more pics

 more old men with crazy hats for costumes... one let me borrow his for the picture :)
 trannies in HK??? They must have escaped from Thailand!
more pics/ a video from the LKF night during rob's visit

Rob's Visit to Asialand

old men in shower gear haha (costumes for the Rugby Sevens)
LKF absolutely packed!
up the stairs to the big buddha!
 I have turned asian. please call me Ping Ping like my teacher
Rob and I on the cable car
So for those of you who don't know about Rob, he was one of my best friends from freshman year who lived in the dorms on the same floor as me! We had a great floor with really fun people and lots of funny stories... Rob is one of the main people i keep in touch with from SDSU and he is on Semester at Sea... which is basically a "school" trip on a cruise boat where all they do is drink and travel haha... but they had a port stop in Hong Kong!!! My friend Bryan who goes to USC with me but also is studying here with me in HK had 2 friends on the same semester at sea boat and sure enough our friends were friends too! So we planned for Rob and Bryan's friends to meet up and Bryan and I went to pick them up from the boat on Sunday... Rob brought along his bff from the ship and Bryan's two girl friends brought along 2 more girls so we had quite a gang to entertain and show Hong Kong to in just one day! It was a non-stop day to say the least! We took them to Mong Kok first to walk through the famous Ladie's market and we also had Dim Sum there which is a traditional chinese breakfast! It was really really good (one of the few things i really like here), and i think they all were glad to have their "cultural" meal!... From there we went to see the Big Buddha on Lantau Island! We wanted to take them to Victoria Peak to look over hong kong but it was wayyy to foggy! It was hard for us to even see the big buddha from the bottom of the hill when we got there! We had to take the MTR pretty far to get there and  then an air cable car to the island... So we bought some beer to take with us (once again they all are on a ship where they drink and travel)... you are not allowed to drink or eat in the cable cars so we were sneak and mischievous (and i am a rule follower so that was big for me) haha... We walked through the little town to the buddha and then up the stairs we went to get to the top! It really is a BIG buddha haha... you arent supposed to touch it but of course rob did... we took some pictures and then were back on the cable cars to explore more of HK... We then took them to Soho to get some chips and salsa and Margaritas since they were all craving Mexican food (I'm not the only one)... We ate, drank, and were merry and then continued on our way walking through Soho and central... we then took them back to the boat so they could change for their first and only night out in LKF! We watched the Light show in TST and then took the Star Ferry back to LKF where we had some dinner and drinks haha... I tried octopus, and scallops for the first time (I had some liquid courage to help with that)... I didn't enjoy either but I didnt spit either out so it was successful food trying haha... Then we went to the main street in LKF and it was packed cause the Rugby Sevens had just ended and it was soo fun! All the bars were full and the streets were full of very happy and intoxicated people (mostly and older crowd) but the older men had the best costumes! We walked the streets and talked and had a really really really fun night! All of the people we took around that day seemed to have a great day in Hong Kong and got to see a lot more than everyone else who didnt have their own personal tour guides! (AKA bryan cause i still can't navigate my way around)! It was soo great seeing Rob and sharing Hong Kong with someone who has never been here! This made me really excited for my parents and aunt and uncle to come! But i also realize i need to start writing down directions so i dont fail as their tour guide haha! Miss you all! 

p.s. 46 days til I'm 21!!! woo hoo!

HK Rugby Sevens Tomorrow!!!

Tomorrow I am going to the Rugby Sevens tournament which is a hugeee tournament and always sold out! I got tickets through my school so tons of us exchange kids are going!!! I can't wait!!! Here is what Wikipedia, the most reliable source ever, says "The Hong Kong Rugby Sevens is traditionally one of if not the biggest event on the Hong Kong sporting calendar. As such, there is a tremendous party atmosphere, with particular emphasis on the South Stand, where hordes of rugby fans dress up and dance for most of the duration. Activities that typically ensue as the weekend progresses include the throwing of empty beer jugs around the South Stand, Mexican waves, and streakers running across the pitch. Since 2007 the South Stand has been made officially accessible to over-18s only, due to its hyper and somewhat provocative atmosphere, although this rule is not strictly policed.  The Hong Kong Sevens typically draws the biggest crowd and is the biggest party on the IRB Seven's Calendar."

I am soo excited!!! There will be a big group of us that will start sipping on some drinks (just juice of course) at about 1 before we leave at 330 to get into the stadium! I will write again after and will hopefully have tons of pictures!!!

my weekend in China

me in front of the Li river after our raft trip
the ladies from Longchang with the long hair like a hat on their head
the Li river in Yangshuo... it was foggy
West Street in Yangshuo
all my purchases... nunchucks for my dad, some rice alcohol (when in china right????)  some painted bottles, a spoon made from ox horns, jade chopsticks, little asian dolls, a jade stamp that a man made for me with my initials, a scroll paining of Yangshuo, and an embroidered tablecloth from Longchang... I am a bit of an impulse buyer... 
 
the rice terraces in Longchang
Ok so this past weekend I went into southern china with my friend Tiphaine who is from France so obviously neither of us speak any mandarin... thank goodness for our china guidebook with common travelor phrases in the back... So Tiphaine bought overnight bus tickets from a guy in Shenzen which is right aross the HK/China border like 2 weeks ago. He spoke very little english but enough to understand her and she thought she bought round trip tickets... when we got there... we asked a person in the little travel agency she booked at to ask the lady in chinese to make sure they were round trip... they were not... so it was liek 200 more HK dollars than they shoudl have cost.. we were ripped off... we were pissed so we demanded our money back and were having this girl translate for us and it was a huge ordeal for like a half hour... Finally we got most of our money back and went to try and find the actual station that sells tickets so that we couldn't get ripped off by travel agencies... Meanwhile we run into a guy from England who is travelling alone and to the same place we are going so he joins us on our mission since the train tickets are sold out so a bus is the only option... After asking several people who couldn't help becasue they didnt speak english we finally found the bus station ticket kisok... we buy tickets and then wait for the bus... The bus was actually really really clean and it was about an 11 or 12 hour ride overnight to Guilin in China... The bus had beds instead of seats and was really comforable given that it was still a bus... A guy from Holland a few years older than us was on the bus as well next to me so I felt pretty safe... My Chinese roommate had warned me right before i left that the buses were reallly really unsafe in terms of people stealing and the busses crashing... needless to say i was really freaked out and then planned to stay awake through the whole bus ride... But with our 2 new travelling friends i was able to sleep (with my passport and money in my money belt!) We arrive a little later than expected in the morning (which will be a common trend) and hopped on another bus that was supposed to take 1 hour (it took 2.5) to Longchang. we bought the ticket from a kid who had a badge saying he worked for the ticket office (which he didn't) because he ripped us off again... When we finally got there we started out climb up the hill to find a hostel... In Longchang there is a cetrain ethnicity of people there and the women grow their hair out down past thier knees... they then wrap it on their head in special designs... its kind like wearing a hat haha... They hand embroider fabrics and sell lots of little trinkets... they were lined up along our hike up to our hostel so we got to do some shopping!!! WE found a hostel after we were taken by a little old lady (she was literally like 4'6")... she took us up to a room and after much translation problems figured out how much she was asking for it and paid her... it was pretty clean and right on the side the the hill with a great little view... So Longchang is famous for its Rice Terraces which are absolutely stunning... There are hills and hills of terraces all handmade in straight lines into the hills to grow the rice... After putting our bags in the room, we set out on the trails to go to the viewpoints on the Terraces... we hiked around there for about 4 hours and it was so beautiful.. we had met a retired Canadian couple earlier on the bus who were staying in a hotel by our hostel who liked meeting people while they were travelling (they had already been travelling asia for 5 months) so we had dinner with them... THey invited a retired french couple and we invited a french guy who was a little older than us that we had met so it was quite a dinner group... I was the only one who didnt speak french so i didnt understand most of the table conversation :( It was ok though cause i talked with the Canadian man and the french guy our age cause he would speak english with tiphaine and me when i was listening in...It was a nice little dinner and we were so exhausted that after we went to bed cause we had to catch a bus the next day at 730am to Yangshuo which was our next destination... 

many hours later than the time quoted, we arrived in Yangshuo! It is a little tourist town south of Guilin and has 2 major streets that sell things and have hostels... The most famous street is called West Street...  We had soo much fun walking up and down this street several times buying lots of souvenirs! We must have walked the street at least 10 times while we were there for a day and half and found new things each time :)   We then took a bike ride through the countryside where people still farmed with ox to plow and did everything by hand... there were even old people and kids out in the farms! the people still carried the two baskets on each of the bamboo stick that sat on their shoulders... we saw women with their babies in the baskets! It the rural area it was like the world hadn't changed in the past 30 years... The next day we took another bus up to a part of the Li River so that we could take a bamboo raft down with huge and beautiful limestone hills all around! The minute we got on the bus this woman started bugging us about buying a ticket from her for the raft... this went on for at least 20 minutes and she didnt speak english so she just talked at us in chinese and pointed on a map... we kept saying no and finally had to ignore her... once we got there she shooed all the other women away that were going to sell us tickets so that we had to buy them from here... there were only two other tourists there and they were both chinese and spoke a little bit english so they helped to translate what we wanted to do to the lady... we went back and forth bargaining on price til we finally settled on $70 yuan... the man told her in chinese that price and she accepted and then got us onto her raft... after about 5 minutes on going down the river she asked us for the money... we gave her $70 and she said 90... again we were being ripped off... this time we wouldnt let her we were were basically talking sternly to her and telling her NO! this went on for another 5 minutes and then she said 10 more or i have no money... we said NO again... she kept telling us no money and we said NO to paying her more... This time we knew she understood how much we would pay her cause the man told her in Chinese and she knew she was trying to rip us off too cause she was laughing while we were screaming No at her... we then pulled off to the side of the river to get more gas and a guy got on the boat and the lady got off and he took us the rest of the way down... he didnt try and talk to us or get money from us so it was a relaxing rest of the trip like it should have been from the start! we went 20 kilometers down the river and ended in a little town... It was a really cute little town with more vendors... surprise surprise.. but it was nice to walk through... we hopped back on a bus to take us back to Yangshuo... We walked West street again, got some dinner, and then got back on a bus to take us back to Shenzen so we could cross the border back into Hong Kong... This bus ride was supposed to take 11 hours and its took 13.5! The lady selling us tickets promised it was a bus with lots of foreigners cause it was a travel agency on west street, and she promised it was clean... We figured it would be the same bus as the one that took us into china... Well it wasn't... we got on the bus and it was all old chinese people and it smelled like the worst smelling feet ever and i wanted to puke. The blankets hadnt been washed in years and the pillows had no pillowcases so we know those hadnt been washed either... We were absolutely disgusted... It was the worst bus ride ever... no one spoke english at all so we had no idea where we were ... when we finally got into Shenzen it was the wrong bus station... now we had to figure out how to get to a border crossing!!! This phrase was not in our china travel guide... luckily we saw two europeans walk out like 15  minutes later after we had been trying to describe border to a taxi driver and they were able to get a taxi who knew where to take us cause they were going the same place and knew the correct name.. we shared the taxi with them and made it back to Hong Kong...  I have never had such a frustrating but fun weekend! It was so nice to get home to my dorm with my hard bed... and i never thought i would say that haha

:)

on the terrace at the LKF hotel bar
view from the top!
i just got back from a fabulous night with Jackie and her mom and her mom's friend... It was so nice being with adults (I miss my parents friends) and we just had a great little ladies evening... We went to the LKF tower/hotel and had a drink on the 26th floor (or 29th???).... We all got mojitos and i had a peach one... it was soo good! we stood out on the balcony overlooking hong kong and the skyline drinking and chatting and it was really nice... the bar is ranked #7 out of 20 of the world's best sky bars... It was sooo so beautiful (and high up!)...We then walked to go have dinner, and we definitely took the long way (aka got lost) .. We ate at a veryy nice restaurant and I had the best Fajitas!!!  The manager of the restaurant was a little asian guy with a real and heavy aussie accent! so cool! We all sat and talked at dinner and it was really great... Dinner was really long cause we sat and talked and just had a really relaxing and nice time... we then took a taxi back to their hotel back in mongkok where we said goodbye and the taxi driver continued to take me home... I gave him a sheet of paper with my address in cantonese and we were off.. what should have been a very short ride took way too long.. i think he took me the longest way possible to rip me off... It should have only been about 40-50 Hong kong dollars but it was 110... I was just worried that he was taking me to the wrong university... so i called jackie and had her tell me the name of our school in cantonese so i could repeat it to the driver, and he proceeded to laugh.. Anyways, i eventually got there and he now has enough of my money to buy his wife a little something haha :) 

Going to Yangshuo

the famous limestone mountains! We will do a boat ride on the river too!
Its in the Guangxi Province 
this weekend i am going to Yangshuo which is in southern China... i leave friday and come back tuesday night! I am going with Tiphaine, my friend from france,  and we are going by bus! 12 hours there and 12 hours back! yikes!!! But... the tickets roundtrip cost less than one tank of gas for me at home haha... i love china... it was by bus or by train and the train is supposed to be a little dangerous so we opted for the bus, which i think is faster too... anyways, Yangshuo is known for its limestone mountains and it is supposed to be very very beautiful! It has to be a quick trip cause i have finals in a month...ahhh!!! but I am happy i get to go! 

Teaching in China

my 3rd class... can you find me??? click on the picture to enlarge it
my 2nd class
at the first school after we planted a tree in their garden
So as you know I taught english in Zengcheng, China this weekend... It was the most amazing weekend ever! We did so much there in so little time that I don't think I can describe it all... Here is a quick try at a summary:  We left at 8am on Saturday morning on the MTR where we got off after about 6 stops and got on a bus... The bus took us to the border of China (1 hour) and then we got out and went through customs and got back on the bus to go to Zengcheng (2.5 hours). We then got off at the bus stop there and the principal and a government guy (who was our coordinator) came and picked us up in an elementary kid school bus... we then drove into the city where we would be teaching first (30-45 minutes)... We checked into a hotel to drop our stuff before going to the school... We taught at the first school for about 2 hours... 1 hour playing games all together (about 500 students) and then 1 hour teaching a class by ourselves (about 50 students)... After the hour of teaching, some of the students gave us a gifts... I got a windchime with chinese characters on it, an asian stuffed animal, a little jar with characters in it, and a beijing coin bank... It was so cute of them. After class they all wanted me to write my name on a piece of paper for them and i got trampled the minute i signed the first piece of paper haha  The principal gave us each a beautiful bouquet of flowers too.. then we went to the teachers lounge for fruits and tea while we waited for dinner which was cooked at the school... we sat out on the blacktop with the teachers and headmaster and principle to eat a chinese dinner... It was really nice but the teachers did not speak english well so they mostly talked in chinese unless they were asking me a question... they would ask me what my favorite dish was and then would insist on piling my plate with that food haha... I caught on to this trick quickly haha... we then went back to the hotel to put down our presents and the teachers took us around the town... they showed us the famous Lychee Tree that their province is known for... the tree has a story about it about how  a god brought it back to life by placing a green scarf on it so this particular lychee tree produces lychees with a green stripe and they sell a limited number of these lychees for like 40,000 Yuan each... how outrageous haha.. only the government can afford them... they then took us to a dessert shop where they ordered a bunch of famous chinese desserts for us to try... they then gave us each 2 kg of dried lychees to take home with it... it was so sweet of them and they were so excited to give them to us... we then went back to the hotel and the 6 of us who came to teach from CUHK hung out for a while being passing out from the long and exciting day.. 

we had to be ready at 8am the next day (Sunday) to leave for breakfast which was a Dim Sum chinese breakfast with more amazing food. (this was a common theme to the weekend)... the teachers from the first shcool we were teaching at that day were there to have breakfast with us... it was another meal with a lot of chinese so i had little to add to the conversation as you can imagine... the kids I came with all spoke Cantonese and some Mandarin so they could all communicate or at least understand the teachers.. our student escort Lu would sit by me at all the meals so she could translate and tell me what all the dishes were that we were eating... they then took us to the school where we had another little assembly where we were welcomed and then went to teach a class for a little over an hour... I played "simon says" with them and if they made a mistake they would have to tell me their favorite animal or food in english so that they could practice... they really liked this game.. then i taught them direction light left, right , straight, up, down , turn in a circle and we would blindfold one kid and then the other kids would have to give him/her direction to get to the chalkboard where i had drawn a featureless face and they would have to draw a part of the face , like the nose, blindfolded with the kids giving direction again about where to draw the nose... They thought this game was really funny because the figure they drew was "not beautiful" as they put it...They asked me a bunch of questions about what i thought about china, what my favorite things were, and about America... they were very shy to ask these questions an it was really cute... Then the teacher had me pronounce some words from the textbook because she didn't think she was pronouncing them correctly, which she was not haha... the words mostly had the "th" sound it in like thank you, that, this, and then some random words like dinosaur haha... Before i left, they asked me if i would be their friend and if i was coming back soon... it was really cute... once again i was asked to sign pieces of paper or books with my name for them to keep... 

we were then picked up by the teacher of the last school we taught at and we went to another big chinese lunch with more great and fattening food with less english than before... we arrived at the last school a little early and they took us to the principal's room for fruits and tea... I have never drank sooo much tea in my life... your cup was refilled before it was even done and they would tear off a banana and give it to us an make us eat it haha... It is apparently a cultural thing to provide us with more food than we could possibly eat as a sincere gesture to take care of us... I had a piece of goose because they saw my face when i saw the goose head on the place and they told me to try it... i didn't want to be rude and tell them i don't eat meat when the animals head is on the plate, so i sucked it up and put a piece in my mouth... it wasn't good but i defiantly didn't want another piece... Lu, the escort would tell me when there was something i probably wouldn't want to try, like chicken liver.... at the school they told us we would each be teaching over 60 kids... so much pressure haha... and we had 2 hours to teach at this school... at the assembly they gave us each a gift and we played musical chairs... when i got to the classroom they were all in a big circle sitting on the floor since there were no desks and the teacher had me stand in the middle and answer their questions they had prepared for like 45 minutes... these questions were the oddest i had all weekend... they asked me about christmas, they asked me to sing them jingle bells (which i didn't because i dont think i know all the words and my voice would scare them), they asked me when i got here and when i was leaving, they asked me if i had a boyfriend, and if i liked Mao... haha we then played simon says but this time if they made a mistake they had to sing me a song... the ABC's and Happy birthday were the hot pick of songs to sing me haha... I answered the last questions at the end of class and one of the little girls asked me for a hug... it was sooo cute... They then asked me for my email so no 60 little chinese kids have my email and as soon as they get internet connections i'm sure my inbox will fill up with the same questions I answered in class since their english is very limited...  before we left, i was asked again for my name on a piece of paper and two little girls drew me pictures and gave them to me... those were the best gifts... they had little cartoon characters with random english and chinese words and you very beautiful on it... what a compliment :) haha the drawing are very cute... we said all our goodbyes and then they had a bus take us back to the main bus station to go back to hong kong... it was really an amazing weekend... 

Some Highlights:

They would ask the kids : Do you feel happy that we have foreigners?

A teacher sang "If you're happy and you know it Slap your feet" and they would stomp 

I used a squatter for the first time... it is an acquired skill 

The kids taught me a few chinese words and laughed when i tried to pronounce them

I got asked "are you beautiful" ... awkward... haha - I am the only white person they have seen

Derek got 3 statues from 3 different kids of lighthouses in the united states... i think a factory must have overproduced these

A little girl asked me to not forget her :)

an umbrella is a great investment...

too bad i didnt have one today... It was just a little foggy all day but not too bad... I had just finished lunch and I went into Park N Shop (our little grocery store) to buy a diet coke before class cause I had a final and wanted to get a little caffeine in me... When i came out of the shop it was sprinkling... I put my hood on and started my walk to class... literally 2 minutes later it was the hardest downpour i've pretty much ever seen... There was thunder and lighting right with the rain... Wind too! It was like all the suddenly i was in the middle of a hurricane... well obviously not that bad but it was scary none the less... instead of walking the 15 minutes and being drenched by the time i got to take my final, i waited for the bus... there was basically flooding already in the streets and the cars driving by were nice enough to drive in that water and splash it all on us waiting for the bus... rude. haha I was standing with some kids from Korea who study here and they were assuring me that i would be ok and i would get to my final on time if i waited for the bus... I waited under a local guys umbrella uninvited, but he didnt seem to care too much :) I was pretty wet though an the sweatshirt i was wearing jsut soaked up with water so i ran from the bus stop to class... I thought i was really wet when i got there but one of the boys in my class was dripping wet so he had it worse off... the test went ok i think... too late to worry about it now... i walked back to my dorms in the rain, napped a little, and now im trying to decide if im going to go out... The rain just picked up again so i may have to pass of going out tonight... there is still lots of thunder and lightning so it may be better if i stay in... Anyways, i hope you learned to invest in an umbrella if you ever come to hong kong! I know i need to buy one asap! much love

karma

so karma caught me complaining about sweating so it rained on me today and I forgot a sweatshirt... i deserved it i think

Woo Hoo

hey guys, 

so i haven't written recently because i have been studying... you're jealous i know... i have a final tomorrow for my class that ends early! woo hoo, 1 down 4 to go! So my marketing class had P&G come and give us a case study to compete for and my group won!!!  And guess what my prize was.... drumroll please.... whitestrips! hahah well our group actually got a bag of P&G stuff and I got the whitestrips... its a US thing... braces would be more necessary here than whitestrips :)  culture differences everywhere haha... nothing else is too new with me here... i have 2 midterms and a presentation next week so hopefully i can study efficiently so I can have a fun weekend! I am going out tomorrow night which should be fun as always... i have a lot of fun weekends ahead of me! I teach in china next weekend, I am trying to plan a weekend to south east china the weekend after that, and I have a ticket to the Rugby Sevens (Eryka I wish you could come) the next weekend and my best friend Rob from SDSU is on semester at sea and he will be here in HK for 2 days!  Its looking like April 17th with be my last final so then i basically have til my parents come on may 11th to travel! I have one presentation on may 5th so i will have to plan my trips around that but i am hoping to go to vietnam then! If anyone has other suggestions let me know! Miss you all!!! 

P.S. 2 months and 12 days til I am 21!

Hong Kong Museum of History

So in order to get out of my hostel (dorm) and get my mind of stuff, I went to the Hong Kong museum of History... It is in Tsim Sha Tsui which is about 30 minutes away on the MTR.... The ticket woman was very surprised we wanted to go to the Hong Kong exhibition because there was one about the French Revolution... Anyways... it said you needed 3-4 hours to view the whole thing but we did it in about an hour an fifteen minutes... impressive i know... haha it wasn't marked too well with what path you were supposed to take to go through it all but we managed to figure it out... about half of it was boring but the other half i really enjoyed... I liked the parts about the different types of people that have settled in Hong Kong and all the info about how they lived and what they wore... I also liked the part about trading in Hong Kong an the Opium Wars... The part i though was most interesting was about the Japanese taking over in Hong Kong... Not knowing this happened (i am a little ignorant in history), i found it pretty fascinating... After the museum, we met up with another girl from the exchange program at Starbucks in East TST... yes starbucks is everywhere here too... The girl we met up with lived in asia for 2 years once she graduated high school. She travelled all around by herself. She helped in Thailand after the tsunami and just had some really cool life experiences... I have a final on thursday because this class ends in the middle of march instead of the end of april which will be really nice... I should get back to studying (or rather start studying) but i will have some pretty cool stuff coming up... In two weeks I am going into the southern part of china to teach english for a weekend with 6 other exchange students and i have heard from those who have done it that is made some of their best memories... I also have some planning for some traveling to do so i am really excited... Hope you all are happy and healthy and miss you guys!