With the Olympic closing ceremony yesterday and our event this afternoon being OSCOlympics, this seems an apt name for today’s post. This is also a pretty accurate representation of how I’ve been feeling about Hong Kong for the past few days. As much as I’ve kept myself busy spending timewith some of the amazing people I have met here and there is still so much I’d love to do, I feel I have outstayed my welcome and am more than ready to fly out of here (probably won’t be saying this next weekend when I’m panicking in the airport) and back to stay with Jo, Nate and Kaylee (aka Kowii) in Tokyo. Yesterday we moved accommodation and I’m now in the beautiful (I’m not really sure how to convey sarcasm on here) YesInn hostel, sharing a ... read more

Last night was pretty fun; we went to Ladies’ night in Lan Kwai Fong and drank far too many free cosmopolitans and vodka mixers so today wasn’t the most pleasant! Francis claims that teaching is the best hangover cure, I strongly disagree! I woke up this morning 5 minutes before our bus was due to leave but I made it in time (not too surprising considering I did once manage to get ready for a May Ball in 10 minutes), I was fine by most people’s standards, they had been to an all you can drink place which had only cost $120 (about £10) and were hence in a much worse state that I was. Thankfully this was the final day of teaching their stupid maths lessons, I thought it would be pretty simple, all I ... read more

It’s been a while since I wrote anything so I figured that I’d give all my family and friends (and any randomers who are reading feel free to comment) a bit of an update. As much as I am loving my time teaching (if you can call it that), I’m definitely feeling slightly homesick having not seen my family since May. We’re currently teaching at Lai King Catholic Secondary School, we have been here for two weeks with a different set of children each week. My class last week we’re really nice and I was very happy that most of the girls wrote on their feedback forms that their favourite thing was their lovely, nice teacher Abi and one of them even bought me a pair of earrings. Although when I did have a conversation with ... read more

I’ve finally come to accept that when we go anywhere as a group we will always leave at least half an hour later than planned; having been told to meet at ten, we finally managed to leave our accommodation at eleven, taking with us a few casualties from the previous night and a few people who were still drunk (I think trying to leave the building without shoes and sliding round a shopping mall on his back were a bit of a give away). We decided on an 11pm return ferry home, giving us enough time to visit the casinos without (hopefully) a) falling asleep in them b) spending all our money. We got on our 12.30pm ferry by the skin of our teeth, it was a bumpy ride to say the least and it definitely ... read more

Speaking to my teaching assistant Elyse, I learned that most Chinese children are given an English name by their parents and sometimes change it when they’re older. Elyse was originally named Venus but decided to change it after the boys at her school decided they preferred calling her Penis (after being called Scabby and Flabby at school I can definitely sympathise with this). All children on OSCA hence have an English name, this caused me a few problems on Monday; I asked all the children to write their own name tag and one boy got out a Star Wars Lego brochure and started pointing at it saying “that’s my name, that’s my name.” I told him to stop being stupid, of course his name wasn’t Star Wars.At this point he said, “no, not this one, that ... read more

Leaving LSE on Saturday was very different to leaving Tadpoles, Having acted as camp manager for the first few days I hadn’t seen the pupils very much. Nevertheless, there was still the obsessive photo taking at the end of the closing ceremony and one girl even wrote me a letter, another said I’m going to miss you sporty girl, I’m not quite sure how running the length of the hall in a relay competition and teaching a lesson based on the Olympics and sport warranted me this nickname but hey I guess that’s Chinese kids for you! The day itself was rather stressful; it didn’t get off to the best of starts when I came downstairs and the security woman refused to let me leave the building as I’d misplaced my key card (it was somewhere ... read more

I didn’t get away without singing but fortunately my voice was still in tact for teaching this morning. As a general rule, due to harsh criticism from certain family members (fill in the blanks in case you weren’t sure C_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ and M_ _ _ _ _ _) , I only sing when in the shower or drunk but last night was definitely the exception that proves the rule! I was even quite flattered to be told that I have a good voice (they were probably taking the mick).It was fun to get to spend time with the elusive residential crew and some of the other TAs, they were all really fun and gave me some great inspirational advice when I started on one of my usual rants about my ... read more

Feeling so much better, I had been looking forward to my home fix of jacket potato and beans all day and it certainly didn’t disappoint (although I did put soy sauce on my beans just to feel slightly chinese). Today I was back teaching, I realised after my first lesson that, although we didn’t have many resources, the kids at tadpoles were so bright! Trying to explain directions and a trip to London to my new class was met with a sea of blank faces and drawing maps was a none starter, naturally I resorted to learning directions the alternative way – the cha cha slide! I had asked the kids to discuss in partners things they might find in England, I’ll share with you a few of my personal favourites: 1. Queen coins 2. Cleaners ... read more

With typhoon Vincent (apparently the worst Hong Kong has had in ten years) in full swing, we stayed in the safety of our rooms at Baptist University (the management had used masking tape to strengthen the canteen windows which I found particularly reassuring). It would have been pretty silly to try to go anywhere; Rob (our director) had to come back from an outing with the residential team and said that the pavements were cracked in places and that tree and umbrellas were flying around. It sounded horrid from inside and to be honest I was quite scared (I’m a massive wimp), especially when I realised my roomie had accidently left her window open and there was paper flying about in our room. The window in the living room had broken and we decided to leave ... read more