How has a year nearly passed? There has much that has happened that did not get a blog post. Why? Because I have had fingers in too many pies. I have been juggling a lot of balls, and keeping up with the blog was not high on my priority list. 2020 – must do better. 2019 was the year that I decided once and for all to make myself a qualified teacher. Not qualified in the eyes of the UK, but I have successfully completed my distance Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE). I started it in January 2019 and … Continue reading Studying once more

A long weekend in November saw us make the most of it, of course! Our local airport, Wuxi flies to Taipei and as we went to an island for Golden Week we thought we would collect another island, and of course at least another Starbucks mug. We know a few people who are from Taiwan and so armed with their list of must sees we started in earnest. We flew on the Thursday night after our professional development day and arrived late into Taipei. As we were sitting on the runway in Wuxi, we did have a minor panic as … Continue reading Towering Taipei

Apologies for the delay in recent blogs. I have been a tad busy. And also I didn’t want to blog anything new that would get lost amidst the 2014-15 blogs. Golden Week in October is sorted for 2019. Eleanor and I have tickets to go with my parents to see Japan v Ireland in the Rugby World Cup in Japan!!! 2018 Golden Week in October was spent in Macau. As Eleanor liked to tell everyone, we were taking her to a gambling den. And as we told everyone, we weren’t there to gamble. We flew into Macau from Wuxi. An … Continue reading An Island of Gambling

The other thing that has changed since 2014 is the pace of technology and the ability to walk out the door with no cash, no cards but just a phone. Electronic payments are now a daily occurrence. Apple Pay maybe popular in the UK, and we will shortly see how popular (typing this on the way to the airport for Ireland), but in China we have Alipay and Wechat Pay. Claire when she came out to visit us in April wanted to know if there was Martinpay as we seemed to be Alipaying everything, but Alipay, connected to my bank … Continue reading Cash, Cards, Phone.

When typing up the first set of blogs again there were some parts of living that I glossed over or have improved since coming in August 2014. This is one of them. In the beginning right up until a couple of years ago, getting a taxi would be old style. Standing on a street corner, arm out while trying to make eye contact with drivers as they sailed on by. Or if you were lucky getting a taxi and then showing a taxi card in Chinese to the driver as to where you wanted to go. And if you were … Continue reading Standing on Street Corners.

And so this is the last blog that I have to type up from when I used blog.com If you are a regular reader then I am sorry I haven’t blogged anything original for a while… and if you are a new reader then I hope you will still read my new stuff – or indeed go back through my archives and read from 2015 onwards.  The last blog was written by husband, and this blog was written by my mum. Neither of them have blogged since!  We were greeted by Alison and Eleanor, a welcome sight after 10 hours … Continue reading A Month in China 25th March 2015 The final installment from Blog.Com

So off I go, being all independent, spending a night in Shanghai then a flight out to Guilin and yes it is awesome. The Karst formations are simply stunning. There was a cave which was the spit of Durdle Door, but it is called Elephant Trunk Hill as the image suggests! So I met for dinner with my friend on the first evening who broke the news that he would have to work for most of my stay. So he suggested I go up to Longsheng – he would pay for the entry attractions, the bus there and a hotel. … Continue reading While the wife’s away…… The Adventure 17th February 2015

It is difficult to put into words what the air pollution is like and how it governs our lives. Maybe it shouldn’t govern our lives, and maybe I shouldn’t think, though I don’t for the most part, about what the long-term effects are of living in an environment where the air isn’t that clean to breathe. On Sunday 25th January the Air Quality Index (AQI) reading was well over 350 otherwise known as Hazardous. Today the reading was 162 which is branded as Unhealthy. However on Wednesday the reading was in the 80s – Moderate. By contrast Edinburgh is around … Continue reading Can’t breathe 30th January 2015