This is the place we live in, this is our residence, but the view is something we never see ourselves. We live on the first floor and that’s nice, we have our patio and enjoy it. I took these pictures from the 16th floor, where my friend lives. You’ll get some idea about the huge gardenlike common area with our own “river” and bridges. And believe me, we never really see the “new Manhattan” from here!

This is something I didn’t expect to happen to me when we moved to China: I’ve made friends with our Chinese neighbor and our sons play together daily. She invites me into her home and she tries to help me any way she can. We even talk about how we feel about being a mom, about our worries etc. We don’t always agree on each others opinion and we often have hard time understanding what the other one really wants to say, but we still can share some ideas and feelings. Don’t get me wrong, we have really good western friends here and I’m sure our Chinese friends never can understand us like they do, but I still find this friendship really unique and valuable. Not to talk about the boys who truly enjoy each others company.

So it’s going to be sad for all of us, if we have to move because of the water damage. But let’s not worry about it before it really happens!

Here’s still some pictures to show you the other side of Yingzhou, the area we live in. I keep telling you it’s under construction, now you can see it yourselves! These pics have been taken on the other side of my friends apartment, so this is how it looks like on the other side of the road. And the rest of the Yingzhou is just full of construction fields like this. I wonder what the area will look like in couple of years!