Holiday: Day 3

The two guys who went island hopping turned out to be english teachers in Tokyo. They were really cool and the next day we joined them on the Cebu city tour.

Cebu is not like I imagined. I imagined a city with tall buildings, maybe not as tall as Hong Kong, but still quite urban. I didn't think it would be such a poor city. I guess the Philippines as a whole is very poor but I didn't think it would be. It's definitely not a tourist place. We first stopped at the Mactan Shrine where the Philippians fought off the Spanish. There was a nice park and loads of kids. Lots of them wanted their picture taken. They kept following us around. I don't suppose they see many westerners. At the end though some of the older kids started shouting "Give us a gift...Give me a Christmas gift" which is sad- that they only see us as having money. Although that is true. None of them go on holiday to America or the UK. When we went to the cross thing in Cebu city there were the smallest children begging.

Here we are: Greg, me, Jo and Derek
After the shrine we went to a guitar factory. Well we were told that but it was basically a guitar shop. There were big guitars, tiny guitars, middly-size guitars, funny looking guitars, expensive guitars...guitars, guitars, guitars. None of which particularly interested me. After that we went to another guitar factory because this old American guy called John (who kept talking about the Vietnam War) wanted to hear someone play. At least at this one we got to see where they made them. So then we were driven to the cross. It was put there in the 1500s or something when 800 people got baptised by a missionary. There was a nice painting in the roof but the begging children kinda ruined it. The one girl followed us back to the van and kept pouting. I would have given her money for food if she hadn't got an ice cream in her hand...Felt sorry for her though if that was how she got food. We then went and saw a Catholic church. There's a lot of catholic churches in Cebu, as a Catholic country, but none of them were as big as this one. I don't know what to tell you about it because I didn't find it particularly interesting (again)...There were a lot of statues and pictures of saints, and a queue to pray before a picture of the saint of Cebu. There were loads of people outside the church selling candles and things. John was trying to get these women dressed in yellow (nuns?) to dance. I don't know why...And he kept going on about finding a wife. That's John in the hat:Then we made the tour woman find us somewhere for lunch because we were starrrving, but she wanted to take us somewhere else before we ate. We went to a typical Philippine BBQ place and had a really good lunch. Someone told us that they had really bad food here so I wasn't expecting anything great. We had BBQ bacon...mmmm...and BBQ fish which was the best EVER, and fish soup, and BBQ chicken too. I ate so much and it was all really delicious.

Next stop was the fort. We walked here from the BBQ place. There wasn't anything here than intrigued me either. We walked up onto the battlements (?) and there was a Korean model doing a fashion shoot. Strange location to do that... We all took lots of pictures of the garden. Then someone decided we should spell out "help" on the grass below whilst the guide took a picture. It was so funny doing that! Trying to get John to make an E shape...In the end Derek just did it himself. Greg got the pictures on his camera and said he'd email them sometime. Down in the courtyard there was a blind man and a little girl doing a double act. He played a guitar and the little girl sang and danced. It was cute- they were singing "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas..." and she was jumping about and singing really loudly and out of tune. We put some money in their pot and then we were taken to the Taoist temple.

...Well we thought that's where we were going but we stopped at the Buddhist temple by mistake. So we took a few pictures and left to find the Taoist one. This one was much bigger, much more decorative and more worthy of a visit. We had a really good view of Cebu from the top.

That was the last stop of the tour but we asked to be dropped off at the SM mall which is HUGE. They have an 8 screen cinema, a massive supermarket and a ton more shops in 4 different wings and on 4 different floors. The tour guide took us to a desert place for "Hallo-hallo." It's this big ice cream dish with jelly, crushed ice and sweets in it. I wasn't a massive fan of it, after tasting the sweet potatoe ice cream especially. Yuck.

The tour guide and John then left to go back to the resort (thank goodness, John kicked up a fuss because they wouldn't give him an OAP discount). The four of us then went to the cinema and looked round the shops. They have much better fashion taste here than in Hong Kong. Some of the stuff here is vile- all covered in lace and bows. The supermarket was great too. I really miss having a big supermarket here. We have Wellcome and Park n Shop which are both no bigger than a Spar or Co-op. We stocked up on snacks and then headed back to the resort.

Holiday: Days 1 and 2

So we left on Thursday evening and eventually landed in Cebu at 5am. 2 hours late. Our airport pick-up was nowhere to be seen but the staff at the airport were really helpful and let us use the phone. By the time we got picked up it was 6:30 and we were very tired and groggy. We collapsed into bed straight away and didn't re-emerge until the evening when we decided to eat and check out the bar.

The next day we thought about going to the beach but when we got to reception there were a group of people doing the island hopping and scuba diving so we decided to join them. Scuba diving was so much fun! We went with 2 Swiss guys. One was an expert so he went off with a buddy, whilst the other guy and us did the intro course. It is so weird using the oxygen thing- I had to keep reminding myself that I could breathe. We learnt how to clear our masks, and clear the breathing-thing of water. We went for a swim around the coral and it was so amazing! There were all these different types of fish, and bright purple starfish and black spiky anemones...Just amazing! We had some lunch on the boat and then we went further out to see and got to dive a little deeper. At this dive spot there were much bigger fish...some of them were huuuuge and we fed them with bread. It was a bit scary doing that- didn't want my fingers to get bitten off too. When we went deeper the pressure change really hurt my ears and I thought I might have to stop but luckily it passed after a while. I can't really describe how awesome it was to be underwater breathing and interacting with the wildlife.

I'm back!

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and Santa brought you everything you wished for! I spent my Christmas day sitting by the pool, eating pizza and watching films. I've got a ton of stuff to write and it would be a ridiculously long post so I'm going to break it down into days, and eventually get everything posted. All the pictures from the holiday, the last day of school and the teacher's Christmas meal are up on flickr now so go have a look!

Merry Christmas!

I've just found out (via Jo) that we will be getting paid an extra $500 a month to cover travel expenses, and that we've just been backpaid for September, October and November so I should have $1500 in the bank now! Which means I could use that money to pay the dentist...Or I could just use it to have fun with in Cebu haha.

It's Christmas party day so all the kids are looking adorable in their party outfits and santa hats, and are all very excited! Ms Wong's K3 class just came into the office and they all chanted "Merry Christmas Ms Jenny!" and then all shook my hand haha. So, so sweet! And I said it back to them in cantonese :p "sing dan fai lop!"

I probably won't be on a computer for over a week now so I hope you all have a very happy Christmas and a great new year!

Lunch

I just had a reeeeaally yummy lunch- pork chops done in a potato and onion gravy. Seriously it's so good! And I tried a local delicacy- dried salty fish- which I'd avoided until today. It is suprisingly good. The skin is a bit crispy and salty (obviously) but the meat inside is pretty nice. I think they steam it and cook it with spring onion, and ginger I think. And one of the kids gave me a preserved plum which was delicious too. So my tummy is full today :)

Weather in Cebu

Links I found interesting

The Bible According to Google Earth


Pictures of the Year 2007


Jessica Dimmock's Ninth Floor project


Incredible Recordings

Party Time!

This was such a fantastic weekend! Friday was of course my birthday and I had planned on going to see I Am Legend with Jo, Joel, Dan, Jules and Ben. When we got there though it was completely full so we decided to go bowling at the Olympic mall instead. I did so bad the first round- I had 4 goes in a row where I hit NOTHING! Then for the 2nd round when we had the bars up I got so many strikes without actually using the bars. Haha! For tea we went to Triple Os and had the best burgers ever- they serve proper big burgers with fresh salad and really good fries. It's my fave place to eat at the moment.

On Saturday I completed the bible study course at the Vine and then checked myself into the hostel in Causeway Bay. We decided to stay there again tonight so we had somewhere to get ready for the Bollywood Party, which was SO MUCH FUN! Pretty much everyone dressed themselves up. We had a guy called Bosco as a tree- because in all the Bollywood films they dance around a tree hehe. Another guy came as a cowboy to "round up all the indians." And Damian Bos and Silas blacked up their faces and wore ridiculous outfits. All the girls wore sarees or lenghis (i think?). I'll put the picturs up on flickr after. After the food we had a "dance off" girls vs boys and awards. Ashwin got "best bollywood impression of Doctor Evil" haha.

After the party a group of us all headed back to Central and found this "club" place called Sense99. Mike describes it as a bohemian kind of british student house- it's basically someones flat with odd chairs and sofas and they serve the drinks out of a fridge. There's an upstairs room which is painted completely black, with a terrace, and also instruments set up for people to just randomly play. Gretl and Joe had a jam with the drums and bass, and some other guy came and played guitar. Was pretty cool. At about 1am Eric came and then I headed back down to Lan Kwai Fong with him and we danced until 4:30ish. We grabbed breakfast at some random place in Causeway Bay- pork and noodles at 5am yum haha. Yesterday was the first day when I really, really wanted a bag of chips. I miss having a chip shop to pop to when I'm feeling snackish :(

Today will be spent getting ready for our holiday in Cebu. We fly out Thursday night. I'm so excited! Hopefully there will be lots of sun, lots of sand and lots of good food. And good company of course. It is going to be so weird having a hot Christmas...but weird in a good way I hope!

Action Shots

A few pictures Patrick took when he came to observe me teaching:

I just realised that none of the kids are paying any attention in that picture ha. To be fair it was one of the most boring lessons I've done...mother, father, auntie, uncle. Zzzzz

Here is me showing them a picture of my family, they loved pointing me out. They kept thinking Katy was my mom though :s

So there's a glimpse of me at work. Here's a nice picture of some of the people I was out with on Saturday:

It's my birthday tomorrow! I'm going to the cinema to see I Am Legend, and then we'll go for food somewhere (cheap) like Triple Os. They do the best burgers EVER. It's going to be good- can't wait!

10 days until our holiday

And it is raining in Cebu. Great.

Time for an update

It's been a little quiet the past couple of weeks. Well, I think it has since I can't remember doing much apart from school, church and going out. Today I've been sent home from school because I have a cold so I have had about 6 hours sleep but could sleep for another 6 probably. I had to go to the doctors, which was mission- the Butterfly Estate where the surgery is is HUGE. I kept having to ask people which building it was. And, for the first time, found everyone really unhelpful and sometimes plain rude. I'd ask "Can you help me?" and people would just carry on walking. Even though I had the address in chinese! I would have asked a youngish person but since it was school time there were none. I eventually found it by asking the Philippino helpers and following vague chinese directions. I've been given about 3 different pills to take, and some ointment because I have an infected toenail. The Dr told me that if the infection keeps reocurring I'll need an operation :( .

Last week I saw Joel for the first time since he got back to Hong Kong. He had his university interview while he was back and he's now found out that he's got in to Christchurch to do primary education (or something like that). Go Joel! I cooked him dinner on Friday night which was fun. Normally I'll get him to do a stirfry or we'll grab a mcdonalds or pizza. I think he enjoyed it...but he could just have felt bad because it was so awful haha. I enjoyed it anyhow.

This weekend we stayed in a hostel again. It is so much easier having somewhere to dump our bags and not have to worry about the bus journey back. We checked in after our bible study session, had a nap and then Jo went to the Vine CD recording and I went for a meal with Ms Man, Ms Wendy and Ms Pat. We ate at Tutto Bennet, a small chinese restaurant in Kowloon.The food was OK, pretty expensive compared to where I'd normally eat. I could only eat a few bites of my cannelloni though because everytime I brought food to my mouth it made me feel really sick. I enjoyed some of the desert platter though- creme brulee and tiramisu, and plenty of icecream! After that we went and had coffee in Starbucks. While we were there Ms Wendy's daughter kept phoning to check up on her. Every 15 minutes she's be ringing, and in the end Ms Wendy was like "What do you want! Go to bed!" So, so funny!

After the meal I went and met Eric and about 20 of his friends from America. Was so cool! We all headed to the bars at Lan Kwai Fong. We spent most the evening in Fong Underground, but we managed to get into the Ice Bar too. I thought from what other people have said, that the Ice bar would have all been really cold, not just one tiny little box room. Was very disappointed! We went back to Fong and danced the night away until about 4.30 when the DJ went home. We had breakfast at the Flying Pan- a small cafe that does really cheap fried breakfasts. I had my first full english and it was soooo good! Bacon I LOVE bacon! And fried egg mmmmm...No fried bread though, but we got mushrooms and baked beans and tomatoes. It only came to $85 (that's about £5.30), so not bad! After breakfast we headed to Mcdonalds until the MTR opened. I had such a fun night! The people we were with were on this university trip where they spend about a month in all these countries doing different classes in each. They'd been to Switzerland, Greece, India, Thailand, HK, and they were heading to China and South Korea next. I wish our uni's would do something like that, it sounds amazing!

Yesterday, after catching up on some sleep, we went to Chungking Mansion and bought a saree ready for the Bollywood party next week. Mine is a rich red and gold and Jo's is a really pretty blue with mirrors and a peacock theme to it. We're so excited about the party now! There's going to be a live band and good food, and pretty much most of 180 will be there!

Oh yeah, just to remind Dad mostly (ha ha), it's my birthday on Friday! Woop! I'll be 19! I can't afford to celebrate how I want to but I'll be going for a meal somewhere with some of the gappers. I hope I feel better by then, I hate being ill on my birthday. So "san yat fai lop" to me!

Counting the pennies...

I am down to $1700...that's a little over 100 GBP, and it's only the 8th day of the month. Oh dear :( What was that B word again? Oh yeah, Budget. Ha. So feel free to slip some money into my Christmas card :p

Elf 2

Here's my family as elves http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1174588549 :

There's so much fun to be had on this site! Not forgetting the dog of course: http://www.scroogeyourself.com/?id=1174919983

Elfing around

At elfyourself.com : http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1174256626

That's me, Adam and Laura. Heehee!

I put some Christmas decorations up today! We don't have many so I think we'll have to get some more in to the make the place look properly Christmassy. Only 20 days to go!

Jo

is turning Chinese already...she's lying in bed doing this disgusting hacking thing the locals here do a lot. Gross.

I've had a really great weekend- we booked a hostel room so that after 180 we could go to some bars in Causeway Bay and Lan Kwai Fong. We met a cool guy from Holland called Guido and invited him along, some people from 180 including Eric and Sam, and we met some of the other gappers too. We ended up rolling in at about 4am. This morning we went for Dimsum (lunch) with Vinnie, Emi, Mark, Andrea, Kevin, Gabrielle and some others from our plus because it was Emi's birthday. I'm just a bit tired now. I've done a bit of tidying and shopping and I think I'm ready for bed now.

I'm seeing Joel tomorrow! Yay!

Busy, busy

I've had some more feedback from my parent's observations. (Still confused about the apostrophe! My english teachers didn't do a very good job, obviously.) There were comments about my voice being too quiet and discipline and one parent "suggested" that I should clip my fringe back because it looks scruffy! The first 2 were fair enough, I would agree when they said that discipline isn't my strong point, but that last one is just personal. Hmph.

Patrick came and watched me do a lesson last Monday and he didn't really give me feedback but I don't think he disliked it. I had to teach the children about Aunties, Uncles and Cousins. That's not easy when the kids don't really understand words like "your", "have", "the","is", "a"- the filler words. I tried to describe them as simply as possible and then got the teacher to translate to chinese. There's no way they would have understood without the teacher to do that. I also did "U" words that week which was fun- uncle, umbrella, up and under. For "up" I got them to jump and shout "up!", and for "under" I crawled under my chair, and then got the kids to do the same. They found it really funny! I'm running out of songs to do with them, I kee doing the same ones over and over and it's getting boring. Any ideas? I need more ideas for nursery kids too. They are really adorable but it is so hard to keep their attention.

On Sunday Jo and me went to Disney. Everyone kept telling us how rubbish it was so we weren't expecting much but considering it was so small, and there weren't many rides we still had a really good time! We saw the Lion King Show which was brilliant- even Jo liked it and she's seen the proper stage version. We also saw a 3D film called Mickey's Philaharmagic Orchestra. We queued up to get our picture taken with Mickey, Minnie and Winnie the Pooh. Oh and of course we watched the "Let It Snow" Christmas Parade which was really fun. I'll put films up later. We had a really good view, right at the side of the road they go down. After the parade we stayed for the switching on of the castle lights. Had to wait for about 45 mins but it went quite quick. We were practicing our cantonese numbers and this young couple were helping us, they taught us how to say happy christmas and happy birthday- "Sin dan fai lop" and "san yat fai lop". The light show was really good too- it's done to music and there's fireworks and lasers. I'll finish uploading the pictures tonight. I took over 200!

Last night we went out for a meal with Mandy and Bessa, Jo's colleagues. We ate at Chilli 'n' Spice at the Gold Coast shopping centre. The food was very tasty and not really expensive at all. I have pictures of that too I'll upload. It was really nice getting to meet some of the people Jo works with, and Bessa has invited us to go round for a roast dinner one day.

On Friday we might be going to a house party of one of the girls from 180. All depends on how we feel on the day. I'm so tired atm, just gotten back from town. I had to buy a coat because it's so cold today! I'm sitting here with the heater on full...BBrrrrr

Wow

Disney was great!

True Love

Wedding Meal

On Tuesday we were invited to a friend of a friend of Eben's Principal's wedding party. It wasn't so much a party as a throw-together meal. As you can see in the picture below, we had "Poon Choi." It is a big pot with veg, fish, shrimp, chicken, pork, mushrooms and octopus. It was quite yummy- apart from the octopus.

There were loads of tables full of people just coming and going, having a good time, but no sign of a newly-married couple.

Here's a few more pics of the evening:

Matt looks so funny with that hat on!

In other news: Joel should have landed back in the UK now. His Grandad died last week so he's gone to be with his family. That means 10 whole days without seeing each other. I'm missing him already :(

Here's a few more pics of the Retreat

And here's a video of one of the girls shooting skittles out of her nostril

Retreat

The 180 Retreat. One word: awesome! We made our way to Wu Kwai Sha in the evening and went straight into some worship time. It was really nice being outdoors with everyone singing and clapping. Afterwards we went to our dorms and got to know everyone. I was sharing with Karen, Jess, Suki, Jennifer and Cora. They were all really nice and, apart from Suki, were all Canadian-Chinese. I think we ended up playing Uno and cards before bed too.

The next day we started with breakfast and then some quiet time, where we got to find a nice spot to sit and spend time reflecting or praying or whatever. We then all came together for some group activities including:

Skittle shooting:

Pegging:

Egging:

and Balloon blowing:

After lunch was worship time. Derek Ma, the Pastor, gave a short talk and we sang a load of songs. In the afternoon we played a LOT of dodgeball. We played for nearly 3 hours and I was so good haha! There were loads of times where it was just me left against the other team. I even won it for us a few times- yay! When we started playing it was really, really hot but when we finished it was dark and the mozzies had come out.

For dinner we had to BBQ our own food. We all had so much fun doing that! I think Jo should have won something for the amount of food she set on fire ha. We had sausages, chicken wings, steak, pork chops, fish balls and S'mores. They were the best S'mores ever! We had choccy digestives and extra chocolate as well as the marshmallows. Mmmmmm!

It took us forever to cook everything so while we ate we played games like Charades. We then split into teams again and played Sardines in the dark. Ricky, our team leader, went and hid and we had to go and find him, and then we were meant to hide with him. We never found him. I think we all gave up in the end until he came out hehe. By then it was bed time so everyone headed back to the 3 story "Bungalows". Instead of going to bed a group of about 15 stayed up playing Uno until...err...5am. Every hour someone would ask the time and then we'd say "Just one more game..." It was such a laugh though, and there were so many people that you'd have 6 people shouting "CUT!" all at once. Oh and if people were cutting with the +4 cards someone would end up picking up 24 cards. That someone was me. I did manage to win a few games though!

I don't think anyone got much sleep that night, especially anyone trying to sleep in our room haha. Sunday was quieter- with breakfast, morning exercise, quiet time, lunch and time to pack. We squeezed in a few group shots, then it was on the coach and back to Central. Whew, what a weekend!

Praying

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.

Mary Oliver

Zzzz

I'm back from the 180 Retreat! Go see the pics on Flickr!

P for Parents Observations

W for Where-does-the-apostrophe-go? Parent's? Good job I'm not teaching high school English! This week is indeed the week when the parents come in to school and watch you perform a lesson. Nerve-wracking doesn't quite describe it. I'm still shaking. They have blue Forms Of Death where they write down exactly what they think of the lessons. I only had one lesson observed yesterday- which I thought went well- the children all understood and joined in. However, according to the parents, that wasn't the case. So this morning Cat greeted me with "We need to change your lesson." My lesson yesterday consisted of me revising the family (again), and then playing a game where they pull a card out of a bag and it has a word or picture on. They then match the word or picture to the right letter. Today instead of cards I used props like a toy dog, a balloon, a box with dolls in. So hopefully the parents will have enjoyed that lesson better than yesterday's. After Cat had basically told me my lesson was rubbish, Ms. Man was really encouraging and said she thought my lesson was fine. She said she gets annoyed because no one tells you if you're doing something wrong, and if they do they leave it until the last minute like when you have a parent's observation. There is a lack of communication. I'm not saying Cat didn't have a point, in some ways she did, but she could have told me before this morning. Anyway, with any luck, they won't be able to criticize this lesson as much.

New name

Serena, the woman who is helping me do the high school Bible study, gave me a Chinese name today! It is Heung Jan Nei. Heung for the first syllable of Hebblewhite, and Jan Nei for Jen-ny. Cool, eh?! I love it!

Buddha

So this is the Buddha. It is pretty big. It's on Lantau Island so we caught a ferry from Tuen Mun and then caught a bus to Ngong Ping. The bus journey is a little bumpy and so sloooow. Most of the way there is only one lane for traffic, so we were constantly stopping. When we eventually got there (an hour later) we headed straight for the monastery. As you can see above there are a lot of steps up to the Buddha. While we were at the bottom this Chinese man starts jabbering at me and Jo in Chinese. He thrusts his camera at Jo and grabs my hand. I was err...slightly startled to say the least. Then he gives the camera to me and goes and stands next to Jo. Instead of holding Jo's hand he leans his head in towards her, resting on her shoulder. Haha- served Jo right for laughing at me :p So now some random Chinese guy has pictures of us! We made the climb to the top whilst trying to get as many pictures as we could. It was such a nice day but because it was late afternoon the Sun was behind the Buddha meaning we couldn't really get any clear pictures of it. Most of mine look like silhouettes.

The view from the top is spectacular:

There are cablecars from Tung Chung (the town where the Ferry docks) but they've been closed for quite a few months. There was quite a bit of trouble with them apparently but it would have been great to be able to get to Ngong Ping on them- the views really are amazing!

I don't really know what to tell you about the Buddha. It's big and it's bronze. It sits on top of a building that is filled with offerings. On the walls there are memorial tiles. There are a few gift shops inside too selling little Buddha statues, gem bracelets, keyrings and postcards. There's a part which you have to pay to get in so I don't know what is in there. Maybe if I were Buddhist I'd be slightly more interested in it.

In Tung Chung there is a nice shopping mall with a cinema, restaurants and loads of outlet shops. There's a hotel too which probably has very nice views. I think it is the main town centre. Yesterday we went to the big Taste supermarket they have there. Taste is a shop which imports a load of stuff so we bought Marmite, Walkers crisps, Bisto gravy and cheese. Cheese is so expensive! Some of it was $100/lb. We bought a small block of New Zealand cheddar which is OK I guess...I miss good British mature chedder though. How about for Christmas someone?! We used some of the cheese today, along with the gravy, for our cheesy mash and veg dinner. Ultimate student meal haha!

One more week until the 180 retreat! I'm just a little bit excited hehe. I hope this week goes quicker.

Day 77

Yesterday was fun! Despite being bogged down with a cold. The school did a trip to Tai Po, to one of the nature parks, for a family picnic day. It was a really good opportunity to meet the parents- and endear myself to them before the parents observation next week heehee. They put on lots of activities for the children like bread making, face painting, balloon animals, and puppet making. I took a video of a group throwing a monkey around:

I did spend a lot of the time being bored, because there's only so much I can talk to the children about in their limited English. I talked to a lot of the parents though, and I had lunch with the other teachers. They kept offering me food and I felt really bad for not eating much but I had no appetite at all. Here's a picture of me with a girl called Ingrid and her mother. She's got really good English and she's pleasant as long as she's getting her own way.

The other picture is of a girl called Olive, who kept running up to me and showing me her balloon dog then running away again but forgetting to take her dog with her. Then she'd climb to the top of the climbing frame, jump down and run back to me and jabber away in Cantonese. Her helper looked like she was having a nightmare trying to keep up with her! I did find that strange- a lot of families here have Filippino helpers who look after the kids, cook and clean- and they brought them with them to the picnic. I suppose they are part of the family though.

We got back from Tai Po around 3:30pm and I was absolutely shattered and looking forward to a lie down, when I was told that we had to have a meeting about the trip. Grrrr! The meetings are always in Cantonese so I'm not going to have a clue. (un)Fortunately for me I had Cat interpret for me so I couldn't have a sneaky nap at the back. I eventually left about 4:45pm.

On the way home I popped into the dentist. Thought I'd have to make an appointment for next week but I got one straight away! Turns out I do have an abcess on my wisdom tooth. The dentist cleaned it or something and has give me antibiotics. He was a really nice dentist, really gentle and explained everything to me. If they abcess keeps reacurring I'm going to have it removed which will cost me $1600 (£100). That's nearly half a months wages! Luckily that time it only cost me $200.

I was going to tell you all about today but I'm far too tired. I'll do it tomorrow. We're planning on giving the apartment a really, really good clean. The bathroom is disgusting- as is the kitchen. It's not wonder we're getting cockroaches really when the washing up gets left for days. Good night!

Lantau

Today we made a trip to Lantau and, as you can see, went to the Po Lin Monastery to see the Tian Tan Buddha. Was good. There's lots of pictures up at my Flickr account. Go see!

Hee Hee

Jo is being made to wear a SARS mask! Don't worry- it's only a cold. We like to share our illnesses, me and Jo. Luckily for her she's got another day off school. Get well soon, Jo!

Poorly

I have a cold. Ugh.

Food, School and Shopping

I did my first full Friday and my gosh it was booorriing. Even after being given 2 lessons to do. Luckily I had a nice meal with Joel to look forward to! He took me to New York's for dinner and we had the best steak ever there. And cheesy potato skins. And chocolate brownie for pudding. Mmmmmm. I love going to New York's cause the owner Randy is pretty cool. He knows Angus from when he was there as a gap student and so now he knows all of us through him. He'll have a laugh with us and do us any drink we want.

Saturday me and Joel went shopping in Mong Kok. I told you basically what happened the other day- we browsed the markets and then went to a few shopping centers. I bought Jo's birthday present, and a few Christmas gifts for people. We went to the cinema to see Shoot 'Em Up when we'd done shopping. It was seriously a bad, bad film. So full of cliches I was left wondering if they'd done it to take the mickey? I don't know... but I'm not really into films where they randomly shoot everyone for no reason so I didn't stand much chance of liking it. Afterwards I left Joel on the train and met Jo in Central and went to 180.

Sunday was our lazy day. We dragged ourselves up to do a bit more shopping in Tuen Mun and then made our way to St John's Cathedral for the service and curry supper. We met Patrick, Matt and Eben there and had a nice chat. The dean (deacon? I don't know) came and chatted with us and was asking about the Vine. He annoyed Jo because he was basically saying "the cathedral is better than the Vine, the Vine isn't a proper church...blah blah." I just thought he was jealous that so many people go to- and enjoy- the Vine. He didn't really do himself or the cathderal any favours by talking like that. I've arranged to meet Patrick tomorrow so we can have a proper chat together. He's already met Jo and Joel, and Jules I think.

Last night Joel came round (after finally being woken up by Zoe) and we watched Evan Almighty. Such a funny film! He cooked me a stir-fry becayse his always taste better than mine, and we made a tiffin cake (?) together. It's got biscuit, marshmallow, and dried fruit in it. Should taste yummmmmmy :) We haven't got an oven so this is like the first cake I've made here. I really, really miss having an oven because it limits what you can cook so much :( I'll be an expert at one-pot dishes by next summer though!

This week at school I'm teaching about the family. It's a tough lesson, mainly because I haven't done any proper lessons in a while. I brought in a picture of my family to show them which they loved- "There's Miss Jenny!" Miss Chan thought Dad was my boyfriend though :/ !!! "He looks so young...your boyfriend or your Dad?" He's 50-something Miss Chan! The kids also all think Katy is my bigger sister. Hmph. So to make it easier for them she has been my big sis this week. I'm doing about grandparents next week which is going to be another tough lesson. It's all talking and not really anything fun for them. Also, I'll be being observed by loads of parents. Argh!

Oops, time to go! I'm going to beg for more help with nursery now- I'm still really stuck! Ideas? Please?!

Pak Ho

Today, before going to St John's Cathedral for a curry supper, we went into town for lunch and shopping. Whilst we were there some guy called Pak Ho was performing. No idea who he is, but I videoed him anyway hehe. He was a really good singer and it was a really good song, even if I didn't know what he was singing about.

Just thought I'd share :)

180

Here's the promo video:

http://www.oneighty.hk/popups/promo_v2.htm

Not sure if that will work :/ Check it out anyway though!

What I Did Today (In Brief)

• Took train with Joel at 11am to Mong Kok
• Had hot-choc and shepherds pie in Starbucks
• Browsed the market
• Bought tons of gifts
• Went to Langham Place shopping mall.
• Bought Jo's birthday present.
• Went to cinema.
• Saw awful film (Shoot 'Em Up)
• Went to Festival Walk shopping mall in Kowloon Tong
• Got train to Central
• Went to 180 at The Vine
• Had beef stew
• Got bus home

Wow

I just had my first nursery lesson...and it wasn't that bad! They were doing "F for Fish" this week so I found a plastic fishing set and got them to do that. They loved doing that, and their faces were such a cute little picture when they got one! Then after doing that like 3 times I got them to sing "Fish, fish I like fish..." well I sang and they waved the plastic fish about. Then the teacher put on a CD and we danced around to "Baby Let's Rock and Roll" and we twisted and jumped and clapped, it was so funny. Mainly because I have no sense of rhythm! I'm still stuck for ideas though... If you work with 2 year olds can you give me some idea of what to do with them for 25 mins?

Help!

I desperately need activity ideas for 2-3 year olds. I've been given 2 lessons a week with nursery children and I have NO idea what to do with them. I can't do crafts, it will literaly just have to be songs and simple games. I really don't know why they've given me nursery lessons because they don't do English yet. Well I do know why it's because my timetable was empty but nursery?! Ms. Cat said to read stories to them...which I'm thinking is just more than a bit pointless since they understand less than the K1s and have a 3 min attention span. Soo any ideas please, please email me!

A Bad Day

I'm really not having a very good day. Well, school was fine apart from I learned I will be having to stay until 4:30pm on Fridays. I have a problem with this because I will not be doing anything in that extra 4 hours I have to stay at school. Except sleeping and surfing the net and reading. I know this because I already have a completely free Tuesday afternoon, and that it what I spend my time doing then. If I have work to do, such as lesson plans or assessments, I have plenty of time on Tuesdays and during the morning too. They're saying I have to stay on Friday's because I don't do anything for the church at the weekends- but if I was then I would only be doing 2 hours extra work. As it is I am doing one extra hour working at the high school- but they want me to do another 4 hours on top of that. So I'm being told (by others) that if they want me to stay on Fridays then I should do that instead of the high school thing, but that it would be more beneficial for both the church and me to do the one hour at the high school. When I signed up to do the programme I wanted to be doing something, getting some experience, not just sitting around. Anyway Patrick is arriving tomorrow so it won't be too long before I see him. If things don't get sorted out I'll mention it to him.

So after being allowed to go early-for this week only- I go into town and head down to the bank again to see why I still haven't had my $2500. They owe me $2500 because when I tried to use the ATM machine downstairs it didn't give me any money- but still charged my account. This was 2 months ago. I speak to this young guy who tells me that there is noone to talk to me because it is lunchtime, but if I give him my number he'll call me. I go and do a bit of shopping. 2 hours later there is still no call. So I go back and tell him I would like to see someone now because I am very busy and I need to go soon. He goes into the back for aaggees and eventually comes out and tells me that because it is an international card it is taking a long time to trace the transaction. I tell him I understand this, but it has been 2 months and $2500 is half my months wage! He apologises like 5 times and promises someone will call today. So obviously I leave not very happy. They told me last time they would phone within a week...but no call.

Grrrr!

Ok...I'm fine now...I literally have just had a phonecall from the bank and they have promised me that the money will be deposited in my account by Monday! So with any luck I will be getting it now. I'll give them until Wednesday and if it's not there I'll be going straight back.

Tonight we're going for a curry. So far it will be me, Jo, Joel and Dan. Jules if he can be bothered. I haven't heard from Eben or Ben but I'm guessing Ben is off with someone else...He's like that. Matt is having a meal with friends from church and Zoe will come if she's finished all her school work. It's been ages since everyone has been together! It's alright for the Yuen Long lot because they're literally living round the corner from each other, but for me and Jo it can be a bit of a trek to see the others. Hopefully we can get most of us together tonight.

Ooo I've learnt a new phrase- "Gok wei lo see jo san." We have to say it every morning. Jo san means good morning so I'm guessing it's something like "Good morning everybody"? Who knows! I should find out hehe.

Yikes

Last year Ms. Man taught her K2 class (now K3's) the Twelve Days Of Christmas...and this year the gauntlet has been passed onto me. It's hard enough to teach to any English kid- let alone to 4 year olds for who English is their second language! I started off today doing upto "3 French hens" but it's a really difficult tune, and it sounded so out of tune! Doesn't help when the teaching assistant can't sing either haha. Wish me luck...

Ouch pt.2

It's not broken, just badly sprained. So much for hearing the bone crack, Joel :p He's going to collect crutches and more painkillers tomorrow.

Ouch

Joel has broken his ankle playing basketball. He's off to hospital now :(

2 months to go

Until our holiday!! Check out where we'll be spending Christmas Day!

Stanley by Jo

I'm reeaally sorry but I'm too lazy to write an entry myself on Stanley and Aberdeen so I've copied Jo's entry :p Cheers Jo!

"I didn't get up till late, but we still managed to squeeze in a big trip to Stanley, which is on the south coast of Hong Kong Island. The bus journey was nice, we got to see a bit more of the Island which was nice. We're only really familiar with Central. We drove past this huge cemetary it was really hilly, in the centre of the city, and concrete. Was quite a strange view. We drove through Repulse Bay which is the big area where Westerners live. Beautiful, but pricy. Stanley Bay was really nice. I wasn't really feeling very well this morning as I had a migraine yesterday, so didn't really eat much yesterday, so the heat today really got to me, so we ate dinner really early.Had a really nice pizza, very italian style. What was bizarre was that we didn't feel like we were in Hong Kong anymore. The area seemed very mediteranean. It was a shame that there were building works along the sea front, but it didn't spoil the view too much. I was really annoyed that, I'd remembered my camera, but hadn't charged it up. We went to Stanley market, which was different to Mong Kok market in that it was under shelter. A bit like the Souks in Marrakech, but with the shop keepers dragging you into their stalls. I bought a few more pressies, so i won't be disclosing what I bought.
We then went on to Aberdeen, we had planned on going to the floating restaurant, but we'd already eaten, so we decided to save that for another day. Was nice to see the boats though. We were hassled by an old woman wanting to sell us a boat trip, and she seriously wouldn't take no for an answer. I've never known anything like it. We said no, and then she followed us, and stood by us while we sat down, blatantly trying to stop us taking the rival boat trip. She gave us the worst looks when we kept saying no. Was quite funny, but annoying. I did feel bad as it's obviously her livelihood, but sometimes, they have to give up and try somebody else. What was nice was that a Scottish couple (yes, Scottish, I'm in Aberdeen and I meet Scots! The first I've met in HK) came back after walking past us, to save us, but we'd just managed to escape.
We didn't stay long in Aberdeen, we had to get back to Central for 180 service at the Vine which was really nice."

Easter and Christmas

The Creation Story

According to Eddie Izzard.

Warning: Some bad language is used!

Plans

I've downloaded another album! This time it's a bit of Indie. Death Cab For Cutie's "Plans". It's great! A really mellow sort of album, easy to listen to. I think Adam would like them a lot. I'd heard of DCFC but never really heard them but when I first saw the video for "Soul Meets Body" on TV a couple of weeks ago I thought it was a good track- and then when we watched Catch and Release yesterday they played it at the end and it made me really want to get it. My favourite song so far is the opening track "Marching Bands Of Manhattan." It goes:

I wish we could open our eyes

To see in all directions at the same time

Oh what a beautiful view

I hope you are enjoying your weekend. We're off to Stanley Market now and then we're going on to Jumbo- the floating restaurant in Aberdeen. Tomorrow we have to be at church really early because we're going to be Greeters. We're also going to take any newcomers for lunch with the rest of our Plus Group. Fun all the way!

Plus

I survived the rest of school yesterday, and Jules thought I did really well. Angus said he was surprised how well behaved the kids were and that he said that when he watched me teach without all the teachers around i looked really relaxed and in control. So all good :) Don't know what the rest of the teachers thought but it wasn't like they were watching a normal lesson.

It was the Plus group meeting last night and it was really good. We talked about how when you pray for someone it isn't their faith that matters, it's yours. They used the story from 2 Kings 4:8-37 and 8:1-7. We had prayer time at the end like normal and I prayed aloud! I'd never done it before like that. I wasn't very good and I forgot what to say but Jo said it was fine (I was praying for her little cousin).

Today we have a day off for Cheung Yung, yay! We've both had a lie-in although Jo has got up once but has a really bad headache and gone to lie down again. I'm up and dressed and I've been trying to make pancakes. I don't know if it's because I'm guessing how much pancake mix to milk and eggs I need, or what, but only 2 or my 5 pancakes worked. I'm not happy. And I've gone through 2 cartons of milk. Jo's come back in, she's not going out today so I guess it gives me some time to explore around here a bit. Considering we've been living here 8 weeks now we really haven't adventured much! And it's a really nice day so there's no excuse for sitting inside. Can't believe it's October and I'm still walking around outside with only a vest top on- no jacket or jumper or anything! Hope you're not too chilly back in Britain :p

Nooooooooooooooooooo

Some of the local schools have a teacher training day today. Teacher training here involves going to other schools and observing the other teachers. Today we are being observed- and not by just one or two teachers at a time but EIGHT. I've just got back from my second class of the day where I was lucky enough to be oggled at. So I'm feeling nervous to start with and then I look up and see I'm surrounded by all these teachers AND Heero (school tech guy) is sticking a camera in my face! I literally felt sick. And my voice was shaking. And my hands. It's a good job I didn't have to stand up otherwise I probably would have fallen straight back down hehe. Two of the teachers who came in to watch were Jules and Angus, so I'm sure they weren't too critical. I looked up and Jules was smiling at me which helped. I'm just so glad my class behaved, and when they didn't they listened to me when I told them to be quiet. I'm sure my class was smaller than normal so I'm wondering if maybe they kept the bad ones out of their english lesson heehee- I know that for Ms. Man they kept the bad ones away.

Ok, I'm feeling slightly calmer now. I'm glad I'm not the only one who got really nervous though- Ms. Man said she was really shaky too. Tea time now I think!

Yay!

The hotel is booked! We are spending 7 nights at the Alta Cebu Hotel....check it out here. It's got everything we need- the beach close by, lots of on site activities (we get a free class in something like cooking or massage), the hotel will organise a tour...perfect. Can't wait!

Week "Lop"

Another quiet week. So quiet I'm having trouble thinking back to what we did. Hmm...We rented Nip/Tuck so we spent quite a bit of time getting through that. School was good last week- my lessons were on the body so nothing too out of my depth. I got feedback from my K1 lessons which was basically slow down and focus on the keywords. There were no criticisms just good advice. I went to see Joel on Wednesday and helped him do some prep work for his lessons- he had to cut up 100 sheets of keywords. Such monotonous work. Friday...Friday...Oh yeah, we couldn't really be bothered to do anything so we watched a lot of Nip/Tuck and also rented Anchorman. It's a great film- I never enjoyed it that much the first time but this time was different. Better company maybe hehe.

Saturday morning wasn't particularly exciting either. We went to the Doctor's to have a set of routine tests done. Then we went to Yuen Long to collect our ID cards- we are now official Hong Kong residents! After that we tried to do some shopping for our holiday but there's only winter stuff in the shops now. Poo. I'm going to get my Mom to post some of the summer clothes I left behind. The evening was a lot more interesting. We went to 180, the 18-30s Worship at church, and listened to a really good talk. They're doing a series called "Preparing For War" about Christian Armour- Saturday was the Breastplate of Righteousness. I still don't know what it means to be righteous though. I should look it up hehe. We got back at a ridiculous time and then got up early to be at church for 11:30am the next day. Another really good service and talk- this time about being a 21st century Christian.

After church we headed up to Lan Kwai Fong- the main purpose was to find a second-hand bookshop but we stumbled upon a carnival instead!

There were loads of stalls set up selling various things and people giving away free stuff. There were also live events in different places. We caught a live band playing:

They were singing "Wonderful World" in that clip. They were pretty good. After we walked around the carnival for a bit we went to look for more shops for clothes but came back empty handed. By this time it was time for the 4pm service back at The Vine so we headed up for that service for the "Worship Undone" service. 3 church services in 24 hours- not bad haha. I am really enjoying worshipping at The Vine, the services are great and the people are so friendly.

This brings me to today. A new week at school. I'm meant to be teaching about Chung Yeung- a festival where people traditionally went to give offerings at the graves of their ancestors. But after failing miserably to teach it I'm now doing Autumn. My lessons are still a little patchy but I'm not rushing them so much now. I'm really, really enjoying it too! I got to name a boy today- the children have a chinese name but they also then get an English name for school. This boys parents didn't know any English so they asked me to choose a name. So I called him Jim. A good, simple name that won't bring any ridicule. If you saw him you'd think he was the perfect Jim hehe. Honestly some children have really odd names like Cream, Olie (like Rolie Polie), Dicaprio (formerly Dick Ho), Mayto, Ringo (for a girl!), Genius, Charmie...the list goes on. Joel plays basketball with a guy called Chicken-baby. No kidding. What were his parents thinking?!

Enjoy the pictures on Flickr, I'm off to bed now.