Settled

http://picasaweb.google.com/111109148587648793693

We are settled in! The apartment is extremely nice. Some photos are on the picasa website - The video is not wanting to load. We will keep working on that. Like we probably mentioned in the states, it is true: all the furniture, appliances, utensils we need are already supplied in the apartment. We are truly thankful. Other than settling into the apartment, we've been spending some very quality and fulfilling time with our new teammates. We love them so much.

Here's a short list of what's been going on:

Arrived Aug. 29

Dumped our bags into the apartment

Met the Foreign Affairs Officer, who by the way is extremely sweet, friendly, and helpful.

Team building has happened for the past 5 days which consists of talking about the team dynamics in communication, conflict management, stress tolerance, being support for each other, and other specifics to strengthen and develop a team identity.

Between moving furniture around, dusting/cleaning our apartment, and unpacking, Hui's met her co-teachers for her Listening-Speaking class and Gordon's met the school supervisor, where we've both gotten questions answered about the class.

We've also gone to the health department to get another physical exam and to the Foreign Bureau office to obtain our residence visa for Harbin.

Now we are finishing up lesson planning because class starts early Monday morning at 8am for Hui and at 2pm for Gordon.

The weather is extremely nice right now - we really can't imagine it getting cold and below freezing. We'll see what that's like later October. Since it's been cool, our morning runs with another teammate have been very pleasant.

We haven't been cooking much recently, we just go to a nearby restaurant and eat. However, we've been enjoying sweet fruit and tasty rich yogurt in our apartment.

We had a great time of Singing tonight. The children joined us for Singing and a Story for them, then we heard a podcast together as a team after an intermission (when the children were put to bed).





On our way to Hamamas Coffee House where they serve Western food. We ate a beef steak sandwich with onions and a chicken sub. Delicious!


Hamamas Coffee House! This is near Harbin Institute of Technology, so we took a bus from our school over there (it took us about an hour to ride the bus because there were many cars.)


We met some friends that were introduced to us while we were in the states and enjoyed a delicious Nigerian/Chinese meal with them. Great fellowship and encouragement. They have been at HEU 3 years studying for their pHDs.


We went to this tea house for one of our teambuilding sessions. It's interesting: notice the English name "Bar for team." In Beijing, we went to the same establishment and it was called in English, "Be for Time"


Tea house! For just 18yuan a person we could get unlimited amount of drinks (eg. iced coffee, milk tea, fruit juices) and plenty of nuts and seeds.