Day 30 -- Suzhou, China

Dad was already at work by the time I woke up this morning. The rest of us spent the day mostly being lazy, watching TV and DVDs all day. We did manage to laundry, which is quite a chore. We also discovered that Fong, the ayi, ruined one of Daniel’s shirts. She doesn’t understand that you can’t iron directly on a decal on a shirt. She apparently did, then promptly folded it and got the decal stuck to another part of the shirt. I had another bad headache. I realize after skimming through my journal how many headaches I’ve been having lately. I don’t think it’s related to caffeine, but I’m not really sure what is causing them. And only being able to take Tylenol because of my Crohn’s Disease really sucks. It doesn’t seem to make much of a dent on the headaches. I guess I should see if there is something else that I can take for them. (Okay, I realize this is worse than my normal ramblings. I’m going to leave it in regardless.) Dad got home around 5:00pm. He said work was a big headache and he had over 400 emails from during vacation. We headed to Jack’s Place (an excellent Italian restaurant) on Bar Street for dinner. On the way there, Dad got a call from a friend/ co-worker to shoot the breeze, talk about where the job was at, and to see if he was going to the TA (Technical Advisor—my dad’s title on this job) Conference in Bangkok, Thailand next week. Dad hadn’t heard about it, so he will have to see if he can sort through his emails for some more info tomorrow. We took a cab back to Yumway (“The way to Yummy!”), a tiny shop that imports Western food in Suzhou Industrial Park, to buy a few much desired Dr. Peppers (it’s been 3 weeks!) and some sandwich fixings. We also bought some DVDs at the store next door and then took a cab back to the apartment. We vegged for a while and went to bed about midnight.