Moan Moan

I'm cold and ill. Sympathy please.

7 Days till Arrival

Wow, only 7 days now until my family arrive here in Hong Kong. That means I'm halfway through my stay in Hong Kong. It's going far too quickly! Anyway, I've been busy planning what I'm going to do with them, finding out about good Chinese restaurants, about the displays and traditions. At Chinese New Year parents give their children "lai see" (red packets) with money in, and also married people to their single friends and bosses to their employees. So I think I need to befriend some married people this week hehe.

On Friday I went to a nice restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui called Paparazzi with Ms Man, Ms Wendy and Ms Pat to celebrate Chinese New Year. I had the most delicious meal ever- veal rolls with zuchinni, sage leaves and mozarella in the middle served with mediterranean vegetables. Mmmmmm! And for desert I had profiteroles with icecream and chocolate sauce, equally as delectable. And when we were settling the bill, I gave approximately what I thought I owed, but Ms Man gave me my money back...I thought it was really nice of them to pay for me like that. Especially since I'm down to my last $500 again. After the meal we did a bit of window shopping...

And that's basically the highlight of my weekend. The hike in Shek O was cancelled because it rained all day Friday and it would have been to dangerous to walk. They had a meal there still, but since it would have taken us 2 hours there and back we decided not to go. Instead we hired the last season of Sex and City and bought lots of chocolate. We have literally spent 2 days sat on the sofa. I did make up for it during the week though- I went to TST 3 times! Once to do the homework club, another time to buy parade tickets and then have dinner with Sam, and again on Friday.

Jo Dau for now!

Wow

Here are 2 pictures of where I am living, from Google Maps:

How cool?!

What I've Watched Tonight

• Various episodes of Have I Got News For You
• Half of Nacho Libre (on DVD)
• 10 minutes of Weeds
• Omid Djalili Live At The Apollo parts 1 and 2
• Room 101 episodes with Ross Noble, Ricky Gervais and Ian Hislop
• Clips of Ross Noble Live
• Clips of Peter Kay Live
• and clips of Dave Spikey Live

I did manage to leave the flat today just incase you thought I'd spent all day sat in front of my laptop...

The B Word

This week has been so boring. We're finding that we've got nothing to do in the evenings except sit on the sofa with our laptops...Well we could do stuff but stuff costs money. And we need to save as much money as we can for both Chinese New Year and Easter. Especially now we're thinking of going to Japan at Easter. To see Tokyo would be so cool! Expensive, but cool. So we're on a money saving drive.

I've volunteered to do help at a homework club for asylum seeker's kids on Tuesdays. I went last time and it was really fun. I was helping this cheeky 7 "and a half" year old girl who read her workbook to me, then wanted to play hide and seek, and then wanted to play with my phone, and then wanted me to test her spelling... she needed a lot of occupying. I was also helping this other girl with her english and science homework. It's so hard trying to explain things like dissolving in a really basic way. Obviously I can tell you that it's about the particles, but she was only 10 years old. So I told her that some things dissappear in water because they're small...hopefully the teachers will teach it at school haha. I want to do this every Tuesday but it means leaving school an hour early, and Revd Kwok needs to approve it first. The Principal wasn't keen on me doing it for some reason. She kept telling me I'd get in trouble with immigration. That's rubbish by the way, there's nothing in our visas that stops us from working anywhere else, and it's not even work since I'm not getting paid. *rolls eyes*. It's stupid how they pay us so little, apologize for it, but then won't let us do tutoring work i the evenings.

On Friday we went with Sam to Festival Walk shopping mall to see 27 Dresses. I don't know if it's out in the UK? It's got Katherine Heigl in it, from Grey's Anatomy and Knocked Up, and James Marsden. It is sooo funny! Much better than Knocked Up. I thought about going to the cinema again today, to see Cloverfield, but it's not on an Tuen Mun. And I'm not going all the way down to Kowloon today. So, it's going to be another Sunday spent on the sofa.

A Typical Wednesday Morning

Class 1a, first lesson

Me: Which word on the board starts with K? Wind, sky or kite?

[Zoe continues talking to Piu Ting; Isaac, Florence and Alex start laughing at Kitty; Hei Hei falls off his chair, rest of the children just stare into space]

Me: Anyone? [check time, 5 minutes of lesson left] OK! Alex! Zoe! Who is not listening?! Who would like to sing a song?

[...Silence...]

Me: Aaaaany song you want...

[Zoe carries on talking to Piu Ting, Chili talks to herself, Florence and Isaac are still laughing]

Me: Nope. Ok... then goodbye children.

Children: Goodbyyyyye Miss Jeeeeeeeny

All the while the class teacher just sits there, apparently completely unable to control the class herself. I am definitely never in the mood for this class first thing. Or last thing. Or at any time. Grrr.

MTR Song

Made me giggle :)

A song for Hong Kong MTR stations by Steve James

New Year's Pictures

Are finally up on flickr!

Winter

So I've been teaching the children about the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. I tell them Summer is hot, and Winter is cold...That is fine until I ask them what season it is now. Because although it's Winter it is still 23 degrees C, and tomorrow it's going to go up to 26 degrees. So much for hats and gloves!

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...

Holiday Pictures

Which are all up on Flickr of course:

Statue in the Buddhist temple

At the Christmas Party

Me and Jo

The view from our balcony

Fireworks at the Christmas Party

Day 5 and 6

Christmas Day! Woohoo! We had another lie-in after staying up quite late with the other guests at the Christmas party, and opened our presents before we got up. As soon as we saw it was sunny we slopped suncream on, grabbed our books and rushed downstairs to sit by the pool and catch some rays. Even though we were only out there for about 30 mins before it rained I still managed to burn. I am still peeling from it, but I now have a nice tan too. For lunch we had a nice pizza and mango shakes. I love the shakes soo much, they're so yummy!

I think after lunch we either went back out to sit by the pool or we went back to bed for a nap. I really don't remember. But I know that at about 3pm we went for some spa treatments using the vouchers Jo and Greg had won. Because Greg had already had a facial and massage he let me have his voucher, which was really great of him. We decided to have a facial, foot scrub and massage. It lasted over 3 hours and it was wonderful...The facial especially was very relaxing. I didn't enjoy the foot scrub so much. They filed away all the hard skin, and it was really uncomfortable when they were doing the tickly spots. I can't explain it, but I endured it rather than enjoyed it. The massage was good too, except I got really bad back ache from lying on my front for so long. We went back smelling very fragrant and feeling very relaxed.

In the evening we watched a ton of movies. It took us 2 and a half hours to get through the whole of Elf on Cartoon Network because there were adverts EVERY 5 MINUTES. Seriously. It was so frustrating! And they kept missing bits out. We managed to watch 2 films at the same time because of those damn adverts. I did really enjoy what I saw of both the films though.

Day 6 was our last day. We changed our flights so we left 2 days early because...well...there wasn't anything we could afford to do except sit by the pool or beach. I would have loved to have completed the scuba diving course but that was over £100 I think. I couldn't afford it anyhow. So we spent the morning sunbathing since it was gloriously sunny and left around 3:30pm. Our flight wasn't until 9:30pm but the airline told us we had to pay the changing fee four hours before the flight. But when I got there I was told I could pay at check-in so we turned up hours early for nothing. Argh! Our flight was delayed again, but we were back in Hong Kong in no time. From the minute we arrived to when we got back to our flat was under an hour. So quick! I was so glad we didn't have to queue at immigration- we just swiped our ID cards and had our thumbprints checked. If this is what they plan to do in Britain with our ID cards then I say go for it! It was SO easy.

On the 7th day we rested.

Holiday: Day 4

Day 4 was Christmas Eve. We didn't do much. I think we had a long lie-in and watched movies on TV. In the afternoon we decided to see the beach with the canadians, so we asked the manager to drop us off. He said he'd be taking us to a nice beach. We were told that the Cebu Beach Club beach wasn't great but there was another one which was much nicer. Guess which one he took us to...Yup the Cebu Beach Club. And when we saw the beach we weren't happy. We walked down and half of it was covered in algae, and there were boats moored. This wasn't the white sand, clear sea beach we'd seen in the pictures. And there was no sun to be seen. We would have gone straight back if the manager hadn't driven off. Derek explored a bit to see if there was a nicer beach we could walk too, and luckily there was a better one not far away. It was still small, and there was a watersports centre close by but it was better than the algae covered beach. So we "sun" bathed and read until the manager came to pick us back up.

In the evening the resort held a Christmas Party for us. Considering the resort was at "full capacity" there weren't many people there. We were seated with the canadians (because we couldn't get enough of each other haha), then there was a British guy and his Australian fiance, a Japanese couple, John, a Korean family and then the owner of the resort (Larry) and his family. Oh and because it's an ESL school some of the students came too. They served us clam chowder, turkey and stuffing, ham in a pineapple sauce, salad, break, fruit cake and homemade icecream. It was a really nice dinner. Then we played some games. The first game was a version of "Islands" and we had to dance around a folded newspaper and try to squeeze on with our partners when the music stopped. Jo and Greg won and got a certificate for a free spa treatment.

The next game was the 5 Apples Challenge- eat 5 apples in 3 mins. 2 of the students tried that game but I don't think either managed it. Then they did the same game but with 5 beers so Derek and a girl had a go. Apparently it was really bad beer and both of them struggled, so all the other guys gave them some help. Derek spent the next half an hour in the toilets throwing up haha. We were given live entertainment after- some German guy with his guitar and keyboard played songs and we all danced and chatted. It was a really good night all in all.

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.