I took this photo in an alleyway near the Courtyard Marriott in downtown Wuxi. 

The entrepreneurial zeal of the people above is to be commended.  I worry about the cleanliness though.

Rare readers know, that when I take photos of Tony, I also take a video.  Here are moving images of Tony in the blue bathrobe.

Hey Babe!

What do you say?

Not much to say to the lot of you who come here on a regular basis.  If you please, go here.

Here is the latest photo of my son.

He adopted this position himself.  It was not posed.

Here is a photo of traffic taken yesterday near Bao Li Mall.

Anything significant about the photo?  No.  I just want this blog to look Wuxiesque. 

If you want to know how you can get a hug from Tony, you can watch Wuxi Tony Update Two Hundred Eighty Six, the latest installment of the most extraordinary and yet under-appreciated great baby Internet Update Series of all history.

Other than it being dark at noon today, not much happened.  But I did take some photos of Wuxi.

Here they be:

Wuxi has policemen direct traffic.  But, they are often not heeded.

Locals head to work on bicycle.

What difference 18 months make in the life of an infant!

Here is Tony on August 23, 2007.

Here he is just recently - Saturday Night.

Helen will teach you how to say the numbers one to ten in Wuxi Hua.

Time to spruce up the blog with photos of Downtown Wuxi.

Here is the Hongduo Building, Wuxi's tallest, under construction.

Wuxi is a water city.  Not like Venice though, but canals are everywhere to be seen.

You can also see me further butcher Mandarin...

Nothing like a McDonald's breakfast sandwich.

The idea of Hilary Clinton visiting an Independent Upper Delinga, is enough to make Upper Delingans wish they were again vassals of the Lower Latvian Empire.

I see if Helen wants to participate in my ground breaking Wuxi Hua series.

Here is Wuxi Tony Update Number Two Hundred Eighty Two, the latest and perhaps the greatest Wuxi Tony Update that has ever been made to date.  You would think that making all these Wuxi Tony Updates, I would be bereft of ideas.  But in fact, I have barely scratched the surface of the creative possibilities that this genre of home-made video has to offer.  So Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Republicans and Democrats (a pox on both your houses), those who partake and those who intelligently don't, tweedledees and tweedledohs, Andis Kaulins in China Network proudly presents for your viewing perusal, the latest episode of what is unarguably, the greatest baby Internet update of all human history, Wuxi Tony Update Two Hundred Eighty Two:  Tony's Father speaks in Mandarin, sort of.

Meanwhile, you can go to my other blog to learn about my Odyssey home last night.  It encapsulates what I like about being in Wuxi and China, even in these troubled times.  You can have little adventures every day here in Wuxi where you can encounter all manner of strange sensations and experiences.  You see things that put life in perspective.  Of course in every Odyssey, you meet your strange creatures, your one eyed cyclops (actually in Wuxi, you can meet no-eyed and short gnome-like sorts - who come from everywhere in the world).  People here do what is necessary to get through life.  But you see people who wouldn't lower themselves and who consider it an impertinence if they had to live like the everyday Jones of China do. 

Yes, the contrasts.

These Kedi clerks taught me a few Wuxi dialect words yesterday evening.  They have motivated me to learn more.  The best teachers are often not the ones who went to some education school or even went to university at all.

Check it out.

I got an invitation which I accepted to:

The Wuxi, China Primary and High School Students English Speaking Contest & The 3rd Bilingual Education TV Show

Here are some photos of what I saw:

Here is the video:

The suit that you see Tony wearing in this photo was a gift from his grandparents, on his mother's side.  I don't approve but what can I do?  The wife doesn't understand it when I say he is wearing an Oprah Winfrey jumpsuit.

But if you look closely at the photo, you will see images of military hardware and insects which I bought for Tony.  That hopefully will take the curse off the clothing.