In the Philippines

We took holiday in Cebu, Philippines to avoid the Chinese New Year madness of Shenzhen. It was been a fine break with Eileen spending most of the time recovering from her terrible sinus infection & me getting sun burned to a crisp. I like my meat well done thank you. We took the ultra red eye flight out here as it was the only direct one available & checked into our very out of the way resort called Costabella Resort. To get here you drive about 20 minutes from the airport & see how most people live in the area & it is sobering. Our 1st room was not the best w/ ants hiking around the place & the toilet backing up. Also, it was missing some simple amenities so the management up graded us w/o cost when I brought it up to their attention. We took two trips out of our "compound" & realized, again, how spoiled we are. So tomorrow it is back to China & grind out the work & smog of the area. Oh, that last photo is NOT the plane on fire but the air conditioning prior to take off.

Off to Saudi Arabia, School Year 2012-13

Sorry for the late posting but Eileen & I were offered a gracious contract to teach with the International Schools Group in Saudi Arabia at the Dhahran Elementary/Middle School, while we attended the Bangkok job fair. The main reason we even got an interview, let alone the offer was due in part with knowing two great sets of teachers there, Eric & Jamie Brown & Jack & Coree Rundell. They paved the way for us & it came down to our interviewers asking Eric's opinion about us in which he gave his emphatic approval. So we're done with our China tour of duty & happy to moving on to a quality school. Eileen will be teaching 3rd grade & I'll be teaching 5th. We will join many from this school who have moved to that region of the world, some nearby. We consider ourselves greatly blessed. After our return we had two weeks of school where many teachers became sick with one thing or another, including Eileen, but now we have a week off for Chinese New Year. We're off to relax now that our future has been settled.

Happy New Year 2012

I'm writing from the Kingdom of Thailand. Sounds impressive eh? It's been an okay place, Chiang Mai that is. Our hotel is out there & so we awake to the sounds of roosters, dogs, & cats that inform us all through the night & early in the day the local news. We also must be close to a local hang out as we hear live music until 1am. We forgot that the traditional beds are hard so my hips are sore. Oh, our bathroom to our suite doesn't have a roof! Yep, it is an outdoor bathroom equipped w/ a shower & jacuzzi tub, sink, etc. You go out there & see the stars. It really is odd. The tough part is bugs & leaves that collect there. Eileen filled up the tub to have a nice relaxing evening & when she turned on the jets out came all this dirt & ants that held up in there. Yuck! She took it well & now we stick w/ showers. The bugs haven't been too bad but I cover myself w/ bug spray often. Boy, don't I smell different! During the day it has been mid 80s & at night a nice chilly mid 60s. You have to drive hours to get any where. We did a day trip & spent 6.5 hours in the van to see only 90 minutes worth of sights. Whoa. So we saw the White Temple w/ modern art inside, actual entered the country of Laos, & visited the Karen tribe famous for the long neck ladies. They emigrated from Burma & settled in No. Thailand. The hard part for me was all the poverty, especially the children. That bothered me greatly. The food is good & the people have been very sweet & kind, at least outside the city. In the city the civility drops a bit w/ so many tourists running around. Last night we try to walk down "walking street" in the center of Chiang Mai. We never made it to the next block. It was packed! It is this way every Sunday & I’m guessing because it was the 1st of the year it was especially crowded. We went back the next day & it was empty. A lot of expats make Chiang Mai home, about 40 thousand. Most are into small business & charity organization or NGOs. It is the next largest city in the country or so I’m told & close to the famous Golden Triangle & beautiful mountain country. I believe the highest peak in Thailand is nearby at almost 2,600 meters. The land is very Buddhist & loyal to their king. I’ve added some quotes from his New Year address. I found them interesting & worth noting. Okay, write more from the job fair in Bangkok, about the 6th or 7th.

…live with consciousness, be mindful and brace for unwanted events in the future.

Suffering, threats and hindrances will come to our lives from time to time. Nobody always stays happy.

Remain mindful by being aware of what you think and do all the time.

Happy BD Pop!

Hi Pop! Just wishing you a happy birthday w/ this video. Love Tom & Eileen

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all. We ended our semester at school & everyone was relieved. A flood of teachers left that Friday evening to head out of China to enjoy the holidays. We, for once, are sticking around & will leave on the morning of the 26th for Chiang Mai, Thailand for about a week & then head to Bangkok for the teacher's job fair or the shark frenzy. While I'm typing this out the apartment management to playing Christmas music & it is religious to boot; or real Christmas music. I don't know who recommended this to them but it sure is nice. We just finished visiting a friend from the church who just had a new addition to their family. Little Joel was a premature baby & things were not looking so good at first but thanks be to God everyone is okay. Back to the last days of school. Mentally, everyone was checked out so I dressed as Santa to celebrate the last day of school. I stuffed my backpack w/ a pillow & wore it front of me. I was sweating up a storm. It was fun. The photo of us in front of the tree is by Shekou Sea World Square. It was party time over there! People were just buzzing about. Our church just finished a series of Christmas concerts around town. Yup, here on the mainland the worship team put on 4 concerts. One of them was an out door concert at a popular shopping mall. Tomorrow we will have services & then people from our small group will gather at our small apartment for a catered turkey & dressing lunch. Yum! Oh, that photo of Eileen next to the student dressed as a soldier is some school we walked by & the school was putting on a play, cute huh? Well, love & peace to all. May Jesus bless you all greatly.

Chinese herbal medicine & baked goodies

Sorry for the long delay in jotting down some thoughts but it has been too busy. We try to have a nice vacation to Vietnam but did not go for several reasons. One we didn’t know that you have to have an email letter from the VN consulate that approves your travel to their country. You take that with you to the airport & then you fly into VN where they process your tourist visa. Then we figured by that time we got that email letter the next typhoon would be right behind us dumping a ton of rain. So it would “rain on our parade.” We ate the cost & hung out here. We spent some great time w/ friends but Eileen caught a cold which turned into a sinus infection. A week later w/ the same infection Eileen had enough. She asked one of our Chinese friends to make an appointment with a Chinese herbalist. About 30 USD later Eileen had the “ingredients.” She came home w/ large plastic bag of herbs & some liquid in small capsules. Also, you have to purchase a cheap ceramic pot to cook everything in. You first soak the herbs (looks like potpourri) for 20 minutes in room temp water & then boil it for about 30 minutes. The apt. smells like a perfumed farm. Drink a "bowl" twice a day before lunch & dinner. Both the boiled potpourri & capsules taste is like bitter cough syrup. Yum! We will see in about 4 days the results. To cheer ourselves up we went out to one of our favorite Chinese restaurants. There are a row of different Chinese restaurants from the various provinces in China. Next to the one we visited is a Henan restaurant & the video clip is a typical over where the guy is baking some kind of large muffin. Enjoy!

Back in China & rolling or stumbling along

Well, we made it back mid morning on the 8th of August & got right into unpacking & setting up our new apartment; 3rd apartment in this the start of our 4th year. Thank God our friends Ryan & Lainey unpacked our stored clothes & watered our plants while we were away. If not the clothes would have been covered with mold & the plants would have died. Only 2 pair of my shoes didn't make it, you can see the mold problem. It took a week to get things sorted & the internet pulled in. It feels like home. Because we're a little further from work we went out & bought bikes to commute to work, about 10 minutes. We went out with some new friends & fellow teachers Stephen & Kayla. So now were really into the culture as many do bike around. We stand out because we wear helmets. I began the school year with a cold which lasted about 5 day & now following it up with heat rash, yuck. Good health is not one of my better characteristics lately. The lead up to the beginning of school here at QSI Shekou was rough as in previous years. They don't seem to organize themselves for smooth transition to the first days of school but for me it was not bad. Most of the returning 8th graders will be going into some form of English preparing class as they scored low on the English aptitude test. Fortunately, the school hired qualified ELL teachers to help them & they are a super group of new teachers. For me I'm trying to get into a routine & pace myself. Next week will be our first full week so I'll write more about it then.