On Friday night, I went on the staff overnight outing to a resort in the South of Beijing. The bus ride was long (Beijing's a big city!), and when we arrived we had a wonderful dinner, then free time to do many things around the resort.

I went for a walk through the gardens with my friend Dick, then over to the massage room for a foot massage with some of the other Canadian teachers. As I received my massage, they were playing the movie "Predator" on the tv...LOL! It was painful at times but it felt really good afterwards :)! For the rest of the evening, I played table tennis & shuffleboard (the 1st time for me, it was fun!)



Saturday, we went to Da Xing (Beijing Wildlife Park)...it was so nice! I took so many pictures of the animals, got scared by an emu in front of my camera & I even got to hold a tiger cub :> mmm...nature! Check out more pictures.




Later, after lunch, we had a fast (and I mean fast! We were through in less than 2 hours) visit to World Park (they have miniature versions of all kinds of famous landmarks from around the world). Got to see the Eiffel Tower, Stonehenge, Leaning Tower of Pisa, even the Great Wall of China, lol!

On Tuesday the 25th, I flew to Shenzhen (just across from Hong Kong, in southern China). The flight was 3 hours & it was like landing in Florida! It was hot, sticky, with palm trees all over :)



After I arrived, I had a late lunch with Vincent Pang, the Director of Operations for SCCSC & ISSC (Mike’s school)…mmm, yummy veggies! He told me about a few restaurants & places to buy items if I needed them…he also took me to Mike’s new place and showed me how to use the appliances. Vincent is a very nice man (and he was fascinated that I'm a vegan).

I spent the rest of the day on my own (Mike wasn’t due to arrive until Wednesday p.m.), so I went out and bought Mike some housewarming gifts, like toilet paper, soap, noodles, a bowl, etc. Little things to make life easier :)

Wednesday I spent the day: sleeping in, fruit shopping & watching DVD’s…I was so nervous about seeing Mike! He & I have been chatting by webcam, but I haven’t been able to give him a hug in almost two months…

The principal of ISSC, Jill, went to the ferry terminal with me to meet Mike. We waited by the gate for a while…then I saw him down the long hallway, I was so anxious for him to get to me! :) I gave him a hug & wanted to hug him forever, but this is China…PDA’s aren’t a big thing here…so we headed back to the school.



So Mike & I spent the rest of Wednesday and most of Thursday just bumming around…squeezing as many hugs & kisses in as we could, since my flight was leaving for Beijing @ 8pm. It was hard to leave Mike…but he’ll be up to visit me for two weeks at Christmas, just 7 weeks away, lol. I’m really happy he’s here now…no more chatting with a 13 hour time difference! Nah, I'm just really happy that we got to be together (even if it was just a short visit)

Mike coming to China soon! I'll be meeting him when he gets off the ferry from Hong Kong on October 25th. We'll be together in Shenzhen for about two days, then I have to be back to work in Beijing...he's been counting down the days, lol!

We'll still be chatting with our webcams & mics, but it will be nice to be in the same time zone :) The thirteen-hour time difference has been a challenge in many ways...I'm sorry that I haven't been more frequent with e-mails to everyone. I'm still waiting for my schedule to slow down, lol!

My typical day is : up at 3:30am, Dad & I go for a walk, meet Mike online at 5am, at 6am get ready for work, breakfast at 7am in the staff caf at school, work starts at 7:30am, lunch from 12noon to 1:20pm, back to work until 6pm, supper in the caf & home for 6:45pm...some nights I try to write to people or update photos, but most of the time I crash, yikes!

I spent a week with 8 other Canadian teachers (including Dad) in the cities of Chengde, Shenyang, Dalian & Tianjin for my holiday. Things were going great until 6 of them got sick in Dalian and had to fly home. Mitzy, Dad & I continued on our ferry trip & shopping in Tianjin before heading back to BCCSC.




See pictures here :)