Leaving one country where you have been teaching and preparing to go to another is chaotic and emotional. Things that need to be done before you leave a country:
Banking and last pay
Police clearance which needs translated to wherever you are going then notarized and legalized
Work visa cancelled and one month visa given instead
Shipping some of your things before you go
Spending or selling much of your cash from the local bank to travel with less
Many dinners and brunches to celebrate all the friendships. The most fun and heartbreaking part.
Making sure that people coming to fill your role have everything they need to take over (that includes the department head position i had as well as the sunshine committee, etc)
Meetings with the next school with email and online resources and tools
I should have been posting all along but I was very busy to pack and decide what goes and what i give away among other things. So this post will be more of a dump of photos with some explanation of the people here. Unfortunately I don’t have all of the pictures as sometimes we forgot to take them!
I’ve had a fair amount of tears. You make some great friendships when you are abroad and lean on each other often. It is difficult to say goodbye but we really like to say “see you down the road.”
Heidi and Elaine have been here for so much in our lives They are great friends! We had some amazing times and were very close mahjong buddies.Claire on the far right was another travel buddy during the COVID times.Kathy my wine drinking buddy who was always there to lend an ear and have some fun.Melanie and I out for brunch.And another brunch.And at the top of the Canton Tower. We even did the death drop ride. So funny. When she screamed before they ever dropped us, the crowd thought it was hysterical!Bubble cars near the top of the Canton tower.Such an amazing view of the city.Some of the best of my dragonboat buddies. I would spend usually four hours a weekend paddling with them. So funny, kind, and thoughtful. I will miss all of them but especially these three.More of some of the best people to paddle with.Receiving flowers from my cross country team at the end of the year athletic ceremony.I met Lily the first year in Guangzhou. She likes to meet foreigners in a variety of places and have brought together some really fun people.I have amazing colleagues and school events are still great get togethers!The Macarena at the prom.At the end of the year party i took a photo with all the people who are still left from our cohort.At a tour of the new gym facilities that will be opening next year at the school. It will be an amazing addition and will miss Tamara and Joanna.
Of course I’m going to miss quite a few people namely my department and Anne who will be taking over as department head and breaking in a whole new group of teachers. She is amazing and of course I didn’t get pictures of the last afternoon together!
The last bus ride to school. This crew always is the first to arrive to await the bus. Always a great to start the day!I received some great gifts. Vincent gave me a Chinese calligraphy saying that he painted: To leap with enthusiasm.I was fortunate to see some former students come back and visit for graduation.I will miss Bodie. He belongs to Dee Baker and often was in the school shop. What a support dog!Darcie!Zach and Alexis. I was fortunate to be around amazing educators.I’m going to miss my kitties. BaoBao……and TsoTso. They have been in a good home for months and look pretty happy.Last day, students did not want to go to the buses. They really love school.We all line up to wave goodbye….… And then we eat and have some drinks.Only a little of them more i received.I will miss this pool also. It was great therapy for my knee and such a beautiful view
I left in winter break 2022 expecting 3 week quarantine to come back with no such demands. This spring break is the first vacation where I left knowing the pandemic was “over” and this time there was not a big production and requirements for actually leaving China. It reminds me of pre-covid China. Things are definitely looking like normal in China and activities have resumed. We went from everything about down to everything opened in a short period of time.
I had knee surgery 5 weeks ago for an almost completely torn meniscus and other problems with cartilage that had no other option. Besides going to and from school and doctors appointments, I have really not been many places around Guangzhou. I was only given the okay to go on this trip based on the short length of flight and that I promised not to do too much …people who know me know how hard that is. But I want to recover for summer and will be smart about it. That being said, moving slower and always needing to be aware of my limitations wears me out. I have also found i still need to put my foot up even though a week ago I was finally allowed to bend the knee when sitting. It will be another month or two before I can put weight on it when in a bent position.
The metro had people actually not wearing masks. It has been a long time since I was on the metro. (Sometime in the future I’ll comment on my thoughts about all of that.)
That actually was true of the airplane as well. There was not a full flight leaving China perhaps due to the delay in visas for Chinese to leave on vacation.
Landing in another country was so easy. Cambodia is incredibly fast for getting off the plane and to your hotel in short order.
Because of this, it is not easier to travel for me. But I am glad to be able to go somewhere and relax with a little sightseeing.
This was a trip I have wanted to do for some time but it either did not fit into my schedule or there were problems with travel due to COVID-19. Even though this trip is 12 hours after landing back in China after almost a month traveling, i felt it was the right time to go. I wasn’t ready to be back in my apartment and still have a bit over two weeks before school starts.
After arriving I went to the Gaozhuang night market. I but too crowded for me so I bought some food on the streets of the village and then wandered back to the hotel. This area is close to the Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand border with China.
We visited the Botanical garden which included jungle trails.
This is a very poisonous plant, the poison being in the spines on the leaves.This is one fig tree that makes up most of this part of the forest. It grows downwards to make me roots.Royal lotus. These are so large that children can float on them.The flowers of banana tree.
We visited a Dai village. This is one of the ethnic minorities here in China. They follow the Buddhist tradition and their housing styles are similar to Thai.
They weave many of their own textiles.Naga is the highest transformation of awareness and holds the Earth’s wisdom and power.Sticky rice that is pressed and dried then cooked over coals to puff up. Delicious.
Wild elephant valley is a preserve where the wild Asian elephants still roam. They actually travel between here and Laos and if lucky you can see one. I was glad we did. Here is a link to video as well: https://youtu.be/a2xod6R_N2E
Water lizards.Of course they do have elephants for shows and feeding which I hate to see but it is random whether you see a wild elephant in the park.Butterfly garden.Dragon fruit plant which is a type of cactus.
We traveled to Manzhang village which is another Dai village.
Making mulberry paper.Homemade Baiju which is quite strong.Trail walking through a rubber tree forest. The marks at the top start the latex sap flowing.This gentleman is a doctor of old Chinese medicine and he was collecting his medicines.Dinner along the Mekong river.
Manting Park is the oldest styles of architecture and also history of the local royal family which ended rein in 1950’s. The oldest temple is here.
A Burmese style pavilion.Washing your hands and face is said to take away your sins and bring goodness.Stupa for holding religious artifacts after death.Spotted this kitty at the base of one of the statues.Delicious lunch. Omelet with a local fern like vegetable and fried little fish that were yummy.
Afterwards, our last stop was a hike through the Nannuo tea mountain forest and to try some tea. This village is the Hani people, another ethnic minority.
Two leaves and a tip are picked for tea. They must be young leaves from the top.Wood is loaded underneath for a fire and the leaves are roasted at specific times after picking to make the different types of teas.
Another morning in China and I think I made the right decision to go elsewhere in the world. There are things I love about China and the people here but many I will not miss. Immigration coming back in was longer with more questions despite having four consecutive years of visas and proof of where I work. It wasn’t this difficult fine years ago. Some people will watch videos while in nature with the volume set to high, they are unaware of where they are in relation to others and unconcerned if they block paths, and there is just so many people when traveling. It sounds like I am just complaining but haber heard that from other nationalities when I travel. Of course, I am aware that I most likely do things that people don’t like when I travel, but this discussion is most likely best suited for a future post.
For a more relaxing holiday (and to save money as travel this holiday is expensive), I visited friends, Amber and Michael, in Shunde. Our holidays don’t always coincide and I have not seen them in months. We met at brunch and then I traveled to their place in Shunde.
We watched movies, walked around a local village and found great food to eat.
Okay, these are rats. We didn’t eat them but this is some of the original Cantonese food in the area.
I then went to panyu to participate in a bike tour. We started at the Shawan ancient village and visited a local artisan who carves wood.
The side of the house has oysters embedded in the concrete to help with cooling and to deter insects.
From there, we ride on Phoenix bikes reminiscent of old Chinese bikes (but safer). We traveled to Baomo gardens, approximately 16 km.
Another short ride and we ended at an old sugar processing plant that now has art installations and some artists in residence.
A great mini vacation with friends and fresh air visiting ancient towns.
As one of my friends, Heidi, is leaving China soon, I wanted to go to Macau with her and Elaine and Donnie for the weekend. They since opened that border for foreigners as it had already been opened for mainland Chinese. As a special autonomous region like Hong Kong, it is leaving the country.
Despite what would be a rushed visit, I was excited and left for the metro straight from school to get to the high speed rail station. Foreigners are again asked to show more than just their green code since a Chinese man went to Germany, had sex with a man, and brought back the first case of monkeypox. Of course, before those specifics were reported the head of the CDC gave this warning:
The last four are sound advice. But the first… From a doctor…
They eventually walked back that first statement but the damage had been done and has brought some more anti-foreign sentiment. A person on the metro who could not just stand and had to sit next to me like this:
Back to the Macau story. I was able to leave school early so Heidi and I decided to move up the train booking but we did not notice that lineup had already happened and they would not let us through (totally our fault). Because of this, we took the next train. No problem except they wanted our passport information 20 minutes after we left the station which I thought was odd and then as the train slowed they locked the doors in the front and back of our car. They announced that the code of a person in our car of the train had turned to red in transit. Heidi is from Canada and speaks Cantonese. We did find someone who spoke Mandarin and Cantonese and a couple that could speak English. That helped but the information kept changing often.
He was possibly a close contact of someone who did test positive. Maybe…. We were herded to a gated area on the street where we were tested (2 nasal/1 rapid) and our passports/ID were taken. People who lived in Zhuhai were allowed to go home but isolate and get tested. The rest of us were to be sent to a hotel. When we asked questions, we were given a variety of answers but mostly a day in a hotel. The man’s test came back negative as we waited and we were told we would have to pay for the required stay now. People were upset. When I heard that noise I was just hoping the man did not test positive. No one was happy.
This is actually inside the gated area.
But it gets better. It’s not a hotel. It is a quarantine facility with cameras and sparse interior. We had to pay 1500 rmb ($210) deposit which is roughly a 6 day quarantine. That irked me along with the smell and pond of bleach sprayed everywhere on the floor. We were told the money was a deposit. We started calling it the “Ritz”.
For the record, not as bad as Shanghai. The central room here is all the space I had in Shanghai for 2 weeks. At least there are two bedrooms and I could take the mattresses (only a couple centimeters thick for each one) and put them together. With the two comforters on top as an added mattress, it made for a more comfortable bed. And there is a balcony…
Those are the two mattresses.
Food was meager (and we had to pay) but you were allowed to order food from outside. But setting up any Chinese app for delivery is difficult. I have resisted so far as I feel I should cook my own food and walk to eat out. Healthier that way. I contacted admin and HR about my predicament and they had an IT guy walk me through. HR had to buy me my first meal as my app wasn’t set up in time to make the delivery window. I do know enough words to type into the Chinese keyboard to search what I want. Will I use it back in Guangzhou? Probably not. But I was pretty happy to know how to type in salad (shala) and eggs and tomatoes (jidan he xihongshi). Oh… And coffee (kafei) but had to look up the translation of coffee powder.
I also contacted the consulate, just in case. I only have so much asthma medicine with me and worried about the lack of communication with us and staff here. My HR is actually wonderful at calling to find information for me.
We were told at one point just one day… Then two days… And at the end, two tests in three days. We were tested Friday night, and each of the next 3 days.
Usually I pack extra things just in case this happens but let my guard down, so I did not have coffee or some other things with me. Lesson learned….. But I am adaptable and so grateful to be able to order in. A few people on the train did not have anything with them. I gave one person a summer dress to wear and others loaned their clothes too. I am glad I had my computer to do some work and read.
We were released Monday afternoon. They refunded some of the money and then just let you find your own way out of the complex.
I had to take a personal day for missing a day of school. I was able to get my Macau hotel refunded. I decided to take two more days off as well. I have already missed my scheduled China trip with the 11th grade and will join a 2 day trip at the end of the week with the grade 12′ s. I also plan to call the government hotline as people are not to pay when they were found in this situation.
It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been teaching it is still a sprint and a marathon at the same time.
More responsibilities as a science PLC leader (professional learning community) and coaching cross country had kept me pretty busy. I also choose to teach IB environmental systems and society and give another person a chance to teach IB Biology. Crazy, right?
I looked forward to a full year in the new building.
And we finally had our 40th anniversary gala which was postponed several times (it is now our 41st year). As usual I don’t have many pictures as once the music starts playing I don’t leave the dance floor.
I booked a hotel room there at the Garden Hotel which had beautiful snacks ready and concierge service where they take you to your room to check in. With a late checkout whatever time you wished, it was a nice stay.
Unfortunately, COVID is still messing with schedules. Our sporting events cannot compete in person this year outside of the city. We have had a couple of meets scheduled with other schools near us and a virtual meet planned for the schools we usually compete against. One day at a time….
I always started school when it still felt like summer but soon morning would be cooler and the days shortened. This year, my 35th year, we started a bit earlier and it was still summer hot. As the humidity doesn’t start to break until October, it feels like an endless summer just with diminishing daylight.
I didn’t travel much this summer, spending time eating out with friends….
Learning to play mahjong….. There are three kings of tiles. The rules are to get 3 of a kind or 3 consecutive. You can only pick up from the discard pile if you can play it right away. Otherwise the standard rules are similar to other card games. It is fun to play the rules fast and listen to them click…. And I won the game!
Each row is a set of tiles that are related.I won. Play continues until one is left. You get chips depending upon when you go out.Won again…… And again
DragonBoat on the weekend… Great arm and cute exercise and brutal two days in a row…
Stand up paddle boarding at a new place with friends on a 3 day weekend… Beautiful little village….
And of course running around the river or swimming in the rooftop pool with a view of the river…..
October will bring warm days but less humidity. Always something to look forward to. It still seems like an endless summer as the trees do not lose their leaves here and flowers bloom all year long…
It is only 10 days until school starts again and I’m taking a quick trip to the beach for the weekend. We traveled to huizhou which is in the province and just a few hours drive away to snorkel and visit a national sea turtle refuge. The food for lunch was great: tofu, green beans and eggplant, and lotus root. I have not had lotus root this way and it is more like the shoots.
We took a speedboat to Xiaoxinshan Island. The water was pretty murky as we had a typhoon a short time back but we could see sea urchins on the rocks. It was good to swim in salt water and I was not really expecting to see a large amount of marine life as I have in Thailand or the Great Barrier Reef.
We took the speedboat back and then a short ride to the turtle bay hotel. It is not where the beach is which is just fine. It is quiet and right next to where we are visiting the next day. We cleaned up and went to the village for seafood.
The next morning I went to the pool for a swim and caught the sunrise.
After breakfast we walked to the double moon Bay. We had taken the speedboat from the left side the day before to go snorkeling.
We then walked to the national sea turtle breeding ground facility which was near the hotel. Despite removing mangrove forests and disrupting the actual places sea turtles need, they do have a breeding program here.
They are able to leave the large tanks during breeding season to lay eggs on the attached beach.
It was a very relaxing weekend. Fire the test of the time I’m going to relax in my new apartment, do some work, and enjoy swimming in the pool. COVID cases are making travel unpredictable as it is the summer holiday. I will have a six week holiday in December and January and hopefully cases are much less by then.
I didn’t plan many trips this summer. I and excited for this one as the hotel is amazing and I have not been in the southern part of this province. To get to Guangxi, we took a high speed train and then transferred to a bus. A COVID test was required but many of the places when we arrived did not know what to do with our passports so just let us through. We took a COVID test at the final train station just in case it was needed. So Guangdong is the province I live in and ends in dong, which means east. I am visiting guangxi, which ends in xi which means west. Guang means vast. Guangxi is the province just west of where I live. We stopped for lunch at a rest stop.
Near the village there was a border checkpoint. As we are close to Vietnam they take it seriously due to trafficking. It takes a long time for them to input the information and take pictures of everything. Of course, Chinese ID holders they just take a picture without uploading anything. Crazy, since in the news Chinese men have been arrested for coming back into China from Vietnam after illegal activity.
The hotel in the village is beautiful. Large rooms with a huge bathtub and full windows on two sides of the room. We faced the mountains and the fields for a beautiful view from the window and balcony.
Of course we went to the rooftop pool first.
The villagers were sowing the rice seeds when we arrived. The next morning I went for a run to look around the village.
We also rode bikes the last day. it was a beautiful 15km ride through the villages and fields. Gorgeous area. I would definitely come here again.
Our first place to visit was Tongling Canyon. There were several checkpoints and the road was along a river where you could see much barbed wire. We were right along the border to Vietnam.
The canyon was average with a waterfall. It was great to be in nature. The rain which was heavy earlier stopped as we began the hike. After 4km of walking the highlight was walking behind the waterfall. Of course we were not supposed to be there. It was roped off as a lot of rain made it too dangerous to go behind…..
A butterfly was intent to stay landed on my leg and feet….. I’m easily amused.
After lunch at a nearby restaurant, we headed to Detian Waterfall. It is on the border between China and Vietnam.
We waved at people across the river and they waved back! So exciting…. It was sad as we all want to visit other countries but can’t… We really miss that.
Houses on the Vietnam side.The boats only run from the Vietnam side.This is considered the Niagara falls of Asia.Detian temple.We took a special escalator to the top where there were awesome views and a great slide to get back to the bottom. It was pretty fun.You put on these great pants which helped you go down the slide much faster….Some of us chilling at the bottom waiting for others.On the way back, you could see the houses and people in Vietnam.
An end of the day dip in the pool, barbeque, and beer rounded out the day.
