Geneva S

Hey guys just wanted to let you all know that we are entered into a photo contest on fastweb that you can vote once a day for. The prize is 15k so go and vote already! :D Go to this address: http://fastweb15years.com/entries/489 then in the bottom right corner of the picture click vote, and then I think you have to sign up or something which takes like all of 2 minutes. Thanks guys! Love, Geneva and Michael... read more

We got a puppy!!! Her name is Xiao Jin (it means little gold in Chinese) and she was born on April 7th. She's a golden retriever and absolutely adorable. We will, of course, be taking her home with us in August. She will ride in the cargo --not with the luggage in a separate compartment that will be the same temp as the passenger area. The US only requires that she has rabies vaccination, but we will be getting most of her shots done here, because it's much MUCH cheaper. We've had her for 3 weeks, and we've potty trained her to go on paper. We took her for a walk to culture square--it was her first time out of the house and on a leash and she loved it! We're coming home on the 26th ... read more

This how to guide is dedicated to those living in Changchun (or anywhere in the Dong Bei area) with ice on the inside of their windows and temperatures that result in a walk-in refrigerator that you sleep in. This winter is finally over, but to those who are destined to live through another I give you the following as my advice: Step 1: Buy a heater. This first step is absolutely essential. Without one you will live at the whim of your local government. At times they might decide that the heat on your block should not be on or should only be set to 50 degrees (something similar happens with the water too, but I’ll leave that for another entry…). Step 2: Buy a heating pad. If you want to sleep at night, you will ... read more

Hey everyone! I haven't updated in a very long time-- so this is going to take a while. Where should I start? How about at Thanksgiving? Well, we had a Thanksgiving party at our place and invited all of our coworkers. There were about 25 people there, and most people brought food with them. I made a turkey (that was HUGE-- seriously the biggest turkey I have ever seen), stuffing, green bean casserole, and gravy. Everyone loved the food and had a good time. :) Before Christmas, we went skiing/snowboarding for the first time. I was skiing, Michael was snowboarding. It was so much fun! I only stayed on the easy hill, but it was awesome, and I would like to actually learn how to ski better. Michael had a tough time with snowboarding-- it's really ... read more

Hello everyone! We have slowly been getting used to China. Changchun is considered a "medium" sized city even though there are 7 million people living here! We live about 10 minutes (walking-wise) away from the school, and there are stores lining every street, which is pretty convenient. There's a store across from our school called Hengkeleng (Hong-ku-long) that we usually shop at, everything (minus electronics) is so cheap here! Like we went grocery shopping last week and bought some veggies, 2 chickens, and hamburger meat for 9 bucks! Cooking here is pretty tricky though-- we don't have an oven yet or the time! The job has been moving slowly for both of us. We have only taught one class so far, and I'm stuck observing classes for the next week. Watching other people teach can get ... read more

Hi everyone! Just wanted to give you all a quick update to let you all know that we made it to Changchun OK. I can't write anything extensive right now, because I am at work, but I will update with in a couple of days (as soon as we get the internet in our apartment). Miss you all!... read more

Today is our last day in Beijing; tomorrow we will leave for Changchun, and will arrive at around 9:30 in the morning. The tours have been really interesting. The day before yesterday we went to the Summer Palace, Tienanmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Temple of Heaven. It was a lot to do in one day! Our tour guide, Juli, would stop quite a bit to tell us the history of everything. I love Chinese history- China has such an old civilization, I feel like I can always learn something new! At the Forbidden City a lot of people wanted to take pictures with me- it was really weird! Michael thought it was hilarious though! The tour guide was like "Your wife is really popular" haha! Yesterday we went to the Great Wall, and it ... read more

Geneva: Woohoo! We finally made it to Beijing. But let me tell ya'...it wasn't easy. We started in the DTW, got there at about 3:30 AM and ended up having to pay a rediculous amount of money for our overweight bags. We had 2 layovers, one in Chicago and one in Vancouver. The Chicago layover went fine, we found our flight in time and didn't have to transfer our luggage over. The problem was that once we boarded it was announced that our plane was having technical problems, and we weren't able to fly out for another hour. Because of the delay, we landed in Vancouver the same time our plane to Beijing was boarding. Luckily everyone on the plane was really nice and let us run off past them in an attempt to catch our ... read more