Tanya & Jean
We are a couple of 30-somethings that decided everyday life in Canada was a little boring... now we're living in China, and loving every experience! Not a dull day here!!!China Laowai
Travel Blog Posts
June 2nd 2009
Welcome to our last blog (on this website anyways) from China. We have had issues the last little while connecting to this website, so we haven't been able to post a lot. However, we now have our own website and we've also signed up for flickr so we can share our photos and stories with you just as easily. I have sent an email out to everyone on our mailing list - if we missed you by accident, we're so sorry. Please email us directly for the links - I'd rather not post them on this public site where anyone can see them. We took a trip last weekend, and it was so much fun! We saw the Three Gorges Dam, the city of Yichang along the Yangtze River, toured through Jingzhou (an ancient city with ... read more
May 11th 2009
I thought I'd written in our blog just a few weeks ago - but when I checked today, it's been 6 weeks! I am so sorry, apparently I'm slacking, and didn't even know it. It sounds kind of funny, but after awhile - even in a foreign country - life starts to feel routine, and there's nothing exciting to write home about. We did one little trip that I'll tell you about, and there is more... read on... First of all, thanks to all of you who write and tell us you're thinking of us! You have no idea what an encouragement those thoughts are on some days. Honestly, the last couple weeks have been a little tough. We booked our tickets home a few weeks ago (we arrive in Kelowna on June 26th at 3:07pm), ... read more
March 25th 2009
First, I must apologize to all of you at home who are NOT on Facebook, and who have not been updated about our lives for a few months now. The last two months have been rather insane, both in our professional lives (the school in which we teach) and our personal lives. Due to the rather sensitive nature of the issues, I won't get into what has happened in our personal lives, but if you feel you can offer up any prayers, we'd sure appreciate it. I will do my best to update you on the last two and a half months. The day after we changed apartments, we headed back to Beijing, and spent two weeks there. It was really nice, we had time to see things that normal tourists don't, and Chris really enjoyed ... read more
January 10th 2009
I'm SO sorry that I've neglected by blog, we've just been so insanely busy. I'll let you in on our last month... LOL. As you all know we spent 4 days in Beijing over Christmas. It was a great holiday, we totally fell in love with Beijing. In fact, we decided to spend another week there - and we're leaving tonight! I will upload pictures when we get back, as we're visiting some of the same places to get better pictures. Then you can compare:) We stayed at a hostel just a couple minutes walk away from Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. And we'll be staying at the same one this time around. It's a really nice place - clean, cheap, and close to everything. We came back to Wuhan to work - only to ... read more
Enjoyment from the 20th floor and beyond...
Published: December 16th 2008Asia » China » Hubei » Wuhan
December 21st 2008
Living on the 20th floor has both advantages and disadvantages - and since we're moving in a few weeks, we've been thinking about them both. Here's what we've figured out so far. Since we have two large hotels below us, we are provided with constant entertainment. We were going to upload a video here to show you exactly what we mean, but I think the file is corrupted... anyways you see, in China it is customary for every department in every business to do calisthenics every day. For example, in the hotels below us, the cooks, waiters, waitresses, parking aids, and managers all have their own little exercise groups. It differs depending on age and energy level of employees, but it is always entertaining. Before the busy time (in the morning for most, but for these ... read more
December 12th 2008
***If I have some spelling mistakes in this message that I don't catch, please be understanding - my "n" key has been giving me troubles lately*** Many of you will remember that we have been looking for a new apartment, and it's been an on-going thing since November. Well, we've finally found the place (barring any unforeseen and uncontrollable circumstances). Or I should say Kevin found it for us. It's about a 5 minute walk to school (as opposed to the 25 minutes we walk now) which we are super excited about! Don't worry though, we still get our daily exercise - it's on the 7th floor of a walk-up building (meaning no elevator). Believe me, we'll be feeling the burn for the first couple of weeks! The apartment is very clean and quite large. The ... read more
December 8th 2008
I want to share some stories of people who have touched me in some way since coming to China. There are many stories, it's hard to just pick a few - but these are the ones on my mind today. I have been teaching part time at Dos, the school where I taught before. While teaching, I met this amazingly cheerful girl (I will call her V in this post). She is always in my classes, and I've been enjoying getting to know her. One night I was scheduled for an English corner, but only V was there. We started talking about her journey to Australia (she is planning on going there to take nursing) and the test she must take to qualify her for a visa. Then she really opened up to me. Her father ... read more
November 26th 2008
So... Yesterday Jean had that meeting with Mr. Zhang. It went well, everyone left feeling listened to and respected. After Jean outlined his feelings, Mr. Zhang explained the school's side - that being that for the rest of this term they need a good teacher (Doreen), so they have time to find the perfect teacher for the second term. He promised Jean that Doreen would be back with him at the start of the second term (after the winter holiday) - and gave him a very expensive pack of smokes to seal the deal. Now... we know the way of Chinese businessmen - and that can be "tell them what they want to hear, change your mind later". Many Chinese do not believe that is lying... We are hoping this is not the case, all we ... read more
November 24th 2008
I am writing this not to criticize our school (which we dearly love), but so that you can keep us in your thoughts and prayers during the coming days. We have run into yet another management snag. The players in our story are as follows: - Jean - Doreen (Jean's co-teacher) - Kevin (his job is to assist all foreign teachers in daily life) - Mr. Zhang (the school head-master) - Spring (an English teach in our department) And it begins... Spring has gone on maternity leave suddenly (she has had some troubles, and was ordered to bed rest). This leaves her 4 classes with no English teacher, and the school said that they must hire another teacher. Today we were told that the Mr. Zhang has changed his mind - he is taking Doreen from ... read more
November 23rd 2008
This weekend has been very low key, something that is rare in our lives lately. We didn't have any plans! No friends called, we didn't have marking or classes to plan, it was just us. So we decided to explore the city a bit. After we finished talking to Mom and Dad on MSN, that is... lol. That's a weekend ritual we refuse to break! Yesterday we hopped on the 519 bus which took us across two rivers (the Han River, and the enormous Yangtze River) to Wuchang. We got off at the first stop, and started walking. I remembered a certain district famous for it's shopping (named Simenkou), and on weekends it's absolutely insane! We didn't have any spending money, but just wanted to see what was there. We walked and walked and walked - ... read more
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