 in this province and we won't see the end of them for a very long time. We also walked through a picturesque village that sat on a beautiful river. It was a great day. At the end we got into our van and headed back to Xiamen for another 3 hour drive. Needless to say we all 3 passed out for a while.
Then Mark and Tina took us to "Chili's", not the real name but everything is made with chili's...you can just imagine...oy vay.

Today we went to the "Sisters" for lunch and then to the tailors to pick up all the items we had made...he did a great job. Then we went for a hair wash...a very civilized way to have your hair done...you lie down and they massage your head and then your arms and then your back and then they blow dry, took about an hour. We want this service in Toronto and all for only $5.00 CAD. We love this country. We then had our mani/pedi ($10.00) and now Tina, Mark and their friend
Yih are taking us out for a surprise night, we are afraid, very afraid. We will let you know all about tonight in our next installment.

Talk soon

Barb and Nancy

Barb and Nancy arrive in Xiamen...YAHOO!!!!

Well after all the months of planning Nancy and I finally arrived in Xiamen on Good Friday. It only took a 14 hour flight to Hong Kong and 4 hour layover and another 1 hour flight to Xiamen. Once we got in to Xiamen we only hoped we would not be pulled over and challenged on all of the loot we brought with us. We got through customs to be greeted by huge hugs from our pals Mark and Tina.

Arriving in Xiamen at night is pretty spectacular with the neon everywhere and all the cars and people. We finally arriving at the apartment and unpacked all the loot and proceeded to drink 5 bottles of wine and 1 1/2 bottles of port. We certainly stayed up but we suffered the next day. Oh well...such is life. There was a broken toilet issue but we will not go into that here as I am sure Mark and Tina will comment on this...suffice to say the Chinese do not bolt their toilets to the floor..I think they just glue them. lol

Saturday we went to the food market and you would have thought that the aliens had landed. Talk about being the minority. Little kids had their eyes glued to us and were falling down, it was quite interesting and funny. Tina then bought us some chinese buns and we went to Temptations and ate our breakfast. Later in the day we went to the fabric market and you would not believe what we saw..my goodness..the colours and type of fabrics...we went mad I tell you...mad.



Nancy and I each are having 6 items of clothing made and we are going to be regular fashion plates. We then met Mark for drinks at "Me and You Too" and then we went for all you can each sushi (in China) and then Nancy and I started to fall asleep and Tina and Mark brought us home and put us to bed.

Today is Sunday and we are rested and refreshed and heading to the Botannical gardens...we all know there must be floral and fauna for Miss Nancy. Then all you can drink at "Le Petite Cafe" tonight from 3-9pm.

Thats all for now. We are attaching a couple of pictures from the fabric market and tomorrow we head for Beijing. Barb and Nancy

The next group to leave.....

Now that the Mexican is back home, safe and sound, or so we assume, it's time to turn our attention to Edlin and Jose, who will be the next of our group to depart China.

This is their last week, and final preparations are underway. They picked up their clothes from the tailors over the weekend as they had business suits made, evening dresses, shirts etc. Hey, why buy clothes in the U.S, when you can have them made tailor made here in China for a fraction of the price. Edlin had a winter wool coat made for 170 RMB, about 30 USD.

This rest of the week will be for Edlin to enjoy her final week in China. We have foot and body massages, pedicures, facials and a host of other events, scheduled for her. I'm not sure about her, but I know I'll be exhausted and broke. Ah, but the fun we will have.

Though it's tough for us, who are still here to say good bye to our friends, we also know that as expats depart, others arrive, which makes being an expat very interesting.

A new expat

There comes a time when it's your turn to impose your knowledge to a newbie. Today was my day, to help a young new expat, named Amber.

She arrived approximately one month ago, and is living in Xiamen until the end of this year. She contacted us, through our blog, inquiring about a tailor. After a few emails we confirmed a date, place and time to meet. Today was the day.

We first went to the material market in search for material. Amber seemed a bit overwhelmed by the fact that there were so many stores in one place, not to mention the various types of material one can buy. I took her to my favorite places where we bartered down the prices, (this is why we love China!) and purchased meters of material. This is becoming my favorite past time, going through the market and having clothes tailored made for us.

After getting a business card for Amber so she can return to the material market, we took a taxi to the tailor. His English is limited at best but we were able to get across what Amber was looking for, or we hope we did anyway. I picked up the remainder of my clothes, and and dropped some more material for him to make some more outfits.

After a few hours we finished and we will be head back in a couple of weeks to see the results of Amber's clothes.

Tailor Made

Some of you may have heard about the great bargains that we find here in China. Well, one in particular, that I know that I will miss when I leave Xiamen, along with my other expat friends, will be our tailor.

Since many of the stores don't necessarily have our sizes, or in some cases, our taste in clothing, we have found the next best thing, having your clothes tailored made. According to some of the Chinese here, the best tailors are from Shanghai, which just by coincidence happens to be the one we go to. He's quite popular amongst the expats as he is very good and is quite inexpensive. You would never find his place unless someone has taken you, as it's among an older apartment complex off the main road, so you find him by word of mouth.

Typically we go to a material market first, where there is approximately 100 stores selling every type of material, you name it and this market pretty much has it. Off I went with a friend hunting for some material that would be appropriate for a 112 degree day. Yes, summer is soon approaching and once again the umbrellas will be out, the men will tuck their t-shirts under their arms, and the women will be wearing see through dresses, all in the attempt to stay cool.

Approximately 2 hours later I had material in hand and off we went to the tailor. Now granted his English is very limited, but pictures say 1000 words, so what one does is come prepared with pictures, usually taken from magazines or the Internet. You can also have him copy any article of clothing that you may already have. He understands the word copy. A few nods here and there and the odd "dui, dui" and he's good to go.

After a couple of weeks you return and your clothes are finished. In some cases, he's so busy he hasn't had a chance to complete your work, as was the case with me today, but it's the price you pay for having a good tailor. It's that time of year when all the expats are going back home, so all the women are out in full force trying to get their items completed. When I went to see him today, I ran into two more friends picking up clothes and requesting more clothes from him and hoping that he can have their clothes completed before they leave to go back home.

To give you an idea on pricing this was our list of clothes that we had made:

6 shirts - Tina

1 skirt - Tina

3 dresses - Tina

2 pr shorts- Mark

2 pr shorts - Tina

4 pr of pants - Mark

1 pr of pants - Tina

The cost for the tailor, 700 RMB, for and 550 RMB for the material. Approximate cost in USD 175.00.

The clothes that I dropped off a few weeks ago were to be ready this upcoming Monday. Upon my arrival, the material that was purchased were still in black bags, pretty much the same position that I left them. The tailor apologized profusely and I told him not to worry, suai bain le! It's not like we're going back home for the summer. Maybe we will model some of items that we have had made...