Hong Kong Disney Land, Round 2 Phonics winter camp and missing home

---

I’m really not sure where to start. Having 2 weeks off for Chinese New year couldn’t have come at a better time. I was able to switch off reground myself (before flying up and down the country haha) and actually start to settle into the Chinese life that I have been thrown into.

So let’s begin this week’s blog of events/trials and tribulations

Home is where the heart is:

It always happens that when you are the furthest from home, when there’s nothing you can do but watch/read things happening that you really feel at the lowest point. Receiving the email that my mum went in for surgery and there were complications but then having to email a million different people to find out what is actually going on creates an uncontrollably panic deep inside that doesn’t let you sleep eat or concentrate on anything else. Not having access to the internet (well non China restricted internet) and Skype made things all that worse as all I could do was stare at my kobo and wait. Thankfully news soon came flooding in and a 3hr stopover in Starbuck watching a fashion shoot for handbags and I finally managed to Skype with family members.

I want to send out a massive thank you for all those people involved in helping out my family during the past few weeks and all the messages of suppose and encouragement I have received too. It was getting to the stage where I was going to finish work on Sunday 26^th and catch the next flight back. P.s Paul you are in so much trouble when I eventually get back or you come over for making me cry that night, grrr finding the soft side of me haha

I also super grateful for my work mates over here who were just as eager as I to make the most of our actual weekend, weekends although our first night out was on a Monday. The party scene over here in Hangzhou is towards the west of the city where as funny as it seems most of the westerns are concentrated because of the university over there. I have been very tempted since coming over to make it over there to meet up with other expats but just haven’t found the time. Also it’s a massive pain to get a taxi from Hangzhou to Xiaoshan at night as the taxi drivers just don’t want to cross the river. However Casey, Rebecca and I got together with some of Casey’s friends and went to a place called Ellen’s bar. My first impression COUGH COUGH COUGH, I’ve been spoilt in the UK with a fuzzy memory of what clubs and bars were like when smoking was aloud. However cheap food, cheap cocktails and a great atmosphere. We then headed in 2 taxis towards the Lake where there is a small concentration of clubs along one street. Our taxi driver wasn’t the guy on the license card in the front and didn’t know where he was going even though Xī Hú – West Lake is the biggest thing, biggest attraction in Hangzhou. We eventually made it into the (excuse this word) swankiest club I’ve ever seen. No formal dance floor but massive seating areas where your drinks are brought to you. Needless to say but Casey and I made our own dance floor on the dancers podiums when they left and got rather annoyed when asked to leave and stated that we were far better dancers and lookers than their dancers. The funniest part of the night was when a group of Chinese girls and some boys threw up a Chinese guy to join us in dancing which he looked really uncomfortable doing. The girlfriend (I assume) was encouraging him to dance with us which made me freeze even more, she however was all up for it and danced with us for ages. After the club we went in search for McDonalds, it was about 3am then and what happened during the next 30mins we were there was hilarious. Casey knows a lot of Chinese and therefore usually takes the lead in conversations and ordering things so when we strolled in very merry into the McDonalds were seemingly woke up the 2 members of staff that were on duty. Now we all wanted a Cheese burger but were told that only chicken burgers were available now in Chinese we told them that ‘you’re a 24hr place you’ll make us what we want’ so we sat waited and when they were ready were told by the clerk to come get it, to which we told him ‘actually no, you bring it to us’ Now in American, UK and probably anywhere else in the world I would have been worried about something dodgy in/done to my food, at 3am in China when you’ve haven’t drunk like that since the beginning of December you really don’t care. We took a cab back to Xiaoshan with another useless taxi driver and I walked merrily back from Casey’s down the road to my apartment. Tuesday was a day of recovery and hanging out with Rebecca. We checked out a market street so I could find Mae and Phillip a little present and then I made sure all my stuff was packed for my stupidly early flight to Guangzhou Wednesday.

A English girl walks onto a plane….

During the first week of the holidays I had managed to book an airport shuttle bus (at first for the wrong day) to make it to the airport for my flight to Guangzhou on Wednesday 5^th. I was however very concerned that there would be traffic or something and I wouldn’t make it in time. The airport shuttle cost 15rmb and a taxi would cost 100rmb. I had previously thought that the bus would start at 0630 but instead found out it was 0700. My flight was at 0820. Needless to say I became a Chinese mainlander and pushed my way off the bus at the airport grabbed my suitcase and made a dash for the check-in desk. Barged past an old lady and made it 5mins before check-in closed. JUST. I then went through security, where off course my bra yet again set the alarm off but didn’t cause any issues and then saw that the last call for my flight was being made. And yes you guessed it my gate was at the other side of the terminal. So another mad dash to the gate and onto the plane all before 0800 yay. When I got onto the plane the lovely air hostesses seemed super pleased to use their English and said ‘good morning’ in a rather Queen Liz fashion and then asked if I wanted the announcements in English too. This confused me but then walking through the aisle I realized that like the shuttle here and like many places in Hangzhou I was the only western on a plane full of Chinese. Although the girl on the tannoy messed up a few words during the announcements they all seemed quite happy with themselves and kept asking if I needed anything. Super star treatment or what. I love having pale skin haha.

The flight from Hangzhou to Guangzhou was only 2hrs and much more favorable that 16hrs in a packed smelly train which was my other option. And was enough time to have a nap. I had said to Mae and Phillip not to worry about meeting me at the airport and that I would just get onto the metro at the airport and make my way to them. So the first time I actually saw Guangzhou was stepping out from the metro station into what I can only describe as a rural back street with a half built road and some dilapidated buildings, not what I assumed I would be seeing when I had looked the route up on Google maps which actually depicted a main road. I walked up the road and found the bus that I needed. Having got off a few stops later outside a Disney English centre I waited for Mae to come get me and take me back to hers. Now in a world full of Chinese people it’s not hard to spot me but I spotted Mae way off in the distance and headed towards her. We then walked 5mins up the road and I finally got to taste Phillips Filipino cooking. Simply summed up as Yum Yum Yum. I didn’t get much chance to hang around as we had to catch the train, so we hoped into a cab. Now somehow on my way through the metro I managed to reset the code for my luggage lock and was still trying to get it open. In the taxi we passed an IKEA, I seriously can’t wait to move here. Although on top of the shock of the back street main road I was also very aware of the huge temperature difference and the amount of greenery I was surrounded by as its very much winter in Hangzhou but feels like a cool UK summers day in Guangzhou. We met Mae’s colleague in the train station as she was taking her sister and friend back to Hong Kong so they could fly home to America the next day. Now the friend said the funniest thing that I shall always remember, as usually my opinion of Americans and disasters is rather tainted that they are quite useless. She said ‘I sometimes wonder why we are a ‘super’ power when with all the money, knowledge and technology in the world and we still can’t defend our homes against fire. Which becomes out of control? Haven’t they heard of water and fire extinguishers’ Got to love an African America lady with an opinion. Hell yeah.

We got the Hong Kong, changed our money at the station and got ourselves OCTOPUS cards – which I continued to call OYSTER cards throughout my time there. Our hostel, which I had only booked the previous night with much stress and hassle was only one stop away on the metro line so we left Mae’s friend and started our journey there. I don’t and never have held much of a high opinion of hostels but this place was crazy. It was inside a place called Chungking Mansions where the bottom floor is full of venders and people harassing – I use that term lightly. We ended up squeezing into an elevator in a different section to the place we booked into to actually book in where we were greeted by an Indian guy who didn’t get the hint for a longtime after we got into our room that we wanted him to leave. But we were taken by this guy across the building again to squeeze into another lift to our room which was in a totally different named location that what I had booked into. But having done some research I already knew that some of the hostels in this complex were owned/managed by the same people. And it was a good thing to be fair as we had originally been booked into a triple room that was a double bottom bunk bed with a single on top. We instead got 2 double beds, the bathroom well let’s just say you could go to the loo whilst having a shower was how small it was. But we weren’t exactly planning on staying in the room that long anyway so it was merely a place to dump our bags and lay our heads, or in the case of Wednesday dump our bags and head to see Phillips friends band H2O play at a bar on Hong Kong Island. We had a great night and I couldn’t stop laughing at this one western guy who kept trying to dance and hit on the girls on the dance floor.

We were taken by Phillips friend to a café where I enjoyed the equivalent to a fry up. Poor guy I seemed to have a fascination with his fake glasses and kept stealing them. A quick message for the World out there Filipinos don’t drink that much. I ended up consuming a lot of the free shots and about 5 Coronas when Mae and Phillip only had a few drinks each, with Mae having a hang over the next day.

I however woke up at 0830 (we got in at 2am, you can do the math later about how much sleep I may have totaled this last week of Spring festival) ready to explore and try sort my phone situation out. I found a road that reminded me of home – Salisbury Road – Which I had to cross in order to make it to the sea front walk way called Avenue of Stars. Walked back up the street to find that the 3 store I wanted to visit was closed until 1030 so I headed to McDonalds, as there doesn’t seem to be that many obvious places to eat as there is on the mainland, where I enjoyed a Bacon, egg and cheese McMuffin with hash brown and Fanta. Ooooo yeah!!!

I went back to the room where the other two were just getting ready. The plan was to get to Disney early as we weren’t sure if we’d be allowed in with our passes as the whole of Spring Festival is a black out day for them. We had to change a few times on the metro to get on the correct line for the Disney train. The train was amazing. Mickey Mouse ears silhouette windows. Seats were curvy with bronze statues of various characters dotted around and the hand holders were again Mickey Mouse ears. I couldn’t get a proper picture because we were so crammed in there. The place was heaving. The queues were huge. We made our way to guest services and without a flutter of my bright brown eyes they let us in with no problem. We had to do everything on my card because Maes ID hasn’t arrived yet and I can have 3 extra people on my pass each time so it didn’t matter.

A summary as there’s so much to talk about

· Not overly impressed with the castle. Compared to Paris it looks like a hut. Although with Paris Disney got it completely wrong in a European city where Castles are modeled from they had to rebuild after the first day because of so many complaints. I would have complained at this one too.

· Mainlanders just have know bloody manners – by the end of the day both mine and Phillips patience for people pushing in, running in front, barging passed and generally just being damn right rude had worn off to the point where we refused to let a guy passed us in a queue to get to his family that previously barged passed us through. It’s not hard to communicate excuse me in any language and it wasn’t until after some old lady from the group got hysterical did a younger guy apologies to us after I explained ‘its fine we’ll let you pass but first say sorry and then excuse me’

· Food was amazing, lots of variety and friendly staff

· OMG the discount, if I had the money I think I would have purchases so many things. But since I know I’ll be coming back again sometime this year with whoever visits me I only brought a few treats for myself and then presents to send home to my family. My first purchase was a hat because it was so hot there and I didn’t have sun glasses.

· The weather, wow such a shock getting off the plane in Guangzhou and off the train in Hong Kong. I left Hangzhou with rain and temps of about 6* and arrived in Hong Kong to 24* tops.

· I got my photo with Woody

· We rode on all the rides we could even though most had a 40min waiting time. I’m not really sure why I waited with Mae and Phillip because I could have ridden the ride like 5 times in the single riders queue but still was great chatting and taking the piss out of the mainlanders.

· Fireworks – Having been disappointed by lack of displays during New Year I enjoyed the fireworks at the end of the day and we finally got about 30secs of Mulan included within it. Apparently Mulan is going to be the main focus of Shanghai Disneyland so that’s good.

· The journey home. Thousands of people, 1 train carriage. Yeah you can do the math again.

Overall a very long but amazing day and so worth it. Can’t wait to go back. Because unlike Paris which needs 3 days to do everything, you can do Hong Kong in a day. However they have purchased lots of land around the park for future development so who knows what the future holds.

I won’t bore you with the rest of the details of coming home, the flight delay and arriving back to 3* temperatures. But I did get to have my picture taken with my hands in Jackie Chan’s hand prints, how cool. So onto the next part.

Winter camp – take 2

Before the holidays I was asked if I would mind doing the second lot of winter camp lessons at my centre this time. Because due to schedules it would have been split between Casey and Alex and they still had lessons to teach on those days too. Since I had already done the camp at Wulin it was no problem for me at all.

Overall it was a great experience, new kids, better enthusiasm and I got to try out lots of new things. I had a great laugh and really enjoyed it this time. Apart from the fact that I had to work 10days straight. But I did work it so I could have 4 days off so I’m taking my usual weekend Wednesday and Thursday and adding Friday and Saturday to it too so I can have an actual weekend. Probably not going to do much with it as the weather looks to snow again and with minimal funds I’ll probably do some more exploring of Hangzhou and attend Games night in the city. Where last time I won scrabble.

OOO yeah nearly forgot. The camp was even better because it was the first time I had actually taught in my classroom which made it even more special.

---

Photos

Coats!!!
24 degrees out and these were th thinnest coats I saw that day

Helping Buzz Again
This time in Hong Kong