Taking the subway on your own may not sound like a big deal to most people, but when you’re in a city the size of Beijing and you don’t speak the language it can be a little daunting. However I had been told that there was a Walmart on the third stop from where we [...]
When you come to China you have to register with the local authorities within 30 days of your arrival. Part of that registration is completion of a physical examination. They will approve it if you already have had one done in your own country – or so we thought. This morning we went on the [...]
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When I was passing through the school gate this morning I was greeted by four students who wished me a happy teachers’ day, since today is National teachers’ day in China. Then this afternoon at five I attended a ceremony to celebrate this special day. A professor Chen Lin from the Beijing Foreign Studies University [...]
Monday was my first day of teaching and I got up early because school starts at 8:00 and runs until 5:30 each day. At each entrance are guards to ensure student safety and as I walked through the gate the guard used some kind of hand-held scanning device to scan the retinas of my eyes, [...]
Xiaoling has been very helpful in making us feel more comfortable in our new environment. On Saturday she arrived at our hotel door at 10:00 to take us on an excursion into downtown Beijing. She told us she doesn’t drive in Beijing and I understand why – the traffic is heavy and the drivers are [...]
We expected that being in a big city of a foreign country where we couldn’t speak the language would be a culture shock, but we didn’t quite realize just how much of a shock it would be! After we brought our luggage to our room, Crystal, one of the people who works in the Foreign [...]
We were supposed to fly out of Nanaimo at six o’clock in the morning on September 1 so we got up at four thirty(Yawn!) and Marie and Joe drove us to the airport. However when we got there we were informed that the flight had been overbooked and that we would have to leave at [...]
On July 27th we flew to Vancouver and after a short twenty minute flight to Nanaimo Marie and Joe greeted us at the airport. We spent the next four days enjoying walks among the giant trees of the B.C. rainforest. We also passed the time admiring the results of all the work Marie has put [...]
To all those following my blog I apologize for the past week as things have been very hectic for us and we have been off-line. I’ll tell more about that in the upcoming posts. Also, thanks to everyone for your wonderful comments. It really makes this blog worth the effort to know people are reading [...]
