Dongguan Springwood Harbor Hot

Today another shopping day downtown.

First stop, and eye doctor for Amy's father. There the girls working there loved qiqi, one even gave qiqi a birthday present, an embroidery that she made herself.

Later some more shopping and then after dinner, qiqi visits a traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy and doctor.

... an advertisement for Channel Perfume. It was obvious that the part of China that I was in was very industrialized and westernized and at least on the surface, did not seem like the oppressive communist country we hear about in the west. So after taking some video, I was on my way to my hotel: a docked cruise ship!

The name of the hotel is Cruise Inn, and it is an old Chinese cruise ship that they have docked, then filled in land around it, and now use it as a major hotel ...

Today we picked up our rental car and also switch hotels. At the first hotel, there was too much dust in the air and the traffic was too confusing because they are building a subway station close by.

The second hotel is an apartment hotel, where we stayed for 1 night. there was heat there, and it is pretty cold here for this time of year. So far they are having the coldest November on record!

... the route can be done on cycle paths to Tai Me Tuk, a beautiful place on the coast. One of the purposes of my visit to the school was supposedly to get out and about with the school caretaker, a local guy, who may know of some places to stay. Unfortunately, this never happened but I’m told that he’s on the lookout for me. Everyone seems very friendly and wants to help but I’m afraid that the accommodation problem is my own. I didn’t achieve very ...

This will be a continuously updated list of the odd foods we have had during our trip: * Pigs Blood * Fried Bee Larva * Pig Liver * Whole Fried fish - eat them in one bite * Stinky Tofu * Deer meat - the rump roast sliced very thin and cooked in front of us at the Korean BBQ. It was pretty chewy * Whole pig leg - We only ate the pieces of meat inside, the chinese only like the thick layers of fat and think ...

A couple of hours jetboat ferry ride from Hong Kong will land you in Macau, which like Hong Kong, is a Special Administrative Region of China, operating under the principle of 'one country, two systems'. Like Hong Kong, you need to go through passport control to enter Macau and they have their own currency, which essentially has the same ...

Thursday, January 18th, 2007 Zhongshan, China When I returned from my travels in 2003, I definitely wasn't ready to be home. Even though I had been gone for almost a year, I wanted to keep going. I knew that I wouldn't be able to afford to go on another trip like the one I had just done, so I figured if I could get certified to teach ESL (English as a second language), then I could travel to other countries, and get paid to do it! I researched many ESL ...

My school is in a very strange area. To get there you drive down a busy main road lined with ramshackle shops that whizz by in the polluted haze, then you turn down a wide, dusty, empty road which looks as though it was meant for a lot more traffic. At the end is my school. I am often struck by how this wide street could be a metaphor for modern China. When you turn in on the corner, the first thing that strikes you is a very ugly complex of buildings - a factory ...

... up with Rob (pictured) and we found an Irish Pub about 2 hours before we had to be back on the ship, so needless to say I wasn't back on the ship in time. We left with what I thought was enough time, but the Snoopy watch that I had bought for $.50 back at the market had stopped working sometime after we went in. While running back (literally, running through the port mall towards the ship), something flashy caught my eye and I got distracted. So yeah, I was late by 3 minutes ...

... s a mess, especially the staff profile and motivation for which my professional self says I have to take some responsibility. I know how to fix it, I'm just not able to in the timeframe and parameters available so I'm not down about it. It's been a good, if sometimes bewildering, learning experience. I don't want to drop a bomb and walk away because I like a lot of the people here, and because I'd like to ...