Phil Jupitus -- Category 3 Sighting pt 2

Phil Jupitus -- Category 2 Spiders and Category 3 pt 1

Phil Jupitus -- Category 1 Spiders

Australia

In 4 weeks time I will have landed in Perth!! I've just finished booking all my flights and I've only got to find somewhere to stay in Sydney.

My itinerary looks something like this:

• Monday 21st July- fly to Perth via Singapore
• Friday 25th July- fly to Melbourne
• Saturday 2nd August- fly to Sydney
• Sunday 10th August- fly to Brisbane
• Thursday 14th August- fly back to Perth via Sydney
• Wednesday 20th August- fly back to Hong Kong

Hmm... that's a lot of flying haha. My carbon footprint this year will be huuuuuuge! I was going to go by train to Sydney but it takes 11 hours or something, whereas the flight is only an hour and a half.

I'm planning on going skydiving (Melbourne) and scubadiving (Brisbane), salsa dancing (everywhere), wine tasting (Perth), the Neighbours tour (Melbroune) and rock climbing (Perth? Need to check that out...) as well as doing all the sightseeing. I'm so excited!!

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!

It's a mystery!

I have a very strange rash on one of my arms which appeared this morning when I got to school. It starts on my hand and spreads all the way up my forearm, it looks like red dots but they're not raised and it's not itchy but the skins really sensitive. I have no idea what caused it but I'm a bit worried because it hasn't disappeared or lessened yet. Of course, reading up on strange diseases isn't helping at all! I'm relieved it's not hand, foot and mouth disease though. Any ideas? I'm going to the doctor's later to see what he says. The deputy Ms. Wong (not so helpfully) just put Mopiko bite cream on it which only made it burn! I'm my own medical mystery heehee.

I Wanna Love You

If you look in the sidebar to the right you should be able to hear a track that's been in my head all week. It's a cover of Akon's I Wanna Love You by Pablo Bachata ft. M. Sosa. It's a bachata song and it's my fave to dance to.

I've been dancing twice this week already- I went to my regular class at the Cosmopolitan Hotel on Saturday and then on Tuesday I went to a class at Sugar in Lan Kwai Fong. The class at Sugar was run by the same guy who does mine but he did it at a much faster pace, and there were a lot more complicated moves to learn. Oh- and Javid the DJ put me on the guest list so I didn't have to pay...yay! I had a LOT of fun, and Javid reckons I've really improved. There were a lot of more experienced dancers who turned up for the party after the lesson at Sugar. One guy was just too good for me! It was a fast song anyway but he did everything really quickly and he was doing a lot of moves I'd never done before. There were a few times and we got out arms tangled which made us laugh. I taught Edmund a bachata (to the track above actually)... and I say taught but it's pretty easy to pick up. Left, right, left, kick...right, left, right, kick.

Not really been doing much else this week. It was the flea market a church on Sunday, and I think we raised about £1000! I should be going to salsa again on Saturday if my budget allows. I'm down to $800 now :( I'm going to cover for Jules in a couple of weeks at his learning centre. They pay him $2000 for 8 hours!! Such easy money!

Love Your Neighbour

It's been a wet week. Last weekend was apparently the wettest since 1972... or so a friend of a friend says. I haven't been so lucky with the weather here- it reached 40 degress Celcius in the summer (admittedly, before I arrived but it was still hot when I got here!), we had the longest and coldest winter, and then we had 3 days solid of black rain.

On Saturday at the Asiaworld Expo arena there was a Love Your Neighbour Celebration event. The band from my church, the Vine, were playing and they asked us all to help out in whatever way they needed us too. I thought I'd go along with Anthony, who works at Crossroads, and some of his colleagues because he was driving there. The expo arena is right next to the airport on Lantau Island and none of us realised that the bridge to the airport was closed because of the black rain. We get stuck in a biiig traffic jam for ages until we could turn off and park at the MTR station in Tsing Yi.

We get the train to the arena and although we're late everything was good. My job was to usher people in and try and get them to fill the rows of seats. It started really late because all the coaches busing people in got caught in the traffic jams. There was some grea worship- with songs both in English and chinese because it was mostly local and mainland chinese people there. Reinhard Bonke gave a great talk, which was interpreted hilariously by some guy on stage with him. Loads and loads of people became Christians which is fantastic. Here is a video of Reinhard Bonke in Africa with hundreds of thousands of people all coming to hear him, it's amazing!

We get the train back to Tsing Yi and Anthony starts driving us back. It was really, really late and poor Anthony got a bit confused and instead of following the signs for Tuen Mun, he follows the sings for the airport which means we're driving back the way we've just come on the MTR! And of course there's no way to turn around. So it takes us an hour to get to the airport to turn around and get back to Tsing Yi so we can finally take the right turning for Tuen Mun! By the time I get back (after taking a taxi from the Gold Coast) it's 2:00am.

Sunday evening after church some of us went out for a meal for Julian's birthday- Jo, Joel, Julian, Dorothy, and 2 other of Julian's friends plus me. We found a nice indian restaurant in Causeway Bay which wasn't too expensive. (My budget is extremely tight this month) We were going to go karaokeing after and we drove to this place but it was really expensive. Jo and me called it a night and the others decided to go and do karaoke in Yuen Long.

Monday was a bank holiday "day after the dragon boat racing holiday" or something like that. They're very literal with their translations sometimes! I didn't see any of the racing because it's in places like Stanley a million miles away. Anyway I spent Monday sorting out all the donations our plus group has received for the flea market next weekend. We've got some really good stuff! We've got a brand new designer brief case worth over £200, brand cosmetics and perfumes still wrapped in plastic, a swarovski necklace worth £75, a Louis Vuitton wallet worth over £200... and then there's all the junk people just needed an excuse to get rid of. Me and Paulina had the lucky job of sorting through all the clothes we'd been given. It took fooorrreeevvver. But we did it! I'm really looking forward to the flea market (...or jumble sale...) on Sunday! We're trying to raise $1'000'000 for Care for Children.

Yesterday I went to the travel agents with Cat and got my ticket home booked! It's been such a pain trying to get the school to do it. They kept telling me Jo's school were doing it, then they told me I had to be on the same flight, then that our flights had to cost the same, then I could only fly within my contract period, until finally I emailed Patrick and they agreed I could have the flight when I needed it. Thank you. I'm flying HK-Heathrow-Manchester on the 22nd August, landing on the 23rd. That's 14 hours worth of flights!

Ooooh I should tell you about the movies I saw on Friday. Me and Jo went to go and see Narnia 2 or Prince Caspian (whatever it's called) and it is fantastic/amazing/incredible etc... it's really very good! You should all go and see it! After Narnia we went straight in to Sex and the City with Mandy and her friend. Not quite the same as Narnia haha... still pretty good. There's some bits that are just really frustrating (why aren't you looking for your phone?!!, just read your emails!) or just really awful ("Samantha we think you look great even if you are fat but are you happy?" ...read: you can't be fat and happy...)! Oh and the black girl is just such a racial stereotype. Apart from that it was OK!

7 weeks and counting!

It's nearly the end of the year! Nearly time to go to Australia! Everything is winding down now at school, or I am anyway. The K3's will be "graduating" at the end of the month and we get a 4 day weekend. Each year the school organise holidays for the staff- it was Taiwan, Thailand, and China. Except the Taiwan one got canclled so they've arranged for a 2 day trip to Disney with a stay in the hotel. I put my name down for the Disney trip because it's free. The Thailand trip would have cost me a couple of thousand dollars because you only get a $1500 voucher and you pay the rest. The china trip is free too but the visa to get in the China would have cost me $800! That's double what I paid before! So 2 days in Disneyland... I hope I don't have to stay with the other teachers all the time otherwise I'll be so bored.

Haven't been doing a great deal lately. Last weekend I went to salsa as normal at the Nooch bar, but the regular instructor was away and there were only 3 of us in the lesson. There was this other guy there who was a really good dancer and he took me to the Jubilee bar, near Lan Kwai Fong. Omg I saw soo many amazing dancers there! It was a bit intimidating at first, but i had a few dances and was fine. When you dance with the good people they don't mind telling you where you're going wrong- I spent one dance just doing the basic back and forward step because I couldn't get it right. Or the guy didn't think I could. I met Joel and Dan later on in LKF and we went to a few bars and clubs.

On Sunday Lauren and Marty arranged a junk boat trip. Lauren won the raffle at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce ball for the trip so she invited all the Vine people who helped out- me, Jo, and Lynette- as well as her brother and sister-in-law, Anthony and Esther from the Beijing mission trip, and Gabrielle, Skip and Kathryn. We all had a really good time. The driver (sailor?) took us to a small cove thing Lamma Island. We got to jump in and swim to the beach, where we explored the little rock pools and looked for pretty shells. The water was really clean and warm. I've put the pictures up on flickr now. Baby Zara came along (Lauren and Marty's little one) and Anthony took this adorable picture of us:

We all brought along some food so we had a feast on board, and the weather was fantastic. A great day methinks!

I don't got no bellybutton :(

I love Veggietales!!

Crybaby

I've made another kid cry today...seems to be happening a lot lately! I have a Naughty Chair at the front of the class with me and it's mostly just a threat- the children hate being made to sit there. The first time I made a boy cry was because he was turning around repeatedly and playing with toys on a shelf behind him, I told him to pay attention like 10 times, and when he didn't I told him to sit in the Naughty Chair. But he wouldn't move. I told him quite a few times and I was getting really, really annoyed. Still wouldn't go and sit there. So I made him stand up and put his chair next to the Naughty Chair and told him to choose which one. And then he cried... haha. I did feel really guilty after.

Today I was finishing the lesson by doing the hokey cokey. Instead of running into the middle, that would be a nightmare, we all put our hands in the middle together and then lift them up again. It's much more fun that it sounds! We were doing that anyway and one boy, G, (who is such a spoilt brat, so naughty and manipulative) decided to slap my hand. Ooo he was in trouble then! I told him that was not a good thing to do and that he had to go and sit in the Naughty Chair for hitting me. Of course, he just stood there and refused to budge. I told him again, and then the class teacher saw and she told him... so he went and sat down and then burst into tears. Bless him. I just found it funny though- he knew he shouldn't have hit me. After we finished the song I asked him to say sorry " sowwy mi junny" and told him he could go and sit back in his seat. But he said no. So he sat there while we sang another song, still crying.

Oh, I think my star pupil in that class is interpreting what I'm saying to some of the slower children. I was explaining to 2 children how to race some "dragon boats" (toilet roll tubes on string- decorated like dragon boats of course) and they weren't really understanding, and I was showing them how to hold the string tight, and I realised that M was telling them how to do it in cantonese. And I've seen him do it before when I ask a question they don't understand... Now that I've noticed I bet he's been doing it for a while. Hmm...

Just becoming a little obsessed...

Bed bugs

I'll start off with the bad news this week- I'm sure you all already know- of the earthquake in the Sichuan Province in mainland China. There's tens of thousands of people dead, and millions left homeless. Chengdu, where we visited the orphanage at Easter, was badly affected. Robert Glover (of Care for Children) has told us that the children from the orphanage are safe. However, in another town where a lot of children had been put in foster families, was badly hit too and they don't know if those children are safe. I've already donated money to Care for Children and if you want to too go to www.careforchildren.com.cn I don't know about in the UK, but here in Hong Kong HSBC are giving like for like when people donate money through them to the China appeal.

It's been a quiet week this week. I've had my second term observation by the parents and it went well! There was one class and I thought they behaved terribly- they were very overexcited, kept turning round to wave at their mom, dad, or gran, kept shouting and talking- but the parents all marked me "excellent" or "very good"! I did notice that this time I didn't get stage-fright like before. I didn't look at the parents, but last time I didn't need too and my hands were shaking and my legs felt like jelly, so that's good too!

This weekend I booked a hostel room for Saturday night, so I could stay out later after salsa, and I could go to the 9:30am service at church. It wasn't a great room. There were ants and there was mould on the wall. And when I woke up I felt very itchy... I hope the bed bugs enjoyed me... Salsa was great though! I didn't see Jo and Eric, but there was a nice couple originally from Sussex who came with their neighbour (who'd been to our salsa class before). I'm trying to remember what we learnt last night...we mostly built slightly on whatever we did last week. It was good during the after part because I got to dance with Javid and another guy who'd been dancing for longer and they were teaching me new moves. I finally got the hang of the bachata dance too! It's sods law that last night most people left at 11:30pm, and there were only 6 of us left at 12pm... I needn't have booked a hostel room haha. Ah well. I got an early-ish night and woke up nice and early for the sunday service.

Ohh yeah, on Saturday during the day I went to a new 180 women's group being run by Cora and Gabby. It's basically a women's accountability group where we can go and have good, strong fellowship and be able to grow through that. It sounds like it's going to be really good. We'll be able to bring up topics that we feel we need help with or need to talk about, Gabby wants to do some study on women in the Bible and she's been reading books aimed at Christian women which she thinks is really useful and wants to share too. I'm really excited to be a part of it!

Sa-sa-sa-salsa

I had sooo much fun again last night! When the lesson started it was literally me, another older woman, and the instructor. But as the lesson went on more people arrived. Jo and her boyfriend Eric, who I'd met last lesson, came with their friend who I think is called Edison or Anson or something. This week we learned the left turn and built the moves into a little routine which ended with the girls being dipped and our leg in the air (apparently we're meant to keep them on the ground but mine always ended being up haha). It's really exciting, and it really makes me happy, to master a new move. Like when we first started doing the left turn I just couldn't get it right but by the end of the night it felt so easy!

At the after party I danced with a few of the more experienced men. No russian guy this week haha! I learnt a few more moves and the Bachata dance. When I was dancing with the instructor we were just making up moves, it was so fun! Me and Eric were doing that too, and practicing the last little bit of the routine with the big finish a lot, oh doing lots of turns and spins!

Eric and Jo went to Sugar which is a salsa bar in Lan Kwai Fong during the week. They said that there's a lot more people and it's a bit more lively. It's only $120 (with 2 free drinks). So I might give that a try too. I want to be good enough by the time I leave for Australia that I can go to a salsa bar and just dance. It's going to take a lot of practice though.

I didn't stay too late that night because I was staying at Lauren and Marty's place in Sai Wan Ho. I'd mentioned to Lauren at Plus that I'd booked a hostel room so I didn't have to go home, and she phoned me later on and offered to let me stay at theirs! They're so sweet :) They let me have a key and they pulled out the sofa bed. I was so tired by the time I got back I just collapsed. All I could hear in my head though was "1,2,3...5,6,7 and 1,2,3...5,6,7 and..." grrr!!

I have tomorrow off because it is Buddha's Birthday...so err...happy birthday Buddha. Me and Jo are planning to go down to the beach if the weather is nice enough. It's started getting very hot lately- on Friday it was 31 degrees and the humidity was ridiculous. It was a bit cooler this weekend though. We're going to go to a restaurant at the beach too make an afternoon of it.

Wow

I've been having so much fun!

On Thursday (May Day) I went for dinner with Sam Ko, Bomi and JP at a very nice Thai place, somewhere in Tsim Sha Tsui. I met Bomi briefly at the last 180 and she is the nicest person ever! So easy to get along with. We then met up with a guy called Nick and did some window shopping- Bomi needed some new jeans. Apparently it is impossible to buy good jeans in Hong Kong, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that! I recently had my Mum post me some jeans I ordered from Dorothy Perkins. After we browsed through some shops we headed to the harbour to watch the light show. It was great to finally see it- I've seen it from Hong Kong Island side but it's nothing compared to watching it from TST. They use lasers, spot lights, and the actual lights on the buildings. It's all set to music which you can vaguely here if you stand in the right place at the harbour. It's pretty impressive, although I did get bored after 10 mins of it. I then caught the Star Ferry with Bomi so I could catch my bus home.

Friday was an easy day at work- the Olypmic Torch was in Hong Kong so we had an Olympic themed day. They had a mini torch run through school! A child from each class had to run the torch to the next class- it was so fun! They were all chanting "Cheer for China!" (in cantonese) or "Go China!" would be a better translation. All the children and teachers wore red too and had sticks with the same slogan "Cheer for China" on. Ms Kong made me put one on- despite my protests at not being Chinese :p Throughout the morning they had class pictures taken in front of a big "Olympic torch" made from shiny paper on the wall of the hall. I had my picture taken with Ms Lee and Ms Kong's class. My favourite class by the way hehe. In the afternoon they did a similar thing with the afternoon classes, but instead of running round the school (because of the nursery children) they just passed it round the children, who were sat in a big circle. The K2's and K3's then ran around the school with it.

In the evening Jo and me babysat the gorgeous baby Zara. Lauren and Marty didn't need us to babysit but we wanted to because she's so adorable! They went to the cinema while we looked after her. She's only 6 months old and she's so well behaved, and gorgeous...everyone loves her! And she was so easy to look after. Seriously when she started getting a bit moany, we gave her a dummy and put her on her babymat. When we put her to bed at 7:30 she cried a little but once she had her dummy in, and her teddy, she was fine and settled down really quickly. We kept checking on her because we loooooove her and she's just too cute! Marty and Lauren came home around 10:30, and we were home by 12:30. About 10 minutes into the bus journey a man at the back of the bus was sick. Euuuuuurrrggh it was disgusting! And it was the second time in a week we had it happen! We moved upstairs to escape the stench, but we could still smell it. Not nice on an hour bus journey.

On Saturday morning I had to go in to work to help at the "Parents appreciation day" thing. I think it's Mothering Sunday here soon. Anyway, the children had all been working on dance routines, so I helped do kid's hair. You know when you're a kindergarten teacher when you can ignore a child crying for it's Mom. It sounds really mean but it's true. Two little girls from the nursery were bawling while the teachers were trying to get them ready. After an hour of doing hair, make-up and changing their clothes they were ready. The dance by my afternoon K1 class was so good! Here's a video:

After the performances (held in the church next door) I went back into the school. They had different activities in the classrooms so I spent a while watching the kids. It was really boring. In the hall they had a mini talent show, so I watched Ingrid and Candice dance. Ingrid sang "Pizza Hut" for me :) although her Mom had to really convince her to get up! She also sang "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean".

That night, after deliberating all afternoon, I went salsa dancing! I loooooove salsa dancing, it is so much fun! I couldn't convince anyone to go with me so I went on my own. I was really nervous but everything worked out well- I thought I was going to be late but the bus driver was driving really quickly, and I found a taxi driver who knew exactly where I needed to be, and when I got there the instructor hadn't even arrived! It was held in a bar and it was a nice small group who were mostly beginners. I think there were 12 of us including the instructor. When I did salsa classes back in the UK it was massive group of over 30 people, so it was a big difference! Everyone was really friendly- I met a great young couple called Jo and Allen, and we swapped numbers so Jo is going to give me a txt if she's going next week. After the class there is a "salsa party" at the bar so more experienced salsa dancers came and danced and we could practice ourselves. I danced with a kiwi guy who was really good, he was helping me with the turns. Then this Russian guy wanted to dance with me, which would have been ok if he actually had turned up to the lesson and tried to learn a bit of salsa. He was hopeless. Really, really bad! During the lesson you rotate partners so you never get stuck with one really bad person which is good of course. And also it means if you come alone, like me, you get to meet new people. It didn't cost too much either $150 (£10) and you have an hour lesson, 2 drinks, and then the after party which goes on all night I guess! I was home by 1am though.

Today I went to the 9:30am service which meant I had to be up at 7am. I didn't think I'd be able to do it after having a late night but as soon as my alarm went off I was wide awake. After the service I went for lunch with Lauren, Marty and baby Zara. We had a delicious brunch of Eggs Benendict and talked about my trip to Australia. They're going to put me in contact with people they know in the cities I'm visiting, and maybe even try and persuade them to put me up :p It will be really great to have people I can contact while I'm there. I've been busy booking flights and checking out hostels- only 78 days to go- and I'm getting very excited!

After lunch I met up with Jo (who I hadn't seen since Friday) and we went and watched Iron Man. I don't know if it's out in the UK yet but you HAVE TO SEE IT! I'm not an action movie fan at all but it is just soo good! Me and Jo both came out of the cinema saying "Wow...just wow...that was amazing!" I hadn't seen any trailers so I had no idea what to expect, but whatever I was expecting I was pleasantly and amazingly surprised! Go and see it!!