Blogs from Liaoning, China, Asia - page 22

Our schedule: June 12 Leave Chicago at 6 AM (local time) June 13 Arrive Shenyang at 5:40 PM (local Time) and go to Tiefa where Haihong's family lives June 14-19 Meet Haihong's family, tour factories (I am excited!), see Farmers, visit sites, (get over jet lag) June 19-21 Fly to Xian, visit Terra Cotta army, pagoda June 22 Fly to Guilin to meet Haihong and Andrew. Do a boat tour, visit the sites and etc. June 23 Fly to Bejing. See the Great Wall, Olympic Village, Tiatamen Square and the Hutong (anceint villages) and Forbiddent City. AND SHOP!! July 3 Leave for Chicago ... read more

Mundanity? I feel as though it suits what the past couple of months have been since returning from holiday. I was sick with a lung infection for about 4 weeks (check out my exciting lung x-ray in the photos), and this weekend I was finally struck by a rather horrific stomach bug that has been plaguing our school. It was the first weekend I finally felt well enough to go out since my lung infection, so I was all dressed up, and headed by cab into Dalian, only to arrive at the bar where my friends were meeting to discover that there was no possible way I could keep my dinner down. So, head between my knees, I took the $20 cabride 40 minutes back home without ever exiting. Mundanity, indeed. There are a little less ... read more

The five week break from school flew by, leaving me with a whirlwind of memories from the places I visited across Southeast Asia. I'll give a very condensed version of events, and let some of the pictures do the talking. We left Dalian on January 19th, and flew to Hangzhou, just outside of Shanghai. While we were really only there a few hours (discounting sleep), we managed to squeeze in a boatride across the picturesque (and famous) lake before heading out to the airport to catch our plane to Kuala Lumpur. I'd never travelled with a group of teachers before, and found the plane ride to be rather enjoyable as we ended up writing stories and games on paper which, while incredibly nerdy, helped to pass the time! After arriving in KL, our group disbanded, and ... read more

The four day Christmas Break finally arrived. No rest for us however, as we were up at 5:00 am Christmas Day to get ready for our 6:00 am pickup by our driver who whisked the four of us off to the Dalian airport. We were off to Hong Kong with Thomas, a teacher from the school, and his wife, Feng-wei, who grew up in China and went to high school in Hong Kong. She trained as a nurse in Britain and met Thomas in Canada! They have traveled all over the world and make awesome travel guides. We discovered just how good Feng-wei was to travel with even before we left. They had already booked their flights at really reasonable prices. When we looked into it, the prices were ridiculously expensive but we decided to go ... read more

Well, we are still at it here in China! It has been quite a time since my last blog entry and all of a sudden, it is Christmas. We haven't done much in the way of Christmas decorating this year and have been so busy it hasn't really seemed like Christmas. It's cold enough with the winds we get but, with no snow to speak of and no decorations or music around the place, it doesn't seem like Christmas is approaching. We went to a pot-luck at friends who had gone all out for the holidays so Dianne decided we will do better next year. The two Santa hats were given to us by a staff member to wear at a student Christmas party on Tuesday night where Dianne and I will be doing a choral ... read more