An American Expat in China

The clock is counting down to the April holiday (Qing Ming) break.  Since my last post I went hashing on March 16th for the St. Patty's Day run.  It was a local run and we went up Wentianxiang. Despite my significant hangover on Sunday, Faye and I scouted trail for the hash on Saturday the 23rd.  We chose a trail on Yangtaishan.   During work that week, on March 21st, there was a cat in the 3rd floor garden.  It was not entirely clear how it got there but it had two kittens.  The staff took a while to try to catch them.  Our trail on the 23rd was pretty good.  We laid a great trail with a view stop, a beer stop, and a wine stop.  There were even a few minor injuries and close calls but nobody ended up in the hospital so it was ok. This last week has been slow going.  There is 4 days until our trip to Tokyo.  We are both looking forward to it but it will be a short trip so we will need to get as much out of it as possible betwee...

There are only a few major updates with this post.  The first and most important is that I was not promoted to high school science department chair.  Despite being familiar with the school systems and having an amazing record as a teacher with Basis, they decided to offer to job to someone with admittedly more leadership experience but less experience with the school.  It is disappointing.  What is most annoying is that the new hire who was offered the role will not be able to assume the role until after the first semester of next year.  This forces the current department chair to maintain the position for half of the year while this new guy proves himself worthy of the responsibility.  It is beyond me why they would put the department at risk and waste resources like this.  I am on the path to losing the weight I had gained since moving here. I am down to about 80-81kg (depending on what time of day I step on the scale).  Part of the success come...

Our long awaited Chinese New Year trip was fantastic. We started our trip with a visit to Da Nang in Vientam.  It was my second time there so I enjoyed showing Faye around the place, revisiting many of the places I had during my first visit, and seeing new places that I hadn't seen the first time.  We stayed at the Haian Beach Resort Hotel.  This is the same place I stayed last time.  We arrived on February 3rd and really only had time to score a little grass and get dinner.   On February 4th we got a massage to start our day.  We spent some time on the beach and then Faye got her nails done while I walked around town and got a bit more green stuff and some snacks. We finished the the day by watching the Dragon Bridge show.  This was a great way to ring in the year of the dragon. February 5th was a beautiful day for a tour so we visited Ba Na Hills.  There was a visit to a "silk factory" included in the tour but it was really just a shitty sa...