Really, We do Work

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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 a new challenge for me. Having spent all of my years as a classroom teacher, making timetables, schedules, dealing with and hiring staff, professional development and such are things requiring a huge learning curve. Many days I would have gladly booked a flight home! A lot of days Rick has to tell me to stop talking about work because he is tired of hearing about it! Reality check for me, but he has been an incredible support and I couldn’t have done it without him. Semester two has started out smoothly though, so I am keeping my fingers crossed!

Geoff has moved from teaching Science at the junior high campus to teaching 4 blocks of Science 10 on the girl’s campus – he is in heaven and finally understands why we encouraged him to come and work here. He has a great bunch of guys that he hangs out with and now can do all of the sports that happen after school with the staff. They have another hockey tournament next weekend, so he is thrilled.

Chris has been attending BCIT in Vancouver to get his journeyman’s papers in Carpentry. We are so proud of him as he is getting the top marks in his class and doing so well. He stays in Vancouver with favourite uncle Dennis during the week, then heads back to Whistler for the weekend, which makes for a busy life for him. Year one and two this winter, year three and four next winter. We are looking forward to having him help us design some renos for our Qualicum house (when we get there!).

One fun thing that we have started to do is to play Majiang (Majong). We have been intrigued by this game since going on the Yangtze River trip with Peter and Dianne. Since there were so few of us passengers, the crew had fun teaching the four of us to play. Unfortunately we don't have the fancy table where the tiles flip up in rows (kind of like the pins at a bowling alley) but I finally got a set of tiles last spring. I took them to mandarin club a few times, but Majiang has a very negative gambling image in China and the boys were definitely concerned about playing in school, so that didn't go far. This winter though, one of my staff and their parents have been coming over to play. They are teaching us a lot, so be prepared when you come to visit to get introduced to Majiang.

Our current project, hard to believe, is planning our next holidays! Linda and Larry Tutt, our good friends from Peace River who now live in St. Albert, are coming to a wedding in the Philippines in April, so are including us in their travels. As well, my brother Bob and his family are coming at the end of June and we will travel for a couple of weeks with them. Too bad we don’t get frequent flyer miles with Air Asia.

Really – we do work!!!

We keep hoping to make it to Peace River as part of our summer holiday; Rick is so anxious to get together with his band and boy would we like to go golfing at the Mighty Peace again. As it is, our plans so far are unsure, with spending part of July here travelling, but will definitely be in Calgary again for part of the summer.

Not a whole lot new and different in our daily life– the first two years seemed so exciting, but now life just carries on. We just happen to be in China, not Canada! But the home stretch feels like it is here. Many of you are asking or wondering what we are doing for next year----- it is a hard decision: money or family, China or Canada; work or retirement. Hmmmm you will have to wait to find out the answer!

Included are a lot of pictures from our winter holiday – I just couldn’t decide which ones to leave out, so put a bunch in, so don’t feel like you have to check them all out! You have to scroll down to see them all.

That is all for now, looking forward to hearing what others are up to!

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Photos

Fun in the Sun
The next picture is the reason that we really needed this winter holiday.

Boy's Campus
Generally in the boys campus, the temperature inside is as cold as, or colder than the temperature outside. All the doors are open all day and windows, which are single pane with now weather stripping, are often open too to let the 'fresh air' in.
So this is pretty typical of how teachers dress on the job. Jackie is a Communications Skills teacher who is giving a speaking test to one of the international students from Russia.

The Champions
Jinshitan's pond hockey tournament doesn't hold a candle to the Peace River tournament, but the teams have fun. There were about 7 teams from here and the surrounding area and they had a beautiful Sunday and 'Berry's and Sticks' ended up the champions.

Christmas Eve
It is really hard to cook a turkey in a toaster oven - even half or quarter of a turkey. So instead we ordered turkey in. We went with Eddies, from KaiFaqu, with a bit of trepidation because last year we went to his restaurant for Christmas dinner and a few people were not feeling so well the next day. Everything was fine though, despite the meal arriving in small take out containers. A meal for 13 involving 7 or 8 different foods is a lot of take out containers! Afterwards we got out guitars and sang a few Christmas carols.

Rick and his Lovelies
Once again, Rick was invited to perform at the New Year's Gala. This involves 2 performances - one for the school, after which some eliminations take place. Then the 'finalists' perform at the system wide 'Gala'. The three music teachers at the school are always a hit- they asked Rick to accompany them as they sang a song.

On the road again
Okay, enough work, time for a holiday. And we really needed some R&R. Both of us were sick, cold and getting burned out with work, final exams and planning for semester two. Our friends and neighbours, Karl and Val ( were in your old apt Peter and Dianne, but they like others have moved on over to the girls side) were on the same flight to Tianjin and then K.L. so we spent time in airports, KFC and played sets and runs (thanks Carrie and Jim!).

Koh Lipe
This lovely island - just off the west coast between Thailand and Malaysia - was our home for 10 days. There are no cars here, only a main walking street lined with restaurants and shops. It takes about 20 minutes to walk either north to south or east to west and all 4 sides hav beaches. We were on the 'sunrise beach' and this was the view from our place. Not a huge beach, but comfortable.

Drink. eat and be merry
Friend and co-worker Brad was the one who told us about Koh Lipe and that his family and a couple of other ex-Maple Leaf staff would be there. We were so happy to have joined them - spent the day on our own but met up in the evening for supper or drinks. Kristen Engleson and her kids were there, Cam Secret, Blake Defiuex and family, plus more of Brad's family and friends- one night there were 20 for supper!

Gail's Favourite Beach
This beautiful beach at the Mountain Resort was my favourite spot to hang out. The white sand, crystal clear water, comfortable loungers (thanks Mtn resort!) and not many people was a perfect place to read and relax.

Long tail boats
These boats could get a bit annoying always put putting around with their unmuffled engines, but are essential for both the tourists and for their fishing. They tend to crowd the beaches at the larger resorts, waiting to take people to other beaches, fishing snorkelling or wherever, but I loved the look of them and how colourful they are.

Snorkelling trip
One day 13 of us booked a long tail boat for snorkelling. One of the kids cut her foot on some coral, so had to go back to Koh Lipe to the medical clinic, but the rest of us all piled into another boat and continued. The coral was not as colourful as we have seen other places, but it was a great day and we saw a humungous jelly fish.

Tourist police
We never did see any tourist police but loved the plastic trike; I think that they should hire Rick for the job.

Tattoos
Brad and his friend from Dalian - Xia- helped us choose characters that loosely sound like Gail and Rick in Chinese. We had each other's name on our shoulders - as rick says, I guess after 32 years we are safe to have the other's name on our body!

Bamboo
Because they were really small and where they were put, the process didn't hurt at all. But I sure thought about Chris and the agony that he went through to have the 'wave' put on his torso- I don't know how he endured that!

Immigration
I guess when you have a place with no roads, there is no choice but to put your immigration building on the beach. Sun tan while you are waiting.

Langkawi
So now we have moved off our little island for a slightly bigger one named Langkawi, which is part of Malaysia. we spent 4 days here at a great resort on the quiet beach - Pantai Tengah as opposed to the more action Pantai Cenang.
On this day, we rented a motor bike and went to the Seven Peaks - a pretty walk up to some pools that reminded me of the great ones below Fairmont Hot Springs. It was not rainy season, so there was not a lot of water but refreshing after all those stairs.

Pantai Cenang
We found a great place called Rafi's with cheap beer and food, so that was our supper place - pretty view.

Malaysian Borneo
The island of Borneo is shared by three countries - Mayasia, Indonesia and Brunei. Malaysia takes up most of the west and northern part, the majority is Indonesian and a small niche for Brunei.
We have to thank niece Lara and her husband Chris for mentioning the city of Kota Kinabalu to us last summer, because it stuck in our mind and became the real focus of our trip.
We flew into the capital city of Kota Kinabalu and spent 3 days before flying to Sandekan on the east coast for 5 days. where we went to the Orang utan reserve and 3 days on a river cruise ( fabulous). After that back to K.K. for a couple more days. then we rented a car and spent 5 days heading north. We spent a few days at a small beach resort called Manana's and our final night at the tip of Borneo. This part of our trip was interesting, but laid back and planned on the go, so not a lot of pressure to do and see things, although we did and saw a lot.

Mt. Kinabalu
This is the highest mountain in Borneo, Mt. Kinabalu is a mecca for tourists to climb. A bit of a cash grabber with guides, permits, lodging, etc, but people seem to come back tired but happy. The climb seems to involve a first day where you get to the midtpoint, and stay overnight. Then you get up at 1 am and climb to the top to see the morning sunrise. I'll pass on that one.
We rented a motorbike to see the mountain and hike a few trails at the base. A bit disappointing, but a beautiful trip there. You go from sea level to 1200 meters, so quite a climb on a small bike. we had planned on a 3-4 hours, but with an added trip to the hot springs, it turned out to be at least 8. We were so tired and sore when we got back!

So many churches
We must have passed at least 20 small churches our way to Mt. Kinabalu - all Catholic. No St. Christopher's though! Sorry Chris.

Poring Hot Springs
A bit further from Mt. Kinabalu are the Poring Hot Springs. We thought about passing on this since we were tired of riding, but both were keen to do the jungle canopy walk which is at the same location, so pushed on. The hot springs themselves were a series of 'bathtubs' which didn't seem overly clean to us. The couple of hot pools had a layer of something undesirable on the bottom and the other pool was cold. So, needless to say, we didn't spend much time here - too bad because a soak would have been nice!

Comments

[Lynn]

WOW, great to hear from you!
Hi Gail and Rick, I love reading about your adventures and looking at all the pictures you post. Things are pretty much the same at GSS. Stephanie Dunlop is expecting this summer. Maureen is taking Amy's mat leave. A number of us are heading to LA for the Religious Education Congress in March. I'm looking forward to Victoria at Easter and heading back to NS for the summer. I hope our paths will cross sometime and you continue to keep us posted of what is happening in your part of the world. Take care.

[Carrie & Jim]

Glad to see the pics!
Hello to you both. I am glad that things are going well for you. The photos are beautiful. Thanks for posting them. Great news about Geoff. Are you back for the summer? Stopping by Abby? We would love to see you again. Blessings, Carrie & Jim