I arrive in Chendge late in the evening and the town has been quite badly flooded. Fortunately, most of the water has subsided by morning and the weather brightened a little, but the streets are still covered in mud. I visit the Imperial Palace and Summer Villa, and stroll around the very beautiful park and grounds. They have deer running wild that bite if you get too close (take my word for it...), ponds FULL of goldfish and some amazing pagodas, with many tiled rooves. In the afternoon I got to the Puning Si, a Tibetan style temple containing a 22m [View Full Entry]

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I pay my second visit to the Great Wall, this time near the far Eastern end, and to the more modern parts, built of stone during the Ming dynasty. The plan is to do a 10km hike along a stretch of it (thus accounting for 0.1% of it's original length). I set off at a brisk pace, as we're being followed by women with big bags trying to seel us tourist tat. It's quite a hot and humid day and the wall is incredibly steep in places, but these women do this professionally. Although I manage to get my particualr follower [View Full Entry]

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I visit the Eastern Qing tombs, where several members of the Qing dynasty, (1644-1911) including the tomb of the Empress Dowager Cixi (who controlled the country by using her very young relatives as puppet emporers). The underground palaces containing their coffins are dank and spooky places, eerily lit with green halogen lamps. I begin my obsession with photographing chinese rubbish bins... [View Full Entry]

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It's been a week since I posted anything, and it's been a jam-packed 7 days. Got a lot of creative writing/reflection/picture-taking done too, but don't have time to include that here. I'll post a link to pics, and just ask if you wanna know more about the personal writing efforts. 9 p.m. an already tired so let's get this started... RECAP written on bus 6/27...Late Monday currently listening to: Starlight Mints Drum & Bell Towers were interesting & informative. Background: During the day, the Chinese would play the 24 accompanying drums and large 25th main drum once every 2hrs, same for [View Full Entry]

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Hey all, So it feels like years since I have posted. I figure now that things have calmed down a bit I'll fill everyone in on what i've been doing. I can't really remember the month of March it just flew by so I'll start in April. At the start of April we had our accreditation inspection. Well this was just a fabulous feeling. It was three days of having someone sit in my classes, check my lesson plans, my mark book and interviewing me. Mind you I guess I can't complain because the woman inspecting us was really nice. She [View Full Entry]

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After a decent sleep (only waking up a few times on Tuesday night), I started my first day of work at Agricorp. When I woke up, I decided that I should probably shave since it had been two days, only to realize that I couldn’t find a mirror in the apartment. Not in my room, the hallway - not even the bathroom. I suppose that Chinese assume that they always look good and as such, there is no need for them. This may be part of the dental hygiene problem solved right here. My suggestion to their health department - increase [View Full Entry]

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A quiet and relax holiday This is my first blog in travelblog. I'm Chinese. I'd like to say more, but i am still studying english. It's looks like so hard to use this bloy,haha. But i like travel and photograph. [View Full Entry]

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Maggie and Jo have been telling us how great it is to visit the hot springs during the winter. The temperature dropped and Cori's sister, Jessi, was in town so we decided to make the trip. When we woke up at 6 we peeked out the windows to find the trees topped with fresh snow. Cori, Jo, Jessi and I left at 7am to begin our 4 hour journey outside of the city. We drove through the rural areas as the snow began to fall harder and harder. We arrived at the hot springs resort. there is a hotel and a [View Full Entry]

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I came back 'home' in Hohhot on the 20th of December form Hong Kong. Only had to work for 3 days, including a christmas party organised by school in the brandnew 5* Shangri-La hotel on the 23rd. Had to take the night train to Beijing that same night so made sure I drank enough beers beforehand (see Hohhot-The perils of modernlife in a desert city) and too some extra with me in the train as well. Was ready to rest my head on a shaking pillow in a soft sleeper compartment when some Chinese guys invited me to the hard sleeper [View Full Entry]

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Earlier on in the year I wrote that I was going to do a TEFL course and then become a teacher in Asia.... Well..... here I am in China, with a TEFL diploma and a year contract with a large language school! After my arrival on Beijing airport, I was picked up and driven to Qinhuangdao, a city on the eastcoast, accross from North Korea so to say. Here I have spend my first night in a chinese restaurant (and bar afterwards) meeting all people associated with this school. Today I did a little bit of sightseeing with another new teacher, [View Full Entry]

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