Sunday, July 12, 2009

Vancouver, Canada

At the skate park

Kits beach


Sunset in Vancouver

Wreck beach, a nude beach!
The return from Canada felt almost lie defeat but now that I think about it, it was more about taking a breather. You have to be persistent to accomplish the things that you want in life and there is nothing wrong with seeing new sites and reorganizing your thoughts to plan our the next chapter taking what you have learnt into account. While living in Vancouver I had very little funds, I had a temporary position through a friend of a friend of mine folding clothes. Yay Assembly line work. It wasn't enough money to fund my trip back to China so I had to dip into my savings form there I did get a job working at a bakery making tarts for a short duration of time. The boss and I didn't really click and I didn't personally like packing tarts into boxes all that much.

After I quit the bakery job I headed home to Edmonton, it will be nice to see friendly faces once again.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Guangzhou, China




Biggest and Best German beer.
183号 Yanjiang Middle Road, Yuexiu, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

Got to hit up happy hour for the large beers at half price! The food here was amazing and yes it is on the pricey side but you got to give yourself a treat. We had a wonderful Gegrillte Gǎnseschenkel nach Bouernart mit Kartoffelgroesti Country Style Grilled Goose Leg with Hash Brown 香草烤鹅腿配土豆饼 it is about 100元 and up but it is well worth it.
By this point I had quit my very first teaching position job due to a lack of better words 'sketchy' and not in a good way. I remember distictly my TESOL teacher telling me that if I don't like the job I have no real obligations to stay and stick it out till the end of the contract. You have to be happy where you are working especially when you are abroad.

Staying with family this time around was nothing like the last time in 2007. Since I was influenced by someone that I can fairly say with an outside prospective, was just dragging me down. Two and a half weeks later I was moving to a new city to try again.  Due to the lack of success in finding a new teaching job in China fast enough we were on the move. I hadn't given up just yet on teaching abroad it was something that I had always wanted to do. I just got a sour taste and not enough prep time to know all the working details of life abroad. I wish I had done more homework on this but even then knowing others stories and experiences are never the same as your own.