The More Things Change, the More They Stay The Same.

First of all, Chinese do holidays differently (big surprise). For some holidays, schools take off the Monday. Or Tuesday. Or both, but they will make up the missed day - or at least one of the missed days - on the previous Saturday. Why even take the Monday, am I right?

But other holidays are a huge break. We are winding down National Day holiday, which is October 1st, but the whole country takes off the 1st to 7th. We stayed in Beijing last year, and even the grocery store was closed for 3 days.



This year, we were invited to accompany friends to Qingdao on the Yellow Sea coast. Nice! 

We walked the shore the night we arrived.

(Also, home to Tsingtao beer, the Budweiser of China. Double Nice!)

Tsingtao brewery. Not very Chinese-looking? Germans started the brewery in 1903!

Turns out, there was a bit of an agenda. Yes, vacation at the coast, but our friends run a school in Beijing, and a former student's family had moved down to the area, and the mother is trying to get this school to open a branch down there. Brett would be a prime candidate to manage that location while our friend oversees operations from Beijing.

Buying crabs in Jimo

So we enjoyed the beach and the beer, lots of seafood, and a FANTASTIC hotel, then shmoozed with this woman of influence and looked at the potential site for the new school. 

In short, we may be moving within the year. That's as much as I can wrap my head around at this point. There are so many details to be worked out, and I've worked with this school through potential franchise situations before - witnessing them fall flat for various reasons. 

8 hrs by car, but a bullet train would  be 4-ish.

IF it actually even happens, the timeline could be anything, but I have an agreement to continue what I'm doing into April of 2019, so for a while my time would be split between the 2 locations. Fortunately, there's a bullet train between the two cities. I could get very familiar with travel by the Chinese method!

Or it could be nothing. 
This could all be pie in the sky.
I have let it go. It only concerns me insofar as my beloved husband may want to talk things out in advance. 

For my part? Life is the same.

It was a nice vacation, though. Check it out!

Dinner at Tsingtao Beer Garden, the first night.

The following day, Brett and I split from the pack and their kids.

I got to feel the sand between my toes once again. >sigh<

Nothing better than the sound of the waves.

A sculpture of getting a tattoo!

The goods sold by the "board"walk are different here.

If we move, it would be to here... in the outskirts, a "growing" area.