Tom Riggle's Blog (7)

I would be much obliged if some one could translate the following note that we just discovered on our door. We have already had one surprise two weeks ago. Returning from a short trip to Mudanjiang we found we had no power - had to throw all of our food out. Our employers were supposed to take care of that.

Is this note along those same lines. I'm just so tired of being nervous over things that supposedly we weren't even supposed to have to worry about.

Tom in Jilin

A question on La Fa Shan (near Jiaohe, 40 miles east of Jilin). Has anyone been here? We are looking into the possibility of hiking there, spending the night in Jiaohe - or closer.

Also, any hotel recommendations?

The trip itself was not without its irritations, but that would be a different story.

But we really liked Dandong. For me, at least, the highlight was waking up that hill to the pagoda on the summit. It was a little over a km. There was plenty of good nature, larches, aspens, interspersed with the occasional park feature like bump car rides and kiosks. Also a moderate amount of people, so you never are alone - at least on the main paved wide path that circles…

A quick question on getting Wi-fi: Do I also have to get a subscription or account, or is the price of the wifi unit the only thing I need (as my boss assures me)?

I have used my father's wifi back in Kansas, but have never actually set up a wifi account, so this is all new to me.

My school here in Jilin gave us an old computer with slow dial-up connection, but I also have my laptop which I brought over - good thing too! The old dial-up is good…

I enjoyed, for the most part, my first teaching day in China. There certainly were a few surprises, but one of them was not that I didn't have any assistants - in any of the classes. Somehow I expected that. But it was no problem. As a former substitute, before my more steady teaching job, I learned the value of having plan A, plan B, and plan B in my bag of tricks.

A bigger inconvenience was the lack of whiteboard markers. Does anyone know where one can buy those?…

I am researching which VPN to go with. I assume that paid ones will be more reliable than freebies (Correct?). I saw an ad for Express VPN in one of these expat groups and wondered if there was any feedback on them by users here. Also I noticed that Chinoxy was also recommended here. Is there any difference between the two performance-wise? Thanks.

We finally, after months of waiting, made it to China. We have been here in Jilin for a week now, shaking off our jet lag, poking around the city of Jilin, enjoying the strangeness of it all.



I have lots of questions that come to mind, so I am sure I will get good use out of this forum to get better information. Speaking of which: Where can I get (preferably in Jilin) an adapter for my Dell laptop (bought in US)? The fellow in the store here (named Da something Guan) sold me a…