Travel Life

 Guangdong is the home to many interesting secrets and fine details of Chinese life and culture in the twenty-first century. Being someone who participates in a great amount of outdoor recreational activity, I drink a lot of water and being someone who often appreciates the legitimacy of "don't drink the tap water", I often drink NongFu Springs water. The springs, I found out this year, are actually located in a water conservation park called outside of the city of Heyuan. interestingly enough, the park is open for visitors and is actually quite nicely put together and surprisingly clean for how many tourists were coming through the area. I also reckon, the lack of tourist items available deterred people from disposing of garbage in a poor manner because there was not much in the way of garbage for them to dispose of.  Interesting thought, if tourists can't buy things that make garbage, would tourism still lead to an overwhelming acucmulation of plastic pollution? Her...

 This year our staff in the international high school took a retreat day to go into the city and have a day together. Our Principal preferred it to be professional and proactive, originally we were told we'd be going to the Ling'An Impression Garden. As a department being tired at this particular time of the year (end May/Beginning of June), we asked if there were other options, something that wouldn't require lengthy bus trips or maybe even a whole day.  The museum took the better part of 3 hours and we went for a pretty great lunch (Turkish).   It was family and friends so the couple families on staff (including my own), came along.  Sharing some of the pamphlets on the exhibitions available and some of the photos from that day. Getting to the Museum is easy enough, and it is in an excellent location for a tourist. It is next to the Flower Square in TianHe, close to the river! A trip to this great coffee and chat sort of attraction in Guangzhou is especially r...

Guangzhou "Things to Do" Double Feature Grandview Mall (TianHe Sports Complex Area) Living here in Guangzhou for the last few years, and being here through a portion of the later COVID-19 Pandemic has been an experience to say the least. One noticeable thing that has evolved/changed since what would seemingly be "life before" is the way that the malls are producing experiences for children and adults alike. Bars took a hit in China across the country during the pandemic, many closed, needed to relocate, but there was a question of "what to do with the spaces that were left vacant in plazas and malls?" It would generally be high rent properties that would seemingly close down and reopen somewhere else (usually much more inconvenient, but a good bar won't lose its patrons).  Many of the rental spaces were changed into restuarants and in other cases, children playground areas. Grandview Mall is a crazy example of a mall that seeks to keep people there wit...

 My parents wanted to share some photos of Canada's winter this year with their grandson :p By far the most interesting was the excavator on the shore at Lakeshore Rd. 

Well, finally, after nearly 10 years, the Samsung Galaxy kicked the bucket, the bluetooth driver seemed to stop functioning as well as the physical phone speakers. Without being willing to spend time on reseting and diagnosing the system to isolate whether it is hardware or software for sure, it seemed bleak, the headphones jack still worked though, however not really being willing to transfer music (aas I predominantly used it as a music playing device), to a device that requires a headphone that plugs into the device physically, I allowed it to pass on into its next stage of existence-recycle. Ultimately concluding this roller coaster of purpose and functionality,  Samsung seems to provide technology that can pass the test of time, Android however, they over complicate their iOS, which is great for developers and "debugging" tools, however there are things that they could learn from Apple Tech still. --------------------------------------------------------------------------...

 I recently came across some of the screenshots of success I felt (at that time) in the way of some iPad iOS Application/games, specifically, Mortal Kombat and CODm. Not much in the way of achievemtns in the grand scheme of life, however, coming across them reminded me of how nice it was to take "down-time". Taking "down-time" is essential, in work, life, socially, physically-really without "down-time" you should be expecting to be burnt out. Yes, as a teacher this is something I often reflect on, but I felt it might be a necessary travel article, especially for young folk who want to see the world on a budget. Its true, not everyone has 2 weeks to spend in one place if they are on a bit of a time frame/budget.  It is important though to recognize that down-time might very well be that time just before you get out of bed or right after a shower (while waiting for yourself to stop sweating after the shower-unless of course you cranked out the budget to just...