January update from China!

Greetings from China!

Happy New Year to everyone. Hope you all had a great Christmas and Happy New Year. I know its been a while since my last update, but its been a busy month. After an absolutely wonderful December session, we had a two week break for Christmas & New Year. So on December 29th, I flew down to Hong Kong to meet up with my parents, my brother and his girlfriend. It was great to see them! We spent the New Year in Hong Kong and it was a great time! Also, having lived in Beijing for 5 month, I had a new appreciation for Hong Kong like I never did before. Wow, everything was so much cleaner in Hong Kong, the people spoke Cantonese, it wasn't as crowded, and of course the Chinese food there is what I'm use to. We had a weigh in when we got to Hong Kong. I've obviously lost a lot of weight living in Beijing due to the food as I've dropped to 132 lbs (I normally weigh 140 lbs). So as you guessed it, all I did was eat when I was in Hong Kong and wow, it was some good eating!!! Moving along, on January 2nd, we flew back to China, specifically to Qingdao. We spent three days in Qingdao and saw the seaside, LaoShan Mountain and got a tour of the Tsingtao Beer factory. Then we took a 20 hour train to Xian. Not to worry, we got the soft sleeper train, so the 20 hour trip was quite easy. We spent two days in Xian and saw the Terra Cotta Warriors and rode bikes on the Xian City Wall. And yes the Xian part sounds really familiar because I was just in Xian at the end of November, but my parents and my brother had never been to Xian, so it was part of our trip. It didn't matter as Xian was a place I didn't mind seeing again. Another highlight of our travels to Qingdao and Xian was getting to see a few of my students from last session. They were very generous and took us out to eat and gave me many gifts. My suitcase was getting quite full by the end of the trip! So after Xian, we took another soft sleeper train back to Beijing. This train ride was only 10 hours, so it was a breeze as we slept most of the way. Once we got to Beijing, we hit some tourist spots like The Bird's Nest, Water Cube, Tiananmen Square, the Beijing Zoo (gotta see the Panda bears when you come to China), but the one that easily takes the cake is The Great Wall! My brother, his girlfriend and I climbed up three towers and it was quite a hike, but the view from up there is absolutely amazing! I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to see the Great Wall in person while I am in China. It truly is one of the great wonders of the world and I would highly recommend the Great Wall to everyone's must see list if you ever come to China! It is an experience that photos just can't justify. Speaking of photos, I've uploaded a bunch of new photos from our travels in Hong Kong and around China: http://july212000.shutterfly.com/2499

So here's some news. This session I am not teaching in a class room because I am one of four facilitators that will be going to Shanxi at the end of the month to teach English. Here's the twist...we will be teaching English to young children in Shanxi. We are using this month to prepare and plan a curriculum since teaching English to adult teachers is quite different than teaching English to young children. We'll be teaching in Shanxi for one week and a lot of stuff is still up in the air as decisions are always made at the last minute by the people in charge (its how things work in China), so please keep us in your prayers as we try our best to prepare for the unknown and this venture to Shanxi. Most of all, please pray for a clean living environment and no squatty toilets...seriously!!!

Anyways that's about it for this update. I wish you all a prosperous new year and may 2010 be filled with much joy and happiness!



Timothy Wong