Blogs from Tianjin, China, Asia - page 12

After five months of waiting, and occasionally training, judgement day finally arrived. Like a prowling stalker, the Great Wall Marathon of China had crept up on me with little warning and great haste. I certainly wasn’t ready for it, the majority of my running done on treadmills, safely away from the sub-zero extremes of winter. Now one of the world’s toughest marathons, incorporating 5,164 of the Great Wall steps, was becoming more daunting as the seconds ticked away to the start of the race. The Great Wall Marathon of China is ran along the Huangyaguan section of the Great Wall and the surrounding mountainous countryside in Tianjin Province, which borders Beijing. Unfortunately, having an employer hell-bent on income and profit, this was one trip I’d have to enjoy alone, my wife staying in Benxi to cover ... read more

The Chinese festival of QingMingJie or Tomb Sweeping Day, is exactly as you would expect. It is a day to care for graves and remember the owners. It also allowed us to take advantage of a three day weekend. TianJin TianJin is linked to BeiJing with the world’s fastest intercity train - the 120km is covered in 29min at speeds up 300km/h. Though of course from the futuristic world of high speed travel you get immediately plonked straight into the middle of what is essentially a very typical Chinese city. Tower blocks, traffic, and a bombardment of noise meet your arrival and the standard round of “sights” are a familiar bunch- a drum tower, an “ancient culture street” (i.e. knickknack alley) and a bustling, and a tasty food alley. The one thing that is noticeably different ... read more

Day 8 and the final day of our work at POPCH was a happy moment for us. Mee Lar has managed to get her Tianjin friends, a lovely Christian couple to help us source for milk bottles, bibs and together with the towels that she has bought earlier, we were able to give the whole lot of over 100 milk bottles of two different sizes to Xiao Liu from World Vision, Tianjin. Being very meticulous, she has actually ensured that the bottles were suitable by asking her friend to drop by at the POPCH sometime earlier in the week to make sure that they are suitable for the children. It is indeed with grateful heart that I will like to say "Thanks" to all my team members who have gone out of the way to make ... read more

Day 6 at POPCH saw us trying to finish up our un-completed work for the wall-painting, hanging the cranes and also the paper hats for the children. Anne was very hardworking the previous night and did OT by helping paste the headband for the animals and potato men. The final touches were done when we reach POPCH by glueing the banner into little headbands for the children. We had fun trying on the hats and there were favourites by the different volunteers :) eg Arlene loves the "cat" hat, myself the "snake" hat. There were discussions on how to make the hat "stronger" to withstand rough play by the kids eg Anne suggested cutting off the legs of the "bee" as the legs will block the kids' view if they were left on the headband. With ... read more

Day 4 at Prince of Peace Children's Home began with both Diana and myself being tasked to the Milk Kitchen. Diana helped wash milk bottles and I was given the job to separate good eggs from cracked ones. When done, i was asked to help peel potatoes. I only managed a pathetic no of having 6 potatoes peeled before the hour was up:) Diana fared slightly better, and with a little help from me, managed to finish washing all the bottles assigned :) Next was lesson time with JJ, my assigned kid and the afternoon was spent finishing our work on drawings of animals and facial expressions to be used as teaching aids :) It was a tiring but fulfilling job as we managed to finish all the assigned drawings..though we are far from done... Take ... read more