Adventures in Hong Kong

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Been so busy here, still staying with Tommy and Jenny and they've been looking after me so well! Beginning to feel rested for the first time this year and the broken rib has healed.

On our first weekend we walked from Gordon's marina in Sai Kung to Trio beach in an 'amber' rainstorm - the next worse storm is a 'black' storm means everyone has to get inside and get off the roads. Sai Kung is in the New Territories and reminds me of a Chinese version of a Sussex town, like Horsham, just with no tescos, and is on the sea, and has a variety of Asian things that Horsham really doesn't have, like temples and weird crustations that look like the robots off robot wars. Not at all the sort of place I expected to find in Hong Kong. Most people live in apartments, but they are only four stories high at the most, probably two on average so it doesn't feel too build up. The area is very green and has a country park nearby where we've spent the day walking and enjoying the views. It really is beautiful and the mountains behind Sai Kung are beautiful, we went kayaking and watched the sunset over the mountains, was lovely! Me and Tommy went kayaking again yesterday and decided to take the dog Muffin, a white little fluffball. We looked insane with us on a double kayak and Muffin standing in between.

Hong Kong is full of contrasts, the central island, known as Central and is like the center of London or any big developed city. The sky line is particularly beautiful at night and going on the Star ferry across to Central at night is really spectacular. We went up the Peak outside of central and enjoyed the view down. We've been very lucky with the pollution at the moment, we've had many clear days which are apparently quite rare. On foggy days you really can't see far at all and you can go around being unaware of where you are because you can't get a sense of your surroundings.

We've also been over to the famous Stanley Market at Stanley, and then went over to Repulse Bay where my grandparents used to live. These parts of Hong Kong are full of guilos (what the Chinese call white people) and you could be in California, lots of beaches, palm trees, Westerners. The beaches in Hong Kong have been one of the biggest surprises for me, I really didn't expect to see it! The weathers been beautiful and apparently that's unusual for this time of year. We went to 'big wave bay' which is one of the most southern points of Hong Kong and surprisingly has big waves! The boys hired a dingy and we spent the morning trying to stay in it and not get thrown out by the waves, didn't happen! We all got horribly sunburnt in the process. That evening we went to the races at Happy Valley, a favourite ex-pat hangout. Was a really nice evening and I managed to win 100HKdollars, about 10pounds! Was strange though to be surrounded by people who were as tall and taller than us, when I lost the guys I couldn't find them instantly just by identifying the tallest people I can see.

Somewhere like the races is such a contrast from Mong Kok and Kowloon, which have all the signs over the road like you get on that advert on channel 4! They are buzzing and overflowing with people, where many other parts of Hong Kong aren't so crowded. We went to Mong Kok market with some of the boys one evening, was completely full and me and Helen were in hysterics at some of the Chinese phrases some of the guys use. 'Hi Ya' is sort of an expression of surprise (in this case because their price was too high or ours was too low) and lah' which is put at the end of a sentence to 'soften the blow', for example when we're offering a much lower price. Hearing the guys running round yelling hi ya was entertaining!

Whilst I've been here I've been to work with Jen at her private international school and Tommy who's teaching English at government schools. Such a contrast!! We helped Jen's class do 2 huge canvas's in a J. Pollock style, i.e. flicking paint and throwing it at the canvas. Paint got everywhere, all over the corridor and the kids. The Chinese kids are very particular about staying clean and they weren't at all impressed! The paints looked good although me and Helen looked a mess after power hosing down the whole corridor and scrubbing at it for an hour. The Chinese maintenance staff at the school just sat and watched us in disbelief the whole time, I don't think that two young Western girls cleaning is a common sight in HK!

The kids Tommy teaches aren't as well behaved and some have really poor English. Yesterday we were teaching in big government primary school, 3 boys in one of Tommy's class were talking in Chinese and pointing and laughing, something that after 2 months travel in Asia I've become used to. However I thought it was a bit rude so I decided to stare at the children (something we began doing in Vietnam when people pointed and laughed). The boy making the hilarious comments stopped and said "Miss... you speak Chinese?". I said I did and the boy nearly wet himself and went white. His friends were in shock and started laughing at the boy (I wish I'd known what he had been saying) and he started doing some serious apologising in Chinese and English. Very amusing until they started to talk to me in Chinese and I pretended to ignore them!!

Tommy's classes have been hilarious to watch, when one of the kids wrote a story about AK47s and death Tommy told him he'd call the police, when the kid didn't react he got his phone out and said "ok no police, I call Mummy". Trying to keep a straight face whilst this is going on is hard! Yesterday he flicked elastic bands at the kids who kept talking when they should be working! Defiantly an alternative attitude to teaching!

Sounds stupid but Hong Kong feels a lot more Chinese than I expected. Less English is spoken than I expected, only a little more than in the main towns in Vietnam. Also you still can't get everything as easily as you can at home. It's taken me two weeks to get some shoes for Australia after mine broke. Every shop I went into I got the same response "sorry miss, biggest 39, try mens?" which be came so frustrating I think I would have strangled another shop assistant who said that. Similarly today I was trying to buy some toiletries, most stuff was the same as at home (but has added skin whitener) but some where just in Chinese, it's so frustrating struggling to buy stuff your used to not having to think twice about and then realising at home it isn't at all what you want - or the worst, you brought the one with skin whitener in! Last week a rep for a TV company came round to fix something, a young Chinese man called Gilbert and Jen invited him to have dinner with us. We were having spaghetti bollonaise and he'd never seen such food. He had no idea how to serve it and when Tommy yelled through to the kitchen "Gilbert can you bring the cheese" he didn't even know what cheese was. I had to demonstrate how you use a cheese grater. Then in Asia it is polite to slurp your food and also to either bring the bowl right up to your mouth and sort of shovel the food in your mouth, or lean down over your food - opposite to home! Although we'd got used to this and started doing it in Malaysia and Vietnam when eating with locals, you had to remind yourself that he wasn't being rude. Was an odd but very interesting evening talking to him!

Got another few days here in Hong Kong before I fly to Sydney and meet Siov to start our epic 2 month adventure up the east coast to Cairns. Helen decided to fly home and not come on to Australia, was really sad to say goodbye to her but it's for the best. Just means that I've not got anyone to defend me when Tommy's rude! I think the best insult so far has been "Katie, watch it, you want your belt to buckle not your chair!" and throwing chocolate bars at me. For those of you who don't know Tommy's a very old friend of mine (and therefore gets away with being incredibly rude!) and is a health/fitness freak! Also he has a great sense of humor the lobster impressions after me and Helen not badly sunburnt a week ago were classic!

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