Thoughts about Hong Kong

AH i've arrived to my home for the next year! and its amazing! I'll tell you about it later. Here is a little critique of Hong Kong :D enjoy!

1) Observations:

Where are the benches? ... In the shopping malls? Nope, In the parks nope... try mcdonalds or KFC. That's right, looking for a place to sit after shopping for several hours has never become so difficult as it is in hong kong. You see some squaters at times and even I will degrade to squatting if my legs are tired enough, but there is a severe seating shortage in Hong Kong beware, and keep some RUB A535 in your backpack for those sore muscles.

Hmm speaking of food, if you ever go to the multi story Malls in Hong Kong (try 8 floors minimum) looking for food, I wish you luck trying to find food in the first 7 floors. Some say its been done, but I'm sceptical. My stomach was calling me one day at this mall in Hong Kong called Festival walk... right, great festival with NO food? What kind of festival is that? Well low and behold I take hold of the mall map, half in Chinese and half in English, luckily KFC has no apparent Chinese translation yet. To my horror I see that its on the 8th floor along with the rest of the food court. It takes half an hour to get up those escalators to get there. What Hong Kong has done effectively is taken the 'Fast' out of fast food, and fed it to the dogs. (*please be advised this is not an accurate description of all the mall)

KFC has been the fast food place of choice for me these past couple weeks, I think i'm spoiling myself as I am preparing to leave for the mainland on monday, which may be tommorrow depending on when I post this. But the Zinger Chicken burger which goes for 24 hong kong dollars ($3.30) canadian with soda and fries is quite the deal. Mind you my first couple times going to KFC was quite hard on my system since i've been eating steamed food fish vegatables and such, which is a forwarning for me a year from now when I get back to the greasy spoon country. (Canada)

On another note, I was thinking of going hiking on one of the mountains on Hong Kong Island. It sounded like a good idea, get some exercise, and do something else rather then shop. But not so much when you have a level 2 typhoon warning in the area. Yeah, so I can't read chinese or speak cantonese I almost ended up going hiking on a day where there was a typhoon warning. Talk about ending up as a statistic. That's how I want to go... kick the bucket... as a statistic, I'll at least be counted for something (as long as it has nothing to do with stupidity... such as hiking when there is a typhoon warning.

I also discovered the other day the shangrila of computer malls. Funny thing is that I've been to the computer mall many times before. In HK its called the Golden Computer Plaza, but in the same building is another computer mall named the Golden Computer Arcade. Before the discovery I thought the GC Arcade was the worse computer mall in HK... Now I beg to differ... how I didn't notice until the end of my trip in HK beats me but here is an illustration of what its like:

Its kinda like going to mcdonalds and only thinking that they serve desserts... Oh you mean you have hambugers too? Could you imagine someone coming up to you and telling you "I've been eating at Mcdonalds for at least a year till I realized they had anything other then deserts.

Finally pictures

1) The stone forest
2) Now that's a Keyboard!
3) Real jade! Not fake! I promise!









1) Get away get away Alice!
2) Elephant rock
3) Markets in Hong kong










1)More great signs.. comments on them appreicated
2) Black Piggies.. White piggies.. why can't we all just get along!
3) No Frank Sinatra imitations $5000 fine

On the Mickey mouse train to Disney Land in Hong Kong

Married?

No not yet, but I've heard rummor mills are quite capable of producing such irreptuatble nonsense. Especially when one is only engaged to another person. Yes its true, sometimes my MSN nicknames don't tell the whole truth and sometimes they lie, but its true this time. Alice and I are engaged. In Hong Kong. Funny thing though 2 days after it happens she has to fly back to California while I stay here in china for the year. Talk about long distance. And I thought when we first were going out where I was in Kingston and she was in Toronto was crazy. Now we're an Ocean apart. What madness could this lead to when we get married. The closer we seem to be getting the further in distance we actually are. Ah life! Though since we are apart for at least a year, we aren't planning the day yet.. soonest would be a year and a half to two years. Just be patient!


2 Words: Magic Wallets!

And some of you back home will get some when I come back! I can't wait! Can you?

(sorry still no pictures.. maybe this uhhhh sunday i'll have time to put some up)

My Navigator hat

Is gone.... It went missing along with the many wallets, children, and unbrella's that go missing every day around the world. I knew the purpose of a hat was to wear on one's head, but for some odd reason I was carrying it around in my hands. In Hong Kong with the sweltering 30 degree humidity wearing a hat makes a head full of hair look like a plate of half eaten spaghetti. So please take a moment in your busy day to mourn for my loss. It was with me for only one year and I'm sad to say it will not have a proper burial.

In other news the travel agent that booked my ticket to and from Canada messed up. As I was suppose to get a ticket that would be extendable to one year so that I can stay in China for one year and fly back with the return portion of the ticket. Unfortunately, the ticket that we got has a 6 month limit on it, slating me to return on Jan 3 2007 the latest. That is quite the monkey wretch in this teaching in china for a year. But as we speak some really awesome people (alice's parents) are working on it right now. I will most liketly still stay for the year with a few alterations to my flights. Nevertheless, a good travel agent is hard to find (especially when this one adamently told us that the ticket was good for a year and that we could extend the date of it in Hong Kong)

And I finnaly think I've found the right way to ask that question... and not too late if I might add.

Cheerio!

Its so strange

being back in Hong Kong after 3 weeks in China. Materialism and over crowding are two things you'll find here as I was in the thick of it today being pulled into a A/V expo or for you non A/V people "Audio/Visual" electronics expo. The 6 booths they put up in the middle of a shopping center was quite the exhibit and all part of Hong Kong's latest and greatest scheme to entice shoppers. Yes we have the official HONG KONG SHOPPING FESTIVAL "bonanza" going on from June 24 to August 31! That's right a festival to celebrate the season of summer, the season of shopping! What more could someone ask for? Next week we'll be dancing our way into Knutsford Happy Day, were you can dine at some fancy restaurants and of course be Happy! Come on everybody its Happy day!

On a more serious note, it was quite sad to see our American brothers depart today. As difficult as the coming year will be, these guys know what it will be like as we taught together for 3 weeks. I could see each of them being stretched while being there, from trying out the bathrooms to teaching for at times 8 hours a day. More importantly I think was the desire to do more, to come back again, and even a sense of loss because we didn't get as much interaction time with our students. Especially since we got to bus back to our hotel while our students stayed in the residence almost every evening. One person really held out this point as he thought in retrospect that being able to stay at the school with the students would have a bigger impact with the students. Of course there are things to overcome while living at the school such as the sanitary conditions and danger of being emotionally burnt out, but those kinds of situations are times when we are stretched and have to learn to become more flexible.

I have to admit I was not able to reflect on this trip as much as I would have liked and I was having a little difficulty adjusting to the new environment and I would just like to thank the Alice, the Canadian and American team for being there and showing me ways to be open even in light of my own pride.

That's all for now from Hong Kong!

Bad Idea

Okay, so it was balmy 30 degrees here yesterday. Just finishing up lunch and getting ready to teach and I get an idea to juggle a soccer ball with my foot. The next thing I know i'm drenched with sweat. Several huge sweat stains started to form on my shirt as I look down to my dismay, I must of left a great impression with the students. Nevertheless I think they had a good laugh... its always good to laugh in class.

I also tried pig's blood the other day. Its a speciality here, though they bake it or fry it up some how. It doesn't taste that bad either, and it its not that deep cherry red color, it looks more scabby. That's what its like, eating your scabs. Though if someone would ask me again to try it I　would. I　think you can get some at any fancy chinese restaurant for those of you who are dieing to try it in North America.

This weekend looks pretty good as we're going to visit a Dai (the local minority) village and spend a night in a small town. I　just hope that we all stay healthy, I heard that the dai people like to make dishes with raw meat. Just a couple of the things I　have to get use to here.

Still no pictures, but try back next week!