Dianne and Peter Wilson
The WilsonsInChina blog charts the course of our three year adventure in China between 2008 and 2011. Dianne was a school administrator in Canada and heard about this opportunity just after retiring. Peter was an IT professional whose last contract ended just as Dianne decided that China sounded like an exciting adventure. He taught ESL one year but spent the rest of the time supporting Dianne as she shared her great knowledge and experience with the Chinese and Western teachers at the Maple Leaf International School in Dalian. China. While we are back in Canada now, our adventures are ToBeContinued in a new blog. If you would like to follow them, drop me a line by adding a comment to one of the entries in this blog or click ToBeContinued and subscribe.WilsonsInChina
Travel Blog Posts
September 25th 2011
Homeward bound We left Beijing for the short flight to Dalian. Dalian? Why on earth would we go back to Dalian? Well, that is where our company paid tickets to Canada left from. In the good old days, we could cash the ticket and fly from anywhere we wanted. Or just change the Japan Air Lines ticket to leave from another city. But this year, the ticket rules changed and we had to leave from the city where we had originally arrived. With the uncertain weather in July (remember the three day fog delay last year) we decided to arrive in Dalian a couple of days early so we would be sure to be in the right city on The Big Day. It turned out to be a good decision as there was a lot of ... read more
September 7th 2011
Getting there is half the fun We had been to Beijing a couple of times before so while we had hardly exhausted the list of things to do, we had been to many of the “must see” locations and could now just relax and meander about doing things that interested us. I realized we were becoming used to China when the cab driver from the airport drove past our hostel and I was able to stop him, get him turned around and stopped where we needed to get off. “Home again”. Our flight was a bit late getting in so we opted for a short walkabout and a pizza supper in the hostel. Day One During our Christmas 2009 trip we had toured most of the Forbidden City. It is so huge that you really ... read more
August 22nd 2011
The last day of school was Thursday but we decided to wait until Saturday to leave on our last Chinese adventure. Friday was spent doing the last minute packing and cleaning of the apartment before we left it for the final time. Because we had no food left, we managed several meals in our favourite haunts. Took lots of pictures. Autumn, one of our favourite drivers, took us on our last trip to the Dalian airport from Jinshitan. It was hard to say goodbye. The Dalian airport was fogged in again this year although nowhere near as badly as last year. Many teachers heading home on Friday were delayed as were many people on Saturday but our delays were minimal. The line-ups at our airline were nonexistent and we were surprised to see our boarding passes ... read more
July 12th 2011
Editor’s Note We are now back in Canada and up to our ears in emptying the storage locker here, unpacking the crate we shipped home from China, dealing with the renovations to our home and thinking about what to take to Williams Lake for next year. But that is a story for another day. There are still Chinese trips to address! Beijing weekend The schedule showed us leaving for home at the beginning of July so we decided to squeeze in one more weekend trip before the year-end frenzy at school. We hadn't stopped in Beijing since our Christmas trip in 2009. We arranged for a driver in Beijing who was recommended to us and he was great. We had seen the Great Wall at Dandong a couple of times but "everyone" said we had ... read more
July 4th 2011
Editor's comment Apologies to subscribers who were sent part of this under separate cover. There is additional text and some new pictures if you have the patience to read through it all... The beginning of the end We have started the Big Pack prior to returning to Canada. Dianne decided she wanted some bubble wrap. After reviewing the various entries in the school email system and having had several conversations with people ”in the know”, she decided she wanted a roll of bubble wrap that was 1.2 meters wide and as long as necessary. She heard about a wholesale place that had “half a roll”, about 70 meters. This should be more than enough and we could sell the excess to other movers. Now, how to get it from the wholesaler to the boys’ campus apartments? ... read more
June 28th 2011
Qingdao is a city in Shandong province, just across the Bohai Sea from us in Dalian. I have wanted to go there almost from Day One in China partly because it is the home of Tsingtao beer and partly because of its history. Not to be outdone by the British and French, Germany carved out a niche in China in the 1890s and in 1903 the brewery that become the Tsingtao Beer company was founded. Five intrepid staff members and two spouses decided it would be a great weekend adventure before the pressures of final exams. The Magnificent 7! Picturing Yul Brynner leading us, five of us left right after school and took the short flight across the bay. The other two would join us later. We had selected the Castle Hotel which was supposed to ... read more
June 12th 2011
Macau The second half of our Spring Holiday was spent in Macau, 60 kilometers across the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong. The ferry trip was pretty uneventful, not much to see until you actually get there. Macau consists of a peninsula and a couple of islands. The peninsula is almost part of the mainland and the two islands are practically one due to land reclamation. In the 1580s, Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci wrote "It is better to call it a protruding rock than to call it a peninsula." It was a backwater until the Portuguese set up shop in the 1500s. It went from about 3 sq. km. then to about 30 sq. km. now. Who says they don’t make waterfront anymore? I associated Macau with gambling and therefore had little interest in going there ... read more
May 23rd 2011
Introduction We had wanted to go to Inner Mongolia for the Spring Holiday but a couple of teachers who come from this area told us it would be too cold at this time of year. As we were tired of being cold, we decided to change our destination to Hong Kong and Macau which we thought would be a lot warmer. In retrospect, we should have realized that other people’s definition of “too cold” may not match ours. But Hong Kong, it is! Hong Kong The first time we went to Hong Kong we flew to Shenzhen, just across the border from HK, and took the bus into the centre of town. While that was an interesting adventure in itself, we decided to fly direct and take the train into the centre of town. The train ... read more
April 27th 2011
We have had a few problems accessing the TravelBlog site lately and they have just upgraded to a new version. I worked in the software industry for years and know how this can cause some excitement. I have finally been able to complete the Tianjin blog while taking a break on our Hong Kong/Macau trip. Tianjin - the city Tianjin is one of the four municipal areas in China that are so big they are like provinces. Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing are the others. It is directly west of Dalian, about an hour by air. You can’t get there directly as the Bohai Sea is in the way. The Tianjin municipality is between Beijing and the sea and historically was the gateway to the Capital. It was the home to many foreign concessions after the Opium ... read more
Tourists in our own (almost) town: KaiFaQu
Published: April 10th 2011Asia » China » Liaoning » Dalian » Kaifaqu
April 7th 2011
Our Sleepover in KaiFaQu Our last minute flurry of travel before we leave China began with a simple overnighter in KaiFaQu, the development zone of Dalian. An early Qinggui into town got us to The Real Eddie’s for brunch, one of our favourite activities. Their brunch is a bit different from most. Rather than a massive spread with a lot of different choices, brunch consists of the regular menu! For a fixed price, you can choose anything you want. The portions may be a little smaller and may not be quite as elaborate as when served as individual dishes, but the fact that you can choose as many as you want makes it superb. The items are cooked fresh rather than sitting in chafing dishes. Because you don’t heap your plate with a little of a ... read more
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