327

I have been in Hong Kong 327 days! That means there are only 7 days left in Hong Kong, and 36 days until I arrive back in England. Hasn't it gone fast?!

I've been quite busy this weekend. On Friday I had a BBQ in Big Wave Bay at Lauren and Marty's new house. Big Wave Bay is on the "back" side of Hong Kong Island and it took us 2 hours on a bus, the MTR, and then a minibus. It's strange to think how far we travel to meet our friends- in England if someone lives 2 hours away then you'd only see them once in a while and you wouldn't travel there just for a BBQ! Lauren and Marty let us kip on their sofa though so we didn't have to do the ame journey home at 11pm. We had a great time with lots of friends from my church Plus group. It was my last ever Plus meeting so Andria made a looooovely Oreo cheesecake, and Lauren bought a delicious chocolate cake, and then put candles on top and sang "Happy Farewell to you"!

On Saturday I made the journey home (stopping at H&M for a good shop) to shower, change and pack for an afternoon of rock climbing and salsa dancing. The 180 summer social was going to be a big bike ride in the New Territories but because of the weather it was changed to rock climbing, so 20 of us met at the YMCA to climb the indoor walls there. It was great fun! I even did a climb blindfolded.

Straight after rock climbing I met my friend and went to the Salsa Congress Party being held at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. There were international guests performing and doing lessons all weekend. We caught the last half of the lesson being given by some instructors, then we stayed to watch the performances. They were amazing! It wasn't just salsa either- there was some African type dance, some Hip Hop and then a guy doing some tricks with a bowler hat. After the shows I did a bit of dancing with people there before heading to Lan Kwai Fong to meet Joel, Jules and Dan.

On Sunday I went to some studio lessons being held by international instructors. The first class was partnerwork and it was very advanced, much too hard for me! But I muddled along and kinda learnt the routine. The second class was bachata- which I love- so it was great to learn how to dance it properly. The last class was styling, so we were kinda taught some body isolation stuff but I was really bad at it. You really need to practise the basic stuff like being able to just move your ribcage before moving on to other stuff. It was all hard work! After the lessons I went straight to church before heading home, exhausted.

Yesterday (Monday) was my last girl's (girls' ?) group meeting at Cora's place. We had a very nice evening of prayer and worship and sharing. This week is a week of "last this and last that." Tonight I'll be going to salsa again (not my last) but on Thursday I'll have my last full day teaching and my last meal with my colleagues, and Friday will be my last day at school...

Here's a picture of the view from my friends Four Seasons apartment. I'm so jealous they get to live there!

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!

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!

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!