Apr 16, 2010 - April 17, 2010

China is in a huge construction phase. This is partly a solution to keeping people busy. We took some photos of a construction project across the road from our college. We estimate that this complex will house 40,000 people. There are similar projects throughout the city. Old buildings are bulldozed to the ground, the rubble eventually cleared and new construction begins. The foreign teachers decided that my birthday would be this Friday. We piled into cabs and went to a vegetarian restaurant downtown. There was a tofish, tohamburgers,...

Apr 14, 2010 - April 14, 2010

We went for dinner on Friday with some of the other foreign teachers. They discovered it was my birthday so we will celebrate next Friday at a vegetarian restaurant downtown. Many of the teachers are busy with small outside projects so it was an early night. On Saturday, John, an American who has been here for six months, took us on an expedition downtown. Tamia came along to help us out with Chinese. We popped into a variety of shops including a number that make clothes. John had three pairs of pants and a shirt made for about $60. There...

Apr 9, 2010 - My birthday

So it is Friday here and still Thursday back in Canada. We will celebrate my birthday by going out with other foreign teachers. When we are able to find our way around a bit Gis has an IOU for jewelry. Gis had a meeting with the I.T. instructors at E & A College this week and sat in on a class. Because the topic was so familiar he actually understood what was going on - evedn though it was conducted in Chinese. He doesn't think he will attend another two hour class because he was frozen sitting there for that length of time. We finally...

Apr 5, 2010 - Easter Monday

We headed to the beach for our Easter Sunday adventure. The waves were rolling in and a number of fishing boats were tied up in the water. They are made of wood and are barely more than rafts, and leaky ones at that. Across the bay from where we are is North Korea. There are bunkers up and down the beach. It is a popular spot for kite flying and shell picking. At least that's what I think they were doing and not gathering dinner. It was a beautiful spot to be on a smoggy day. You will notice that much of the background is obscured. The smog...

Apr 3, 2010 - Getting settled

We had dinner with the College President and other officials at the site used for soccer in the 2004 Olympics. The college has its own winery and we were toasted with a bottle of their wine. The food was beautifully presented and Gis went to his happy spot and tried almost everything. We had a private dining room and, at some point, the lights in the stadium came on and we were in a private area looking onto the field. Thursday morning took us to the hospital, which turned out to be the immigration office. There seemed to be some thought...

Sep 24, 2009 - The Old Dragons Head - Day 8

As Alfie had to work, Rob took us to Lao Long Tou where the Great Wall ends at the sea - 'The Old Dragons Head'. The wall doesn't appear to taper down into the sea, but rather comes to an abrupt end. Suprising as this was meant to keep out the enemies, obviously assuming that they couldn't just swim around. There is a saying that says such great things are only as good as the people defending it. The irony is that instead of just swimming around the wall, enemies eventually used bribery to get in. What a waste of time!! The military...

Sep 23, 2009 - Lazy Day At The Sailing Club - Day 7

Ventured down to the sailing club, where Alfie and Rob work. We spent most of the afternoon looking out over the water while using Rob's laptop. In China internet access is highly monitored and many sites restricted, but certain things can slip through (as is with tv and music here). Perhaps this is the reason why we were not allowed to use the internet cafe with out a special ID card. When you meet anyone who can translate for you it is important to make full use of this rarity. As such, we borrowed Joyce our favourate smiley new friend...

Sep 22, 2009 - Bizarre Russian Holiday Resort - Day 6

Beidaihe on the Bohai Gulf was developed for the rich and well to do Chinese bigwigs, so you can understand our surprise when we discovered the influx of Russians holidaying at this beach resort. All the buildings were modern and the streets were very clean. There are seaweed collectors making the beaches clean and costly to enter. All the signs and menus were written in Russian and people came up to us assuming we were Russian. It was quite windy and too cold to swim, but that didn't stop the Russians in their bikinis. After her long...

Sep 21, 2009 - Bye Bye Beijing - Day 5

Checked out of hostel and with some searching managed to get a train to our next destination. We got the slow cheap train which took us 6hours as opposed to 2hours. The Chinese people on the train were interested in us and where we were going. We communicated through our books. We stupidly didn't arranged anywhere to stay, and as it was getting late a very helpful man offered to show us to a hotel. Little did we know that this entire city never used to let foreigners in at all and now they are restricted to only a few Government run...