The travels of Justin

In 9-months Tianjin has become a familiar place for me, just as Kamloops did in my single year of living there. From the cosy dorm at TUT, it’s hard to imagine the amazing growth that this city will experience over the next 5-years. With its population of 10-million people (about 1/3 the population of Canada), [...]

The roof tiles just collapsed in the internet bar I’m using. It’s not a building collapse, just the tiles. Everyone looks okay, but it was pretty shocking. Crazy!

Roof collapse
I was just talking about how lovely this internet bar is a few days ago.

Is “good morning” China’s favourite greeting… even in the evening?
One of the TRU teachers visiting Tianjin has discovered how common this greeting seems to be. A few months ago I learned this for myself.
When walking into most restaurants and other businesses, sometimes a worker will say a polite and respectful Chinese greeting that, if you [...]

Upon returning to school, I started a new class: Managerial Economics. My teacher has come from TRU in Canada to teach my class in China. The thing I enjoy best is not that the teacher is a native English speaker. Everyone assumes that language is the biggest thing, but I am enjoying a little bit [...]

I’m back from Korea and really enjoyed my short visit there. The most surprising thing for me was that Seoul reminded me of my home in Canada. I visited two (of three) Certainly with differences, but I liked it a lot.
School in Tianjin has resumed, but with a twist now. My program is a joint-program [...]

Tianjin is now a long swim away. The ferry to Incheon, Korea was great. The seas were calm and the economy class beds comfortable. In Tianjin, the pollution combined with clouds (that may be related to the sandstorms) made visiblity very limited, but the size of the port is really amazing to see. It [...]