Interesting story here. For months and months since last year, our Kiwi bestmates in Qingdao, Tom & Charlotte, have been convincing us to come to N.Z. Their inception was successful and we decided to come with Charlotte to NZ for Chinese New Year vacation. We planned out a jam—packed and awesome two weeks in NZ.

……. However, today makes four weeks in NZ. When we arrived, news about the coronavirus epidemic in Wuhan spread. We were notified week 2 from our school that the date to return had been delayed. Week 3 into NZ, we were informed by our school to return to China at the end of February.

While we like to always see the glass “half-full”, we must fully disclose some challenging aspects of being stuck in NZ. Starting week 3 in NZ, our school asked us provide online learning for our students. Without any school materials/computer/resources, this has been … interesting. We are doing our best, and our students are doing their best as well given the circumstances. Online learning has been a cocktail of Schoology, emails, WeChat group messages, students taking photos of work and sending it to us, WeChat video calls to our students, etc. While getting back into a school routine would be ideal for both us and our students, we have to make the most of the circumstances in an unforeseeable future.

Now for the actual glass half-full – if there was a place to be stuck doing work, NZ would top the charts. Mountains rise alongside coasts and gorgeous beaches. There is grass-fed beef, world-renowned Hawke’s Bay red wine, and hiking galore. Below are highlights from the first two weeks in N.Zed. – you know, the two weeks we actually planned to be here for:

We packed in some amazing adventures in these first two weeks…with the extra time we were able to add a few more! New post coming soon!