A Pizza Hut

Here's one of my classes singing A Pizza Hut. You might want to turn the volume down unless you want to be deafened by my very out of tune singing!

Videos

This first video is one of the men on the Sugar craft stand, at the carnival, trying to get the tennis balls into his hat!

This video is the professional clown they hired at the carnival. We had our own "Vine" clown too, Eric.

This is the acrobat. Here she's spinning things on her arms and legs, but before that she was squeezing herself into a tiny tube thing.

This guy is called the Masked Magician and his trick is magically changing his masks very quickly.

Lastly, is my favourite video- toboganing down from the Great Wall! It felt a lot faster than it looks on the video haha.

Enjoy!

Day 9

The last full day with my parents. Well...with my sister. Today Katy and I went to Ocean Park with Jo and Theresa. Ocean Park is a theme park here with animals as well as various rides and activities like go-karting. We all caught a coach from the West Rail station which was very efficient (and included in the ticket price).

Once we got there we headed straight to see the pandas. They were all asleep when we saw them, and they looked so cute! There's more on flickr of the others.

We hit some rides next. This was definitely not on a par with Alton Towers or any of the theme parks in Britain, you wouldn't come here especially for the rides. They were really old. Some of them were OK. And they are building loads of new ones, so maybe in a couple of years it'll be worth another visit. After lunch we saw the seals. They were adorable. We saw them being fed, and we could have fed them ourselves but we had to buy tickets from somewhere. We watched them for quite a while and there was this one seal who went and laid right next to another seal, it looked like they were cuddling. And they kept fighting over whose tail went on top!

We worked our way round the park going on rides and seeing the various creatures.

We had to queue for an hour to get onto the cable cars to get back to the coach. The park is built on two sides of a hill/peak thing joined by cable cars and I guess there's always a queue back but because we were there just before it closed we caught the crowds. Still we got back about 7ish.

We met my parents in Tuen Mun and I loaded them up with stuff to take home. We went for our last proper meal together. I wasn't going to go out at first, just get a takeaway, but it was closed. Instead we went to the Federal restaurant at Ferry Pier. This us a favourite of mine and Jo's- they do the best sweet and sour shrimp. I'm so glad I got to take my family there because it's a proper local restaurant and I'm sure they don't get many Westerners. We ordered sweet and sour shrimp, chicken and vegetables, and prok ribs in orange sauce. Yum, yum, yum! And for desert we were brought sweet red bean soup with tapioca. I actually liked this one, normally I can't stand the texture. Mum had fun trying to use the chopsticks too!

So that's the holiday. I met them at the airport the next day and we said our goodbyes again...and there were more tears. At least the next time I see them I'll be back home in Britain. I'm sure my parents will fill most of you in with other bits I haven't managed to write down, and show you all of their pictures and videos.

Day 8

Ok before I tell you about Monday let me share a video with you:

It's Joey Yung and I can't believe that I actually like it. Ms Man told be today that I've been in Hong Kong too long if I start liking cheesy cantopop... it's just so catchy... Haha maybe I need to start listening to Radio One again.

So, on Monday we went to Macau by ferry. But we didn't sit in standard ferry seats- we had our own VIP room with TV and reclining seats. And we were brought a breakfast with muffins and fruit. Macau is another S.A.R of China but luckily we don't need visas to go. It's about an hour away from Hong Kong and used to be owned by the Portugese so all the signs are in Portugese as well as cantonese which is strange! We visited the "old town" first which has a lot of Portugese-style buildings and ruins. We first went to the town square with all the Chinese New Year decorations.

After that we visited the ruins of the old St Paul cathedral.

And then a more modern cathedral, and some more buildings. It's weird how it sort of felt like Rome (but freezing cold) with the architecture and all the scooters...but then you go around the corner and it's a totally different place with gawdy casinos everywhere.

We stopped at a couple of casinos- how can you not in Macau?!- the Grand Lisboa and the Venetian. The Venetian was a grand and as tacky as I thought it would be. The canal was pretty awesome though with gondolas and singers and loads of shops.

What else did we see? Oh! The Macau Tower. They do the world's highest bungee jump there so once I've got some money I'm going to go back and do it! It's so cool.

We had to take normal economy class seats on the way back to Hong Kong but the journey didn't take too long. Once we got back we went for some food at a small local restaurant called Relax For A While, the one I'd been to with Sam before, before heading home for some sleep.

More Videos

Some Chinese New Year lion and dragon dances in the Tuen Mun Town Plaza on Wednesday.

Parade Videos

A Lion:

and A Marching Band:

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

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!

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 :)

2 months to go

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

Easter and Christmas

The Creation Story

According to Eddie Izzard.

Warning: Some bad language is used!

What I'm Watching

I am missing programmes like this. I love Dara Obrian!

The Peak

Also, because it wouldn't upload before, a video of us on the Star Ferry from 01-09-2007:

Lee Evans

Bill Bailey: A Legend

Hmmm guess who got no sleep last night! Been watching stuff like this. WIll update properly soon x

Prison Break

I can't believe I'm going to be missing series 3 of Prison Break!! This isn't the official trailer but still a cool little video. Oh- does anyone know if it will still be shown on 5? Or have Sky bought it? I haven't got Sky :( They stole Lost too so I couldn't watch that! It's so unfair.

Other TV programmes I'm going to miss: Neighbours, ER, Casualty, Grey's Anatomy, This Morning- You can't beat Phil and Fern!

Now I'm Obsessed