Some how this one slipped by me. I thought I had documented our trip to see Charles and Mary and just needed to add photos, but I find no entry. This was an amazing trip, so I can't leave it out! Charles was one of my students in 2004. He chose the adjective of Charming and ever since has been Charming Charles. He definitely lives up to his name! His wife, Mary, joined us part way thru the class and was a delightful addition. She is a beautiful women and very gracious. We became good friends. In 2006 Charles, Mary and [View Full Entry]

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So Muriel wanted to know what happened to the visas and the money. Well the money problem was to plague us all the way home. We were using Megan's credit card while there, which only had a $400.00 credit limit. We had to make payments on it more than once and payments were posted slowly! We ended up getting enough money to shop our last day in Beijing, but left Beijing and arrived in America penniless! Now about the visas. We reported to immigration Monday the 4th about 9am. Our nice immigration officer was there. We entered the building and went [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday was as busy as today, and we collapsed when we returned to our hotel around 11pm. I will have pictures to attach for today and yesterday when I return home! The Olympic Venues - Ken, one of our fellow teachers, is here now too. He arrived here on the 2nd and will stay until the 10th. He met us for lunch and then we took the subway to the Olympic area. The new Beijing subway system is amazing, and they have done a great job merging it with the old. I feel like a pro using the subway! We took [View Full Entry]

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Today, Wedesday in China, we are playing tourist. Today we shopped until we dropped. We did sleep late - got up about 9:30am. Since we were up late, we missed breakfast. Finally had a great lunch on the street at around 2:00. Down one of the Hutong alleys. Had to GUMBA (bottoms up) some pee-joe to mark our last day in China. We have been going and spending all day! We started with a trip to calligraphy alley. Megan want to get some scrolls for her nieces. We got some awesome piece from a Christian couple who's shop we had visited [View Full Entry]

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Tonight we get on the fast train (11pm to 7am) to Beijing. It is with a mixture of happiness and sadness that I spend my last day in Xinyang. I have so many good friends that I leave here. Some I know from past experience I will never see again and also many I may never hear from again. I am sure the dear friends like Yarna (our Chinese princess) and Charles (the charming) and Mary (always so gentle and beautiful) and Tony (who no doubt show up on my doorstep in the US someday!) I have no doubt will be [View Full Entry]

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Last night I spent a pretty sleepless night - strange bed (we are now moved into my friend Yarna's apartment in Xinyang), pretty bad thunderstorm, and lots of worries about whether today's monetary transaction would go thru - of course it didn't! I will spare you the details and just give the essentials. Two weeks ago Megan and I went to immigration to see about an extension on our visa. By our figures we would be in China 32 days and our visa is only good for 30. The nice gentleman, who spoke fairly good English, assured us "July 7th to [View Full Entry]

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WOW - we go and go and go. I have had no time to post entries or pictures. Teaching was over yesterday, Friday, so I can no longer post pictures. It won't work here at the internet cafe. We moved out of our hotel into Yarna's apartment down the street. She lives in another city, but her husband bought an apartment for then in Xinyang, so they have a place to stay when they need it. Today we didn't do much. I made 2 trips to immigration to try and get our visas extended today. We are over staying our visas [View Full Entry]

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Sadly the video that was suppose to be on here did not download. I will have to see if one of my students will send it to me - it came of someone else's camera. Last week we took a field trip to a park . . . I will tell you more soon. [View Full Entry]

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After a busy start - flying into Beijing, sightseeing, training, traveling to Xinyang, 10 days of teaching straight, and then off on an unexpected adventure that included a 4+ hours bus ride (one way), my first night staying in a Chinese home, and an amazing four hour trek in the mountains and a million stairs back out of the canyon - today was an odd one for me. Megan headed off this morning with the Chinese (my students) and American youth (20+ from Colorado and Minnesota) to do their community service project. They were working on a road (Megan said she [View Full Entry]

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As I have said MANY times - days run together so I am not sure what days these were , but here are some pictures of my students and our work in the classroom. They are a great group. They work hard and play hard too. We have lots of fun, and I hope they are learning a lot too! I will tell you more about them and post some pictures soon. Bye for now. [View Full Entry]

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