Settling back into life in China has for the most part been fairly easy. Not without its problems, but smaller problems than we had been facing with our first attempt at Canada. We’ve had technology difficulties, housing difficulties and linguistic difficulties. For the most part, things have gone smoothly.

Before leaving Canada, we had set up what is called a VPN. A VPN, or Virtual Private Network is needed to connect to Western websites such as Google, Facebook, or YouTube. However, when we arrived, our VPN was not working. It took me a week to get it running, with the help of 3 different customer service reps.

We have yet to find a place that has heard of region locking on phones, let alone how to unlock them. We would prefer to keep our Canadian phones and use them here instead of buying new phones for China. I have no idea who came up with the stupid idea of region locking anything, but you see it in DVD players, as well as video games.

We are currently living in the School Dormitory, which has been nice. We want to find our own apartment soon though, we have no space to play or help the kids with their homework. The kitchen is also shared, and so a bit awkward to cook in. So we have been eating out at cheap restaurants or friends’ houses every night.

While Joshua and I have bounced back to the language fairly well, Irish and Samantha are still struggling, and Sammy has needed a lot of help from her “Form Teacher.” Since we are at a private school, each subject has a new teacher, and the “Form Teacher” is the main teacher that helps them with the language, and assists the Specialty Teachers. Sammy has done well in her English based subjects, and her Maths-through-Chinese. But her other subjects she is struggling with a bit, but she enjoys it.

Joshua on the other hand has come home reciting Chinese Poetry and telling us about story-books they read to him (In Chinese) in class. His English-based Subject Teachers have loved having him back, and his Chinese-based-subject teachers have said the same.

Irish however, has no interest in the language until we have to shop, and then she is constantly asking me how to say things. Which is fun, as my vocabulary is limited, and I speak Mandarin with a Korean Accent which completely baffles the people in Beijing. (I am working on my accent).

So far we have noticed, that we have more time with the kids, and have taken them window shopping down the street markets, to the mall playgrounds, to a dinosaur park (thanks to our friends Belle, Anne and their respective families. We have other family based weekend events planned with those families, as well as on our own.

I have an interview for some weekend work this weekend, which should help us financially as we pay off our debts in Canada and in China. Our plan is to be out of Debt completely by next September, and it looks like a very real possibility. Irish’s Paper work and Savings should begin about April or May 2016. Cross our fingers, and hope that I didn’t just jinx it…

Overall it has been really good for us to be back in China, but that doesn’t mean we don’t look forward to returning to Canada to see all of our friends and family again.