Back in China

Hi Guys,

Well, here is our first official post of the 2009-2010 school year in Shanghai, China. Sorry it's taken a little while, but after arriving here we found, to our chagrin, that tons of sites have been blocked in China: blogger, twitter, you tube, facebook... to name a few. We felt completely cut off from the world! But now thanks to the computer expertise of friends of friends, we've hacked thru that firewall and are back in business!

So... updates: We've been here for a week now and it's taken that long to settle in, get groceries, do an Ikea-run for missing household items, unpack boxes and suitcases, etc. We are still not completely over our jet-lag yet which is strange, especially for me, b/c I usually don't struggle with it much at all. I'm still waking up around 4am though and getting really tired by 8pm. I'm sure it'll all sort itself out soon enough though.

As most of you know, the reason we had to move apartments is b/c the school has built a new campus in another part of the city and we wanted to be within walking distance to it. We had a tour of the new campus a couple days ago and it's like a RESORT!! It is seriously SOOO nice! I'm trying to attach pics here as I write this, but sadly it doesn't seem to be happening... another time.

In addition to a new school, we also have new staff from Canada. Last year was the first year of our program so we only had grade 10s and therefore only had 48 students and 4 Canadian staff. This year we have 121 kids in grades 10 and 11, and 7 Canadian staff. Two of the new staff (Ash and Erika) are about the same age as Andrew and I and we've been having loads of fun together already. Ash just finished up with being a semi-pro tennis player so he has tons of knowledge in fitness and training. The 4 of us have already been down at the track a couple times doing interval training... trying to increase our fitness... lots of fun!

Some of you have been asking about our new apartment: it's way nicer and way bigger than last year's. The outside hallway area looks kinda ghetto, but once you get inside it's all good. It has 2 bedrooms, a huge bathroom, and the kitchen is twice the size of our one last year.... yippeee! It was such a pain last year, but no more of that now. Our living room is as big as a dance hall, so I'm gonna have to sign Andrew and I up for ballroom dancing or something... we definitely have the room to practice! Again, I'll try to attach the pics soon... it's just soooo slow right now.

As for school, it starts tomorrow (Sept 1st) so this is our last day "off"... I'm gonna try to brush up on my Chinese online today as it's slipped a bit over the summer. Andrew is busy practicing guitar at the moment... he's keen to play more shows this year. We are also doing the worship music for a friend's wedding at our church in 3 weeks... will be fun!

For those of you who would like to call us, our phone number again is 604.248.5191 but for some reason it's not working yet... we're still trying to iron out the wrinkles on that.

Okay, I will try again later to post the pictures of our apartment and our school. If it doesn't work, you'll just have to come see it yourself in person!

Back to China We Go!

Hi Everyone,

This is a quickie last-minute post to say good-bye and thanks for a great summer! It's now Friday afternoon and we have just returned to North Van from a great week at Barnabas Family Camp on Keats Island with my (Corinna's) family. It was a total blast and very relaxing as we played tennis, went waterskiing, wakeboarding, kayaking, sailing, and spent lots of time with my family. Plus we had awesome sunny weather, which is useful when sleeping in a tent.

We are flying back to Shanghai this Sunday morning (August 24th). Our boss booked us on Air Canada, which I'm a wee bit nervous about after hearing plenty of horror stories about their service, etc recently. O well... it's only a 12-hour flight... what can go that wrong?

The picture above is from earlier this month when we went to Andrew's cousin's wedding in Iowa. It was such a great time, and nice for me to meet all the extended Nairns from South Africa whom I'd never met before.

Just a heads up that Blogger is still blocked in China (so my sources tell me), so this blog may not be updated all that often. If that's the case, I'll try to send email updates instead, or look for another free blog provider that's NOT blocked there. I will keep you posted.