China Assignment

We received word this month that we will be teaching English at Shandong University in Jinan, China.  You can see the Shandong Province is the pink section in the north east.  We are actually about 250 miles south of Beijing.  So far, that is the extent of my knowledge of Jinan - other than that there are about 6 million people.

We are really excited about this assignment.  Unlike when we were to go to Shanghai, there will be another couple teaching at the same University and we believe there will be two other couples at another campus.  We have already been in contact with the Pace's and found that they like hiking, games, and eating out.  What more could we ask for?

We have also been in contact with the couple that are teaching at Shandong now.  They have sent us a ton of information and pictures.  This has helped us immensely already.  I have no qualms about going now.  They make it sound like such a wonderful experience.

We will be going for 100 hours of TEFL training at BYU from Aug. 5 - 16 and then we will leave for China the last week in August.  It sounds so far away now but I know the time will pass quickly.  I can hardly wait.

A little late but I wanted to mention a little trip Wayne and I took in February.  Jonathan was coming to Carlsbad at the end of the month and we saw that Wicked was playing in Costa Mesa so we decided to get tickets while he was down there.  As it turned out, he was flying back home the day we were going so we just had time to meet him for dinner as he was driving back to LAX.  They always order things and have them sent to our house when he is going to come to the States so we had a big box full to give him when we met.  It is always like Christmas when he gets home and empties out his suitcases.  Fun!

Well, we had our dinner with Jonathan and then we went to Wicked.  We got our hotel on Hotwire and it could not have worked out better.  We discovered that the performing arts center was right next door to our hotel.  We did not have to hassle with parking and had a nice walk there.  I loved the performance but I won't mention anything about Wayne's reaction.


The next day we headed for Disneyland.  It has been years since we had been and this is the first time since I was pregnant with Jason that it was just Wayne and I.  We got there early in the morning and the first ride we went on was Indiana Jones Adventure.  We enjoyed it so much we turned around and went on it again.

   

We had a fun day and finished it up with the water and light show on Tom Sawyers Island.  Fantasmic!



Again, we had gotten a hotel on Hotwire and it worked out great.  We were in a suite and it was sweet.
We headed home the next morning.  It was a short trip but full of memories.  Can't wait for the next time.