Rick Berry
This is now Rick and Gail's four year adventure teaching in China. After having spent 2 years in Dalian, we are now planning on another two years. We both have new jobs with Maple Leaf Schools; Rick as Deputy Principal on the Boys Campus and Gail as Asst Language Elective Director. Although we will both be working hard, the new challenges will keep us young! We are looking forward to new travels and continued adventures. RickGailBerry
Travel Blog Posts
February 22nd 2012
Hi all – The last few months here have been very busy; seems like a long time since I have written to anyone, so hope this will catch us up. This is a real marathon blog with so many pictures! Rick is enjoying his role as vice principal and surprisingly has really enjoyed being on the boys campus. It was a real concern for him about how he would leave the girls that he enjoyed so much. But aside from the cold building and smelly bathrooms, he finds the job interesting and the boys really great. Working with the Les, the principal, Ryan and Brad has been a good admin team. We now have almost 3000 students so there are always issues to deal with. My job as Director for the Language Elective program has been ... read more
November 12th 2011
Heading into the month of November, we are thinking of snow, wind, long underwear and heavy coats. Oh for the bliss of first year when we didn’t know what faced us in winter! But, compared to current temperatures of places that the people we love, we are in a heat wave in the low teens. Blizzards in the Maritimes, frigid temperatures in Peace River and skiing in Whistler makes us grateful for the prolonged fall that we seem to be having. On top of that, there is actually heat in the apartments! Heat is a relative thing though; with no control over thermostats, we take what they give us and have our own heaters going most of the day and night. Geoff’s place on the girl's campus seems to be nice and toasty without heaters still. ... read more
September 4th 2011
Well, I guess our two year adventure in China is now officially three years- who would have thought! It’s a big surprise to us that we are still here too, but doing well and enjoying it. Summer was great and really recharged our batteries, which we needed. One really great thing about our new life is how much more time we actually spend with family. Funny that being away has brought us so much closer to the people that we love. My only regret is not having my camera closer at hand with all the visits that we had with Rick's family! Thanks Fred and Dianne for the trip to Canada that you made. Our summer started out with a few days in Whistler with Chris, plus a day trip to Qualicum to check out the ... read more
June 11th 2011
Our second year in China is quickly coming to a close- time has just flown and when we see friends and colleagues packing boxes and crates, we have mixed feelings. With the education system cutbacks in both BC and AB, not much chance of working there; so we might as well take advantage of the opportunities here. Therefore, as most of you know, we have signed another contract, with different positions in the school. It will be a real challenge for both of us and neither of us will in the classroom - Rick as vice principal and me 2nd in charge of the ESL. But Jim and Carrie, Peter and Dianne, Linda and Lynn - we will miss you so much - our potlucks, singing, going out for dinner, card playing group! It won't be ... read more
April 13th 2011
I spend such a lot of time describing our travels on travel blogs - it seems like all we do is travel. The Chinese teachers in my office just shake their heads at the amount that we have seen in two years. One of them told me a saying in Chinese which basically means that when you borrow a book, you want to read it quickly; when you own it, you savour it slowly. We are definitely borrowing China for these few years and want to see as much as we can of this amazing country. But most of our time is day to day; work, shopping, sports and I guess what everyone does no matter where you live. Now in our second year, we are into daily life in small town China. It is still ... read more
Winter holiday: Xiamen, ChaoZhou, Guangzhou
Published: February 27th 2011Asia » China » Liaoning » Dalian » Jinshitan
January 30th 2011
Most of our colleagues at Maple Leaf planned on hitting the beaches of southeast Asia and other tropical places, but how can we leave China without experiencing the ultimate Chinese festival?? Spring Festival (Chinese New Years) in China was the goal for this year's winter holiday. That plus our good friends from Calgary wanting to spend some of their travel time with us set the agenda for our five week winter holiday. Richard and Buff arrived on January 13 -it was so great to spend some time with friends from home and show them where we live and work. They loved the small restaurants and local markets despite little or no heat in the -15 C weather. Good thing they brought down jackets, gloves and scarves. Little did we know that they would be still ... read more
December 29th 2010
Merry Christmas - these are a few pictures of our Christmas season. When I look at them, it is no wonder that we feel like we never have any relax time! But so much fun. We have loved keeping in touch with so many friends and family over the holiday season. Hearing news and seeing pictures of babies, birthdays, and homecooked Christmas dinners makes us feel like we are not so far away. ... read more
December 28th 2010
There is so much to see here, so much incredible history and in two (or even three) years, it is not possible to see it all. So we decided that we'd never get to see the Terra Cotta Warriors unless we did it on a weekend. It is about like going Calgary-Toronto for a weekend, doable , but busy. Having only decided this on Wednesday, Rick booked tickets and a room on Thursday and we took off on Friday after school. Arriving there in the late evening, we enjoyed strolling around the Muslim section in the old city. There are about 30,000 Muslims who live in this area, so it is hopping with vendors, food stalls and small restaurants, people, animals (live and not so live), lights, kids and noise. The hotel we booked was in ... read more
October 31st 2010
Next time we do a holiday, I will try to post pictures a bit faster! Once you get back to work and day to day life, this sure gets put on the back burner, but the memories of our holiday have not. The second half of the Autumn Festival holiday started off on another drizzly day in Shanghai. Even though we knew the weather was not going to be nice, we were still hoping for some sun. But no, so mbreelas in hand, we headed off in a cab to the train station. We considered briefly taking a quick taxi to the Metro and the subway to the train, but in the end realized that it would be a lot of hassle of suitcases, backpacks and transfers. The train station was easy and not a long ... read more
October 9th 2010
National Holiday week! Even though we had only been in school for a month, it was great to have a holiday. We left right after school on Saturday trying to beat the throng of students and other teachers heading for the airport. Thankfully Autumn was there early and did a fine job delivering us to the airport. After a fairly short flight, we arrived in Shanghai. The central tourist district, called the Bund, is where we stayed and arriving at night showed it at its best. After checking into our hostel, we went for a stoll along the embankment. This walkway along the bank of the Huang Pu river, was ablaze with lights like we have never seen before. The Bund used to be the financial centre of Shanghai, and now is the main tourist centre ... read more
Tot: 0.102s; Tpl: 0.003s; cc: 6; qc: 95; dbt: 0.073s; 1; s:notus w:www (50.28.61.183); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.8mb
