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!!

Britain's Got Talent 2008

I don't know if you've been watching this (I haven't) but I think you should all see this! It is fantastic! I love it! I've watched it about 5 times in a row haha. Simon's face is a picture!

Bugs pt. 2

Last Saturday I decided to fumigate the kitchen since that's where I kept finding those horrible bugs. Look what I found behind the kitchen door! It was so gross! But now...all gone! I've seen hardly any of the bugs since. I did a really thorough clean including all the cupboards. Yay! no more bugs!

I still have spiders in my room though :(

Bugs

I'm not very happy. The past few days I've been seeing these little brown/black bugs around the house. They like little beatles that fly and probably bite. I've seen them on the walls, which is fine, but I got the cornflour out the other day and they were in there! Grossssssss! I had to throw the whole box away. And then the other night I lifted up my duvet and they were in my bed. So now all week I've been really paranoid. I don't know how many I've had to pick up with tissues from my room. My bedroom is not for bugs.

But that's not it. I've only seen one spider in the house until now- and that was on a duvet that had been sat in the living room for quite a few weeks. And now I've seen 4! All in my bedroom! Small, flat, can-get-anywhere-types. And if they were on my ceiling I could cope. 2 of them were. 1 was on the wall right behind the bedhead. The other was under the lip of the windowsill right next to my bed. It wasn't there the other day because I looked! (I don't know why...maybe checking for the beatles) So now I'm sleeping on the sofa. Checking every corner of the flat for spiders.

And right now I've just spotted a spider spinning it's web around one of the bugs. :( Help me.

Cinderella

Guess who went to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce Ice ball at the Grand Hyatt hotel last night! Unfortunately it was not because I was asked by a fantastically wealthy man...no, it was because I volunteered. I didn't realise that I would be having to guard a watch all evening, but it was still a great night. The watch was a Breitling Superocean watch, not that I'd heard of them before, and very expensive- they normally cost around $20-30'000 HKD. The starting price for it on the silent auction though was $6'000- a bargain! There was a lot of interest in it and the final price was $19'000. So the guy only really saved $2'000. While I was standing there I heard a woman say to her husband (drooling over the watch), "But daaahling, you already have a Breitland!" Obviously not that one haha.

Other prizes on the silent auction included a 2 night stay, for 2 people, at the Four Seasons hotel in Thailand (starting bid $7'000, normal price per night is $22'000 with a min. stay of 7 nights); a wooden handbag (!) with leather interior for $4'000 but no one bid on that...for some reason...; signed memorabilia from film stars, sports stars and everyone else. There were a lot of prizes going. If I had the money I would have bid on VIP tickets to the Cirque de Solei at the Macau, plus ferry tickets over, and one night's stay at the Venetian. Starting bids on that were $3'000. A bargain I think! I don't know how much it went for, but I think maybe $11'000.

After the auction finished at 11:30 we were allowed to go and dance. Well I don't know if we were but I dragged Lynette and Jo anyway hehe. They had a band from the Cavern, a bar in LKF, who were great! They sang the YMCA and once asian guy stood there looking really confused at all these westerners waving there arms around. I danced with him for a bit at the end and I thought I heard him say he was in the CIA haha.

I'm sure I haven't done this night justice- Fanny (a friend of Lynette's) organised it and it must have been fantastic to have been a guest. There was live entertainment, a silent and live auction, a raffle with amazing prizes, great food (the volunteer's food wasn't so good hmpf), and the decorations we just fantastic! All the pictures are on Flickr.

Tour Guide

Yesterday Anita, a very nice woman I met in Beijing (at the BICF Next church...will post about that soon), came to Hong Kong. She's staying just for 2 days and I offered to show her around. We went to H&M, where I came out with several items and Anita came out with none, had tapas for lunch in Soho and then went to Repulse Bay beach. Oh we went to Flow, this great second hand bookstore in Soho, before the beach too. After Repulse Bay we took the Star Ferry over to Tsim Sha Tsui. We saw the most ridiculous looking boat in the harbour! It's pink. With flashing lights. And there's just a really tacky design thing going on.

When we got to TST we went to the YMCA bookstore, and Anita bought quite a few books. It's a good job Anita bought an empty suitcase because her books must weigh a ton! We went to HMV too and again Anita bought sooo much. We had a really good time- I'm so glad Anita came down!

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!

Pictures

I've uploaded all my Beijing pictures here. I'll write soon about everything that happened while I was there!

Phew I'm home

Beijing Day 6 and the Sunday after

Finally! I've gotten round to writing about the last day!

We had to be up early again (but not quite as early as the day before), pack, go down for breakfast, and be on the coach for something like 9am. It might have been earlier because we wanted to see Tiananmen Square before being at the airport for 1pm. Not all of the group came- some had left the night before and some decided to have a lie-in or have some quiet time.

This was the first time we'd driven through the city centre and it was really exciting to see all the different buildings and stuff. I was hoping to be able to see the new Olympic Stadium but we didn't :(

Anyway, here we are in Tiananmen Square! It was very big and very busy. I felt quite unnerved too knowing that there were secret police everywhere. It wasn't particularly exciting just standing in a square... but I'm glad I've been. I didn't remember the Tiananmen Square Massacre until Sharron was talking about how she remembers seeing it on TV back in the 80's.

Whilst we were at the square Joe and Gretl, very quickly and discreetly, filmed the Vine News for the next week. It was great seeing it on Sunday morning! After Tiananmen Square we went back to the Centre, had a quick debriefing, packed our cases onto the coach and went to the airport. I finally arrived home at about 9:00pm.

On the Sunday after we arrived home Jo and me went to the 11:30am Sunday service, and as we arrived Pastor John caught me and asked me if I'd give a short testimony about the mission trip! I hate public speaking. I don't normally shy away from it, but he was asking me to get on stage at the 11:30 in front of hundreds of people. I agreed anyway...and spent the time during worship worrying and writing down what to say. Finally Pastor Tony called us (and someone from the Thai mission trip) out and I did get on stage, although at one point I nearly sat down, and it was terrifying. I don't really remember what I said except at one point I had to just stop and breathe because my voice was really, really shaking.

So that's my first ever mission trip. And hopefully not my last! We were very lucky that we got to stay in comfort, with good food, and hot showers, and nice regular toilets (at the Centre anyway) and we got to meet some fantastic people.