This afternoon we will be finishing off and sending out the last paperwork needed for us to be leaving. The RCMP certificate of no criminal record. We’ll be scanning everything, E-mailing it and then Priority posting the original documents that we collected. Once that is done with we will have to buy our plane ticket. Once that is done, we will be ready for our trip.

Irish and I have been flip-flopping about how we feel about this trip, some days we are excited by the idea of going back, some days we are sad about leaving Canada again. We look forward to indoor playgrounds for the kids that are affordable, and have more than just iPads attached to the walls. (Guildford picture here). Irish is going to miss the Philippine stores and the Grocery stores here, where we can get all sorts of food from around the world. I am looking forward to working with my old group of teachers again. Irish & I both miss Joy City, a mall near our house with a fake city on top that the children can role-play different jobs and learn about different careers at. I am going to miss my family, and friends again. We know it won’t be forever, and we have promised ourselves that Canada will be our permanent location, we just need to get the paperwork cleared out of the way.

A lot of people have offered advice or options for us since we announced that we will be going back, and we appreciate the offers. Even with our flip-flop feelings, we know that this must be done. China is not as terrifying a place as a lot of people in North America believe it is. They have malls, good schools, friendly people and to Joe citizen, it is much like living in Canada, except that everything feels a bit closer. Each area actually feels like its own community, which is nice and the violent crime rate is almost 0.Yes the government has its issues. There is a huge difference between the rich and the poor, the rich are generally corrupt. They believe in censorship. And there is a lot of traffic problems. They are over internet-ized, and have different family culture than we do. Nothing dangerous to Average Joe there.

In general we are not scared to go back, we are just going to miss the things and people we know here. I am trying to update this on a more regular basis, and call people more often to calm fears. We are here for another month, and would like to see or hear from any that we can.