CNY

So it was a good Chinese New Year. Witnessed my first ever road rage here in DB. A man was standing, arms flailing in the air and shouting je ne sais quoi, in front of a packed bus to protest the lack of frequent service there was on that particular day, probably the busiest of the year. From what i could see, it was all Chinese people who were lined up in long queues at the bus stops waiting to go to HK island, Kowloon, NT, or wherever to meet family for New Year's. There was a bus leaving every 15 minutes from the plaza but because we're at the end of the bus line, they were already always full and so never stopped for us. I overheard some people complaining that they had been waiting for over an hour and a half and still couldn't get on! I only felt bad for the bus drivers themselves who had to work on a day that is usually solely reserved for family and friends.

Visiting EE-po in Tuen Mun was fun. We took her out for lunch but unfortunately none of the restaurants were opened so we ended up going to a fast-food Japanese joint. She ordered a mushroon congee meal, but realized that japanese congee (rice dumped in hot water) was much much different than the chinese type (more porridge-like). She took Matt and I up to her flat on the 6th floor. Her frail little body made it up all those stairs without pause while we were huffing and puffing at floor three. We took pictures and a short movie with our camera which i've sent to my Grandma back in Toronto, had some treats to nibble on, saw some of her old photographs, and admired the 'view' from her rooftop. She's been living there for 30+ years and has seen a lot of development in the neighbourhood. It was disturbing to see the garbage strewn all over the streets and rooftops of other buildings, there seems to be a sort of unanimous ambivalence to waste disposal here also as there is in Urumqi and much of China for that matter.

That evening we met Max and Stephen, 2nd cousins of mine, for delicious Thai food. We then saw the CNY parade, sqaushed into other parade-watchers like sardines behind the street barriers. I was not so impressed truthfully, some of the floats were ok, but overall, many of the groups were just walking and waving with a big grin on their face.

This past Thursday, I supply-taught for Blink Think, the English language centre that i'll be working for. It was DAY 2 of a three day Chinese New Year class. My 5 students were all four years old and so adorable! I've never taught a class so young. We sat on these teeny stools, i read to them, taught them some songs, did some worksheets together, played some games, made a doggie hand-puppet, sang more songs, and then it was over - an exhausting 90 minutes. My voice was dry from singing and yelling, my legs were sore from being crunched up on such a small seat, my butt hurt from only having one cheek on the chair, my legs hurt from running around with them, and my mouth hurt from smiling too much - the munchkins are so darn cute! I betcha working with such young children for 90 minutes straight is a better cardio workout than running a half marathon. I treated myself to a brownie afterwards, just to restore the calories i lost, of course.

We attended a CNY party at one of Matt's work contacts here in Hong Kong. This woman is your typical Cantonese woman: loud, stubborn, money-oriented, a go-getter. She's done well for herself and lives in a beautiful flat with a gorgeous patio. We ate a very non-traditional Chinese meal of baguettes and a whole variety of barbq'd meat. I have to admit i was surprised there was no white rice to be seen, but hey no complaints there. Met some very interesting people (investment banker, pilot, writer, antique dealer, body artist) and all in all, had a good evening.

Our friend, Dave, is back again (for a week this time) and it's great to hang out and enjoy HK together. We all went to the pickup frisbee game on Sunday followed by a tasty Canto meal of steamed fish, gai-lan veggies, an assortment of meat and hot soup. Yesterday we went on a hike from DB to Mui Wo, the little fishing village in the next bay. It's a windy steep path that takes you past the golf course and the trappist monastery (all i know is that monks there take a vow of silence and produce milk for HK). We took the ferry back to DB and finished off with a yummy lunch at one of the only opened restaurants at the plaza. The entire place is undergoing renovations so a lot of businesses have been affected.

Dave's from Seattle, and so yesterday morning we got up to watch the Superbowl. We picked up lots of Chinese pastries the night before to binge on as our Superbowl munchies, my favourite being 'dan tat' (egg tarts). We managed to see the game on a Japanese network and Dave had set up a Skype connection with his family back home so he could talk to them as everyone watched the game together. It was funny though, our broadcast was a good 5 seconds ahead of the American broadcast, and so we could see each play and touchdown 5 seconds before his family could. After we would cheer at a certain play, we could hear his realtives cheering 5 seconds later. Apparently the reason for the delay in the US network is after that shocking halftime show by Janet Jackson in year ?, where she revealed her breast (you remember that incident, it was they only thing they talked about in the news the next day), they have had to delay the broadcast in case anything needed to be censored out.

Today i'll be glued in front of my computer, organizing my Dependent Visa forms which will finally be sent out soon, doing the readings for class on Thursday, filling out my application form for the program i want to enroll in this coming fall at HK University, and planning my next travel destination: Central Europe! Yup, from Feb.14-March 6, Matt and I will be gone again, this time for work and pleasure. Well, solely pleasure for me. He's got a few meetings spread out and while he's in Hamburg discussing strategy, I'll be going up to Oxford to visit Xu Meng, my exchange partner from Beijing way back in highschool. We've kept in touch all these years and our parents are quite good friends, having visited each other in Canada/China. She came to our little party in London in July but i can't wait to see her place and meet her friends. Matt will have a week off in between meetings and we'll go to Prague to visit my old childhood friend, Rena, who's living and teaching there. We'll head down to Salzburg for a Mozart concert (the city's putting on a huge year-long celebration to commemorate Mozart's 250th birthday) and some snowboarding, something i've never attempted but am told is extremely fun. I'm also in the middle of trying to convince my darling hubby that we should go on the "Sound of Music" tour. I didn't know they filmed it in Salzburg but what luck - who knows when we'll be back huh? Apparently they play the soundtrack and clips of the movie during the whole tour, they even make a disclaimer on the website that this kind of tour attracts a 'strange mix' of tourists... that's enough incentive to make me go on it!

So, off again for a bit, excited to say the least. New countries to explore and old friends to visit.