International Man of Mystery

Just call me Austin Powers. I'm now working at an International Kindergarten in Hong Kong. It's the / school about 2 minutes outside my front door. It is to be honest, quite awesome! Not only do I get to sleep in even more than usual, I don't have to spend any money whatsoever on transportation. Also I'm not subjected to the gazillion people on the MTR everyday, so the chance of catching SARS has probably gone down considerably.

I'm still teaching kindergarten, but in a somewhat different role. Being an international school, the main language of study is English. There are 5 other Westerners working there and we all have our own class. This means I teach all subjects (mainly arts crafts and playtime) to the children. Being 3-6 years old they don't really have subjects, but we will do some basic math and reading and things like that. In the mornings I will assist a K3 class that I teach oral English lessons to, so this will be the same as what I did last year. In the afternoon I have a K1 class that I am in full charge of. There is still an assistant teacher in the class I believe. The class is a huge mix of 6 children from Hong Kong and Japan. Hopefully they won't overwhelm me too much.

The thing I like most about the school so far is the more Western style of teaching, which basically means the children are taught like children a little more than in the local Chinese schools. They still have a heavy work load, but there is already more emphasis on having fun and playing games etc. Last week we took the whole school to the beach and the kids played in the sand all morning. A few other field trips this year will be going to various parks, libraries, and the Coca-Cola factory. I only went on two field trips all of last year with 10 schools!

I also have already been out on a 'social event' with most of the staff. This included sampling some local beverages (tropical juices of course) and getting to know everyone. Summer school had just concluded so it was more of an end of summer thing, but it was great to actually get to know the people I will be working with. One of the other teachers also plays rugby in Hong Kong, on the team the Typhoons train with. He's in a different division so we won't end up smashing each other's heads in.

All in all it's been a pretty busy first week and a half back in HK. I hadn't expected to be back at work so soon, but I couldn't pass up this new school. It's such a good situation. My old employers were nothing but helpful (although sad) to see me leave, but with such short notice they handled it well.

This coming weekend sees the return of the Typhoons. We are going on an all night pub-crawl to recruit new team members. It should be a fun time. The season starts at the end of September so maybe I should think about getting into shape a bit. Maybe lifting little kids all day will be a good thing.

Updates from July!

Before I left for Canada I did a walk around of our neighbourhood and had forgot to post these pictures. The photo below is of our area called Kornhill. It is made up of approximately 20 buildings all around 30 stories.

In the picture below you can see our building on the left and behind it is Mt.Parker. There are many trails and you can climb up to the top, and continue on all the way to Tai Tam Reservoir if you like, it's only a couple hours hike.

This is what one the pathways look like. They are relatively well kept considering the jungle nature and vast amount of vegetation over-growing the trails.

Below is one of many barbecue areas along the paths. Here you can have a fire or just a quick picnic. They are very frequent with at least 5 barbecue areas along the way to the top of the mountain.

This is about as far away as you can get from skyscrapers on the Island. The views are quite nice and it actually feels a bit like you are out in nature away from the hustle and bustle.

Also back in July Mai and I went for a bike ride around the Taipo area. We rented a weird 3 wheel bike that almost fell apart. It was quite fun and very hot.

Back in the Big Lychee

After a 1 month hiatus from HK, I have returned to report on the happenings of my life as an expat. The city seems nice and clean, a recent Typhoon made sure of that as all the streets appear to be rid of their 'blackish' coating at least a little.

It remains ungodly hot and humid, but that did not affect my plans to hike up a mountain today. I was ridiculously sweaty by the end of it all, but rugby season calls and it says I'm not in shape yet. I can only wait with glee for the first game in +35 degree weather.

Having been in Canada for a month I have gained a greater appreciation for space and clean air. Also I have once again been overwhelmed by the huge masses of people and how little privacy there is to be had in Hong Kong. It is a huge switch, but I am glad to be back. The more I travel back and forth the more it seems like an everyday habit. Not the biggest deal changing 10-15 hours from the clock once in a while.

For the time being I will continue my teaching duties commencing in September. We shall see how that goes. I intend on exhausting my shutter this year so hopefully a few more photographic experiences will come my way, or I will make my way to them more forcefully.

In any regard, it should be another exciting year with many stories to wow the Canucks with back home.

Lost in...Winnipeg...

Some may have noticed I haven't been writing for awhile. That's because I am currently on a one month hiatus from HK.

I will be back mid August, but until then I am enjoying my time in Canada. I stopped in Vancouver and Calgary, and I'm in Winnipeg for the next two weeks.

Away

I will be in Canada for a month.

My flight did not crash, so I will not be appearing on Season 4 of Lost.
I may have a few updates from my travels so keep in touch...

Bottom of the barrel

Today I am teaching at my favorite kindergarten. There are many reasons I like it, but the main thing that sets it apart is how much better it is from the other schools I work at.

Compared to my other schools it is awesome here. I have freedom to teach what I want and how I want. There is more freedom over time and everyone is generally more flexible. As long as the kids are happy everyone is happy. That is not the case at my other kindergartens. It seems all they care about is pleasing the principal and administration. I received a negative comment that I was not doing well because my communication with the principal at one kindergarten was not good. That was much more heavily emphasized than the very positive feedback from the children. So I suppose my purpose at that school is to teach the principal English.

I have gotten used to it over a year, and for the most part I ignore everyone other than the children. Afterall I am being paid to teach them, not adults. So imagine my surprise today at my favorite school, when during a conversation with another local teacher, she said that this was the worst school she had taught at. I didn't believer her, there was no way this school could be 'worst' in any way. She went on to describe how other schools had been, and it made me realize that for the most part, I am teaching at the bottom of the barrel.

It would make me extremely happy if next year this was the worst school I taught at. It's just funny how much of a gap there is here in kindergartens. And as I found out awhile back, all kindergartens in Hong Kong are privately run, so it is not a case of private vs. government run schools. This gap only gets worse in High-Schools. It's too bad, but in a city of such high-competition maybe it's a good thing kids get used to it when they are 5.

Lost...

...is an awesome show.

I have recently developed a slight addiction to the tv show Lost. At first I was skeptical of it's 'brilliance' as raved by critics, but they were very right. I can't get enough of it!

The 2nd season was on AXN Network in Hong Kong, so picked it up and started watching it. Although extremely confusing for most of the 2nd season, I think I figured out most of what had happened in the 1st season.

Then I found an awesome website that allowed me to watch all of season 3. It took me less than 2 weeks to finish it, haha. Mai and I have been watching the first season for the last little while, and we finished it last night. Now I have seen all three seasons and I can't wait for the 4th!

My love for the internet has never been stronger. There is nothing you can't do, watch, find etc. etc. on the net. Although I'm in HK, it's actually easier than ever to watch North American content, who needs cable?

Stanley Dragon Boat Races

On June 19th Hong Kong celebrated the 'Dragon Boat Festival.' It's a national holiday in Hong Kong, so everyone has the day off to head to the beach and watch the crazyness that is dragon-boat racing. I'm really not too sure how it worked, but there were many different races around the city/country/whatever it is - pretty much anywhere with water. We watched a few on tv before I headed off to Stanley Beach. The boats on tv had up to 50 people in them, they looked like they would sink! When I got to Stanley the boats were all 20 people per team, so it didn't look as insane, I was dissapointed that none of the teams sank. One boat did crash rather violently into another which made everyone on the beach applaud with laughter. Although it was a mostly fun event, you could tell some teams were a little more prepared and serious than the others.

The photographers were also out in full force. Many of them would stand in the water knee deep to get a few shots of the boats landing on shore after the race. How it worked was the boats raced directly onto the beach, so it was slight caos with 8-9 large boats 'crashing' into a sea of people all at once. There were 3 categories, Mens, Womens, and Mixed, with a seperate category for white dudes and asian dudes. I think this was mainly for weight difference. I didn't stay for the finals as it all started to look the same to me and I only went to get some photos and I was alone and melting in the sun.

I would really recommend this event high up on my list of things you have to do in Hong Kong if you're here in June. Next year I'm even going to try and sign up for a team.

> Photos Here <

OD-ing on Cough Drops

A Fisherman's Friend I am!

So I mentioned the new mold and everything at our new apartment. What I forgot to mention was that it had been recently renovated, so there is a lot of dust as well (dust that could contain a number of different things that should not be inhaled).

Before we moved in we spent a couple of days cleaning and trying to get all the dust and mold that had grown since the last owner moved out. Everywhere in Hong Kong is so moldy, but it can't be helped. It's so humid and hot it's just bound to happen. We disinfected everything and put in some funky smelling de-humidify-ing bags in our closests. Still the AC's are full of wonderful particles and the end result is me sneezing all day.

Also, as our hot-water heater for the bathroom seems busted, we can't take hot showers. I think the first cold shower I had made me sick. It doesn't make much sense, as Mai and I both had hot showers the first day we moved in, but it doesn't work anymore. The gas guy is coming tomorrow to hopefully fix it, or show us what we are doing wrong.

My throat didn't feel so great yesterday, it feels a bit better today, but I am still consuming vast amount of cough candies.

- 3 more weeks until clean Canadian mountain air! My lungs aren't gonna know what hit them.

Moved!

"We are moving, we are moving, we are moving to a new house!
Chairs and tables, beds and pillows, we are moving, Hurry Up!"

That's the uber-wonderful song I have had to sing about twenty million times teaching so far. I guess families in Hong Kong move a lot so the kids need to learn at a young age what moving is all about. I have to point out one major error in the song though - a new "house?" Hong Kong does not have houses. Unless you are a super-mega-tycoon, you do not live in a house.

Why am I talking about moving? Because we just moved! Everything went really smooth, the moving company spoke no English whatsoever, so the over-use of the word FRAGILE on all our boxes went mostly un-detected. Nothing was broken, so I can't complain - too much... We took a taxi over to transport Taco/Takuro-Chan (pet birdy), and my computer. Despite my warnings to the taxi driver about my suitcase being very heavy and very FRAGILE he still thought it was a good idea to toss my suitcase into the trunk as if it were a dead body. Good thing my computer isn't made of glass and it's old enough that I wouldn't mind replacing it. Still I would like to know how people in Hong Kong do not know the meaning of FRAGILE. It seems as if everything/one is so easily replaced in HK that it doesn't matter if things are broken. It also doesn't seem to matter if what is FRAGILE is an object or a human life. But that's another matter, back to moving...

The moving company took all of 2 hours to load all our belongings into their big-ass truck and haul it over to the new place and unload. Although they were quick, like I said before their sense of respect for FRAGILE property and belongings was non-existent. They constantly dragged furniture across our new hard-wood floor and threw things around. I know why they were so cheap. But again nothing was seriously broken, only mainly because we had nothing to break really. The English speaking rep at the company is gonna get a "nice" letter from me explaining what the definition of FRAGILE is. Even if they don't speak English, a moving company of all people should know what FRAGILE means!

After all the boxes were unloaded, we had a massive amount of things to unpack and put in place. The living room was a bit crowded. Our new apartment has an extensive amount of storage, so it didn't take long for it to look good and it is now feeling like quite a large space. The kitchen is small, but the old one was as well, and the washing machine and water heater seem to be busted, but in a couple of days that should be taken care of (The dude who hooked up our Gas must have done something wrong, because we can only take cold showers for now, which isn't too bad when it's like 35C).

I really like the new neighbourhood. It's very quiet, and is set up a hill, hence the name Kornhill. I found out it was named after some military guy name Korn, haha. It's really close to everything, tonnes of shopping and the MTR. It only took me 35 minutes to get to work today! That's the quickest ever! I even slept until 7:30am! Then took a cold shower, haha.

The next week or so will take some getting used to, the new noises, the new people, the new mold (eww-HK is gross sometimes) but overall I like it much better than Island Resort. We don't have a rock-climbing wall or a bowling alley anymore, but who really needs those things in their apartment?