Teacher Carl 4/26/18 Teacher Carl 4/26/18

Answers to common questions: 'Teacher, why have you lived in so many different countries?'

My father was in the United States military when I was born in the USA, and was stationed in Germany for about one and a half years when I was still a baby.

My parents divorced after returning to the USA, but my mother remarried to another military man, and we moved to Italy to live there for about another one and a half years until I was twelve years old, and then returned to the USA.

Later, we moved to England for three years, until I graduated from high school.

I moved to China after I was married and had my own family. We lived there for three years, from 2010 through 2012. We lived in Jiamusi, Heilongjiang for two years, and Beijing for one year. This is when I started my teaching career.

Teacher Carl 10/3/12 Teacher Carl 10/3/12

Beijing Mutianyu Great Wall of China

Waiting for the subway early in the morning to start our trip to the Great Wall.

This is Linda, another teacher at the school I work at. Several of us went together to the Great Wall.

You have to get up very early to beat the crowd on the subway. It was and hour ride on the subway.

Another hour and a half on the bus. And 45 more minutes by taxi to get to the Great Wall.

It had always been a dream of mine to eat a sandwich at the Great Wall. We bought Subway sandwiches at the base and walked up the steep hill past the vendors to take a cable car up to the wall. Because we had DJ with us, we did not go down the steep steps on either side of the section of wall we were on and reversed the process to go home.

This wasn't the best air quality day. It is best to go right after a good rain.

Rule 2 - No scratching.

Teacher Carl 10/3/12 Teacher Carl 10/3/12

Saying goodbye on National Day.

We took my parents to the airport and saw them off.

The only way to get DJ to stop crying was to take this picture.

After we saw them off, we went to snack street where Suzanne and I had fried scorpion and starfish, and she had fried seahorse. This was a first for both of us and a last for me. We did have pictures, but they accidentally got deleted, so you will never see this from me.

It was China's National Day, which is like America's Independence Day. Many Chinese have the whole week off and travel to be with family. Beijing's population must have increased by at least 25 percent. Wangfujing snack street and Tiananmen Square were very crowded.

Teacher Carl 6/17/12 Teacher Carl 6/17/12

Beijing World Park

We took our two favorite studetns with us yesterday as we traveled the at the Beijing World Park.

Al-Aqsa Mosque

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Aggie and Lina are two middle school studetns that we both teach English at the private school we work for and I tutor in math after school. It was great that their parents trusted us foreign teachers to take them all the way across this large city by public transportation to a place we had never been to before. They maybe had been on the subway once before and only one of them had been to the park before. It took three subways and a bus, plus some walking, to get to the park, but half the adventure is getting to where you're going. We got to ride another of Beijing's subway lines that we had not been on previously and see another part of the city we hadn't seen before. Some of these don't have titles or links because I don't remember what they are.

Entrance to the park.

St. Basil's Cathedral

Acropolis of Athens

DJ in the splash zone.

Suzanne with Santa. DJ wouldn't go near him.

Empire State Building

Washington Monument

DJ makes new friends every where she goes.

Tower Bridge

Eiffel Tower

Big Ben

Alexandria Lighthouse

Pyramid

The girls having PB&J sandwiches for lunch.

Egyptian columns

Chichen Itza

The White House

U.S. Capitol building

Lincoln Memorial

Trojan Horse

Colosseum

Stonehenge

Borobudur Temple

Ishtar Gate

Taj Mahal

Angkor Wat

Easter Island

Sydney Opera House

These were the cleanist public restrooms with no flies or smell that I have seen in China or any other country.

In the evening, after the World Park, we went to our follow Arkansas's friends apartment to have pizza and visit. DJ played with their two boys and new dog until the boys ran off to play with their friends and then she kept us entertained and found new things to get into.

Teacher Carl 4/30/12 Teacher Carl 4/30/12

Beijing Aquarium

Even though the Beijing Zoo wasn't the best, we think that the Beijing Aquarium was awesome. DJ's loved all of it, especially the dolphins. The Beijing Aquarium has a very large collection of jelly fish. They also have a part where you can pet a sea turtle. There are many different sections. Some people have said you can see the zoo and the aquarium in one day. If you did want to see everything in one day, I would recommend spending most of your time at the aquarium.

Teacher Carl 4/29/12 Teacher Carl 4/29/12

Beijing Zoo

On the second day of our five day break, we went to the Beijing Zoo. It was a far better zoo than the one in Jiamusi. Since we had already seen a Giant Panda before, we did not pay the extra to see them on this trip. We did buy the combo ticket to see the zoo and the Beijing Aquarium. Some of the exhibits were not open or appeared to have missing animals. For visitors that have seen zoos such as the one in San Diego, this will be a great disappointment and maybe even a little sad. We did not get to see everything, but one of the things that we did see that I liked was the kids area. Just walking around our local community, some people are a little afraid of our middle sized dog. We have found that many people in China are afraid of dogs. For a long time in China, people have not been able to afford having a dog, except for dinner. Now more are starting to have pets. For those kids that don't have a pet, but would like to play with one, the Beijing Zoo offers kids a place to walk and frolic with cats and dogs of all bread and size.

Teacher Carl 4/29/12 Teacher Carl 4/29/12

Beijing Olympic Park

We had five days with no classes leading up to and including the May Day holiday, so we took in some of the local attractions before it starts getting too hot in the city during the summer.

This is the start of what is called the Sunken Garden at the north end of the Olympic Park. It has a large underground mall.

This is a very big wind chime.

DJ was copying the girls dance moves.

These ducks seemed to be standing in the middle of the river. It is really a very shallow fake river that is on top of the mall.

We will have to come back another day to visit the Beijing Science and Technology Museum.

This is something new they are building at the north end of the Olympic Park at the entrance to the Olympic Forrest.

We made it to the end of the Oympic Park but never did make it very far into the Olympic Forrest. Again, we will have to save that for another day.

The kids were tired and we sent them home. This is a a very nice couple that approached us as we were walking to have dinner that evening. They are from Greece and had been in town on business but decided to take in some of the local sights. They were looking for a good place to eat and we went together to Tim's BBQ Tex-Mex. It was the perfect end to a perfect day.

Teacher Carl 4/21/12 Teacher Carl 4/21/12