Hong Kong is weird. Really weird.

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It feels like it's been quite a quiet week this week but i'm probably forgetting stuff. Well it was mid-autumn festival a week ago so me, gemma and amy headed to causeway bay to the carnival thing. It was slightly disappointing because despite the persistent rumors of chinese people being really small I couldn't see over their heads to see the dragon dance! Maybe I am also really small. But there was lots of pretty lights, including a giant fish made out of lanterns, and a fairground that wasn't a real fairground but actually made of lights. Of course. Why not. Children don't want to actually go on the teacups anyway. So after wandering around a bit we retired to a bar for a few drinks. The next day I went to the temple of 10 thousand buddhas with Maeve and Danielle, which is in Sha Tin in the New Territories. It was beautiful, you walked up about 400 steps to get to the temple and there were buddha statues all the way up, but every one was different. 'Pick the one that looks like...' kept us entertained for most of the walk! The temple at the top was lovely, the weather wasn't totally stifling and it was great to get up and out of the city for a few hours. The rest of the week was spent at work, and then at the weekend we went for our friday afternoon cocktails but it wasn't a late one because I had to work on saturday (which was really annoying because everyone was going on an activity day in the New Territories!) But it was an open day for the pre-school kids and they were so cute it made up for it! Straight when we finished Maeve dragged me to the irish bar to catch the end of the match (she's irish and loves rugby, and I have to say it's really growing on me!) Standard night out in Lang Kwai Fong on saturday and then a day spent recovering with some crap tv on sunday, it was nice to have a rest!

I promised to talk about some things that I find really odd about Hong Kong, so here's a few of my favorites -
- The kids english names. A lot of them are normal, but some are very odd. Some of the best girls ones I've heard are cutie, angel and manchester. And of the boys the winners have to be happy and vodka. Happy is possibly my favorite student, after he was filling in his school profile and said 'can I put Mr Happy Miss Wallace?' Also, apparently Wallace is a really common boys name over here so it really amuses the kids when I introduce myself to them!

- The total obsession with not eating on the MTR. I made the mistake of finishing my chocolate bar on the MTR in the first week, people actually turned and stared me out until I put it back in my bag. I think they just want people to have their germy mouths shut as much as possible.

- This isn't odd, it's lovely, the way they really do respect the older generations. There are exercise corners for the elderly to help them do their tai chi. And I walked past a 'sitting area' today with lots of old men just sitting playing chess, there's no vandalism on any of these things, and it's really nice to see. Sadly respect doesn't always mean provide for, the welfare system is very poor in Hong Kong.

-People put shoes on their dogs. And sunglasses. And they wheel them around in prams. Every time i see it I think sally and Katie would really like it here!

There's loads more, it really is a very strange place. But it's time for bed now, so i'll think of some others for next time.

Love to everyone. xx

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