http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/China-Laowai/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from China Laowai en-us Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:45:49 +0000 Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:45:49 +0000 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-404442.html 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.. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/blog-398009.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-384616.html 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 place http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-361931.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-354076.html 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 latelyMany of you will remember that we have been looking for a new apartment and it's been an ongoing thing since November. Well we've finally found the place barring any unforeseen and uncontrollable circumstances. Or I should say Kevin found it for u http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-353626.html 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 enjoy http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-352301.html 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 sta http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-348725.html 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 coteacher Kevin his job is to assist all foreign teachers in daily life Mr. Zhang the school headmaster Spring an English teach i http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-348034.html 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 breakYesterday we hopped on the 519 bus which took us across two ri http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-347733.html Remember the pictures of those beautiful flower designs just last week Well today when we walked home from school only rubble was left. People were arguing over who got to take home flower pots and people were collecting potting soil that had been left behind. I thought I'd post some of the pictures I took this is typical overnight change in China. Honestly though I don't know the first http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-346868.html The countdown to Christmas is on Today we found out our schedule up until our New Years vacation and it's amazingly easy. We've been told to slow down our teaching the first term is short compared to the second one so we must have units in the book remaining to teach and then the week before Christmas we're only supposed to review and play games no new material. Then we were surprised t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-346138.html Today was Jean's 30th birthday and he says that he is surprised at how much fun it was It started off with... me forgetting that it was his birthday. LOL really those of you who know me know that I am not a morning person... well it was about 30 minutes after we'd left the house that I realized it was his birthday and I felt SO bad... but he forgave me so all is good. Ha thank goodness http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-345058.html Today was a normal day until about 35 minutes ago... Jean and I decided to get groceries from our local supermarket something we don't often do. First of all we discovered some areas we didn't know existed like the butcher where we scored some chicken legs really cheap and the produce area where we got at least 4 different veggies and 3 kinds of fruit for less then 3. Then we thought m http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-343567.html Tonight I had one of those experience we label as Only in China. Vivian invited Summery and I to go with her to a concert given by Jolin a superstar in China She is the Chinese equivalent of Brittany Spears back in her prime anyways. Vivian's uncle has some pretty good connections and scored her three tickets free of charge Just so you have an idea of what an amazing experience this http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-342941.html Two weeks ago while I was on MSN chatting to my mom an old student of mine logged in. Her name is Grace and she worked at Citroen a car company that I did some contract teaching at 4 years ago. We've been chatting quite often now. Grace no longer works at Citroen she spent 2 years living in Shanghai and is now living in Wuhan again managing her own little shop on Wan Song Yuan Lu for t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-341455.html The last four days have been enlightening to say the least. Somebody on our block has passed away. Do you know what happens in China when someone dies We didn't know every ritual either but now we do First of all firecrackers are set off at all hours of the day and night to scare away ghosts and evil spirits. Imagine Canada Day fireworks but 10X louder and nonstop Yeah it's not a fun http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-341103.html One of the teachers in the English department told me this story today it's about her family. Please don't read this if you don't want to cry it's very sadShe just got a call this evening saying that her uncle her mom's brother had passed away. He was only 40 but this teacher thinks it was a blessing and here is why.When her uncle was young maybe 2 or 3 years old he got a very bad f http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-339919.html I tried uploading videos yesterday but they were taking too long and I head to head home. So I'm trying again. Keep your fingers crossed there should be two videos here when I am done. The first is of our kids mostly Jean's grade 5 students a few of my grade 4 students they are putting on a performance for the Swedish delegation we had here last week. Honestly the best part of having t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-339302.html Phew What a week The weather turned cold we had a delegations of teachers here from Sweden as you already know another large group of important people were at our school the Bank of China lost our money and then it poured for two days LOL thank goodness every week isn't like this or I'd be back in Canada by now. I'm incredibly thankful that both Jean and I have good senses of humo http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Hubei/Wuhan/blog-338782.html