- Thursday 24th Dec: Normal Work Day. Examining students.
- Friday 25th Dec: Normal Work Day. Examining students. Ordered Christmas cake at bakery. Dinner with Miao at Abashi.
- Saturday 26th Dec: Prepared for phone interview.
- Sunday 27th Dec: Prepared for phone interview.
- Monday 28th Dec: Prepared for phone interview.
- Tuesday 29th Dec: Last elective lesson, played film. Gave another student their final exam (which he subsequently failed). Picked up cake from bakery on campus, they made a mistake of writing happy birthday, when I’d asked for merry Christmas. Prepared for phone interview.
- Wednesday 30th December 2009: Phone Interview With CSC, disappointing performance. Hoping for the best.
- Thursday 31st December 2009: Last day of teaching at Dawai. Talked with students, played some videos, and one student stormed out because she failed the exam, other students in class agree that both her attitude and skill warranted failure.
- Friday 1st Jan 2010: Rest at home. Installed CPanel on my VPS, apache install messed up. Restored server from backup.
- Saturday 2nd Jan 2010: Buy new camera (Panasonic Lumix LX3) , ate with Miao and her mother at local Brazilian all you can eat BBQ on Yanan Lu (Dalian) for 45 kuai.
- Sunday 3rd Jan 2010: Did some packing, ate dinner with Emmanuel at the Dawai Hotel (Cafe Travoria)
- Monday 4th Jan 2010: Met John for lunch at Abashi, Alex for coffee in Senmao Amici, onto find place for Alex to eat, failed, went to Bobo’s to have a chat and drink, ate dinner there. Read 2 emails from students asking to pass my elective course.
- Tuesday 5th Jan 2010: Burn DVDs with data from computer. Worked on job application. Packed some papers.
- Wednesday 6th Jan 2010: Met Paul for coffee and helped him with some computer issues. Need to email him about China proxies and how torrent stuff works. Paul saw the house, disappointed with only 2 rooms, saw that it had potential. Dalian Mayor’s Foreign Expert Dinner in the evening. Drank much wine for first time in ages. Enjoyed speaking with Shay. Went home with John (who leaves near me in Dalian) at 8PM cause nobody left around.
- Thursday 7th Jan 2010: Men came to pick up fridge and other packages to ship to Shenyang. Burnt DVDs of Data off computer.
- Friday 8th Jan 2010: Spent day with Byrnes. Ate curry at Abashi, went to local 168 hotel to book Byrnes in, drank coffee at 2 different Starbucks downtown. Ate steak at Amici Coffee near Youhao square. Walked to Bobo’s, dropped Brynes off and picked Miao up at the train station after having come home from business out of town. Miao dropped me off at Bobos in the taxi, and went home herself. Drink more at Bobo’s and walk home at around 11PM.
- Saturday 9th Jan 2010: Breakfast at Sanba Square McDonalds with Brynes. Coffee and Lunch at Starbucks and then Amici with Pengfei Duan. Sleep in late afternoon at home. Packing in the evening.
- Sunday 10th Jan 2010: Packing and Cleaning house. Bought 1TB sata disk at youhao square. Moved data around so that I can take back all photos and things to UK. Ate dinner at Abashi with John, Emmanuel and LiMing. Returned home early, moved 3 bags from house to John’s flat, for Miao to pickup later.
- Monday 11th Jan 2010: Emptied bank accounts in China. Converted currency to pounds, bought roast duck. Finished packing and cleaning. Left house at 12:10PM. Got on 1PM train to Shenyang. Good bye Dalian. Hello Shenyang. Bus to Miao’s Uncle’s unused second house. Sort out stuff that I’m taking to England. Taxi to Miao’s uncles house, eat Roast Duck that we’d brought with us from Dalian. Sleep.
- Tuesday 12th Jan 2010: Miao leave’s to goto work in morning. Goto museum in the afternoon. Walk home, buying things as we go.
- Wednesday 13th Jan 2010: Hair cut in morning. Eat at Korean BBQ in evening. Had first taste of dog meat, don’t think will be having it again.
- Thursday 14th Jan 2010: Make some blog entires in morning. Visit museum again in afternoon, to see the 3rd floor we hadn’t managed to have time to visit. Ate pizza at home (made by Miao’s mother). Played Plants vs Zombies for first time, made me quite agitated, don’t like it so much. Miao returned home for the night at 10PM.
- Friday 15th Jan 2010: Saw Miao off back to work. Read some blog entires of other people. Saw most recent episode of Dollhouse, can’t wait for finale. Watched QI. Make this blog entry. Expect Miao to come back this evening or tomorrow morning. Miao’s mother and aunt have been throughly cleaning flat.
Plans
- Saturday 16th Jan 2010: Meet Miao’s paternal relatives for Hotpot and spend afternoon with them.
- Sunday 17th Jan 2010: Flight back to UK. Leave home 6AM. Flight leaves 9.30AM from Shenyang-Beijing. Beijing-Frankfurt. Frankfurt-Manchester. Dad’s picking me up from Airport to take me home.
#1 by Bill on January 15, 2010 - 4:55 pm
Do you think you’ll miss it?
#2 by Alastair on January 16, 2010 - 8:25 pm
I think that after I get home, see my relatives, have a Cheese toastie and drink a pint of Guiness, I’ll then miss China and have the reality of how easy my life has been for 2 years set in.
#3 by Giles on February 3, 2010 - 4:49 pm
Man that’s a pain you didn’t stay. I know is hard and the teaching wages are poor, is a shame you couldn’t stick around and move into other another profession like computer in China…I guess your location hindered you as well as lack of time to do anything other than teaching….
#4 by Alastair on March 23, 2010 - 2:25 pm
Computer companies don’t want to employ westerners at graduate level, because the reason they’re in China in the first place is because labour is cheap. It’s the fact that I don’t have enough experience to be accepted into management positions that posed the problem.