Back from China

A great trip, but boy am I jetlagged! 13hrs was fine on the way over, but it's now 2 days home and i'm still falling asleep at 2pm! The trip was a great success, interviewed a ton of students, had a few hours in each location to explore with student guides, and saw lots of places i'd like to go again...lets hope I still have a job next year so I can!

Some photos from the trip!

Xiamen University - the old campus

Xiamen University, the old campus. 

Xiamen University, building where all the students have their graduation photo taken in front of. 

My tour guides around the campus

Heading out to Gulangyu Island off Xiamen

Crushing pearls into powder, renowned for curing all ills. 

Gulangyu Island

Pictures made entirely of fish bones

Pictures made entirely of fish bones

Temple

A sign often found in Chinese homes during Mao's tenure. 

Flowers outside an art museum

Gulangyu Island

Highest point on the island

Beach at Gulangyu, Xiamen in the background

Xiamen in the background. 

My guides around Xiamen

Crabs at the fishmarket

Choose your own mussels! 

Xiamen. 

My spaceship toilet. Most toilets in China were pit toilets, but this one hotel went fancy! 

Make up the room or don't bother....

Qingdao, stop number two. Beautiful boardwalk, 40km long. 

Beach #1 in Qingdao

My chair. 

Teahouse on the Qingdao boardwalk

Having tea with Fei (school director) on the boardwalk

 

Sunrise over Qingdao. 

Shanghai the last stop on the tour! Nanjing Road, highly touristy, but fun! 

Dim sum!

Dim sum! 

Lanterns

Teahouse on a lake. 

Square in Nanjing Road

Nanjing Road

A little bit of tea! 

The Bund in Shanghai, in the rain! 

Writing poems using water in a local park in Shanghai

Tai Chi and Square Dancing in Shanghai. 

Shanghai. 

Painting the kitchen

We've had paint swatches up for months, it was finally time to chose and start clearing out the kitchen

Edging the ceiling and outlets

We chose the green, think it's going to look great!

And where is miss Barkley? Hanging out on the new couch....she hates home improvement....:)

Just a little bit of snow

With moving plans for China and some other things that came up, Brandon and I decided to stay home rather than go to Hawaii - we'll get there one day, for a nice long vacation, rather than a squeezed 10 days. So we decided to have a bit of a staycation instead, painting the kitchen (maybe even the living rooms.....but i'm skeptical that will get done too!), playing in the snow. We've had quite the snow dumping the last few days, there's barely anyplace to put the snow at the end of the driveway today! 

Barkley for scale!

Digging out! 

The sunshine helped clear the cars

We have a beautiful christmas tree at the end of the street, so pretty in the snow. 

Our drive into town. 

Snow day!

That Nor-easter hit with a vengeance! We probably had around 10 inches come down, followed by rain and ice which packed it down to a solid, and heavy, 6 inches....but it's still snowing! There is a respite today, then tomorrow afternoon we're set for another 6-8 inches - weeeeeee!

The best part too is we bought a new couch with some left over Xmas money! My first ever 'grown-up' couch (i.e. one that isn't a futon). Our friends spotted it at a local place in their bargain basement, so we went and checked it out on monday, and yes, it's perfect! A corner couch....finally enough room for both me and the Barkley! Brandon could even possibly fit too.....

Hiatus

Sorry for the long hiatus - I can't believe Jan 1st was the last time I posted! Really, it's because there's not been too much to share. Lots of work, lots of snow (yay!) and lots of sitting in front of the fireplace (some of us closer than others). Everyone has been well, Barkley Bear has had a few wobbles here and there, but some tweaks in her medication have sorted it through. Brandon twisted his knee last weekend when we went with our friends to Lost Valley, a ski area just an hour away. He's healing, but the snow shoveling isn't helping him....:)

And in just over a week we're off to Hawaii, mostly for a vacation, but I do have a day or two of work to do as well. We'll stay on Oahu with our friends Jenny and Doug for most of the time, but will do a 5 day hop around the Big Island. From there though Brandon flies home and I fly to China on a ten day work trip. I'll be choosing next years Chinese students to come to our Semester by the Sea at the Darling Center. So exciting, i've never been to China ever and our school director found a day in the schedule for me to take a tour of Xiamen and of Shanghai!

So lots of things coming up, including a big Nor-Easter on Thursday threatening even more snow! We're just about out of places on the driveway to put it at this point!