Some festive snaps
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Some festive snaps
It's Christmas Time!
For the past several months we have all been working on the annual Christmas Pantomime for our younger students (and even a few of the older ones), and we finally got to perform it on Wednesday! This year we did ‘Bertie and the Beast’ the gender-reversed/ Hong Kong version of Beauty and the Beast. According to the script it is, “A true Hong Kong love story”, but I don’t buy that. No way someone had a castle in Hong Kong (or you know, was turned into a Beast). In true Panto-style almost all characters were played by people of opposite genders, and I have been forever scared by some of the resulting sights. I mean this completely and with no exaggeration when I say I truly despised rehearsals--with all of my being. And I am ashamed to say I barely knew my lines even on the night. That being said, actually performing the play was so much fun. The students absolutely loved it, and it was so nice watching them smile and dance and react (for the Americans, pantomimes require a lot of audience participation, ex. “he’s behind you!” “Boo!!!”) After the show we all stayed in costume and went outside to meet the students and take photos. They all came up to us with their playbills and asked for our autographs--I felt like a character at Disney world! A part of me is sorry the whole experience is over, it’s quite freeing acting like an idiot without repercussions for a few hours every week, but the majority of me is elated that I have my Wednesday afternoons and evenings back! Besides the Panto, we’ve decorated our CILL (Centre for Independent Language Learning aka the glass box I teach in) for Christmas and it’s finally feeling festive with the season change! Today I walked around in a light sweater, but I swear it’s getting chilly! I wore a denim jacket the other day. Oh how I don’t miss New York right now... And bonus: they have roast nut vendors here too! Except they do roasted chestnuts in a wok filled with what I assume is charcoal, and roast sweet potatoes, and quails eggs and something called a ‘salt-baked egg’. As weird as it sounds, I can’t wait to try something, because the carts smell incredible. I also started a knitting club with a friend of mine, and we had our first (hungover) meeting. About 10 of us crammed into my tiny apartment and we ‘arm-knit’ cowls. It was nice to be able to send people away with a completed project, and a lot more people are interested in the club now, so that’s good! The power of word-of-mouth is strong. My housemate actually wears here to work every day, and is going to use the same project for a workshop with her students. This upcoming week is going to be a busy one: I’m going to two art events on Monday, a magazine dinner and a company-hosted student party on Wednesday, throwing events at school on Thursday and Friday, then going to a company party on Friday night, a friends Christmas party on Saturday and (hopefully) Hong Kong Santa Con the same night. Bring on the caffeine!
A Hong Kong Thanksgiving
It was Thanksgiving last night, and my fellow Americans and I decided to treat our foreign friends (the British) to the bastion of freedom that is Thanksgiving dinner. My friend Edward hosted at his house, as it's the largest and the nicest flat of anyone we know on the program. We had 20 or so of our friends over, and everyone brought a dish and some wine. It was even BYOP/C (Bring Your Own Plates/ Cutlery -- not sure if that acronym will ever catch on) because we're trendy millennials who care about the environment. And we don't have a lot of spare anything in our flats. It was a great fusion of East and West, with our turkey being replaced by roast Chinese duck from a wet-market, wok-made butternut squash and carrots, and a lot of our deserts being traditional Chinese pastries. Nothing says Chinese Thanksgiving like a coconut-corn tart. I always love having Thanksgiving with non-Americans, because the questions are amazing. 'So, what games do you play?' 'No, we don't play any games.' 'Do you sing any songs?' 'Nope, no songs.' 'So what do you do?' '...we...eat? And sometimes watch a balloon parade!' But ultimately, I think we got through to them. There really is nothing better than food, wine and people you love. Even if you've only known them a few months. As lovely a night as it was, nothing replaces home and the bonds you have with people that you've known for years. Sisters, family-friends, best friends. I've been incredibly privileged to travel for the past several years, meeting new people and loving new people each step of the way, but there are those core ones in our lives that can never and should never be replaced. I missed you all and am counting down the days until I can see you again. All my love xxx
Catch up post 2.0
Hello friends and relations! I am still alive--surprise! One of the drawbacks of living in a place for only a year is that you never stop (except for the occasional 'fragile' weekend morning....) Ergo, this poor Tumblr is neglected. Other blogs aren't though! I've recently had two articles published on REAL websites, if you fancy checking them out. One is for Her Campus, a collegiate website I've been working with since my second year of university, how time flies! It's about office politics if you're interested (I know, riveting stuff). The other is about the best places in Hong Kong to get your Thanksgiving dinner. It was such a thrill to see my Thanksgiving piece go up, I can barely describe it. I was checking Sassy Hong Kong every day for a week! Back in St Andrews I had a friend who would jokingly refer to me as 'the writer', and at the time I would always shrug it off. Now, I'm embracing it (you win Simon). Writing is something I love and [SPOILER] I'm going to start actively searching for writing jobs here in Hong Kong for next year. I'm so excited! Just writing the one article for Sassy has already opened up a wealth of opportunities for me: I've met incredible women, attended some great events--Sassy put on a breast cancer fundraiser in The Langham Hotel and a blogger event at Lush (post to come)-- and learned so much more about blogging, and Hong Kong in general. I'm really looking forward to meeting some more of the Sassy women and learning more about the online magazine industry.
Writing aside, so much has been happening in Hong Kong/ for me in Hong Kong. The protests here are still going strong and are incredibly inspiring. I'm going to try to revisit the main protest sites this weekend, so hopefully I will post another blog about that soon. If you're interested in the protests now, I found his Hong Kong Magazine article really interesting. Here is a quick summary of what I've been up to:
- A trip to Lamma Island Lamma is one of the larger outlying islands in Hong Kong and is absolutely stunning. A group of us took the ferry out several weeks ago and it was one of my favorite days here. The weather was unbelievably hot, and I'm pretty sure a few of us were nearing heat-stroke on the hike, but it was worth it when we ended up at a nearly empty, pristine beach. It was a tropical paradise. Lying on the beach, surrounded by some amazing people was one of my favorite moments in Hong Kong. Plus the sunset was gorgeous and we had incredible seafood after! - Junk Boat One of the 'senior' members of my company organized a junk boat trip for us, a Hong Kong summer must. It was a great day. 50+ of us all piled onto our own boat, which then took us to a beautiful area on the south of Hong Kong Island and no rules. Literally nothing. Hong Kong is an Anglo-American nightmare in terms of safety. We were jumping off the roof of the boat, climbing up the side of the boat and just generally having a rowdy but wonderful time. (Rowdy in a good way, not the annoying way) Bonus points for us: we all came home alive, though some were worse for wear. - High Tea I got some of the Chatter-ladies together and we had a very lush lobster afternoon tea at the Island Shangri-La. The 13 of us met up early in the day at a friends house to have champagne pre-drinks before heading up. It really was fantastic. After the tea we headed downstairs to the mall [yes, the super fancy hotel was located above a mall. Some things will never make sense to me] and had a blast trying on clothes in Zara. Girlie day to the max. Obviously tons of stuff has happened in between, everywhere from wonderful to horrible, but these are the big things. I'm still having an incredible time, I love the school that I teach at and my students. This month we've started running more rigorous classes to help them with their exams, and I think we're all finding it very rewarding. This Christmas I'll be in Thailand with my flatmate here, and one of my best friends from home and I am counting down the days (though I'm going to miss my sister like crazy). Lots of lovexxxxx
Catch up post
Oi, it's been a while... [scroll down for the condensed version]* Life has been so busy since I last had a chance to post, but thankfully it's been busy in a good way! Earlier in September (aka September 8th) we had the Mid-Autumn Festival, it's a modern take on a festival harvest with lots of lights, lanterns, a dragon made of incense (casual) and general revelry. The next day was a public holiday, so Hannah and I headed out to the New Territories to see the Chi Lin Nunnery, which was truly incredible. Like most of the temples in Hong Kong, it's deceitfully young--this one was built in 1990 in a Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) style, so it looks exactly how you would imagine an old Chinese temple to look. Beautiful gardens, sloping roof tiles, running fountains and you can even hear nuns and parishioners praying and singing. The gardens are very, very manicured, you can even see wires on the trees to make them fall in just the right way, but it is beautiful none the less. Fun fact: the structure itself was constructed without the use of nails, supposedly symbolizing the harmony between man and nature. The next weekend some friends and I went out to opening day at the Sha Tin Racecourse which was so much fun. I've never been so separated from horses before and I was surprised by how happy I was to be able to feel them gallop by. That combined with all the pictures of the Smithtown Hunt going up on my Facebook feed really make me miss high school! The next weekend I went to the Hong Kong History Museum and had an amazing time. I'm not a big museum person in general, but this one is great: informative enough that I learned something and interactive enough that it kept my attention-- a rare combination! Spending the day in the museum really highlighted how little I, and I'm sure most people from the West actually know about Chinese history, despite it's vastness. There was so much information in the museum it was hard to take it all in, and it's funny what each of us took away from it. For example, I would now consider myself an amateur (re: expert) on ancient pottery, including production, decoration, and distribution, while my housemate is now thoroughly learned on ancient Chinese nomadic peoples and tribes. To each her own! The next day some girlfriends and I went to a Cat Cafe, which is exactly almost as magical as it sounds. It is literally a cat themed cafe, with cats roaming around that you can pet at your leisure. The niche aspect is incredibly satisfying, as is having an adorable cats face drawn on your toast and milk shake, but the actual cats seemed pretty unimpressed, or 'resigned to their fate' as one friend described it. I suppose a lifetime of being touched by strangers is really only agreeable to a Labrador. Last night was really good fun, we went to Hong Kong's oldest bar, Ned Kelly's Last Stand, in TST. It looks like a semi-nautical/Australian/old-west saloon cum jazz bar. And it's amazing. Hong Kong really does have something for everyone's interests, and it never stops. Every night of the week people will be out and bars and clubs across the islands are going to be in full swing. The city is definitely growing on me! *[Condensed version: I am still very much alive and very well! I'm having an incredible time and I really need to update this more!]
Week one
First week finished!
I have officially survived my first week of real life work!
The first day was...interesting. After a morning’s orientation at the Chatteris office, my teaching partners (John and Edward) and I went out with our CCCs for a delicious meal. After lunch we headed to our school to get oriented, and I think we were all overwhelmed. Chinese schools have a different layout to american and British ones, their layout is very open, almost like a motel. Our school happens to be in a ‘z’ shape, making it pretty confusing to get around in! Our CCCs, Monica and Ronnie, are our direct supervisors at the school, in addition to being full time teachers. I do feel a bit bad for them, they’ve got so much on their plates at the moment between the beginning of teaching and sorting us out! They’ve handled it marvelously though, giving us all the time and support that we could need. We had a long meeting at the end of the day and I feel asleep in it! Not ideal...but in my defense I had a migraine!
The rest of the week followed a very uniform structure. Checking in to work at 10am, designing our promotional materials--I am now the proud/not-so-proud owner of a life size cutout of myself, and a massive banner of myself--which is surprisingly difficult, in addition to orientation demonstrations for new students, and facilitating CILL visits. The CILL, or the Centre for Independent Language Learning, is the room in which I work and it’s very swanky. It looks like Ikea’s favorite child--lots of fun colors and smooth designs. Student’s can come in and out as they please, to chat with us, watch TV, read, play games--whatever they want really! Some come in specifically for us, they’re really interested in our lives and cultures, and some come in just to play monopoly! We did get to leave early on Wednesday to go to a Chatteris LOVE event-- a monthly cultural event my company puts on for the CNETs. The theme of this one was the Mid Autumn Festival, which Hong Kong is currently celebrating. There were lanterns hung from the ceiling with riddles on them, and if we guessed the riddle we were given a paper lantern prize! We also got to make mini mooncakes, a special Hong Kong desert only eaten for the festival, and try ones made by professionals. The mooncake is an interesting creature, somehow it keeps for months, despite having an eggyolk in the middle of it. I was so excited to try them--they’ve been advertised in the subway station for weeks!- and barely managed to touch mine. They smell of peanut butter and taste a little bit like sludge...it was an experience. This week a few of us will head to Victoria Park for the festival day itself, I’m not sure what we’re going to see!
Friday, the last day of work!, was also my 22nd birthday. My housemate woke me up with the obligatory playing of Taylor Swift’s aptly named, ’22’ and I was greeted at work by a muffin and John singing happy birthday on his ukulele. It was a pretty relaxed day, we worked on a little music video--which was a disaster, just so you know-- got our posters, and did more lesson planning and ground work. My CCCs even surprised me with a cake and a little present! They’re so sweet :) My birthday night was fun too--although a little stressful. About 30 of us went out for Korean barbecue, which was absolutely delicious! But the logistics of getting 30 people fed, and then paid up, are obviously, a nightmare. Figuring out what to do afterwards with such a big group was also a bit of a mess, but I ended up having a great night all the same. Lots of dancing, which is exactly what I wanted! I will say that it was the first time in years I’ve been homesick, which is kind of a nice feeling. I’m excited to come back to New York and settle down for a little while after this adventure. That being said, I’m still feeling very lucky to be here in this amazing place, and with so many fun people around me. It’s like being back at Uni, but with a paycheck!
A boring post
Today I thought I had scored the dream: a gorgeous bed-frame with tons of storage and a mattress for $650 HKD. I paid the man, got the movers, and just as the movers were coming up to the flat (another gorgeous flat, this time in Olympic...3 guesses where the name came from) I found out the mattress wasn’t included. It was too late to back out, so I got another $50 taken off the price, just to make myself feel better (my dinner tonight cost more than that) and we loaded it up.
The mover man I hired was very nice, which was lucky for me because I was alone with him for about an hour. Not my smartest move, safety wise, but it worked out. We spoke in broken English about his two sons, and if he wants them to speak English too. The subject of English as a necessary skill has been popping into my head a lot lately, and I’m always curious to ask the locals what their opinions are. Do they feel they should learn English to exist in their own country? It certainly helps, there is no doubt, but is it necessary? I took Spanish in school, and I loved it, but I don’t think anyone would expect me to speak it fluently the way it is expected over here. Not to mention only few, if any, of the ex-pats I’ve met here speak any Cantonese. It is literally two separate communities existing side by side, but never with each other.
Once the bed was assembled, I cleaned it thoroughly and then began setting up my room! Before I left the house this morning I started putting together an Ikea clothing rack, and somehow managed to slice my foot open in the process. So my first task was wiping off the blood (joking! I did that earlier) and finishing it. Once that was done, I unpacked my bags, and began the nesting process! I even hung up some wire baskets in our bathroom--i’m so handy! We have a wet room, which is is a little 5x4ft room with a sink, toilet and shower head--so everything gets soaked when you wash. The baskets should hopefully help keep our bottles dry!
I spent a few hours being a happy homemaker: pottering about fixing, cleaning and straightening, and then I collapsed on the couch with one of Hannah’s books. As much as I cherished the alone time, I found myself checking the door every so often, expecting someone to burst in. I’m surprised at how lonely life outside the hostel can be! It’s a big change, living with 6 girls in a room and 70 people in a building, to two girls all alone. Hannah was in Macau for the day activating her visa, so it was a very lonely day...
Met the boys from last night for dinner again and that fixed me right up! We went to a nice vietnamese restaurant near their house again. The food was delicious- I had pan-fried pork chops and rice- but at $50hkd each it was a little pricey for me. I’m really looking forward to having a kitchen I use to make meals in! First day of work in the morning...exciting!
Moving in Day
The day finally arrived for the CNETs to board the Mount Davis Youth Hostel mini-bus for the last time. It was an emotional moment-- the moment we transition from communal living trainees to independent residents of Hong Kong...and it was a mess. Blood, sweat and tears were all shed trying to load the 70 of us, and our bags, onto the hourly mini-bus. Hannah and I (very wisely- if I say so myself) brought our luggage to the flat in advance, as we foresaw this disaster, so we were free to watch the show in bemused horror. Once everyone was safely poured out of the van, Hannah and I took the MTR to our flat, dumped our last belongings and then headed out to the wilderness of Pokfulam, Hong Kong Island to look at a futon. We managed to find the bus out easily enough, but finding the actual apartment was a nightmare. The owner neglected to mention that her apartment complex was divided into ‘upper’ and ‘lower’. One on top of a mountain, and one on the bottom. We found this out when we got to the top of the mountain and had to fight our way back down. This was a very affluent area, and we got lost in-between the indoor pool and outdoor tennis court, only to find ourselves trapped in an abandoned car park. When we finally found our way to the proper address we counted 6 Mercedes, 1 Lotus, 1 Royles Royce and 2 Jaguars, before we gave up. The apartment itself was GORGEOUS and huge, with an incredible view of the water. The owners were two very nice Americans, who were clearly frazzled with their move. Unfortunately what we went out for- the futon- was too big for our flat, but we picked up a little table and a bag full of freebees, including picture frames, shot classes, a milk frother, two wine glasses, a set of mahogony coasters with mother of pearl inlay and a giant wooden-hand-holding-a-lotus-thing that the woman pulled out of the trash. We felt bad not taking it, but it might now be the most random thing in our house.
We lugged our loot to the bus stop nearby, Hannah jumped on the bus, and as I attempted to join with the table the driver shook his head, closed the door and drove off. Hannah turned around just in time for me to see her ‘OH MY GOD’ face, before the bus turned a corner. I got on the next bus a few minutes later, table in tow. I waited for Hannah at the bus depot for about 45 minutes, before I got a text telling me her bus had passed the depot and was heading off the island. She had officially gone rogue. We both agreed to just meet back at the flat.
Several hours later, after lugging this table through crowded Hong Kong and even busier Hong Kong MTR stations (at rush hour) Hannah and I both arrived at our street simultaneously (despite me leaving about an hour and a half before her). We were bruised and broken, but finally home. The memory is too raw to go into more detail, but please try to imagine the worst possible day, and then imagine I just described it here. Pity me. The little table is slightly worse for wear (as are we), the frother is chipped and one glass broke, but besides that everything arrived safe and sound, and we have some more swag for our flat!
As we sat on our sofa surveying our new booty, I discovered the cover was actually just Velcro’d on. As the cover was disgusting, we tore it off we glee, and the satisfaction we gained from that made up for the rest of the day. And bonus--without the cover we have a rather smart black couch! After that exhilarating discovery, we doused the flat with an entire bottle of mite spray, and then went out for a really nice meal at a local christian restaurant (I don’t know what that means either really, the only english they had was scripture) to let the place ventilate out. When we came back, we plopped down on our black sofa, put Frozen on, and I think I fell asleep mid-credits. Today was a MUCH more successful day. Hannah and I woke up early to go to Ikea, only to find out that a senior CNET was giving away a single mattress! Such good news!!! So we went off to Ikea (which, by the way, doesn’t open until 10:30--and had a line waiting to get in!), stocked up on supplies, and then headed off to get the mattress. We were a bit scared going up to the Ikea till, but the whole thing only cost $1,600 HKD or $206.40 USD/ £124.57 GBP! We will have to go back again to get plates, cutlery and my bedding, but still- that’s amazing. We lugged, and I mean lugged, all the new stuff to our friend’s place, and had a great time chatting before a moving van came and we were back at our house before we knew it! Very exciting and so easy. We met our friend’s friend, also a former CNET and she was so cool. After that we went back on the MTR and came to the Jordan area to get wifi from a nice cafe we know. It’s the only place I’ve found in Hong Kong that gives you unlimited wifi. A blessing, as we won’t have any for probably a month... Oh the horror. Two of our friends met us here, and we had a great time looking for furniture and google-mapsing our respective houses. Hannah and I are still at the cafe, waiting to meet the same boys for dinner.
Just got back from dinner--it was amazing! The five of us went out for a delicious indian meal and laughed the whole time :)
Last night on the mountain
I’m currently ‘stranded’ at the hostel alone :( As much as I could go for another ladies night out in HK (free drinks!) it’s nice to have some alone time and semi-functioning internet! Also I had an accidental 'big night' last night, for 'gentleman's night' - free drinks for the gents at the gay bars!
Yesterday was the last day of our hands-on teacher training with students and it was a humbling experience. Just like every other day we were placed into work groups. This time, however, we had to make our own lesson from scratch. Previously we always delivered lessons with pre-existing resources, so this was a bit of a jump for us. I was so proud of my team. We all pitched in strong ideas, but were able to check our pride and decide together which ones would benefit our students best. Each group was assigned a senior CNET, someone who was here last year, and ours helped us shape our lesson so we could adapt it to different proficiency levels. It was a rare occurrence to get a group of students of one range, usually they varied from very very low to almost fluent. A benefit to that mix is that the stronger students can help the weaker ones and ‘lift’ them, but of course the negative is that the stronger students get bored! I have never wanted to apologize to my language teachers as much as I do now...life is much different on the other side of the desk.
The lesson we delivered was on music--a topic everyone can get involved in. We had Pharrell’s ‘Happy’ playing as the students entered, and after it finished we asked everyone what they thought of it, and how they felt. Then we discussed why the music had that effect, using the words ‘beat’ ‘rhythm’ and ‘melody’ (it’s a key part of a Chatteris lesson to introduce new vocabulary words). Melody proved a little tricky-- to be honest, I struggled to get it too-- but the lesson was really a success, and all the students told us why they loved their favorite songs. We ended the lesson with a little karaoke before heading down to the end of training party!
At the party each team of CNETs was running a different station, from face-painting and balloon animals to air hockey and marmite tasting (my group was in charge of the latter). We were supposed to get students to try marmite and analyze the taste, but that disintegrated pretty quickly. If you’ve ever tried marmite, you’d understand. No one wants to talk after putting something so rancid in their mouth. Especially not to the person responsible for the cruelty. Having never had marmite before, I was pretty generous with the portions...but everyone survived! And the photos are amazing.
When the party was over, one of the students announced that he had a gift for each of the CNETs! He and some others stayed up all night making us all these gorgeous little bottles filled with paper flowers and stars. How sweet is that?? I didn’t realize until that moment how much the ‘camp’ (aka our training) means to some of the students. They will often tell us that they love us, and we just smile and think it’s sweet, but now I think they’re being totally serious. I don’t think they don’t love us as individuals, but they love us as the embodied representations of ‘CNET’s. I get the impression some of the students don’t have the easiest time at school socially, so it must be a really nice break for them to come and hang out with us and actually have fun. Obviously some CNETs are better than others, but I’d objectively say we are all incredible. :P
Once the day finished, Hannah (my flatmate) and I headed back to the hostel to take our luggage to our new flat!!! It’s amazing how much smaller it looks with luggage in it... It’s going to be a cozy year! Today we went back and started to stock it up a little more, as we’re moving in tomorrow. We gave it a deep clean-- well, as deep as you can give something without bleach and/or a mop or a broom. We scoured our new neighborhood for the cheapest prices on cleaning supplies and toiletries and never managed to find a mop! Though in all honesty, we would have no where to put it... We also have a little mite/ ant problem that is potentially worrying. I say potentially because I’m refusing to worry about it now. That’s future Sarah’s problem. Flats in Hong Kong usually come unfurnished, so you have to find your own bed/bed-frame/ storage units/ couches/ ovens/ stoves/ refrigerators/ etc... Which is a massive nightmare. Luckily for us, our flat came with a creepy little sofa and a fridge! One of the older CNETs is lending us a blow up mattress until we can get real ones, and Chatteris has lent each flat a stove, a microwave oven and a kettle--I never thought I would be so excited about appliances. But we have a kettle! And a little mini oven! The little portable stove thing even came with a pan! If we had any cutlery or dishes we could cook something! I love potential... Despite all this exciting potential, I’ve been assured multiple times that I will never use my kitchen. The food in Hong Kong is so good and so cheap it almost doesn’t make sense to cook, they tell me. But you know what else the food in Hong Kong is? Deep fried. Or noodles. Or fried noodles. I just want some broccoli--my kingdom for broccoli! I’m not actually prepared to forsake the delicious HK diet just yet, but I do need to take a few steps back from it for a while before I get scurvy. I really don’t understand how everyone here is so thin...unless it’s all the tea and the smoking. [ED: It’s currently Friday morning and I am editing this whilst in deep discussion with some friends about attempting a 30 day clean eating cleanse. I am officially ready to forsake the delicious HK diet!]
After cleaning, I took my ever-so-attractive self (read: sweaty, covered in dust and plaster and dettol) to meet my friend Amanda and her friends for her birthday! We went to this really nice place called the Brunch Club in Causeway Bay. I didn’t get anything to eat because of a bad stomach, but the meals I did see come out looked amazing! Amanda is a friend of mine from St Andrews, and this is the first time I’ve met her friends from Hong Kong. They were all absolutely lovely! And all so interesting! One of them is on the board for the Hong Kong Museum of Art because of her volunteer work, and has just launched her own tech start-up business--I was Amanda has dietary restrictions so she made her own birthday cake, a lactose free chocolate-beetroot cake. It’s up there with my favorite 2 cakes. Absolutely delicious!! And that brings me back to the beginning, me stuck on top of a mountain. I’ve got internet radio, snapchat and (of course) a gorgeous view to keep me going. I’ll miss this hostel What a great way to spend my first few weeks in hong kong!
A few photos, I'm so glad to finally get them up! The internet at my hostel is really very slow...
Temples a plenty, and a place to live!
Today was a good day. After a stressful morning of running around and trying to get money out of my American bank account, I signed the lease on my flat for this year! It’s a lovely little two person apartment in the Prince Edward area of Kowloon, an island in Hong Kong. It’s very cozy, but so is everything in Hong Kong, so I’m happy with it. Prince Edward is a really nice part of the city, known for a gorgeous flower market. We don’t live near that, but it’s around somewhere! We do live across from a little florist though, so the view from my window will be gorgeous flowers, massive city buildings and a mountain. After paying the deposit (3.5 months rent/ $25,000 HKD), I’m officially poor until payday, but it’s worth it! We have to sort out furniture and amenities for the flat--most HK flats come completely empty--but that will happen in due time. I’m perfectly okay sleeping on an air mattress for a while! I was supposed to join some friends at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum for an exhibit on Studio Ghibli, an animation company, and a concert by the Hong Kong Youth Symphonic Band, but the timing’s didn’t work out for me. Instead, Hannah- my new housemate- and I went to the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery (Man Fat Tsz) in Sha Tin. There aren’t actually any resident monks on the grounds, so the name is a bit misleading, but there are actually ten thousand buddhas! Despite being a relatively new monastery (c. 1957) it’s astounding. The walk up to the ‘main attraction’ is pretty steep, you essentially climb a mountain, but it’s made easier by the life size golden Buddha's lining each side of the path. Each one is completely unique, with different expressions, features, and gestures, and they take you all the way to the top. It’s so surreal being in a buddhist temple, on top of a mountain, and looking down on a bustling city and a mountain. Hong Kong is a strange place of opposites. Hannah and I walked to the top of the pagoda, and couldn’t help but wax philosophical. None of these thoughts merit reprinting. For me the most incredible part of the entire monastery was the temple with 10,000 miniature Buddha's lining the wall. It created such an overpowering atmosphere. The monastery is full of giant statues of Buddha, but none of them have the same effect as the 10,000 miniatures staring down at you. I’ve been trying to find the right word for it, but it eludes me. Overwhelming, calming, striking, peaceful, terrifying--they all spring to mind, oddly. I actually think the larger statues throughout the monastery take away from the power of the smaller ones. The gigantic statues have a tendency to slip from the grandiose and awe-inspiring into the comical and almost tacky, but ultimately they each contribute to the temple. Yesterday I went to a completely different temple, the Man Mo Temple in Sheung Wan with some other friends from the program, and it was a completely different experience. Firstly, it’s smack dab in the middle of the city. Literally nestled between high-rises. Secondly, it’s tiny- the entire temple is two rooms! But despite that, it maintains an air of tranquility and respect that I think was a little lost at Man Fat Tsz. Man Mo is thick with incense, large beehive shaped coils of them hang burning across the whole temple. Unlike M.F.T., it was bustling with worshippers. I really enjoyed watching them perform their rituals of worship. Hong Kong is currently in the middle of the ‘Hungry Ghost Festival’, a time when family members lay out offerings to their departed who roam the earth searching for worldly pleasures, so the temple alters were piled high with fruits, candies, nuts and even cigarettes! It was definitely a more ‘real’ temple than MFT; one people actually worshipped at. MFT is more a spectacle people come to to observe, not a temple you they worship at.
It’s quite the life, being able to compare and contrast temples! I’m still having a wonderful time, and I hope to get some pictures up on the site soon! xxxx