I first visited Jiuzhaigou National Park in China’s Sichuan province with my parents in October 2009. I was surprised at how different my second experience was! It was early summer as opposed to Autumn, so there was a big colour difference.
Our 10 hour bus ride up the Min River valley from Chengdu to Songpan and across a long plateau and then down into Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan province – more interesting than it sounds!
Yu Gardens were as beautiful as I remembered, and it was my first time to visit the City Gods temple.
My previous posts about conversations (in Chinese) with Chinese locals have been pretty popular, so I thought it was time to again record for you a few snippets of interesting conversations I’ve had in the past few weeks. On the plane from Singapore to Beijing I was seated next to a nice man from va small town Shandong…
Stefan is one of my Beijing kids; he has been living in Singapore the last two years while doing his compulsory national service there (6 weeks to go!) He was at the airport to pick me up when I arrived despite the fact that my plane landed before 5:30am. We went back to his family’s…
The second leg of my trip was spent in Western Australia. For those unfamiliar with Australian geography, WA is twice the size of Alaska, more than three times the size of Texas, more than ten times the size of the UK. And it is home to less than two and a half million people. If there…
I am currently travelling, and I’m dividing up my stories into three parts. Also, I have a new camera! I have finally replaced the one that died in Buatong Waterfall (Chiangmai) last July :) On April 26th, 2012, my maternal grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. Quite the achievement! I planned a trip home to…
This week the Spring weather suddenly came upon us here in Beijing. The daytime temperatures soared to 13, 15, 20 degrees! It’s finally warmer outside than inside! And the overnight temps are almost always above zero. It’s very exciting. My puffy coats are back in storage til next winter, which is a very lovely thing.…
I woke this morning to find a layer of wet, white snow on everything. Last night’s rain turned to snow around 11pm as the temperature dropped. Gotta love snow after a week of warm weather (warm meaning tops of 12 or so several days in a row). The drive to church was so pretty! The…
So I’ve taught my two classes for four weeks now. Life is really busy, and I’m seeing the stress on my body in the form of extra headaches. That said, I’m seeing so much good in being around the students more. They’re such an awesome bunch. And the double-time work is just for a short…
Recently I alluded to an upcoming change in my normal schedule. Now let me explain. I’ve talked about IAB before – the Christian international school in Beijing. I also mentioned that there have been some problems at the school this year, including the loss of some excellent teachers and a lot of students. For the…
Chinese new year in Beijing is something quite difficult to relate second-hand. It’s something I recommend experiencing in person! Yes, there are plenty of annoying things about it, but I enjoy it anyway. I arrived in China just after Chinese new year 2004 and I was out of the country for the start of 2005,…
Stories From Tanya 