Officially moved out of the youth hostel yesterday and into the flat. It is still very bare and empty, but the mattresses arrived today (hurrah!) so at least now I have something to sleep on, and I've been out to purchase a kettle and mugs for essential cups of tea. I'm surviving on peppermint tea at the minute cause there's no fridge to keep milk in.
Had a lovely weekend last weekend. On the Friday night the Chatteris crew hit Lan Kwai Fong (imagine Ibiza/Corfu/18-20s holiday but with expats of a variety of ages and flashing neon signs in Chinese) to celebrate surviving another week in this crazy city. In Hong Kong the pubs seem to never close and when I got a taxi home at 4 in the morning we actually got stuck in a TRAFFIC jam!
Saturday was a bit more relaxed - a few of us went to visit the Man Mo temple on Hong Kong island. It's a temple to the gods of war and literature (I think) and is renowned for the amazing incense coils that hang from it's ceiling. When we arrived the sun was filtering through some slits up near the room and making fantastic sunlit stripes through the incense smoke. Picture perfect camera opportunity but you'll have to wait for the photos (though I believe there are some in the China edition of Lonely Planet if you want a sneak peak). The temple was full of richly decorated shrines and people lighting candles and incense sticks and leaving offerings of fruit and (strangely) takeaway food, but after about 5 minutes the smoke from the incense starts to REALLY hit your eyes and you have to retreat to the street outside.
Sunday I managed to meet up with Georgia (a friend from my Uganda trip) who'd been train-ing her way through Asia. We went on the Star Ferry which is number one on every tourist checklist of Hong Kong. It's very strange to be on a decidedly tourist-y boat and yet have cargo ships going past you. Georgia and I also found our way to Kowloon Park, which is a huge park and apparently has a swimming pool in it that we didn't find. We spent a while sitting in the shade by a duck pond catching up on gossip but decided to move on after a second group of people asked to take photographs with us! I'm used to the kids in Romania last summer constantly asking to take photos, and expected the kids at school here might want to do the same thing, but to be asked to be in photos with complete strangers on a random Sunday afternoon in a city as multi-cultural as Hong Kong was a very strange experience.
The famous Star Ferry
Georgia on the Mid-levels Escalators
Starting school on Monday, but no teaching this week as it's reserved for more orientation. We get to shadow the teachers for a day or two and have to have meetings with the principal and things. Rich and I were taken to school yesterday (Thurs) for an initial meeting with everyone. The meeting was fine and the school staff are really lovely, but finding our way back became a bit of a mission! We waited about 20 minutes for the right bus to come along, and then Rich started just asking each bus if it went to Mong Kok. Eventually one driver took pity on us and told us to come onboard and change on to a 68 later. However, he didn't tell us exactly where to get off so Rich and I found ourselves whizzing down a motorway to an uncertain destination. Luckily, the bus actually went to Tsuen Wan, which I knew was the end of the red MTR (underground) line, so we managed to find our way home eventually. Not to sure how we're going to get back though!
Off to search for a fridge now, and possibly Ikea again as a bit of scouting around has confirmed that it's pretty much the cheapest place to buy home furnishings in Hong Kong.
Bye for now!
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