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WilsonsInChina - Dianne and Peter Wilson

Dianne has many years of teaching experience including 10 as an administrator. Peter was a computer consultant specializing in data manipulation and reporting as well as system testing. We are going to China to work for a private school system where Dianne will be the ESL Director and Peter will be one of her ESL teachers.

For information on our new school system, click Maple Leaf Schools. We will be at the Jinshitan International School which offers grades 10-12. Students graduate from this school with a Dogwood diploma, the same diploma they would receive from a B.C. High School. The school is located in a resort area about an hour out of Dalian. Click the city name to see a Google map of the immediate area. Use the zoom out to see where we are in relation to Beijing, Korea etc.

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Joined on: July 11th 2008
Last Login: October 20th 2009

Blog Entries: 21
Photos: 282

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Blogs & Travel Journals

by WilsonsInChina, order by Date newest first.

By WilsonsInChina
October 7th 2009

Up The Yangtze Asia » China » Yangtze River

The Story about Ping
Even though Maya can recite the book from memory she still loves to have it read, over and over.

From Dianne: Our journey up the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) began many years ago with a special picture book, The Story of Ping, written by Marjorie Flack. Ping was a little duck that lived on a “wise eyed” boat on the Yangtze River. As we read and reread this story to our children and then our grandchildren, we never imagined being able to journey through time on this special river. The last time I read the book was to Maya and Jamie during our time home this summer. And now - just a little over a month later - we were [View Full Entry]

By WilsonsInChina
September 21st 2009

Random musings in retirement Asia » China » Liaoning » Dalian » Jinshitan

Cementing relationships
As part of the building boom in the neighborhood, this cement delivery truck was set up on the main route to the train. Its support legs blocked three of the four traffic lanes on this busy route. The... [more]

One of the great pleasures of our second year is running into students from last year that are now in Grade 10. They seem genuinely happy to see us and they seem to find it amusing that I am staying home to cook, clean and whatever. We were out for a walk one evening and ran into one of my students returning from Majiatan with the telltale white plastic grocery bag. “I hope that isn’t full of snacks” commented Mrs. Wilson. “Oh, it is all fruit from the market” said Apple (hey, that’s his English name. It used to be Apple [View Full Entry]

By WilsonsInChina
September 1st 2009

Year Two Begins Asia » China » Liaoning » Dalian » Dalian

Ahhhhh... kayaking....
We only managed to get on the water three times this summer but it sure felt good!

We’re back in China for a rest from our busy time in Canada. 43 nights in Canada - 15 different beds. I had hoped to get caught up on my blogging this summer but it appears summer has caught up to me. We managed to see many relatives and friends during this hurried visit but didn’t get to see everyone we wanted to. Maybe in the Winter Holiday. Our priority was to spend time with the grandchildren and we were really lucky to be able to do that. After a run through parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan we picked up Lise [View Full Entry]

By WilsonsInChina
June 27th 2009

Our first year comes to an end Asia » China » Liaoning » Dalian » Dalian

Summer has officially arrived
We finally found the makings for Gin and Tonics and are sitting outside the apartment on our new IKEA folding chairs. Not quite as nice an environment as our deck on Pender but you do what you can.

Our first school year in China is finally drawing to a close. Term 4 has been very eventful. Dianne has really enjoyed her new job. Working in the same building as her replacement has allowed her to keep her finger on the pulse of a real operation while she does her head office functions. These involve the preparation of a lot of new course materials as well as many different exam papers for students planning to move on to Grade 10 as well as entering ESL from a variety of environments. Dianne has really got on well with her replacement, Wendy. [View Full Entry]

By WilsonsInChina
June 14th 2009

Spring Holiday - The Rest of the Story Asia » China » Sichuan » Chengdu

A Bronze Bust of Du Fu
Du Fu was a very famous poet in China; his life was full of trial and tribulation.

The last two days of our trip seemed to go by in a blur. It started with a trip to Du Fu’s Cottage. Du Fu was a famous Chinese poet who lived about 712-770 AD and spent 9 years in Cheng Du. His “cottage” is now a huge area with superb grounds. It was very restful walking around the gardens. Jane was able to give us a pretty good summary of his life which was filled with frustration and failure even though he managed to write some 3,000 poems of which some 1,500 survive. They document the trials and tribulations of [View Full Entry]

By WilsonsInChina
May 25th 2009

Panda Base 2009 Asia » China » Sichuan » Chengdu

Panda statues everywhere
All sizes and shapes.

The highlight of the Spring Holiday trip was certainly the visit to the Panda Base. It is fairly close to where the earthquake hit in 2008. There were some casualties in the Panda population but things are pretty much back to normal. We were going to the Panda base to “volunteer” to work with the Pandas. This means we got to pay for the privilege of cleaning up after the pandas, both poop and bamboo remnants. Despite the photo credit saying these photos were by Dianne and Peter Wilson, some of them came from the CD we made of most of [View Full Entry]

By WilsonsInChina
May 3rd 2009

Spring Holiday 2009 Asia » China » Sichuan » Chengdu

The Group of Seven
The group enjoying a cup of tea.

A couple of months ago several people started to think about what we should do during the week long Spring Break. Shannon, a teaching friend, did some Internet research and discovered a company that offered tours in the Cheng Du area (where the earthquake was last year). The company would customize the tour to meet the needs of your group. The biggest feature was a visit to the Panda Base where you get to see many of the pandas in captivity. They organized a bunch of other events for us and we found a group of seven adventurers who wanted “go [View Full Entry]

By WilsonsInChina
April 24th 2009

New Jobs in Term 4 Asia » China » Liaoning » Dalian » Dalian

New cubbyhole
This picture of the ESL building was taken out our dining room window (see next picture). The new office has two windows in the second floor extension. Dianne can keep an eye on my comings and goings.... [more]

The start of term 4 is upon us and the biggest news is not that I have finally been replaced and get to start my new job as a stay-at-home spouse. The big news is that Dianne has been named the ESL Systems Coordinator for the entire Maple Leaf Education System as of May 4th. I’ll turn the blog over to her so she can describe the new job: How do I describe my new job? Well, the job description is a “work in progress” as this is a totally new position for the company. Basically, I will oversee all the [View Full Entry]

By WilsonsInChina
March 22nd 2009

Third term lucky Asia » China » Liaoning » Dalian » Dalian

Grandma and Kyle
Dianne was in heaven! A new grandson, Kyle, to share her love of reading.

Back from Canada a month ago, where does the time go? Well, for me it is same old, same old. Not all of our bags made it back so I had to take an unscheduled trip back to the airport to pick up the missing two cases. Luckily the principal was coming in about the same time so the school van was making a run to Dalian to pick him up as well as some school supplies at Metro. I got a ride to the airport and our major shopping centre too. Bonus! The downside was that on the way back [View Full Entry]

By WilsonsInChina
January 30th 2009

Back in Canada ... North America » Canada » British Columbia » Vancouver Island » Victoria

...for the five Week Winter Break. Having a great time. With five days on Pender Island for some "quiet time" I decided to get around to sending the blog entry for Canadian New Year in China (we celebrated Chinese New year in Canada)... and managed to learn something new about the blog software! Don't "quiet publish" until after you have broadcast published the entry or no one will know about it. To see the details of our Jan 1st New Year's adventure you have to click the following link... Our new Yea [View Full Entry]

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