My Birthday last month

Last month I celebrated my 30th birthday... fun times. It was on a Sunday, so when Andrew woke me up I had some relaxing time to peruse the treats he had put on the table for me... flowers, a card, some chocolate, and a couple magazines I like. The card had a "coupon" in it for a kiteboarding lesson, which I'm so excited to use, but it hasn't been windy enough since my birthday to give it a try. It might take a couple more months for the wind to pick up, but I'll def be out there asap!

After reading my cards and opening presents, Andrew took me out for brunch at Ridges, the resort we used to go swimming at a lot. It also happened to be Mother's Day that day, so the whole place was full of moms and very loud kids, but that's okay. We all got a welcome drink (champagne) at the door, so that was nice. Any place that puts a drink directly in my hand upon entry is good! Nice and relaxing after a bit of a drive to get there.

Here's the view from our table... pretty nice!

And we were seated right next to the live entertainment... this guy was really good and I loved listening to him while we ate.

After brunch we took a stroll around the grounds of the resort and had little game of tetherball... with racquets. Not quite sure what it's called, but you can imagine how it works.

The next day at work I was called to the office to pick up a "package." Thinking it was the book I had ordered on Amazon for Andrew's masters, I wasn't too excited, but when I got to the office it was actually this amazing flower arrangement from our friends Dave and Nikki in Brisbane. It was SO nice of them to remember my birthday and think of me!

As more cards came in the mail that week, the table was getting pretty crowded with birthday stuff. If you sent a card, see if you can spot it above!

At the end of the day on my birthday, Andrew and I played on the worship team at our church (as we do every 2-4 weeks). Andrew usually plays bass, electric, or acoustic guitar, and I always play keys.


Overall it was a good birthday... probably a bit more low-key than if I'd turned 30 in Vancouver, but that's okay. Thank you so much to everyone who made the day special by calling and sending cards... very kind of you!

Getting Crafty

For the past couple years I've been coveting these Havianas flip flops with a Swarovski crystal on them. I always promised myself that the day my old Roxy flip flops bit the dust, I'd go out and buy these.

The day finally came a few weeks ago where my Roxy ones broke, so I happily went off to the store to claim my new flip flops. But as I stood there in the store trying them on, I wondered if the $39 price tag was really worth it.

I tried to justify it by telling myself that I don't buy shoes that often, these ones were really cool, etc etc, but I just couldn't justify spending that much on two little pieces of rubber. So I decided to leave them there and think it over while I went grocery shopping.

At the grocery store, I happened to pass by a bin full of no-name flip flops for $1.99. Problem: no crystals! But I tried a pair on anyways, and they fit and were comfortable, so I bought them. On the way home, I stopped by the craft store and bought:

A pad of sticky crystals (not Swarovski, but whatever), and a bottle of crazy glue. When I got home, I did a quick glue job, resulting in:


Even better flip flops than the Havianas... I got TWO crystals on each foot... guess I one-upped them!

The Rocky Zoo

Here I sit at 2:20am, unable to sleep after a busy day, so I shell tell you about our visit to the Rocky Zoo last weekend. It was our 2nd time going to this free zoo, and it's always a good time, especially the chimps, Cassius and Octavius ("Cassy" and "Ocky"), who are both around 40 years old.



At first Cassy was way up high in his cage... but this loud Philippino lady convinced him to come down to the observation window and give her some kisses thru the window (see first pic). I tried to copy her, but Cassy was not too keen on kissing me (see second pic)... but at least I got my pic taken with him.

The Rocky Zoo is a free zoo, and is linked with the Botanical Gardens beside it. Discovering this little gem in the midst of Rocky has made living here all the nicer. It's full of lush tropical trees and vines... a really nice place to go walk around and relax and see some interesting Australian animals. There's also a nice path along the river that's good for running on.


Here is one of the dingos... playing dead I guess.


Here is a freshwater crocodile... you can tell them apart from saltwater crocs b/c of their long, pointy snout. They usually don't feed on humans, but last time we were here this guy took a snap at a kid who stuck his fingers thru the fence (marked, "do not feed your fingers to the croc")... the kid pulled away just in time though! This pic is not too great b/c you couldn't really take a good pic thru the fence... Andrew was trying to hold the camera above the fence, without seeing the viewfinder.


Leaving the zoo... here is Andrew driving our little car (we call it the "Blue-Bottle")


Here I am trying to operate the canon-launcher. It was made in Germany, and used to fight in WWI in Turkey (Galipoli), where it was seized by the Aussies and brought back to Oz. Now it sits in the Botanical Gardens in Rocky (they traded it with Sydney for a big gun), next to the giant war memorial in the gardens. It blew my mind how such a heavy piece of equipment has traveled so far around the world. (By the way, this thing shot 15cm canons up to 8km!!)


This is an emu. It was making these strange noises... like a grunting pig. We seriously thought the zoo had wild pigs when we heard this noise from a distance... but when we got closer we noticed the noise was coming from an emu! This one was about as tall as me. An interesting thing about emus is that the male bird sits on the eggs, and then raises the young for the first couple years, not the mom.

More Vancouver Pics

Here are a few more pictures of my recent trip to Vancouver for Em's wedding. The first one is of my friend Cathy, who is having her first baby in a couple months. It's funny b/c when I saw her at Christmas she was all excited about being pregnant, but you couldn't even tell she was pregnant at all, even when she pushed her belly out after eating a big lunch! A few months later, you can totally tell she's really pregnant! :)


I also got to hang out with my good friend, Alysa. Alysa and I have been great friends since doing our BEd together at UBC 6 years ago, and she's one of the funnest people I know. In April she and I went to her friend's Passover celebration meal, which was really interesting. At the front door there was this Jewish flamingo, complete with the Jewish hat and 2 curly locks... we nabbed him for a picture.

Part of the meal involved re-enacting the Israelites' escape from Egypt. We were all given roles to play, and Alysa was the Pharaoh (see above). We went thru all the plagues, including the plague of boils... the host put these little yellow circle-stickers all over us (boils), which you can (kind of) see in the picture.

One of the most creative parts of the meal was the dessert, which was the parting of the Red Sea made out of cupcakes (maybe the icing should have been red?!). Such a cool idea!

That's all for now... more to come!

~Corinna

Life in Rockhampton (Rocky)

I thought you might like a little tour around Rocky, so we'll start with the best pics: the pools! The one above is the pool at the university near our house where we go to swim laps. It's a 25m pool with 8 lanes which are usually pretty busy with swim clubs, but we squeeze in there, and it's good times. This is also where our school had their "swimming carnival" which is like a big intramural swim competition day that ALL the kids get involved in. They dress up in their house colors and go all crazy... a very exhausting day!


The next pool is about 45 minutes from our house at a little resort near the beach called Zilzie. We were at a sport expo and were given free promo tickets for a day on their grounds, including the gym, tennis courts, and pool (of course they were hoping we'd join!). We lucked out and had a day where we had the place almost entirely to ourselves... a great little place, but we ended up not joining, as it was a bit too far to drive.


This last picture is of Andrew washing our windshield at the gas station. A funny thing here is that they don't call it "gas" since they say gas is really a vapor. They call it either fuel or petrol, and there's some kind of a difference between those two as well. Our car uses "fuel," and that's all I need to know! Since we walk to school and don't drive much, we only have to tank up about once a month anyways, which is nice seeing as gas prices are just going up and up. In the above pic we paid $149.5 a litre... ahhh!

That's all for now... more to come I'm sure!

~Corinna

Em and Brendan's Wedding

As you know, I came home for Emily and Brendan's wedding last weekend, which was wonderful. It was so nice to see my family again and be part of such a wonderful day!

The bridesmaids dresses, which were a very beautiful color, were, shall we say, an interesting style (thanks to an interesting seamstress, as I hear). The dresses had big fold-out pleats in both the front and back, making us look like big-bummed pregnant ladies... see below for example!

The most eventful occurrence of my trip back to Oz happened at the Sydney airport security. I had checked two bags from Vancouver to Sydney, but on my next two flights home (on a smaller airline), I was only allowed to check one bag, so I took the second bag as a carry-on.

I should mention that this second bag, although brand-new, had never been traveled with- only used to store some clothes and stuff in (which all lives in the Nairns' basement). So I had unpacked the stored stuff, and put in the things I wanted to take back to Oz with me.

Fast forward to the security check. They put my bag through the x-ray, then stop it, have a closer look, etc. Next thing I know, this security guard (called "Muhammed"), is accusing me of packing knives in my carry-on. I was like, "Ummm, no, there are NO knives in there," thinking he must have seen wrong on the x-ray screen. He was like, "Yes there are, and I could call the police right now." I was like, "Well, even check for yourself."

So he starts going through my bag. No knives. YES! Then he opens the side pocket (which I hadn't checked), and pulls out two of Andrew's pocket knives. O ya.... oops. They were stored in there in the basement... guess I hadn't been thorough enough in cleaning the bag out!

So I went back out of security and checked the knives with the airline so I wouldn't have to throw them out. Luckily when I went back through security for the second time, I was directed to a different line-up and didn't have to face Muhammed again!

So here's to carefully checking ALL your pockets before you fly!

~C

Blogging Hiatus is OVER!!

Hi Everyone,

Okay, I've decided to start blogging again... I really don't have any excuse not to anymore (like I did when we were living in China and they blocked blogger over there). But I've been inspired by some other really great blogs, and thought I should get back on it.

I realize that since we're living in Australia and are far from home, it might be interesting for my family to read what we're up to, even if these things seem a bit insignificant to us... like this picture (which I'm sorry is sideways):



This is our pantry. You know how you pray before meals and thank God for the food? Well, I always pray and thank God when I'm unpacking the groceries and filling up the pantry b/c I realize how blessed we are to have so much. How can you NOT realize it when there's SO much of it staring you in the face?!

Also, I love colorful things, so this was a fun picture for me to take.

K, gotta plan a lesson and then get ready for soccer practice tonight- fun times!... talk soon!

~Corinna

Hi Everyone,

In case you are still checking this blog from time to time, here's a nice little post just for you! As you may or may not know, China has blocked the blogger site (along with facebook, youtube, twitter, etc), and that is why we haven't been able to update our blog at all.

We are now on holiday in Australia for a few weeks which means internet freedom!! So far our trip has been great... we've been staying with various friends (and friends of friends) along the Gold and Sunshine Coasts, have been surfing a couple times, and picked up my sister Emily from the Brisbane airport this past Monday. She is travelling with us for a week, then heading farther up north towards Cairns where she'll be joining up with a Contiki tour and heading back down the coast to Sydney. We've loved hanging out with her so far and have been having loads of fun.

We will def be posting pictures of our trip somewhere at some point... so keep tuned. Also, please don't give up on our blog completely as we anticipate our emancipation from China at the end of June to some more internet-friendly place where we will keep blogging from!

C-ya!!

~Corinna for Team AC (and Em!)

Andrew's 33rd Birthday

Okay, while Blogger is in the mood, I figured I should post a few more recent pics, even though I REALLY need to get to bed now and will pay for it tomorrow... o well... just a few more minutes. Anyways, as some of you know, Andrew celebrated his 33rd birthday last week, so here are a few pics of the day (sorry they're a bit out of order):

Big dinner in the evening with the principals and all the foreign staff at a steak restaurant. It was a super-great coincidence that it was planned for the same day as Andrew's b-day as he LOVES steak!

Crazy dry-ice drinks after dinner... not that we were drinking the dry ice, but they were served with dry ice all around and came to the table steaming (or whatever it is that dry ice does)... fabulous presentation!

My drink, also presented with dry ice... it was "rose juice" which I chose off the menu just b/c I'd never tried it before (and had never even heard of it), so I figured "what the heck, why not?!" It was SO delicious! I think I'm hooked.

At the end we turned out all the lights and brought Andrew cakes and sang Happy Birthday to him... I hope he was surprised. Notice the Canadian and Chinese flags on the table? Nice touch.

A full picture of the 14 dinner guests... all the Chinese people on one side; us whiteys on the other. Seating is VERY important to the Chinese and there's usually a big (LOUD) discussion about who sits where, and then we're assigned our seats.

At the end of the evening, the restaurant gave us all a present: half of us got tea towels with the restaurant's name embroidered on it ("Wang Steak"), and the others got a pair of slippers, again with Wang Steak on them. Random!

Birthday table for Andrew before breakfast... I got him a few gifts (that I'd brought from Canada) and his parents had sent along a card too... he was very happy with it all!

New addy

A few peeps have been asking about our new home mailing address, so here it is:

Andrew & Corinna Nairn

Room 11B, No. 20

Lane 99 East Nandan Road

Shanghai, 200030

CHINA

Can't wait for the mail to start pouring in!

New School Pics

Hi Guys,

Alright, as promised, here are some pics of our school's new campus where we have the pleasure and privlege of working this year. The skies are sunny again in blogger-land, permitting me to post pics today; tomorrow I might not be so lucky... so better get 'er done now! Enjoy:

An overview of our office. There are 12 desks/teachers in here and it's lots of fun!

A close-up of our area. Andrew's desk is on the left (where he's sitting), and mine is on the right (the empty chair). We are desk-mates and it is so nice! We even share a stapler!

Our wing of the building... we are on the 4th floor.

The open-concept hallways. This is right outside our teachers' office. Looks nice, eh?!

In the school cafeteria. Ash couldn't manage to eat with chopsticks at first, so he used one of our carrot-sticks as a spoon... it was pretty funny!

The very front of the school (the administration building)... this is the very first thing you see when you come thru the school gates. I hope they're gonna put some sort of sign in that big empty space, b/c it looks a bit weird I think.

A few interesting facts about our school:

-teachers get free breakfasts and lunches in the caf every day... we haven't ventured to try the conchee (watery rice porridge) in the morning, but lunches are okay... beggars can't be choosers!

-b/c the principals are SO freaked out about the kids and staff getting swine flu, they've decided to issue ALL staff a daily vitamin C pill, plus all-you-can-drink milk all year long... very nice of them!

-the school is right across the street from a few different hospitals

-the guy who hands out the PE equipment (yes, that's a job here) is a chain-smoker. He gives the kids basketballs while a smouldering cigarette is dangling from his lips... gross!

-every morning as we come thru the school gates we get our temperature taken by a student moniter who holds this gun-type-thing up to our forehead. Not sure if they let you in if you have a temp, but so far we haven't had to find out! Again, it's a swine-flu thing.

That's it for now...

~Ciao

3 Steps to a Clean Body

As I'm writing this, Andrew is jamming on his guitar... which he's been doing for the past hour. I am SO lucky to have such a musical husband... in-house entertainment (literally!) all the time!

As I think I wrote before, I'm teaching Planning 10 and PE 11 this year. The Planning course is old news as I did that last year already, but the PE thing is all new; I haven't taught full-time PE in 4 years now, so I'm super pumped about it. My first lesson with the kids was this past Thursday, and I thought I'd start out with some basics.

You see, some of these kids' personal hygiene could more accurately be described as "low-giene"... especially the boys. For example, they'll go out and play basketball at lunch for an hour (in the 30-degree heat) and get so sweaty that their shirts are see-through and their hair is dripping wet. Then they'll come back in and sit in class like that for 4 more classes in the afternoon. GROSS! I told them no more of that and had a whole object lesson of what a PE strip looks like, which is news to them! Seriously! And these kids are in grade 11!

What I did was have a big collection of "supplies" in a bag and pulled them out one by one and explained what they were for and how to use them. The kids were captivated! Amongst these items were a washcloth, a towel, deodorant, and a fresh t-shirt. I demonstrated how one would wet a washcloth and wash the face, neck, body, and armpits (in that order!), then towel-dry them, apply deodorant (not to be shared with classmates!), and put on a clean shirt. (Obviously I didn't strip down in front of them to show all this, but they go the idea). In the end they all thought it was a good plan and agreed to bring the suggested items next week! Sorry I don't have any pictures of all this.

In other news... Andrew and I (along with our friend Garrett from San Diego) are playing a show tonight at a little lounge/bar here in Shanghai, which should be fun. Andrew and Garrett both play accoustic guitar, and I'm the back-up singer. Shame I don't have my keyboard here, but it was too heavy to pack and is nestled comfortably in Tony and Gill's basement in North Van. Anyways, the show will be good I think. The only thing that discourages us from doing more of them is that ALL the bars here are super-smokey so you come home absolutely REEKING.

Also, we got gym memberships at a new gym yesterday, which is a 10-minute walk from our house. We are so happy b/c the gym we went to last year is now too far away for us (after the move). Plus, we got our Chinese secretary at school to do the groundwork on gym research for us (she's a STAR!), and she somehow bargained them down from 2800 RMB to 1500 RMB for the year. What a deal! Moreover, 6 of us Canadians joined at once, so we'll all be able to hold each other accountable for working out. It also has a bigger swimming pool than last year, so we'll hopefully be able to swim proper laps without having to negotiate around Chinese "waders".

Alright, that's all for now... have a great weekend!

~Team AC

Pictures

Hip hip hurray... today seems to be our lucky day as blogger is in the mood to post pictures! Enjoy!Our good friend Alysa was a super-star and drove us to the airport EARLY in the morning in Vancouver. (Notice her sad face b/c we're leaving!). There is a bit of a story here as she came with me to buy the infamous pink suitcases way back in 2005 when I went to England for the year. She's a GREAT friend!


Andrew patiently waiting for our flight in the beautiful Vancouver airport. Seriously, in which other airport in the WORLD could you quietly wait beside a creek, amongst greenery and totem poles?

Here begins our house tour: this is the kitchen... literally TWICE the size of last year's. Please notice my 4.5 feet of counter space on the right side! Twice as much as last year! Yippee! Andrew and I can happily co-exist in the kitchen without having to do the Tango to get around each other.

This is the guest room/office where you can sleep when you come to visit. The bed is considered a "double" by Chinese standards, but everything is a bit smaller in this country (as per the size of most Chinese people I guess).


Our bathroom: about the same size as the kitchen... it's so big you'd think you were in a real house, not an apartment. For the first time in about 5 years we have a bathroom counter complete with DRAWERS! The laundry washing machine is also in the bathroom. Like our grandma-motif shower curtain? That'll soon be changed!


The master bedroom. If you look closely you can see my stuffed monkey on the left side. Andrew likes to put it into funny positions every day... here he's doing a handstand I think. It makes me laugh. Also attached to our bedroom, we have a big enclosed balcony where we can hang our clothes to dry. Much better than last year where we had so little space in our house that we had to stand the drying rack on TOP of the guest bed to conserve floor space!


Our living room: it has 10-foot ceilings and crown moulding... FANCY! The leather couches are an awkward-mustard color, but very comfy! We have tons of space in here and plan to have plenty of parties.

So as you can see, we are really really happy with our new joint. The only two complaints we have are that it still smells a bit smokey (from previous renters I think) and the fact that it backs out onto a busy main road, which makes it a bit noisy. We'll get used to it though.

Hopefully we'll be able to post pics of the new school soon... it's a beauty!

~Team AC