Home

So... I'm home, and have been for 3 weeks now, but I felt like this blog needed some kind of ending to tidy it up. I like things to be tidy and organised. I'm hoping that'll be an asset in my new life as a teacher in training but worry that it might be more of a problem when the paperwork and lesson plans and essays get on top of me and end up in a big mess.

I got rid of my bed, approximately 10 minutes before the landlord was meant to come round and check the flat and take my keys. The lady who was meant to collect it last time I wrote cancelled on me. Another man came round and looked at the bed and wardrobe then decided they weren't what he was after. The lady who did eventually take away the bed cancelled because it was raining and then had issues rearranging another collection time, but when she arrived she brought a man with her who had the whole thing dismantled in about 5 minutes (with the help of his power tools!) and carried it all away so I didn't have to assist. Which was great!

The last week in school was quite surreal, like I kept noting the date and that in 'X days and X hours' I'd be back in the UK, but the rest of my brain wasn't registering it. On our last Wednesday we were told we had to come to the lunchtime meaningful task. The whole school was there to say goodbye to us - each form class had prepared a song, a poem, a drama or a speech to say thanks. It was really lovely, although Rich and I were sat right at the front of the hall in full view of EVERYONE so I was determined not to get too emotional! Lots of the classes gave us cards or little gifts - one gave me a bag of home made cookies! Perhaps the strangest thing was going back in to school after all that on Thursday and continuing to have lessons. It seemed like a bit of an anticlimax to quietly slip out the school gate at the end of of my last actual day.

Hong Kong was a great experience. When people ask me what it's like, I never know how to reply. It's a city of contrasts ; the skyscrapers against the rugged hillsides, the smooth designer stores against the bustle of Mong Kok street markets, the huge container ships against the idyllic sandy beaches. I like to think I've captured some of that here. It's a crazy place to live but that doesn't mean it's not enjoyable. If you have the money you can experience the best of it all, but you'll have to work hard for it, and I don't think I'm cut out for such a work hard, spend hard lifestyle.

I'm going to finish this with a goodbye message from one of my students...

Ms Owens

Work hard, when you go back your county, if i see you again can you speak in cantonese?

Your student

Jay

Waiting

I'm waiting on a Philipina lady called Julie to come and take away my bed. I've decided I should lie on it until the last possible minute because I'll really miss it when it's gone. Haven't entirely decided where I'm going to sleep next week. Tonight I'm testing out how comfortable my floor is when I pile all my spare bedding, blankets and sarongs on it, on Tuesday I'm staying at Nicole's flat in Tin Shui Wai, and there's always the option of booking into a hostel for a few nights. Thing is, despite moving half way across the world for 9 months, I'm quite a homely person really and the thought of packing up all my stuff and adjusting to living in a different building for a few nights (without my kettle!) doesn't really appeal.

Last Sunday, the company I work for organised an Olympic Fun Day on Cheung Sha Beach on Lantau, which is apparently the longest beach in Hong Kong. The weather was cloudy when we set out in the morning, but by the time we'd taken the ferry to Mui Wo and the bus to the middle of nowhere, things had heated up. Cheung Sha has an Upper Beach and a Lower Beach and as luck would have it, we got off the bus at the wrong one and had to walk almost the full length of the longest beach in Hong Kong in the glaring midday sun with our bare feet burning on the sand. Needless to say this didn't exactly put us in the mood for running relay races with chopsticks and peanuts or creating rivalry between the two teams.

Crazy Relay Races on the longest beach in HK

Emma, Amy and Sarah show off their Kowloon Gold Medals

However, people did get more enthusiastic as the day wore on. I took part in the Tug of War (!) and the boys officially acknowledge that the girls played a much better game of football than them, and at the end of the day, my team (those who live in Kowloon) won! We then had a BBQ as the dusk (and sadly also the mosquitoes) descended and got to see a whole heard of Lantau's famous wild cattle whilst waiting on a bus to take us home.

BBQ at dusk

This week at school I've been getting my S2 classes to make a yearbook. In each class, I assign 2 people to be 'photographers' and try to get a mugshot of everyone. My students are not very fond of being photographed, as you can see from these efforts!

Nicole and Joyce

Roy and Michael and Isaac

Yesterday I took another trip to Clearwater Bay beach for what may be my last swim in the South China Sea. It was lovely to be swimming at 5pm, but the beach was a lot busier than the last time I'd visited. In the evening I went to the Lan Kwai Fong Beer Festival. Lots of people, lots of sweating and yard glasses of beer. A typical Saturday night in Lan Kwai Fong really!

Guangzhou

This time in a fortnight I'll be all packed up and ready to leave Hong Kong. Not entirely sure where everything is going to go. Today, after my last session of Saturday school, I had a sudden urge to go out and by myself Hong Kong things, so I purchased 2 cushion covers (very packable) and a tray with 3 dishes (not so packable) as souvenirs. I'm torn between the ridiculousness of adding MORE stuff to my luggage load at the last minute and the feeling that I may never be back so it's my once in a lifetime opporunity to buy everything I see. Perhaps the best plan is just to stay away from shops but in Hong Kong that is pretty much impossible.

Anyhow... last weekend I went to Guangzhou. I took the train from Hung Hom in Kowloon. It's very easy, costs HK$190 and takes just under 2 hours. You can even buy tickets online at http://www.it3.mtr.com.hk/b2c/frmIndex.asp?strLang=Eng, although you have to collect them at a Hong Kong station so not so good if you're starting in China!

I went with Nicole (who I work with at HLC) and her skills in Cantonese and Putonghua were invaluable in making my weekend chilled out and relaxing. It was great to not have to stress about which restaurant to go in or where we were in relation to a map because, if we needed to, Nicole could always ask someone! Nicole's skills in travelling are, however, not so good so I was still required to read the maps, navigate the underground train network (called the Metro in Guangzhou) and book the hostel. We stayed in the Riverside YHA (http://www.hostelbookers.com/booking/index.cfm?hostel=24428&fuseaction=hosteldetails) which is clean and cheap and is a bit out of the centre of town but right on a waterfront street (Chang Ti Lu) which has been recently redeveloped with a selection of bars, restaurants and neon lights. There's also a Chinese park with crazy exercise machines and a square where we found a guy hiring roller skates!

On our first night, Nicole and I took a 1 hour river cruise from the jetty just outside our hostel. It was nice to see the lights of Guangzhou but the best bit is the fact that all the trees lining the river are lit up with green spotlights, making them look like giant clumps of broccoli. We also had hotpot in the Red Calf restaurant near our hostel which came with delicious herbal tea.

Broccoli trees on the Pearl River Cruise

On Day 2, Rachel arrived on a morning train from Hong Kong and we set off on a ferry across the river to Shamian Island. Shamian Island is where all the foreign traders had to stay, and in the past the bridges were closed at 10pm! The island has the wide avenues of a European city and some pretty looking buildings. We stumbled upon a group of about 8 brides and bridegrooms that we THINK were taking part in a fashion photoshoot! They were much more photogenic than the French church next to them, with it's strangely unreligious neon signs.

Wedding Photoshoot

After a spot of lunch in a Shamian Island restaurant (thanks to Nicole's ordering), me, Rachel, Nicole and a New Zealand girl we'd picked up called Chloe set off to find the Chen Clan Temple. Helpfully, you can find it at the metro station called Chen Clan Academy! The Temple was apparently the home of the Chen Clan for many years, as well as a place to worship ancestors and take imperial examinations. It's a nice building with a lovely courtyard, impressive roofs and a refreshing garden out the back. The Temple/Academy is also now part of the Guangzhou Cultural Museum so has some paintings and fans on display.

Nicole and Rachel at the Chen Clan Temple

From there, we walked towards what someone translated into English as 'Walking Street,' but en route we got distracted by a MASSIVE jade market. The market starts out lining a big square but soon diverges into a multitude of alleyways, all filled with stalls selling hundreds of jade bracelets, pendants and beads. Surprisingly, we made it back out of the warren without buying very much! We headed on towards 'Walking Street' and eventually reached it - a massive pedestrianised strip full of flashing neon brand names. We observed the crowds and took some photos and then, ignoring the McDonalds signs in all directions, headed back out of the pedestrian zone and down a little alleyway full of food stalls to find some dinner. I had a chicken kebab type thing, some coconut milk and an intriguing spiral of crisps. The scorpions didn't really tickle my fancy.

The spacious part of the Jade Market

On our last day in Guangzhou we had to trek out to the East Railway station to book our train tickets back to Hong Kong. There was a rumour that we had to book them 3 hours in advance, so the sensible thing to do it just book them at the same time as your outward ticket! Chloe was heading on to Shenzhen and didn't need to book for that as the trains leave more than once an hour. Having sorted that out, we set off for Yuexiu Park and the Orchid Garden. The metro stop is called Yuexiu Park, and that's the most obvious thing when you come out the station, but the Orchid garden is JUST across the road and is (in my opinion) a much more pleasant place to visit. We, however, found the park first and paid our 10RMB entrance fee so felt we should have a little explore. There is a big, beautiful lake at one corner of which you can feed the fish. The fish are clearly used to this as they gather there in giant swarms as almost leap out the water when they sense someone holding their hand out to drop in some food. Watching this feeding frenzy made us a bit peckish, so we headed out the park and into a restaurant which overlooks it for some tasty dimsum.

Feeding fish

We only just had time to pop in and out of the Orchid garden before heading back to the hostel for our bags. It was much greener than the park, full of lush bamboo forests that block your view and give you the illusion of being in a massive forest when you're only really in a small park. We found a greenhouse full of colourful orchids and a teahouse where you could sit and chill out (if you had the time). I could have stayed there all day.

Nicole and I in the Orchid Garden

However, it was time to return to the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong. Guangzhou seemed to have a much slower pace of life, although we certainly saw plenty of places where skyscrapers are shooting up as well as traffic zooming along highways. I think perhaps it's just that there's more space in Guangzhou, so the hectic parts and skyscrapers are more spread out. Whilst there aren't any major tourist attractions (or at least, not comparable to those in Beijing), there's plenty to look at for a long weekend.

Olympic Torch

Beijing Torch Monument

Last week, the Olympic Torch came to Hong Kong. My school cancelled lessons and held a Torch Relay in the gym hall (it was meant to be outside but the weather was too damp). Some students in each form class had built their own interpretation of the Olympic Torch, and then 8 more students were the relay team that took part in the race. Everyone was issued with a China or Hong Kong flag to wave during the event, but the message from the teachers was (according to our headmaster's translation!) that you can be proud to be Chinese without being proud of everything the Chinese goverment does.

National flag waving

To celebrate this momentous occasion... here are some photographs of Olympic Madness in Hong Kong!

Me and Zoe with our flags

Torches made by the students

Fuwa on the waterfront - The Olympic Mascots

I've also been on a little trip to Guangzhou but you'll have to wait till later for that update as I've got people coming over to my flat in about 10 mins. We're going to order in pizza and have a girly evening, almost like I used to do with my uni flatmates, but without the Charmed and Sex in the City DVDs!!

Nearing the end

5 weeks till the end of the Hong Kong adventure. Time is beginning to drag a little bit now and I'm beginning to think of things that will be so much more convenient in Britain. I got was waiting on the lift with my favourite security guard the other day (he is old and small and wrinkly and always smiles and buzzes the gate open for me!) and he said hello and asked if I was a teacher, and then said something else... but I couldn't understand him! I'm sure he was trying to speak English, but I just couldn't make out what his question was and we spent the whole of the journey to the 11th floor in the lift being awkwardly silent. Whilst in Britain I probably won't have a security guard, and if I did he probably wouldn't be so friendly, I am looking forward to understanding the conversations that other people have in lifts rather than standing in the corner feeling like a mono-lingual colonialist.


Still... even after all these months in Hong Kong, there are things left to see, so I've been trying to shake the negative feelings off by going and seeing them!


Last weekend I went for brunch at the Fringe Club, as suggested on this list of HK brunch venues http://www.hiphongkong.com/restaurants/brunch_restaurants_hong_kong.htm (I've also been to the Brunch Club and would recommend both!) with Jennifer, Olisa and Lily. It costs $99 for the brunch buffet, but that includes eggs, bacon and a sausage as well as helping of cereal, fruit salad, fried stuff, toast and (strangely) curry! The brunch is served in the Rooftop Terrace and last Sunday was just the right level of humidity for sitting on a rooftop fringed with palm trees in pots and pretended to be on holiday. Afterwards, I took Jennifer and Olisa to see the Zoological and Botanical Gardens, as they'd never been. The lemurs were cute and the jaguar was visible (for a change) but the mosquitoes were also very active. My big tip for visiting the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens is.... WEAR MOSQUITO REPELLANT!

Brunching at the Fringe

School this week has been a frenzy of painters and cleaners and rehearsals for the big Official Opening Ceremony on Saturday. It was possibly the most organised school event I have ever participated in, with the whole of Friday afternoon dedicated to a full school rehearsal and the school providing the front row of the choral speaking team with new socks so that all the socks looked the exact same length from the audience. I spent most of the day running around backstage, helping Carrie (one of the local teachers) with the choral speaking team, although I did get to go on-stage and talk through a powerpoint introducing the drama club performance. After the big day, Mr Poon (our school principal) took all the staff out for a meal to celebrate. As Nicole (another local teacher) explained - British people go out to the pub and keep drinking all night, Hong Kong people go out to a restaurant and keep eating all night!

Video of our dinner table

So Sunday was my day off this weekend, and I went on an afternoon adventure to Cheung Chau with Olisa and Jennifer. Cheung Chau is one of the more accessible of Hong Kong's islands - ferries leave from Central every half hour - and is apparently where a lot of Hong Kong locals go to hang out at weekends and public holidays. The waterfront town where you arrive is vaguely reminiscent of a British seaside resort, with stalls selling sarongs and flipflops and shells made into humour looking animals, but then you wander a little further from the ferry terminal and find yourself surrounded by bicycles, boats and boards of fish drying in the sun, which would never happen in Britain! It was like a breath of fresh air to see a horizon devoid of skyscrapers and hear the sounds of insects and bicycle bells instead of car horns and beeping pedestrian crossings (although in Hong Kong, the air is anything BUT fresh!). We wandered along the coastal path and didn't find the beach until a bit too late, but it was a lovely day out.

Strange looking rocks on Cheung Chau

Drying Fish

Today I was also off work. Schools in Hong Kong seem to have a habit of having a recovery day after any major event (sports days, swimming galas...) so today was to recover from the Official Opening. I had to visit the Hong Kong Police HQ in Wanchai to arrange a police check for my teaching course next year, but was also determined to go and visit the bank buildings which are mentioned in my guidebook. The Bank of China tower is my favourite building in the HK skyline and today I finally got to go up and visit the viewing platform on its 43rd floor. The views were pretty good as today was cloudy rather than smoggy, though the glass windows were annoyingly reflective. I then popped in to the Bank of China's arch-rival - the HSBC. My guidebook tells me that whilst the HSBC building has some of the best feng shui in town, the Bank of China building's crazy lines and points and triangles send bad vibes out in its direction. Personally, I think the HSBC looks like an evil headquarters from a sci-fi film, but I wandered underneath anyway and survived my escalator ride to the 1st floor and back (although the security guards looked at me a bit oddly).

View from the 43rd floor of the Bank of China

Inside the skeletal HSBC building

Things to do in a Level 3 Typhoon

It's a Level 3 typhoon warning in HK today, which means lots of rain (the kind that soaks you by rebounding off the ground whilst you hide under your umbrella) and gusty winds, so I'm staying inside for a little while and thought I might post a few photos.

Reflections on Nathan Road

Bamboo Scaffolding! They're doing repair work to my building

How to Behave in a Hong Kong Park

I've started working Saturdays, which is rather tiring! I'm teaching a 6 week 'Phonological Awareness' course on Saturday mornings in Causeway Bay. The girls I teach are lovely and the lessons involve lots of silly songs which is fun, but it's still an effort to get out of bed on a Saturday morning. To add to that, next Saturday is my school's Official Opening Ceremony so today and last Saturday I had to go straight from Causeway Bay to Tin Shui Wai to help with the choral speaking team practice. I can't really complain though as the local teacher who I was helping had been in all morning doing drama club rehearsals and is taking a group of drama club students to a perfomance tonight which finishes at about midnight! People out here work an incredible amount. I don't think I could keep up if I had an ordinary Hong Kong job.

Last week's excitement was that Oasis Hong Kong airlines went into liquidation, meaning that I (along with lots of the other people I work with) had to rebook my flight home. It's quite disappointing as Oasis were great - their flights were constantly reasonably priced and although they were 'budget' you still got meals and drinks and a blanket and pillow on your flight. Apparently they were losing money on practically all their flights so I can't understand why they didn't make some changes earlier to try and recoup their losses. There are various forms to fill in to try to reclaim the money I spent booking the ticket but I'm pretty exhausted at the minute so putting all the phonecalls off till next week.


Tom that Rachel and I met at the Great Wall in China is passing through Hong Kong this weekend, so we've been showing him around in the evenings. Last night we went for dinner at a stall in Temple Street Market. It's in all the guidebooks as an authentic Hong Kong experience to have, so I found it quite amusing that all the tables around us were full of tourists!

A very civilised dinner at Temple St Market

Beijing - the City of Multiple Palaces with Auspicious and Prosperous Names

My weekend in Beijing was fun. Exhausting, but fun. Rachel and I didn't have time to take in all the usual tourist sites, so there was no hope of us getting a taste of 'real' Beijing, but everything we visited seemed to have more than it's fair share of Chinese tourists so the experience wasn't as 'Disneyfied' as I'd read in some guidebooks.

We flew into Beijing on Thursday night and took the airport shuttle bus into town (something I'd highly recommend if you don't want to spend a fortune on a taxi) and then a taxi to our hostel (http://www.xihuahotel.com/eng/zhide/index.asp) where we enthused over the TV in our twin room and then promptly went to sleep. When you're on a weekend tourist mission you don't have much time for bars and clubbing!

Friday was Ching Ming Festival, which was a public holiday, so the Forbidden City (or Palace Museum as the signposts in Beijing call it) was swarming with visitors. This doesn't detract from the immensity of the various palaces and halls inside the city, or the huge courtyards in between them, but it does add to the sense of claustrophobia when you've taken a few turns through the narrower alleyways and then find yourself face to face with a few locked gates. I'm not sure what I was expecting of the Forbidden City, but it didn't really fill me with awe. I could be impressed by the scale of the buildings and admire the intricate details and paintwork on the roofs, but perhaps it was all just too big to take in at once. The most interesting bit was an exhibition in one of the smaller, shadier courtyards, about the imperial concubines! It was full of little artefacts like snuff bottles and dominos that you could connect with on a human scale.

Me in the Forbidden City

Crowds between the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Gate

From the Forbidden City, we joined the flow of tourists gushing out the Tiananmen Gate, under the 6-lane freeway and back up on the other side in Tiananmen Square. The square was sprinkled with groups of tourists, in between which there were very serious marching guards in their green uniforms and little yellow camper-van shaped vehicles emptying the rubbish bins. I smiled at some little kids running around with Chinese flags and their mum asked me and Rachel to be in some photographs with them!

Tiananmen Gate from Tiananmen Square

In our attempt to conquer as much of Beijing as possible in one day, Rachel and I then caught a taxi (which we overpaid for as we tried to bargain instead of using the meter!) to the Temple of Heaven in Tiantan park. The temple is another impressive building with a beautiful roof, this time in blue and gold rather than the reds and yellows of the Forbidden City. The park around the temple immediately seemed a million miles away from the buzz of the city centre, even though we'd been less than 15 minutes in our taxi to get there. We heard some music and joined the crowd around a group of (I assume) amateur musicians playing traditional Chinese instruments for a few songs. The crowd and the group really seemed to be enjoying the music and they smiled at us as if bemused that foreigners would be interested in the show. We did take some time to admire the beautiful buildings in the park, but the best bit was when we copied the locals and stretched out on a patch of grass in the shade of some trees. There is very little grass in Hong Kong so to find a whole lawn of it in Beijing was a great suprise, especially as the grass was really lush and green and springy. The park is planted with lots of ancient cypress trees and has long treelined avenues that reminded me of the jardins in Paris.

The Temple of Heaven

Paris or Beijing?

After our busy day, Rachel and I set out in search of some Peking Duck for dinner. The hostel recommended a restaurant to us, but it had a 30 minute wait and wasn't cheap at all so we checked out a few more places close to the Dong'an night market (where they sell interesting things on sticks). We eventually settled on a place that would do us half a duck, but it turned out to be mostly fat with a bit of skin and a hint of meat so we were quite disappointed really.

On Day 2, we were in our hostel lobby at 6:15 to head out to the Great Wall of China. The bus took about 3 hours and was filled with a French school group, which Rachel was eager to leave as soon as we started walking. We walked the section between Jinshangling and Simatai, although we cheated and took the world's slowest cable car to miss out the first 2 towers. This section of the wall is steep and involves climbing up many many many steps and then carefully scrambling down the other side where the bricks on top of the wall are broken and loose. Although there were lots of tourists, it didn't feel overrun, and there was a nice feeling of cameraderie as we all struggled to deal with the rollercoaster like route. Rachel and I adopted an English guy called Tom who was also on our coach trip and was on Day 2 of his round the world trip.

The Great Wall of China!

Me and Tom debate which way to go

At the end of our section of wall ("Cross the chain link fence and then turn left at the second tower" as the guide said) we had to walk down a well paved path to the carpark... OR... take an entirely authentic Chinese zipwire across a reservoir followed by a little boat trip! The three of us stood and contemplated our options for at least five minutes. After our guide whizzed off on the zipwire, I decided to give it a go. We were carefully hooked on with some lower body harnesses and after we'd sat down and kicked off it was all rather relaxing really. It almost blew the fine loess dust out of our hair.

Rachel and I wave goodbye!

On Day 3, Rachel and I had arranged to meet Tom at the Summer Palace - a highly landscaped park where the Emperors and Empresses used to laze around in summer. The guidebook makes it sound a bit like a park, and it's possible that there are park like areas, but the place is SO vast that we only managed to cover a small corner of it. We admired more red and yellow and blue buildings, saw an acrobatic show and girls dancing with long sleeves on the Great Stage (apparently the biggest of the 3 imperial stages in China), dressed up in some imperial outfits for photographs and had a ride on a pedalo! The Summer Palace contains a MASSIVE lake - so big we could barely see across it in the haze - and lots of Chinese people take pedalos and battery-powered boats out on it, so it felt like a 'real Beijing' experience even although it was clearly a frivolous tourist activity.

Rachel through the painted glass in one of many courtyards

Pedalos on the lake

Empress Jill, Emperor Tom and Empress Rachel

After all that, it was time to catch our (delayed) flight back to Hong Kong. I was sad not to get the chance to see more temples, wander the 'hutongs' (alleyways) or take a bicycle ride, but I'm glad a went for the short time I had.

A brief interlude...

I haven't written in AGES, but I have an excuse... I took a quick trip to England in my Easter Holidays! I had to go home for a PGCE (teacher training) interview for next year, but as an added bonus I got to spend plenty of time with Chris and my family, and see a few people I haven't seen in months.

Family on my aunt's canal boat in Earith!

Also on Easter Sunday it snowed! Very un-hong-kong-like

So, not much to report from the last 1o days or so, but there should be lots of news soon as I'm off to visit Beijing this weekend! I've got that song about 9 million bicycles stuck in my head already!

Tiring Times

Well the show is finally over. It was great fun but truly exhausting and although I miss the people already I'll need to recover before I start missing the rehearsals! On the Tuesday night after the show we had an after party in Grappa's bar, which is in the bottom of Jardine House in Central and I had so much fun chatting to people that I didn't want to leave. Hopefully I'll meet up with some of them again in the next few months.

Some of the girls from Anything Goes... and a sailor!

I've been busy at school as usual as Rich is still off with his broken jaw. I got my English Ambassador team to make egg shaped clues to post around the school for an Egg Hunt on Wednesday and watched Freaky Friday (a Disney film) at lunchtimes with some of the 2nd year girls.

Hong Kong has had 3 school children die from flu related illnesses recently, so they've stepped up precautions and lots of schools are going on holiday early. My school hasn't closed yet (we're due to finish on Thursday anyway) but the morning reading period is now dedicated to taking every students' temperature and around half of my students are sporting delightful blue face masks to protect them from everyone else's germs. It may seem a bit crazy and over the top but Hong Kong suffered hugely with SARS and in a city where everyone lives so densely packed together it's better to be safe than sorry.

On Saturday night Scott decided to have an early birthday dinner, as everyone is jetting off on their Easter holidays before his actual birthday next weekend. We went to a Chinese restaurant on the top floor of the North Point Wet Market on Java Road. The food was standard Chinese restaurant stuff but I haven't been for a big group meal in ages and it was fun to share lots of dishes and drink Tsing Tao out of bowls! It was really nice to see some Chatteris people that I hadn't caught up with in a while (due mainly to show rehearsals) and I've even got some of them on video thanks to Ken's imagination and the spinny lazy susan on our table!

Bowls of beer

Hopefully, this shows people at Scott's birthday meal!

Only a few days of school left before the Easter break, when I'm taking a whirlwind trip back to Britain to go to a PGCE interview. Feeling a bit guilty about my giant carbon footprint but looking forward to real milk and bread and cheese.

On the other hand, I've recently become really pleased with the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables you get in Hong Kong. The other week I bought 4 passionfruits, 3 mangos and a green coconut (with a straw in it to drink the milk!) for less than a fiver. It's fabulous! And this evening I went out to the market and bought 5 tomatoes, still on their vine, for less than a pound. Shopping in Tesco's just wont be the same.

In the news...

The musical that I'm in was reviewed in the South China Morning Post. If you look closely at the picture you can see me in the middle of the stage, although not in the front row!

--------------------------------------------------------------

CitySeen: Nine years on and just as strong, HK Singers are back in fine voice

Andrew Sun

Updated on Mar 07, 2008






They first did it nine years ago. Now, top community theatrical group the Hong Kong Singers are producing Cole Porter's depression-era romp Anything Goes once again. The musical opened last night at the City Hall theatre (and continues until Tuesday) with several cast members returning to roles they first performed in 1999, including one of the lead actresses, Shareen Hellen.



New director Tony Penny was a fan of the first production. "I wasn't involved, but I remember seeing it," Penny said. "It was excellent and I hope this one is even better. [Shareen] is a wonderful singer and she's recreating the same role. Now, she's even stronger and better than before."



For any theatrical director, working on a show that has been remounted and produced many times over can be daunting. However, Penny - a Hong Kong Singers veteran who has directed everything from Agatha Christie murder mysteries to My Fair Lady - suggests it's not all about the director. "I was asked before how, as a director, I put my stamp on things that have been done before, and I say it's essentially the cast that puts its stamp on it. Even if people have done the show before, they are still coming into a new production. Everyone works differently with different people. For this show, we're trying to make it more light, more fun."



For tickets to the show, contact Urbtix on 2734 9009.

Additional reporting by Clara Mak

Send tips, tickets and invitations to andrew.sun@scmp.com

Made it to March!

I haven't much time for blogging at the minute. I've been rehearsing with the Hong Kong singers 3 or 4 times a week, and as of tomorrow I'll be at City Hall every evening for 8 days straight. It's going to be exhausting but hopefully a lot of fun!



Since last time I wrote, the weather has warmed up a lot. Today it was warm enough for me to go out with a skirt and no tights on! I've not been doing much exploring though.



Me, Rachel and Scott found a new bar (well, new to me!) called Ned Kelly's last stand. It's in Tsim Sha Tsui and has a live jazz band that play every night. The bar is pretty crowded (we were there on a Friday) but the atmosphere is really fun and relaxed, which makes a change from the somewhat pretentious bars in Central where everyone seems to be trying to work out how much you spent on your outfit. The jazz band were really good too. We were dancing in our seats!

Inside Ned Kelly's... it's a bit dark but you can make out the band

At school we were getting musical too last week. We made AMAZING horns from plastic drinking straws with little funnels of paper stuck on the end. It takes a little while to get the knack of making the noise with them but once they work they're pretty loud! This week we're beginning our Easter celebrations by making little yellow pompom chicks.

Some of the girls from 1E with their horns

Celia and Jace with their pompom chicks

That's all for now folks!

Back to school... again

The holidays are over, Chris has returned to Britain and I bought a hot water bottle. It's been similar temperatures in Hong Kong to London for the past week or so!

The cold weather didn't stop my school having it's first ever sports day though. I was amazed by how the kids managed to spend all day hanging out in an open sports stadium without rebelling. I spent most of the day at the announcements desk where we got regular supplies of hot tea to warm our hands with. I ran 100m as part of a 10 person parent-teacher-student relay team in the afternoon, but sadly my team (1C!) didn't win.

The school flag on parade at the opening of Sports Day

Flags waving in the spectator stand

At the weekend I went for dim sum in Maritime Plaza mall in Tsing Yi with Olisa, Jennifer and Sat. Olisa got there half an hour before us and cunningly got a number for the restaurant queue which meant that we managed to get a table... an hour later! Whilst we were waiting we were entertained by a dragon dance that was going around the shopping mall eating clumps of celery-like vegetables from the restaurant doorways. I asked Olisa (who has Cantonese parents) what it was all about and she said it was traditional but she didn't know what it meant! It was a pretty good distraction from the long wait though.

Dragon Dance

Chicken feet... mmm...

After the food, we discovered a Disney Chinese New Year display in another part of the mall and payed a small donation, which was apparently going to local community charity, to go in and take photographs. I'm pretty sure that only in Hong Kong to you get giant pagodas inside shopping malls built with mickey-mouse shaped lotus blossom designs on their windows! It was great fun taking silly photos with all the characters, although I did feel slightly guilty when there were queues of 5 year old children waiting to take their turns!

The Disney pagoda

Me and Jennifer among the flowers

On Sunday the weather warmed up a bit and I went back to Hong Kong park to bask in the sun like the terrapins whilst I ate my lunch. Then I had rehearsals. The musical starts on March 6th so if I don't write for a few weeks... I'm too busy tapdancing!