General Update

Since I've only finished talking about the Christmas holiday I should give you a biiiiig update on everything else I've been doing...but I honestly don't remember much. And it has nothing to do with alcohol. We spent a lot of time just relaxing around the house after we got back. I managed to take a trip to Kowloon and Mong Kok, and bought myself a really good external hard drive for my laptop.

For New Years Eve we went to the Vine for the worship service there. Loads of 180 people went, as well as everyone else from the church. We had food and drinks and mingled. In the service they got people from different countries to sing a song in their mother-tongue. The Philippinos sang a really nice song in Tagalog, the Sri Lankans sang pretty badly but one of the guys did a really funny dance, and the Togo boys used the african drums and did a great song. there was another group that were really bad but I don't remember where they're from. We had a great talk from a guy from Hillsong in Sydney. And then we did the countdown. Was really fun!

After the service a group of us went to the Flying Pan which is open 24 hours and serves fried breakfasts. It's my answer to the kebab shop at 3am hehe. Then some of us headed to Lan Kwai Fong to do some dancing and just have a bit of fun. As you can guess I spent most of New Years Day recovering... I also went to the cinema with Joel to see I Am Legend which is so good! I wanted to see it for my birthday, but because it was premiering we couldn't get in. Still, it was definitely worth the wait.

In the evening the peaks by our flat caught fire. It was a pretty awesome sight- the whole one side of the hill covered in flames. I don't know what caused it, think it's just a bush fire. It was burning for about 3 days though and people had to be rescued. I'll post pictures later.

Going back to school on Wednesday morning was so hard...I put off getting out of bed as long as I could. Luckily I didn't really have a proper lessons to teach, just revision, so I played pictionary with the kids. A really easy week teaching wise. I tried asking them about the presents they had for Christmas but they could only tell me in Cantonese so I gave up on that hehe. This week I'm teaching them about the seasons and it's going well. I'm going to play a dressing up game with them tomorrow- they have to put on the right clothes for the right season. Like hat, scarf, coat, tshirt, wellies, sunglasses. Should be fun!

Oh the weekend! On Friday night there was a house party at a friend's house in Hung Hom. We watched Prestige -which is so freaky- played poker (I cam second!), and all had a go on his PS3. I want one! They are so fun! And since everyone will have to buy a blu-ray DVD player anyway soon it's probably a good investment. It's really cheap over here too- only 170 GBP. And the games are great! I had another very late night. I went for lunch with Sam (guy who hosted the party) on Saturday, then went to 180 in the evening. After 180 I went bowling with Joel, Jules and Dan for Dan's 19th. I was doing really well until Dan got 2 strikes at the end and knocked me into 3rd place! Sunday I spent sleeping or eating or watching Nip/Tuck. We've finished series 3 now. I think we got through it in less than a week- it's so exciting! The whole Carver storyline was fantastic.

Yesterday after school I went for a meal at the Gold Coast with Jo, Mandy and Sandy. Mandy and Sandy work with Jo and it's Mandy's birthday on Wednesday so we went to celebrate. I had quite a nice meal, and we chatted in Pacific Coffee for a bit after too. Feels like I've been really busy lately! Ok, back to work I go...

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!

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!

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!

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.

Good Morning

I downloaded Kanye West's latest album the other day and it is awesome. One of the best albums I've listened to lately. It's been on non-stop since I got it and Joel is probably sick of me telling him how good it is :p Go and get it! Unless you're over 35...because then you'll just look tragic.

I've just got back from having quite a nice lunch in the school kitchen- today we got chicken and onion in a nice white wine sauce, fish with spring onion and ginger with tofu, bok choi and some weird veg and mushroom thing. I've been doing about the body in class today so I'm a bit achey- lots of "Heads and shoulders", "Hokey Cokey" and "Teacher Says..." Oh and now they keep asking for "Pizza Hut!" I've got my afternoon class in a while and I don't know how well the activities will go down with them. I don't dread having them anymore though.

I'm getting into a routine now- which is why I'm only updating once a week. Honestly you wouldn't be reading if I wrote everyday. Weekdays involve getting up at 6:45am, showering, eating and getting onto the LRT for 8:00am. I get back home about 4:45 and I'll pop into ParknShop, the local supermarket. Then one of us will start tea and then we'll put on a DVD and surf the web. It's only Fridays and Saturdays we actually do anything of interest.

Well every other Thursdays we'll now be going to a church plus(cell) group. It's in Central in a really amazing apartment and a bit of a trek on a school night, but the people there are lovely. I spoke to one of the Pastors yesterday though about setting up a plus group in the new territories and he did say it was going to happen soon. Yay!

Last Friday we met with Revd. Kwok and we had a nice chat. He asked us what we want to do for the church. At our plus group meeting we asked them to pray for us and what we were to do for the Revd. so it looks like it worked! We're thinking of going into the high school and doing a fellowship thing with a group of teenagers. I'm so excited about it! Although I have no idea what we're going to do...

Saturday we went out round the bars in Lan Kwai Fong. It's where all the ex-pats go and is meant to be really expensive, but I spent approx 25quid which isn't bad for a night out! Sunday we spent recovering and watching the first series of Nip/Tuck. I eventually dragged myself up for the 6pm service at The Vine. I'm glad I did because Dawn, the speaker, gave a really good talk. After the service I went to a cheap restaurant place and had Prawn Wonton Noodles which were yummmmmy and then did the 1-hour bus journey home. Whilst listening to Kanye. I would be listening to him now if I hadn't forgotten my mp3 player!

Anyway, I must go and prepare my lesson now...