Finally!!!!

Yes, I'm finally updating our blog. It's been months since I've had the time to actually sit down and blog. I guess the biggest thing that has happened in the past few months was Gavin and my trip to Thailand for the job fair. The first job fair of the season for international teaching jobs is in Bangkok each year so we had been planning this for months. It was a week full of ups and downs but was worth it all.

Gavin and I left a very cold Shekou Sunday afternoon and arrived in Bangkok late Sunday night. We woke up to a very sunny and warm 80 degrees. This was a shot from our hotel room. The job fair didn't start until Tuesday night but we wanted a few days to relax before the whole roller coaster started. We spent the first day laying out by the pool, did a little shopping and then went to a dinner cruise on the river that night.

We felt like quite the tourists but it was fun to just spend time together.

Along the river were many of the tourist spots that they had lighted up. It was a very romantic beautiful night.


After dinner we were entertained by Thai dancers. They danced right next to our table. It was amazing how they bend their fingers.




Tuesday we registered for the job fair and again spend the day just relaxing by the pool. The fair was at the Shangri La Hotel right on the river. Tuesday night the fun began with an orientation and many trips to check our mail box at the hotel. The boxes are where the schools can contact you if they are interested in setting up an interview. Prior to the fair we had researched and selected only seven schools that we felt would be a good match for us and contacted them prior to the fair. We checked our box numerous times Tuesday evening and finally had an invitation for an interview from ISG in Saudi Arabia. This was one of our top picks and were very excited to know they were interested. We were able to schedule interviews with several of our top schools for Wednesday morning.

After several days of interviews and lots of ups and downs, we were offered jobs with ISG in Saudi. We were very excited and relieved. We still had a few days left in Bangkok and spent them doing a little sight seeing and lots of shopping.

On Friday Gavin wanted to venture out and decided to go on a little "walk" to find a temple. We walked and walked through the city and finally found it but weren't able to take pictures inside so we snuck this one while walking by. It was pretty cool but Gavin decided he wanted to continue walking to a park. Our little "walk" turned into a five mile hike through the city which took us over an hour.
I was not the happiest camper at this point. Fortunately we were very close to the skytrain and jumped on and were back to our hotel in half the time.
The best part of the day was our fried bananas and ice cream. This really did taste as good as it looks.

The thing I love the most about Thailand is the shopping. We were lucky enough to have time on Saturday morning before our flight back to China to go to the huge outside market. It is a wholesale market during the week and is only open to the public on the weekends. They have some amazing deals and I brought back lots of cool things for hardly nothing.

It was a very fun and exciting week. Now we are preparing for our move to Saudi. Our adventure here in China is coming to an end in three months but another one will begin.