The yoga retreat centre near Fragrant Mountain is in a beautiful location and I was able to visit this before they closed for the Winter. The boys encouraged me to have a weekend away for my birthday present. It was good for my knee which has been enjoying the three-wheel bike trailer rides around though probably still doing a bit too much. It was informal yoga classes with a small group including myself, the caretaker, the volunteer teachers, a couple of travelers passing through Beijing and a girl who lived in the city and needed a good de-tox from a lingering [View Full Entry]

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I had to get some new shoes. Last time one of my feet was a whole size bigger than the other one. Now it’s only half a size bigger! I saw the movie WALL.E. I thought it was pretty good. I also went to see a play with one of my friends from school. There were lots of monsters in it and the costumes were pretty cool. We have started to have tests at my school. They are not too hard but we have time limits for them. I can read and write lots of Chinese Characters now. We have a [View Full Entry]

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The boys have grown up so much since I was away. Aiden seems settled at school and Cal’s Chinese is coming along very well. They both have busy social lives and enjoy the time we make for sport. We’re picking up Aiden about 3 lunch times a week to play tennis or swim now, as it’s getting too cold in the evenings. We are enjoying some good food here and watching the locals stock up their winter supplies such as cabbages and potatoes. I hear that the odd and even car days that they used while the Olympics were on to [View Full Entry]

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My Mum went to Australia to have another knee operation. She left Callum and I a treasure hunt of books to find and read while she was away. I got lots of Magic School Bus chapter books. I also read The BFG and some of Callum's books. Callum likes the Geronimo Stilton books. They are about the adventures of a mouse and I like the pictures in them. My Mum bought me back lots of new books from Australia, like Andy Griffiths, Paul Jennings and R.L. Stine books. I also really like this one called The Knowledge, Awesome Archaeology by Nick [View Full Entry]

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The National week holiday is here and we all have a week to explore the sites around us, unfortunately this is also the time of year when you are truly reminded that you live in a country of well over a billion people, as almost everyone has holidays and for most this is the only week off they really get for the year the entire chinese population descends upon the Great Wall and anything else calling itself a tourist site. Luckly for us of the billion people in china only about 7 own a tent so its quite easy to grab [View Full Entry]

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So I decided to go under the knife again and have the knee cleaned up. My focus is to make a decent effort at recovering properly this time! It was SOOOOOOOO hard leaving C and A behind. It’s the only time I’ve left them for more than a weekend so let’s hope they cope! More to the point, let’s hope I cope! I had a couple of nights catching up with Lise and Kaia prior to seeing my Doc, to confirm the op. Then while waiting the week to have the op, I enjoyed a wonderful time with Mum and Dad [View Full Entry]

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We went camping at Jiankou for the Mid Autumn festival. It is an old part of the Great Wall and there were only two others hiking so it was a good place to go to have a break from all the people. We had a good view from up on the Great Wall and at night we saw some fireworks in a village nearby. Mum took some mooncakes back home for my Australian class and we ate some here too. In China you eat lots of mooncakes for this festival. I like the fruit ones and lemon is my favourite. The [View Full Entry]

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I hope you are all happy. I started school this week. The school year starts in China on September the 1st. I have 52 kids in my class and two teachers who are always in the class. Other teachers come to our class for certain subjects. We can go to school after 730 in the morning and have to be there before 8 o'clock. School finishes at 4.05pm but I get to leave early becuase at 3:15 it is English class and the English is really easy for me. So I to go to my piano class then which is across [View Full Entry]

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We ventured out of the city for a weekend in search of clear air. The village we hiked around and stayed in had a long history, dating back some 500 years to the Ming Dynasty and was exceptionally beautiful. It had been well preserved with traditional housing styles. The beds are concrete blocks that you can light a fire underneath during winter. The majority of people in this village all have the same surname and the Chuan character is the most complicated I am yet to encounter. The site is only about 90kms from Beijing though it took several hours to [View Full Entry]

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The Bird's Nest is SO massive. I went to see a big running race at the Bird’s Nest, I saw the fastest man on Earth. Do you know Usain Bolt? He is the fastest runner and he is from Jamaica. Australia got gold in pole vault, that’s 40 years since Australia got gold in a field event at the Olympics. The Water Cube looked really cool at night. A few days later I went to the Bird's Nest again to see the Soccer Final. Argentina defeated Nigeria 1-0 to win a gold medal. There was a band playing in the audience [View Full Entry]

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