Daily Blog Archives

Should I Stay or Should I Go: Fleeing the Coronavirus

The power of social media is much stronger than many of us realize. We are constantly comparing and sharing our lifestyles, ideas, political views, fashion sense, and even our money beliefs.

These forms of sharing information can have tremendous benefits, but they can also be detrimental to our process of decision making.

For example, we are in the middle of making a decision to leave Shenzhen early in order to avoid potential travel restrictions due to the outbreak of the coronavirus. Unfortunately, every time we think we’ve made a decision, we notice a post on social media that makes us reconsider our choice.

Logically, the only variables that should matter in our decision making process should be the number of cases of the virus. The number of cases in our area would tell us our exposure to the virus, and then we can decide from there what steps we need to take.

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Running In China: Update 3

It’s been an eventful week of news about the coronavirus. Currently, Shenzhen has 31 cases of coronavirus and 0 deaths. The province health department has implemented a mandatory rule that any one in public must wear a surgical mask. I hope this helps stop the spread of the virus. The Chinese New Year holiday has also been extended an additional 3 days. I can only assume this is to limit in unnesscary travel while the

All of this new information is very frightening and has limited me to running only on a treadmill in my apartment building. Even with this little set back I’ve been able to keep up with my daily running routine.

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Fasting, Viruses, & Cabin Fever: Escaping the Coronavirus

When news of the coronavirus broke in China, my girlfriend and I were in the middle of a religious fast for the new year. The fast consisted of commitment to no social media: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and no streaming: YouTube, Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu etc.

Unfortunately, precautions to survive the coronavirus include another list of commitments. The list includes: minimum exposure to humans, religiously wearing surgical mask, avoiding large crowds, and spending 98.7% of our day in the apartment.

The combination of avoiding the coronavirus and fasting has created cabin fever beyond measure. This blog post is going to be about how we’ve been spending our time in the apartment.

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Pros and Cons of Getting a Teaching Certificate in China

Teaching English in China has been an amazing and life changing experience thus far. So much so that I’m thinking of alternative ways that I can make this experience last next 5 – 10 years.

After speaking with people who’ve been in the International Education Industry for quite some time, I realized that the most opportunities are awarded to the teachers that have teacher licenses. In other words they are qualified to teach in the U.S. Public schools (Or the equivalent in Canada or the United Kingdom).

For someone who doesn’t have the teaching license it isn’t cheap, in dollars or time, to acquire.

Therefore, this article is weighing the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of going through the process of getting a teaching certification to teach abroad in international schools.

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My Plan to Survive the Coronavirus

I usually don’t respond to news headlines to often, if I did I probably would have moved back home 12 months ago. However when I got wind of a deadly virus that could be affecting my area and, more importantly, my health, ‘my ears perked up’.

So much is still unknown about this ‘coronavirus’ and its severity, that I prefer to err on the side of caution.

Therefore, this article is a summary of my plan to avoid this virus at all cost.

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Learning Mandarin and Teaching English

I moved to China to experience a new culture, new people, and a new way of thinking. When I arrived, I experienced all of those things and I picked up a few more. Unexpectedly I was fascinated by another piece of the culture as well… the new language.

Since taking on the challenge of learning mandarin, it’s been a difficult and exciting part of my time here. We’ve been taking lesson for almost 8 months now and I think I’ve reached a plateau. The problem with this plateau is that I know what I have to do to get out of it. I just need to practice more than I do now.

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A Story About the Credit Mix

Our China Friend

On our first day in China, in the Shanghai airport, we met our very first “China friend”.

As a remote employee, he moved to China to learn Mandarin and to explore more of the country. Over the first few weeks in China we shared similar interest and “survival tips” in a new country. Fast forward 15 months, and we still hangout out with Mike regularly.

Last night, we had dinner with Mike and caught up on everything from our future travel plans to our most interesting interactions with people in China. This went on for about an hour until Mike said “Hey did I ever tell you how I got declined for 2 credit cards?”. My ears perked up.

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Running in a Mega-City: Shenzhen

Today I ran the longest I’ve ever run in my life. I completed an 8-mile long run and I enjoyed every minute of it. I never thought I would be saying those words.

It wasn’t always this way. I just started running consistently 4 months ago, and it was a process to build the habit of running.

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A Random Day In China

Today was a random day in China. Saturdays are supposed to be my days off from work, but they’ve evolved into days of endless running around and meetings. So basically… another day of work… with no pay.

We are also fasting! I’ve been trying my best to avoid streaming any video content on any platform [Netflix, YouTube, Disney Plus, etc. ]. I’m sad to say that in today’s world this is a huge struggle for me, but I seen great results. I think part of the reason I’ve been able to keep up with this Daily Blog is because I haven’t been distracted by streaming.

This post is a recap of our random day in China with a few pictures [I know that everyone loves pictures]. I hope you enjoy.

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7 Places to Eat in Shenzhen China

I’ve been living in Shenzhen, China for a little over a year and I’m still adjusting to new things everyday. Chinese food was one of the first adjustments I made rather swiftly after arriving in China.

I’d heard horror stories about foreigners and food in China. Anything from explosive diarrhea to unidentified mystery meat to days out sick because of a bad case of food poisoning. For 6 months I vowed to not be one of those stories.

When I finally relaxed and smelled the cumin, I realized that I was missing an opportunity to experience food from one of the oldest countries in the world. I just had to take it.

With that being said… I’m still going to take it slow. This article is a summary of 7 places that I eat in Shenzhen China.

So here it is:

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