China - here I come!

Tomorrow I fly off to China. This trip has been over a year in the 'possible' basket, but only in the last few weeks in the 'going' basket. I'm all packed up, bags labelled and as full as can be.

I am flying with China Southern Airlines. I have flown with them before. I find the service and safety on Chinese airlines to be just fine. I would certainly prefer their safety records to that of Qantas, who I have spare airpoints with and am reluctant to use.

I am allowed 30 kgs of checked in baggage, plus a carry-on bag, plus my computer. When I started packing I thought I would never need that much, but as it happens, my friends in China have asked me to take some things over, which actually add up to quite a bit of weight.

One of the things I wanted to take over was a cribbage board. This is a board used for counting when you play the card game of Crib. Some of my friends over there are real card sharks, but I know they don't play crib. Trying to buy a crib board was a mission in itself. No one stocks them. I went to all sorts of shops. In the end I had to buy one online which looked good in the picture but turned out to be plastic.(Not the one in the picture here, this one looks wooden. My one is packed away.)  Anyway, it will do the job.

I don't know if many people play cards these days, what with television and all the computer games etc. but my father loved crib, and Dad and I played often. We also taught all our children lots of board and card games. In fact, when our chldren were small, we deliberately went without televsion in the house for about five years. Our family entertainment was reading and games.

Just a side point too, getting children to learn maths, is sometimes a real trial. But if they learn to play card games, one of the things they learn without realising it is maths. They have to learn to count the cards and points. A fabulous way to get the brain working.  I reckon they should have school classes with card games, they would teach children all the basics of adding multiplying, subtracting, keeping the scores etc.

I am also having to deal with different climates. I will spend most of my time in Putian, where it wont be so cold. But I will go to Suzhou for a few days and it will be freezing cold up there, so  need all my winter woollies, thick coat etc. It snows a few times a year in Suzhou.

So I will keep you up to date with my travels here, and will try and post every day or two. I'll add photos etc so you can see what life is like in China. You might be very surprised.