I slipped and fell on adventure

I’m heading to England! 14 days and counting… I’m off on a two week road trip and, given more recent travels have had their ups and downs, am trying to pre-empt any foreseeable risks… one of which is… teeth problems. No one wants to go on a long-looked-forward-to adventure only to be thwarted by tooth mishaps! And… truthfully, I’ve had a couple of slowly deteriorating ivories, and ignored them because – well, there are far more interesting things to spend ones’ money on… like cheese… HOWEVER… I sensed Luck rubbing its evil little hands as I made my rather rigid English itinerary… and so, I stare back at you Luck (I shan’t call it Lady because why should hindrances always be blamed on a woman!) and say, “Ah-hu! One less route (mind the pun) for you to deter my joy!” I arranged to see a dentist to remove one of the three potential luck-co-conspirators. With some trepidation I agreed to go by bike with my Chinese colleague to a close-by dentist. I did wonder about riding a b...

The best of intentions… ? Not entirely relevant, but during the experience I did wonder whether I was in some rotating representation of purgatory… The idea of constantly rolling that stone up that hill, only for the stone to plummet back to the base (my apologies for mixing allegories!). Anyway, shall we start at the beginning? A long time its been since I’ve blogged, unfortunately I’ve not had much to say. This year I’ve focused less on short trips within China, and more on big trips to the UK and Thailand… thus a requirement to save, a feat rather incredible for me! Upon realising my dear OLD Dad (do forgive me Old Man) was to turn 60 in August this year, my plans changed, and a trip to Australia was added to the international itinerary. Leading up to the trip, in order to save (100 yuan is equal to 20 Australian… ) I stayed put in Tangshan. I’m currently (naughtily) teaching a couple of students Orwells 1984 and upon re-reading this dystopian novel see the society...

Changing careers is a complicated, difficult and somewhat scary experience...  knowing your change of career could impact the lives of young people... that feeling is atleast triple - fold! I hope that I am an OK teacher. I hope I can give something to some of my students at the very least... And just last week I received a message from one of my students... she was entering an English Essay Competition and had used ME as her subject... "I hope its not too terrible!" I wrote back, "Ofcourse not! Can I have a selfie to go with the essay?" "Only", I agreed, "If I can get a copy of the essay"... And here is it... An expose on me as a teacher... I didnt know what an impact I could have and it does nothing but inspire me to do more, be more and hopefully... become the teacher these kids deserve to have. Never A Bother At 2.34am, November 24 th 2017… my 684 day unrequited romance came to an end. I used to speak to my mot...

I forgot why I was here. Even after Mongolia I was getting involved in office politics, dealing with HR issues… not enjoying myself. The only respite was teaching and there simply weren’t enough classes to make up for the mundanity of what I’d left Australia to escape. So, while grumpy, I looked at my “Before I Leave China” spreadsheet, because ofcourse I have a “Before I Leave China” spreadsheet and chose the one place that I could go to that was a) not closed for winter and b) less than a 10 hour train ride away – Datong. There was a hanging monastery and some grottoes… looked ok. Datong City in a nutshell? It was founded in 200 BC during the Han dynasty, its located close to Inner Mongolia and was originally a walled city (you can still see the walls, although… as with much of China, it was rebuilt in the 1980’s), and the Western Capital. In 1277 Marco Polo visited, he was impressed by the look of the city, its enterprises, business… So a long and impressive history. You’d...