The Return

Well, we're back in TEDA. That lovely month in Thailand seemed to zip by faster than a blink of an eye. Crazy! We are looking at a new semester starting in a day and we are refreshing ourselves with time to make new goals, new aims, and new expectations. We look forward to seeing how we have grown and will grow in the next few months, though we also learned and grew a lot even in Thailand. Great opportunity with family from both sides and lots of time to reflect and converse about all sorts of things. A pleasure to have time with both our parents and memories we are glad to hold close to our hearts. Here are a couple more photos of some things from our time away (the baby elephants and market busker pictures Ben took): some more elephants, flowers, Kantoke dinner, family portraits for some friends of the Farnells and more. Enjoy!

Thailand so far

Well, our lovely break has brought us warmth, sun, and family. Lots of adventures, too many to count but here are a couple shots, not many because my computer is being fussy right now, (by both myself AND Ben!) for you to enjoy:)

The Long Awaited

Today is our last day of school.....though technically school has not been in session for the past week, we have been cleaning up, invigilating exams, and getting ready for next semester. Students have been stressed and relieved all in the same massive bubble, and teachers have felt their strains and stresses. But finally, our long awaited extended vacation period is right here, on our doorstep, politely knocking and we are much obliged to let it enter. For a lovely 4.5 weeks, we will bask in the Thai sun, soak in the sweet tastes and flavors of colored curries and luscious fruits. We will also get to finally see some family, face to face! We are really quite excited for the adventure and it begins tomorrow at noon. Our semester is finished but it feels more like a whole year. The next semester is daunting so we try not to think about it, but I believe it might go faster and easier than first. Last night was amusing as we reminisced with some friends, over homemade pizza (yes, I am finally a pizza maker, attempting to keep up with my ever-so-talented mom), about the semester, funny moments with the students, mishaps, growth and change. Its interesting, though there are changes in culture and place, teenagers are still teenagers and act somewhat illogically sometimes and it at least gives us some light amusement to push us through each day.
Anyways, here is our "see you soon" to China and a big "Hello!" to Thailand. We'll keep you posted as we go:)

(PS-the picture shows some of Ben's heartiest beard work that he has accomplished since I have known him. It also highlights a bit of my Chinese haircut.....I guess I won't get to grow it out as I hoped, something was lost in translation there:)

Last Day of Term

We did it! We hit the halfway mark. After today term number one will be done. Christina is in the process of having the kids clean up the home economics room, put the finishing touches on their cooking portfolio and whisking them off into the next semester with a new arsenal of English vocabulary. They had a great week, finished in style, by cooking PIZZA! (from scratch) The students did a great job, but some of their topping choices were 'suspect??'. There were some peach and lychee pizzas, deluxe supremes with the toppings piled sky high, and asia's favorite, the CORN pizza.... yes in Thailand sweet corn (with condensed milk) is a favorite and here in China, corn on your pizza is a favorite as well.

My mandarin classes have a final exam which will take place on Monday, and then I'll be marking and getting the grades for report cards ready. Christina is one step ahead and has almost all of her marks in, with report card comments being thought up as we speak!

This time next week we'll be closing up our house, moving our bikes into the flat, and packing our bags for an exciting reprieve in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We look forward to meeting up with Christina's parents (Stephen and Sandy) at the Bangkok airport, then carrying on to Chiang Mai and two weeks with both sets of parents!! Here's to hoping the loads aren't full from Vancouver!!

We rang in the New Year in style... sleeping soundly at a hotel in Tianjin. We woke up Jan 1st at 5 am realized the world was still here, that we had a flight to catch, and that we were happy we decided to turn in early and not wait up for the 11:59-12:00 rollover. There's always next year...

Chengdu was great, very relaxing, lots of GREAT food and excellent conversation.

Happy New Year to you all!

six full days left

Well its almost here, our long awaited and anticipated exodus to the wonderful land of Thai!! Words can't express how much we are looking forward to our exodus on the 16th of January. We have six full days of instruction left, one exam week, a few exams to mark, final grades to submit, water, gas and power to turn off, a suitcase to pack and then we are gone... and we'll be gone in a flash. We're going to take the bullet train to Beijing, 300+ km/h (or faster) of steel and tracks shooting us straight to Beijing in a mere 50 odd minutes! There we'll spend the evening and the following morning before heading off to the airport, where the friendly customer service representatives at Thai Air will greet us and the warmer offerings of Thailand await!

We had a great christmas. Different to say the least, but great. We talked with family, had a christmas steak and a christmas lasagna, enjoyed a wonderful brunch, slept, read, talked with more family and then went back to work, odd but never-the-less true.

For new year's we're going to go to Tianjin, stay in a nice hotel, with a nice pool, nice amenities and ring in the new year before taking a quick trip to Chengdu to visit some friends, get a quick reprieve and gain more frequent flier miles!!

Unfortunately the lack of blogging has been representative of our non-exciting past few weeks. This morning in the elevator on the way down to our bikes, I mentioned to Christina that I feel as if all we do is work, get ready for work, are at work, or think about work. She agreed, chuckled to herself and stated that: "Back in Canada it didn't really feel like this." We shrugged our shoulders, thought of the financial gain our Asian endeavor is providing, and rode back to the school for another day in the office.

Here's to hoping that the New Year provides us with some more tales with which we can regale the blogosphere.

The Flood

So, Ben and I are right in the midst of December chaos. Kids going crazy because of the below zero classroom temperatures, mid-term reports for semester 1 term 2, special work packages for the massive amounts of students who have so much to catch up on and every excuse in the book why they are behind, including telling us they are smart and that is why they have not finished their work.....huh?!?! Nothing makes sense. So we went out to dinner tonight to have some pizza, pick up a few things, before traveling back to our humble abode.....only to walk into the slooshing of an an inch of water on our cream colored floor. Yes, we opened our own pool in TEDA, no public visitors yet, just private usage so far. Yuck, it was quite a task to clean it all up, and the two floors below us have visited a number of times tonight telling us there is still water coming down on them even though we have finally cleared it all up. Our landlord paid us a quick visit and chuckled as he came in. He smiled as we told him how we thought the pipes might have burst and let the waters open on his lovely home, continuing to grin he only let us know that the same thing happened to him and its an honest mistake, it will be fixed soon, not to worry. Quite a lovely man, he has a beautiful smile, full of brown rotten teeth, and eyes that cheer along with his grin. He truly has been lovely to have as a landlord. It seems so far in our married life we have had quite the blessing with landlords. Though our Victoria landlords are far away and a great memory from last year, our new landlord hasn't left us with a sour taste in our hearts over renting space. As for the flood, ah, it'll get fixed, until then we are showering from metal mixing bowls scattered around our shower floor, quite the adventure:)

Rockin' around the ........

Well its December and the Christmas music has been playing like crazy in our flat. Christina was scouring the internet to find as much Christmas music as she could, and find it did she ever... I must say that I even caught myself toe tapping to some of the songs the other day as we worked with the music playing in the background. With Christmas fast approaching we have seen reminders of this as we've been out and about. The local mall set up a 'Santa's workshop-esque' type display, with another large office building stringing lights in a large Santa pattern that would make Chevy Chase drool with envy!! We have yet to see anyone dressed up in a Santa suit, but I promise if we see it, no matter what the cost, we'll have to get our picture taken with Asian Santa!!

Lately we have been keeping busy with; school, bike rides, purchasing items for Christina's home economics class, marking and EATING!! Last night we treated ourselves to some BBQ'd lamb kabobs with some green beans and cabbage, all smothered in the most delicious hot bbq sauce (a XinJiang speciality) to go along with our fried noodles. It was MAGNIFIQUE!! Earlier this weekend, Saturday, we headed off to a Korean Style BBQ and enjoyed a night of feasting on some of the most tender beef with delicious sauces, BBQ'd vegetables and of course the staple KIM-CHEE (spicy fermented cabbage!!) Tonight we have plans to head to our favorite Sichuan restaurant (the one we've spoken so highly about before) to really expand the palate and sample different three different food types for the past three days!

In the coming days we'll attempt to find some sort of Tree that we can decorate and have standing proud in the flat so that when the song comes on we will have something to 'Rock' around apart from our bamboo (it doesn't hold ornaments at all!!)

On a more disappointing note, I have not been able to find any of those chocolate advent calendars here in China. Now I know the chocolate is stale and tastes terrible, but there is something to be said about the joys of opening up the little doors each of the 24 days before christmas, with the anticipation building each and everyday... For those of you that have them... ENJOY