BootsnAll Travel Network



Winter and Spring 2016

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated this blog. I continued to teach at the university in the 2015 fall semester but decided to retire from full time work after that. We were living on campus in the apartment provided to me as part of my contract so since I was no longer working there we had to move off campus. My wife wasn’t too happy about moving off campus since it would be a longer walk for her to go to her classes and for meetings but accepted that I didn’t want to teach full time anymore. We found a small apartment just outside the campus that was suitable and moved in mid-January. It’s a two bedroom unit with about 750 square feet on the 7th floor of a 30 story building. It’s in a pretty new building and it’s decorated pretty well so it’s comfortable enough. The second bedroom has been made into an office and that’s where we spend much of our time. The kitchen is tiny and it’s quite an adventure maneuvering around with both of us in there at the same time. The bathroom has a Chinese style hole in the floor toilet (which is what most Chinese have in their homes). This is the first place I’ve lived in China that didn’t have a western toilet. I don’t like it but I’m getting by with it. I’ve read that that kind of toilet is actually healthier. Most rentals here are furnished which makes the move much easier since we don’t have to move furniture but we still had quite a bit of personal stuff to move. We hired a truck and 3 guys to move the stuff for us and the whole process of loading, driving and unloading only took about an hour and cost us about $55 US.

We had a TIC (This Is China – a term foreigners use here to describe things that only happen here) event happen shortly after we moved into the new apartment. I got up early one morning and found that the power and water was off. We could see that it wasn’t just our apartment and so we went down to the management office and found out that the power had been shut off because the management company had not paid the power bill which they blamed on too many residents not paying the bills to the management company. The residents don’t yet pay the power company directly because the developer still owes the power company some money. The management company does have the ability to turn off the power to individual units if they don’t pay but for some reason they hadn’t taken that approach. Some residents apparently hadn’t paid their power bills and other fees to the management company for over a year because they thought the management fees were too high. Many people paid their bills that morning then within a few hours the power was restored and has stayed on since but who knows if and when it will happen again. TIC!

Since we were moving we decided not to do any traveling during the winter holiday this year but I did plan a trip to the states for myself in late March to early April to visit family and friends and take care of some personal business. My grandmother died suddenly and peacefully in March so I went to the states about a week earlier than planned to be with family and attend the funeral. She was about a month short of her 102nd birthday and was in good health mentally and physically up to the end. We all miss her but she had been ready to go for years and she passed the way most of us hope to.

Even though I’m not teaching full time anymore I am still doing some work. I signed a contract with a training company for some part time work but so far they haven’t asked me to do very much which is fine with me. I’ve also taken on some private tutoring. I seem to keep plenty busy and rarely feel retired but I have found more time for reading.

Well that’s enough for now. Until next time………



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