Hi,

Well we arrived back in Beijing in the early hours of 4th of December the plane from London to Warsaw left on time and we only had a 40 minute stopover there which was just enough time to get off go through security and board the next one which was a brand new Boeing Dreamliner. It was very comfortable with loads of leg room as i was by the exit door so could really stretch out and Jun had all 3 seats to herself so she made a bed and had a good sleep ha-ha,but it still took me about 10 days to recover from the journey and readjust to the time difference.

We had a very busy but productive time back in the UK we viewed over 30 properties and drove over 2,000 miles covering all the North and the East of England as well as South West Scotland. We looked around some beautiful homes and it was quite difficult making choices,we ended up with four favourites out of which we eventually went for the one in Gainford Village set in Teesdale in County Durham a really lovely little 100 year old house with a nice homely feel to it . Our offer was accepted so it is all in the hands of our solicitors at the moment with a completion date of April,so we will be going back in June both to furnish and decorate our new home and go to our nieces wedding in Liverpool in July.

Connie our campervan served us really well and gave us no trouble at all, we even stayed overnight in a camping site outside Glasgow on our way up to Dunoon it was very cosy.The Dunoon area was very  picturesque,with a nice ferry ride across and with stunning views across the Clyde and Holy Loch with some beautiful houses to look at, but we decided it was just to far from friends,family and our Buddhist Monastery.One amusing incident occured as we arrived at the ferry landing as i drove in there were three full lanes of parked vehicles so i just stopped behind the last vehicle in the third lane ( should have moved in to the next lane).After a little while one of the crew came up to me and said "congratulations you have single handly blocked the whole entrance into the ferry landing". When i looked behind me i had blocked the whole road in to the terminal and the traffic was backed up right back to the main road ha-ha.Another one was when we were driving through a town and Jun turned to me and said while pointing at an old victorian type house " look they have  free swimming baths there".When i looked it was a big old pub with a sign in the window saying "free pool" I had to explain what pool was and snooker/billiards,Jun had never heard of pool,we both had a great laugh about that one.

We are settled back at home now poor Jun had to return to work the following day which must have been hard for her I only started teaching again last week,and now Christmas has passed as just another day here so we have not celebrated it at all which will also be the case for New Year.Then we will be preparing to box up some of our belongings that are going to be shipped back to the UK,as well as ordering some goods to be delivered for when we get back.Jun has created a great online 3D effect plan of our house and we can decorate it and place various pieces of furniture in it to see how it looks...Amazing!

OK I will finish this short blog and wish all of you a very Peaceful Christmas and hope you all have a great New Year.             

Hi,

Well we have just about finished packing for our trip back to the UK we will be leaving Beijing early Monday morning the 4th of November and flying to Warsaw then catching a connecting flight to London, We plan on staying overnight as we arrive late then travelling up by train the following day. We bought ourselves a Citroen relay campervan which we are looking forward to picking up and travelling about in, as we set of on the mammoth task of viewing 40plus properties in North and East Yorkshire,Durham,Weardale,Northumberland and South West Scotland as well of course visiting family and friends and going up to Throssel Buddhist Abbey to spend some time with the monks.

Local news here is that I have taken on a bit more work teaching two adults conversational English so still keeping busy along with the three children I still work with. The weather has changed quite dramatically these last two weeks now a lot colder and a lot more smog days, I am in the third week of a throat and chest infection so have only gone out on nicer days to the parks and taking some photographs. There was also the terrible attack last Monday when it seems three people in a car drove around the crash barriers outside the Forbidden City in Tiananmen Square drove through the crowds killing two people and injuring over forty before exploding the car killing themselves. The Chinese Authorities at first claimed it was just a car accident but later reported it as a terrorist attack, and will now I am sure tighten up even further their security measures.

Other recent news is that I was contacted by a well known Australian artist who is at present preparing for an exhibition in late 2014 of her paintings/photographs on the theme of nature/flowers in hard environments. She asked me if she could use one of my photographs as a model for one of her paintings which of course I was very happy to agree to. She will credit me with the photograph in the exhibition and catalogue as well as sending me a copy of the painting when it is completed, her website should anyone like to look at is www.rospaton.com

OK I will finish this very short blog off here and write again upon our return.

Hi Everyone,

I have just been offered more work from another private education center here in the BDA area but I told them I will think about it and get back to them during the Summer holidays as I have just took on two new children teaching from home, I could work full time easily if I wanted to here, but as you know I am only interested in doing part time work. Although I have saved enough already to buy a car for when we go back to the UK, as well as buying a scooter here and camera equipment, so it has paid well and I have enjoyed doing it.

 Hi Everyone,

There is a 3 day holiday starts today so Jun is off although she had to work the weekend. We went to the antique centre a week gone Saturday to meet a couple from England who were in Beijing for a week I knew him from being a contact on Flickr so that was nice he had asked if we could meet up they are spending 2 weeks in China then off to Thailand,Nepal,Laos before going to Australia to work for a year. Then I invited them over to where we live so they could see a part of Beijing that isn't so busy and chaotic and they loved it, as they are thinking of coming back here to teach after Australia. I showed them around the BDA area and then we took them to the Mongolian Restaurant for a meal they are now in Xian ( where the Terracotta warriors are).
The Police Commissioner of Shanghai has just been arrested on corruption charges he was caught getting ready to flee the country apparently he had 5 passports and millions stashed away, just another one who is on the wrong team ( a supporter of Bo Xi Lei) there is so very much of this kind of thing going on here now it seems the supporters of the party that are not on top are being exposed for the same things the other party does a terrible business all round, but I try not to read or watch to much news both here and abroad. I am reminded of the piece in Hindu mythology about it all being Lila (All part of the divine play of the Cosmos).
I went back to the hospital the other week as I have had a problem with my left shoulder for over 6 months i.e. cant move it in certain positions without severe pain and aching a lot of the time went for x rays followed by a MRI scan and apparently I have a tear in my Rotary Cuff??? which requires surgery he was showing another young doctor the photos/x rays and discussing it then he asked me to lift my right arm and prodded various areas with his finger saying does this hurt ,can you feel that etc. So I said to Jun tell him its fine no problems but he might want to ask me the same questions about my left arm ha-ha anyway everyone seen the funny side of it.Then he suggested the surgery saying I will be in hospital for 2 weeks and it will take about 3 months to fully recover. I said and how much will that cost he said over 4,000 so that's completely out of the question assuming they even manage to  operate on the correct shoulder ha-ha.I think I will have to try and manage till next year and see if I can get it done while at home.
Our apartment complex looks really nice at the moment all the water is running in the streams it's full of fish, and everywhere beautiful cherry blossoms and magnolia and the weather has become warmer, I went out and took some photos the other day some of which are on Flickr and here on my website.
We are starting to book places to stay at when we travel to Indonesia in Aug/Sep so starting to look forward to that as I have never been there before the closest I ever came was sailing on a ship between the islands of Lombok and Bali, but Bali is on the travel list for 6 days.

Hi Everyone,
 We have just returned from what is now becoming our annual trip to Thailand as a welcome break from the Beijing winter weather,this year after 3 days in Bangkok we travelled to the north of the country.During the time in Bangkok we spent one day travelling by local train and ferry to the sea port of maha chai to visit the famous market that is on the actual railway track as you arrive,the stall holders have to move their goods back with the train passing with just inches to spare on both sides they have to do this 8 times a day.We then caught another train to visit a floating food market another further hour up the coast the trains were real boneshakers but very cheap.Another day we again booked an excursion train put on at the weekend for local people that stopped at various places where you could get off and wander around for 30 minutes,1 hour or even 2 hours at the last place,  we set off at 6.00am returning at 9pm visiting a couple of towns with temples then onto the bridge over the river kwai before crossing that and going further to the end of the line at a famous waterfall and hiking area called nam tok.The train was again a real old boneshaker with people walking up and down selling food all day and the guard going from carriage to carriage with his megaphone to let everyone know where we were and why we were running late or had to stop to let another train get further ahead etc lol.
On the last day in Bangkok we took the water taxis up river to the reclining Buddha temple and visited a famous massage centre affiliated to the temple,which was the best massage yet (and most painful),we had packed our bags and left them at the guest house and thinking we were booked onto the 10pm night sleeper train we were sat in the local temple grounds at 6pm and decided to double check the tickets and realized the train was leaving at 6.10.We raced back grabbed our bags and grabbed a taxi to take us to the next sceduled stop of the train which was at Bangkoks second airport it was due there at 6.50 anyway we got stuck in the rush hour traffic then got onto the toll roads but not much better we told him to take us to the train station but he dropped us off at the edge of the airport by which time it was 7.20 so we raced on foot for a further 15 minutes hoping to get a later train arriving at the station at 7.35 to find that in the tradition of Thai Railways our train had still not arrived lol,we finally left at 8pm arriving in Chang Mai at 9.00am.
Chang Mai was a beautiful place full of antique,gift,craft shops very laid back hippy feel to it,we stayed in a lovely guest house everything was made of wood in the traditional Thai way the owner even had a antique shop full of wooden objects.On the first afternoon we visited the womans prison in the old quarter of the town as we had heard that the prisoners as part of their rehabilitation were taught Thai massage and they practised on people for a small fee that was very interesting the girl who gave me my massage had 2 months training to complete with 3 months left to serve of her sentence.Such a lot to see in Chang Mai with night markets,weekend markets open air shows stunning temples etc.Our second day there we hired a scooter and set off to the hills and valleys of Mai Rim visiting botanical gardens,butterfly farm,found some old abandoned pick up trucks in the fields with the jungle growing through them also crossed a old bamboo swing bridge that locals used to get across a gorge with a box on a pulley line next to it for heavier objects.We also visited a large rock that was called the Buddhas Handprint as it had the shape and indentation of a palm and fingers in it.
Each night there was usually a thunder storm and on our second night it was so severe it broke off a large section of a tree in the grounds with it falling away from our chalet and crashing through the roof of the owners house going right through the roof,if it had hit our roof it would have landed on us as we where in bed at the time,first lucky escape of our trip.
The next day we visited some ancient Buddhist sites before driving on to the McKewan Leper Colony which i had read about, Mr McKewan was a doctor and Methodist Preacher who at the end of the 19th century founded the Leper Colony on an island,we visited the old huts where they lived as well as seeing the new hospital wings and modern bungalows where they now live.It was very touching to drive down past the bungalows and have people including two children wave at you or smile all with terrible deformities,as you can imagine this was not on the tourist itinerary of places to visit.On the way back we visited Bosang village which is famous for its handmade umberellas,very interesting to see how its all done by the villagers using old traditional methods.
The next day we headed off into the mountains to visit a famous temple called Wat Prathet Suthep Doi with a 300 step climb up to it,very beautiful but also very touristy, Jun and I had a water blessing from one of the monks while there, then we drove onto Phuping Palace which had amazing architecture and beautiful gardens.After this we continued up into the mountains to visit the village of Doi Pu and saw the Opium flowers being grown and cultivated in a local valley and cannabis one villager offered us some then tried to sell us uncut rubies and diamonds he claimed he brought from over the border in Burma while at the same time asking us both what jobs we did he quickly put them away when i mentioned Jun was a Customs Officer lol. Realized later we did not have much petrol left but managed to find a local cafe that sold petrol in what looked like old whisky bottles which got us back ok.
We went for another massage that night in a local temple and there was a french guy having his feet done while at the same time playing his guitar and singing, the woman doing the massage were joining in with the chorus while working on the rest of us great fun.
We went into town early on the Saturday to watch the annual flower parade all the floats were made from flowers and there was bands, local groups etc it was amazing in all it took over 3 hours to pass never seen so many happy smiling/laughing faces,needless to say i took loads of photos.
We then hired a car in order to drive further north upto the Thai,Burma,Laos border a very beautiful scenic route the first place we visited just before Chang Mi was the famous White Temple Wat Rong Khun a local famous artist Ajarn Chalermchai Kositpipat started it about 16 years ago wanting to build the most beautiful Buddhist Temple in the world and it will take another 20 years to complete.It is simply breathtaking to see it as well as being completely white it has small pieces of mirror glass inlaid in to it that reflect all the light,it's one of the most beautiful things i have seen.
We then drove up to visit three local villages of different ethnic groups including the tribe called Karen or as they are usually called "the longnecks" where the woman wear very heavy metal rings around their necks and eventually they cant take them off or they would die of asphyxiation,it was strange to walk around the village seeing how they still live i asked permission from them to take every photo and  not once did any refuse i visited the school a one roomed hut which the teacher told me she taught 12 children in.
There were lots of road blocks we had to go through on the way up and back as it is still a area for smugglers being close to the once infamous golden triangle but we were usually just waved through once they saw us.
We left Chang Mai on the last day to fly to Bangkok airport to transfer to the second airport for the night flight back and as we were on the plane being pushed out onto the runway i watched the ground crew disengage the tractor then walk away and turning to put their thumbs up to the crew to signal they were clear then they all in unison put their hands together and bowed to the plane,I said to Jun isn't that beautiful then we set off down the runway as the plane thundered down just before lifting up there was a loud noise from the engines being presumably put in reverse and severe breaking and shuddering as the plane stopped at the end of the runway we then returned to the airport with the pilot telling us there was a mechanical fault and they would repair it then we would be on our way at which point two men jumped up and said they wanted to get off,which they then did.Eventually happy to say after 45 minutes they fixed it and we took off but with a lot of very anxious people on board,second lucky escape lol.