By Mark
Becoming Familiar
With most new situations in life you have two basic ways you can react : you can cope or go crazy. Accept and embrace or reject and hate. Find the adventure or only complain. The old adage of “attitude determines your altitude” holds true. But it’s not called culture shock for no reason. Reacting to … Continue reading
Guilin and Yangshuo
When you visualize the iconic images of China what do you think of? In the top 4 have to be Mao Zedong, The Forbidden City, The Great Wall and finally Guilin with its fantastic karst mountain topography. There is a common saying in Chinese : 桂林山水甲天下 : Gulin’s scenery is the most beautiful under heaven. … Continue reading
Guilin or Bust – Busted
Our first domestic vacation in China started out way too early and entirely on the wrong foot. Originally I had thought that I was booking the flights for 7:30 in the evening on Friday but it turned out they were for 7:30 am. When I realized this on Tuesday this started a series of time … Continue reading
Student Led
I’ve had the opportunity over the past several weeks to spend several visits at the kids school, Beijing City International School. I had the chance to meet twice with an education consultant, John Littleford, the school had hired to do an assessment. He conducted a series of interviews I’ve already written about. I also had … Continue reading
The Familiar
Many folks back in the states seem to react in shock at times about our decision to move to China. I still meet people here (at work) who are visiting from the States : “Hey what are you doing here? (Cause they expect to see me in Seattle not Beijing) “I live here.” “You do?” … Continue reading
Biking to Work
Traffic in Beijing This is a video taken while biking to work. It’s shot with a GoPro HD camera that I’ve mounted to the handlebars of my bike. I live around 1.6 miles from work and biking usually takes me around 10 minutes. Biking in Beijing is generally very safe once you adapt to the … Continue reading
The Last Logistical Bits
The last logistical bit of relocation bureaucracy is complete, our air shipments were delivered today at our apartment in Beijing. I’ll review a few details and things that I understand better now. Here is a tour of our Apartment Beijing Apartment Tour from mbgriffi on Vimeo. I wrote the about the process of getting permits … Continue reading
School in Beijing
I attended a focus group this morning at Beijing City International School where our kids go. It was an interesting experience and offers an opportunity to spend a bit more time writing about the kids educational experience. For the kids I think they have adapted the fastest here in Beijing, the routine alone has been … Continue reading
Snaggle Tooth
Today at school Miles and another boy were playing on the playground and he smashed his right front tooth on the head of another boy. I got a call from the school and they wanted us to pick him up and take him to see a doctor. Stac wasn’t feeling well so I left work … Continue reading
Settling, Settling, Settling
Well we have finally moved into our permanent home in Beijing. Â Its been a busy couple of weeks but we are finally feeling like we are settling in. Pee in a Bucket Last Saturday I went shopping for the last “big” purchase for the house. I was sick and tired of shopping at Ikea and … Continue reading