Well G’day there,
Today my 太太 (Tàitài, Qīzi – wife Toni) and I rode our bikes down to 天目山 (tian mu shan) road to a bookstore (Boku Super Bookstore) close to downtown HangZhou. We’d read in the latest “More HangZhou” magazine that the bookstore had a section of foreign (English) books including some non-fiction.
As luck would have it, they did indeed have a selection of English books including some fiction – including a fairly impressive collection of English literature classics. What I found most appealing were the prices, given that the Australian dollar currently trades at around 6 Yuan : 1 Australian Dollar, the prices were almost second hand book prices, really.
We picked up, in total, seven books – three of which are earmarked as presents for family members (so they will not be disclosed here). Here’s what we got (not including the three aforementioned presents):
- Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne, 194 pages, ¥21
- Sherlock Holmes (The Complete Novels and Stories, Vol 1) – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1059 pages, ¥26
- Death on the Nile – Agatha Christie, 416 pages, ¥56
- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson, 92 pages, ¥20
The obvious bargain being all 1,000+ pages of Sherlock Holmes for the bargain basement price of AU $4.18. Good luck finding that kind of value, even in a second hand bookstore (let alone new).
For the record, the store had all the latest Harry Potter books, the Twilight vampire series and a great selection of Stephen King novels and a decent collection of hardback editions as well. They also had the latest Dan Brown in hardback (The Lost Symbol) which I read last year.
After we had finished at the bookstore, we road along stadium road past the silk market to a hobby shop I’d seen a few months ago. There I found a model replica of my current car (faithfully house in Newcastle, thanks to my loving Grandmother) which is a Mercedes Benz SLK 200.
Although this model is a brown/red colour, and obviously is a left hand drive it is otherwise an exact replica right down to the (awesome) retractable roof – pictures below.
Once I’d finished at the hobby shop, we retraced our route back past Wulin², home to many high end retainers and ultra expensive brand labels, and stopped for some authentic Italian gelato (we shared two scoops of a lemon sorbet) before returning back to the apartment in West Lake.
During the week I came across a cached/archived copy of the Sanders Technology website, and it brought back some fond memories. I “rescued” a copy of the original company logo – here it is again, for fun- on the left.
Anyhow, despite the heat (the days here are on average in the high 30s) we’re getting along just fine. Keeping busy, and healthy are our two main objectives. There’s a good range of food options and there’s always something new to do, or to discover!
Right now, I’ve been trying to find some time to put together some new blog entries on the various sites, in between exercise and working. It is hard to believe that it is August already, and before we know it, it’ll probably be the end of the year.
The federal election is fast approaching (in Australia) and we’ll make an effort to cast our votes. With any luck, Australians will be smart enough to banish Labor with their (honestly) completely retarded IT & T policies (the Internet filter, two years mandatory customer data retention by ISPs).
Anyhow, until the next instalment – stay well!
Rob