Cliff Jumping

June was the month of cliff jumping. On Tuesday, the 9th of June, Ayden and I took the MTR to Choi Hung Station, the minibus to Sai Kung and another bus to Sai Wan Pavilion. From there, we hiked 40 min and arrived at our destination - Sheung Luk Stream. We jumped off the cliffs and swam for a few hours then realized that we would be too late to take the bus back. So we hiked... for three hours to another village where we could catch a bus back to Sai Kung.

About a couple weeks later, I went back with Jurgen, Chu Sum, Isaac and Juanito. We jumped all day as well but, this time, we took a taxi back from the pavilion.

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Nipplegate

May was a strange month in Hong Kong... First, there was the ridiculously expensive student fashion show sponsored by a big fashion company in Hong Kong. Our students, and a couple of teachers, were provided thousands of dollars of clothing and trained for their performances on the catwalk. Next, there was the incident where I got in trouble for standing between two of my students who wouldn't stop talking/swearing in my class because they felt I didn't have the right to disrupt their conversation... Then I got stung by two jellyfish while playing water polo at Deep Water Bay during a lightning storm. Later, I got in trouble again because my students could see my nipples through my shirt... well, maybe in the right light they had a point, but then you have to wonder why they even care... I'm a guy. And finally, of course, there were the Chinese bagpipers at the fancy school dinner during which our eccentric hosts made jokes and called out lottery numbers.

To be clear, I did NOT take part in the fashion show. The blond guy was a coworker who is apparently not entirely uncomfortable wearing makeup... I, on the other hand, have my dignity. Though, I did have to push a fat lady out of my way to get off the train that morning - she wanted my seat and I wanted off the train... well, in the end, we both got what we wanted.

As for "nipplegate" (as my coworkers so graciously labeled it), I've just decided not to wear my light-yellow shirt anymore as Hong Kong is way too fricken hot for an undershirt. Of course, the students were also concerned about my bellybutton because it shows sometimes when I go to tuck my shirt in... but I'm not paying for a tailor to make a shirt my size so they're just going to have to get over it. As with all Western things in Hong Kong, the prices are considerably higher than buying the local standard. Also, I don't like spending money for things I already have.

Lastly, while the fancy school dinner was a bit unusual, it was also very, very nice. They gave us some kitschy gifts, played live music and fed us some wonderful food: suckling pig, fish, tasty chicken and noodles, sweet Chinese red bean soup and some nice wine... so yeah, not bad!

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Dragon's Back

On Saturday, the 25th of April, Erych and I hiked the Dragon's Back on Hong Kong Island. It had been a few weeks of working and the exercise and fresh air were needed. Located on the East side of Hong Kong Island, the Dragon's Back is recognized as one of the best hikes in Asia (or at least one of the best near a major city). The coastal views and characteristic rolling ridge create a unique and dynamic hiking environment - a worthwhile hike.

About a week later, we had another opportunity for some outdoors fun in Tai Mei Tuk. After a massive BBQ and ice cream, we hired some bicycles and went for a ride. Of course, while the Dragon's Back had admittedly a few people on the track, Tai Me Tuk was about as busy as you would expect a place in Hong Kong to be - packed. From the start we had to fight traffic just to find enough space to actually mount the bikes!

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Old Summer Palace

For our last day in Beijing, Chu Sum and I made our way to the Old Summer Palace. Having seen the other Summer Palace, we had considered other ideas but it seemed a good opportunity to compare the replica with the original. After having some breakfast and stopping by the post office, we played with the cheap flapping bird toys in the park for a bit and spent a few hours walking around the ruins.

It wasn't until we saw some depictions of the palace in original condition (from before it was sacked by the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900), that we realized just how ruined the ruins really were.

Later that evening we flew back to Hong Kong and I broke into my locked apartment with the help of building security and a crowbar... seems my flatmate had latched the door from the inside before entering a state which I can only describe as comatose!

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Summer Palace

Today Chu Sum and I went to the Summer Palace with some friends. Yet again, I was able to use my expired student card to get a discount. We wandered through various sections of the palace grounds for probably a few hours until we arrived at a bridge. At that time we decided to split up from the group and visit a small island section across from one of the main palace buildings.

After looking around a bit at we decided to head to Wangfujing snack street for some... snacks.

This is China though so the "snacks" are sometimes a bit like fear factor. We ate our typical meat kebabs and ice cream of course, but I just couldn't leave without trying the scorpions.

They actually taste a bit like a buttery chip - not bad for a deadly, scary looking insect! Next we went over to the souvenir area and gave haggling a go. Now, neither of us are without experience in this department and, in general, going from 135 RMB to 45 RMB seems like a pretty good accomplishment. We walked away thinking we had made the deal of the day... until we saw the same souvenir with a sticker price of 35 RMB. We learned an important lesson there: look around a bit before you make a purchase!

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The Great Wall

This morning Chu Sum and I ate in a random hutong and took the MTR to a bus station. At the station we waited in line for about an hour (as you do in China), during which time I enjoyed the wonderful experience of being cut in line by a local - one of the aspects of Chinese culture, such as the spitting, of which I am not a fan. In fact, I'm not proud of this, but I may have intentionally given her one or two flat tires as we slowly moved toward the bus.

Next, after taking the bus to one of the last stops, we hired a minivan to take us to another bus (this is not the first time I've had to use several forms of transportation to get somewhere in China) and that bus took us to the Great Wall at Mutianyu! Once we arrived, we bought tickets for the chair lift up and the toboggan ride back down. Unfortunately, after walking up and down the the majority of the wall in this section, we found that we were too late for the toboggan ride... I was very, very disappointed.


We took the chair lift back down and waited in line for the bus that would take us to the car to the other bus which went back to Beijing. Overall, a really cool place to visit with lots of historical significance. Despite the setbacks, I definitely couldn't recommend it enough! I mean, it is a great wall after all ;)

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Forbidden City

On Friday, April 3rd, I went out from the hostel to explore the "hutongs" - narrow mazelike alleys which probably make up a majority of the neighborhoods in Beijing. Needless to say, you can get lost in them pretty easily. Of course, if you have a reasonable memory and/or sense of direction, you can quickly find your way back into familiar territory. After having some wantons at a local hutong restaurant, I grabbed some street food as I found my way back to the hostel.

A while later we were ready to have a look at Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City. On the way, some salespeople on the street tried to get us to buy tickets for a trip to the Great Wall but, thankfully, we had done our research and knew that this particular section would be crowded and slightly less spectacular than other areas.

We walked around through many security checks (nothing new - security checks are everywhere in the mainland) and eventually made our way to Tienanmen Square which, as it turns out, is right at the entrance to the Forbidden City. All in all, it all probably took about four or five hours before we finally reached the end and decided it was time for dinner. After a decent feed, we went to the Olympic Center buildings.

The Olympic Center buildings were designed and built for the 2008 Summer Olympics and for future use in 2022. The one on the right is the Beijing National Stadium AKA the Bird's Nest and the one on the left is the National Aquatics Center AKA the Water Cube. We spent about two hours there shooting rubber band helicopter things into the air and then headed back to the hostel.

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Beijing!

On Wednesday, April 1st, I got off work and went to Chu Sum's for dinner with his family. The next day we got up at 5am and headed off to the airport. At the check in desk we asked for an exit row but were refused. We didn't mind as we were just happy to be on our way to Beijing. We thanked the lady and headed to our gate. As we were boarding the plane the ticket guy stopped us and took our tickets. We weren't sure what was going on but then he handed us another pair of tickets and we boarded the plane. In the plane the stewardess checked our tickets and told us to go left... into first class. It was then that we realized that the nice lady at the counter had upgraded our tickets. Well, there's a first time for everything!

After a very comfortable flight with Hong Kong Airlines, we arrived in Beijing and caught a bus into the city. We wandered around looking for a couple hours and eventually found our hostel... right near where we had gotten off the bus. After checking into our super cool (yet amazingly cheap) hostel “Shindom Inn Beijing Zhushikou”, we grabbed a bite to eat and crashed at only 6pm.

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Different Paths

On Saturday, March 7th, a bunch of us went to Lantau Island to hike Sunset peak. It was a rather foggy day but, despite the lack of visibility, it was actually perfect weather for climbing a mountain. As we reached the top we found ourselves in the middle of a river of fog flowing over the peak. We had hoped to reach a point above the fog, and we were certainly close at this point, but the experience of walking in the clouds would have to suffice.

A few days later, I had an interesting chat with another English professor. Apparently we both had different interpretations of a particular idiom. While languages are arguably nothing without their rules, it seems reasonable to suggest that we are all rather quickly moving away from the type of pedagogical society that cares - texting as an obvious example. Of course, colloquial language in general is informal and thus doesn't require much in the way of rules to function... just try telling that to an English person.

Now, maybe you would agree with my British friend, and indeed it is quite possible that I was being something of a "stick in the mud", but the phrase, "no use crying over spilled (or spilt if your of the pommie persuasion) milk" seems to be primarily related to the futility of "sweating the small stuff."

On the other hand, I fully acknowledge that the accepted interpretation is that there is, "no use being upset about something that has already happened and/or you cannot change."

Okay, I get it - you cannot change the past... you can clean up milk though. For that reason I might even suggest that my definition is contextually more practical... and appropriate. For example, I strongly feel that you would have to have something of a death wish (no pun intended) to go to a funeral and mutter such a poor choice of words... just saying.

My point here is that, while my interpretation appears to work 100% of the time, the official one clearly does not. What do you think?

Neither the Americans nor the British are doing a great job of preserving the language (just try talking to a scouser from Liverpool, a Louisiana Creole person, or reading anything written in English 500+ years ago,). Sure, we could argue all day about which culture is most... creative with the vocabulary, but the fact is that the main function of language has been, and likely always will be, communication. For this reason, I suppose you could say that the rules are important - until they're not.

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Life in Hong Kong

Life in Hong Kong can be quite interesting at a glance. Sure, I'm not a big fan of the crowds or the pollution but, as far a cities go, Hong Kong does have some perks. Day to day expenses are certainly not too bad if you leave out the cost of accommodation: a meal is about $3-5 USD, same for laundry services; transportation to anywhere in the city ranges from fifty cents to two bucks, etc. Hong Kong also has plenty of things to see and do for all types of people. Believe it or not, aside from the massive number of street markets and such, Hong Kong also has a great outdoors scene. Hiking in the New Territories is quite popular as they have dozens of places that actually get you out of the city, crowds and pollution! I was also rather chuffed to learn that the city actually has people who get together to play water polo - and not just in the pool, but at the beach!

Using floating goals and anchors, the beach polo team has regular sessions just a short bus ride away from my place in Kennedy Town.

Most people in Hong Kong spend the majority of their free time eating out with friends or playing sports if they're athletically motivated enough. My friend Chu Sum and I like to go to the pool a lot and sometimes we go hiking, traveling or surfing. Otherwise, the main thing people do in Hong Kong is work... a lot.

On Saturday the 28th of February, I went to work at 9:30am for one of the school's primary PR days where we show off our school's vast resources in order to encourage primary students to apply at our school (yes, students have to apply for high school here!). Seeing as people aren't paid for showing up on Saturday in Hong Kong, as it is simply expected here, we weren't super pleased about waiting around till 11am to start the presentation. We were even less pleased when the principal decided it would be a bright idea to send us in a bit early, without preparation, to have a nice chat with the students. Of course, working with a bunch kids who are terrified of the English language is hard enough with preparation, but what's worse is when the parents are standing there judging you and thinking (in Chinese), "I don't get it - he never shuts up at home!"

I can't complain too much though. At least I have other NET teachers to share my pain - most NETs in Hong Kong have to do it all alone! In fact, as a first time teacher, I couldn't be luckier. Having two experienced teachers at your side means that, when things get tricky (and they certainly do in a band three school where the weaker students all go), I've got someone to turn to for help. In general, things at my school are actually not all that bad. My daily routine generally goes something like:

- Up at 6:20am, throw some hot water on some oats and get dressed
- Grab some banana, blueberries, flax, etc. and inhale the oatmeal
- Off at 6:50am and arrive at 7:40am on the MTR
- School assembly at 8am and some quick prep before my first classes
- Walk down to the basketball court to fill my water bottle and snack on crackers, muesli, etc. in my office between classes
- Lunch around noon (duck, meatballs or sushi)
- Buddy reading practice for students who read with primary school students
- Leave at 5:15pm and arrive home at around 6pm
- Chuck a bunch of veggies and fish in my rice cooker and eat a half hour later
- Church meeting or relax until 9:30pm
- Sleep

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Perhentian Islands

On Thursday, the 19th of February Kevin, May and I went hiking up to the peak of Perhentian Kecil. At the top we found some wind turbines and solar panels as well as a fantastic view out over the ocean.

After returning down the mountain, we went to Long Beach and made a really great sandcastle... Kevin thought it was ugly, but who asked him anyways. That night we had a big seafood feast to celebrate the first day of the Chinese New Year. We had crab, freshly caught fish, potatoes and other great stuff. Even the octopus, which I usually don't eat, was really good.

The next day was my last day so we hired a kayak and did some beach hopping. One of the beaches had some really cool huts on it which were apparently part of some sort of environmental initiative.

Before we knew it the day was over. I had my last burger from our friend Jeffrey at the Sunset Cafe, slept my last night in Kevin's tent and had one last delicious breakfast the next day at Dinnie's Cafe. After that I caught my boat out at noon and took the budget bus to Kota Bharu for 6 ringit (about $2 USD). The driver was either on a very loose schedule or no schedule at all. He kept stopping to get off and walk somewhere and, judging by the fact that he had a no smoking sign but smoked anyways, I'm guessing he didn't have much of a standard to keep... After over two hours of a supposedly one hour trip, I grabbed a taxi to the airport for 30 ringit and barely caught my flight back to Kuala Lumpur as it was boarding. I found out that I didn't even have to check my bag because nobody cares! That saves time. Back in Kuala Lumpur I found that I hadn't left enough time for my connecting flight yet again. Considering that it's technically an international flight I probably should have given myself more than an hour and a half before checking in, let alone boarding! No matter, seems they make allowances for this kind of thing, or maybe just don't really care here. I just had to check my bag at a last minute luggage check in station and then I was able to board my flight as usual - no worries!

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Malaysia

On Tuesday, the 17th of February I made my way to the airport via MTR and bus. Nothing was running at 4am when I woke up so I actually had to wait around for about two hours. After arriving at the check-in desk I was greeted with uncertainty as the nervous staff weren't sure if I would be able to catch my connecting flight. Well, they were right. My flight was delayed and thus I had no chance of catching my flight which was in an entirely different terminal. I actually had to catch a train to get to my next flight which was in the domestic terminal. Thinking I might still make it, I ran right past immigration and almost got arrested. In all fairness, they didn't actually have any signage or even gates so, as far as I could tell, they were just information kiosks!

Anyway, I had to re-book my ticket and it didn't cost a whole lot so no big deal. I got to Kota Bharu and went out to catch the bus. As I was waiting, the taxi drivers told me that the bus would still be another hour. This time they were telling the truth but, in any case, I managed to catch a ride with a new friend who was waiting for his buddy to pick him up. After arriving at the bus station, I found that there were no more buses to Kuala Besut (the town where I would catch my boat to the islands) so I ended up paying for a taxi driver in the end. This guy loved to drive fast and, as we were nearing our destination almost an hour into the trip, we got in an accident. Some cars ahead of us had stopped for some cows and we smashed into a big SUV. Luckily, it didn't cause a whole lot of damage to either vehicle as we had squished right up under it. The drivers shook hands and we were on our way again. That night I made a new Russian friend at the hostel and we made plans to meet up on the island.

The next day I got up early to go buy some stuff, since I knew it would be more expensive on the island, but all the shops were still closed and I had a boat to catch. A while later I arrived on the island and met up with my friends Kevin and his wife, May for snorkeling. I saw my new Russian friend as well, but she wasn't feeling up to it so we went on our way.

The first stop was an area with lots of coral and cool fish - we even saw Nemo. After that we went to swim with the sharks.

 The guide was swimming around with a chewed up fish so I'm pretty sure these were a friendly variety of shark... or maybe he's just crazy. In any case, our next stop was to swim with the turtles.

We looked around for a while and soon found one, then another and eventually we were swimming with three turtles, big ones. Much bigger than the one I saw at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. In fact, everything during this trip was better than the GBR. Someone once told me the coral and fish life here were better than in Australia, and now I can confirm it.

After having lunch at a nearby restaurant, we set out again - this time to a light house.

Of course, I jumped off it. After that, we headed back to the island and that night we celebrated Chinese New Year by watching a special TV program. The show had a little Chinese guy driving a taller Chinese lady around and it was funny because he couldn't see over the dash. Also, the lady told a police officer that the little guy was a professional basketball player. I didn't get much more than that because it was all in Chinese.

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Lantau Peak

On Friday, February 6th Joseph and I went to Andi's in Lantau and stayed the night. The next morning we took a hike up to the peak and came back down the other side for lunch.

Over the next couple weeks I mostly worked but I did meet up with friends a couple of times and even some of my students one evening. A bunch of our mainland students wanted to get hot pot with me and Joe so we went to a hot pot buffet place where you can just grab as much stuff as you want!

A week later I went swimming with Chu Sum and met some of his funny friends, and the next night we went to the Lunar Market - a Chinese New Year venue.

We ate a lot of interesting traditional stuff, including the stinky 1000 year old fried tofu! After that, it was time for me to hit the sack - just a few hours away from my holiday in Malaysia!

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Monks and Monkeys

On Sunday, the 11th of January Chu Sum and I met Stuart in Sha Tin to hike to the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery. On the way up we found that there were in fact a lot of Buddhist statues. Though, what I was really there to see were the monkeys. After arriving at the top we were not greeted by monkeys but rather by a restaurant and, of course, a monastery with a path leading down the other side. Not sure what we would find we went down the other trail and started to wonder, "where are these monkeys I've been hearing about?"

Well, we found the monkeys and they were lively ones! Of course, this might be partly because I ignored the rules and fed them a bit...

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Jinhua

On Tuesday, the 30th of December Anita and I had breakfast at Ocean's then went to the train station and boarded our train to Jinhua. During the trip I got a real local experience... anyone who is easily grossed out should skip to the end of this paragraph. While on the train I was sitting across from some locals and, in China, many of the locals have pretty much never seen a foreigner. So, you get a lot of stares and sometimes this is the result of them being kind of suspicious of you. In any case, this one guy was really trying to stare me down and I just stared right back... until he spit. Not on me, but on the floor in front of me. Now I knew this was a local custom beforehand so it didn't really put me off that much at first, but then... he dragged his foot through it and smeared it all over the floor!

Anyway, back to the story. We arrived in Jinhua and Kevin, my friend and former colleague, picked us up to go get lunch. After some pizza we went for a drive around town to see some of Kevin's favourite spots. First we went to an old traditional Chinese house which had a really nice view over the lake.

It also had a really dirty fish pond out front. Next we went to neighborhood full of houses which were built using refurbished remnants from old traditional buildings.

Many of them open their doors to visitors so that you can see the inside as well. A few even have museums with collections of cool artifacts and otherwise interesting stuff.

That night we went back to Kevin's and caught up a bit over a dinner of delicious hot pot. The next day we had a huge breakfast of French toast, potatoes, eggs, sausage, etc. Afterward, Kevin had to go to a gathering so he let me and Anita borrow is electric bike so we could take it up to Pointy Peak for a hike.

Later that day, Kevin and his wife, May weren't back yet so we had to leave without saying goodbye. We took a taxi to the train station and began our 15 hour journey back to Hong Kong. That night turned out to be quite uncomfortable because, even though we had nice beds on the train, the smoking area (yes, they actually allow people to smoke on the train!) was just a couple meters away from us... Did I mention that smoking is endemic in China? I'm lucky I didn't die from smoke inhalation.

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West Lake

On Sunday, the 28th of December Anita and I said goodbye to Waji and got on a train to Hangzhou. After arriving we hopped on the subway and then a bus to get to West Lake where we checked into our hostel (about $5 USD/night!). That night we watched a musical fountain show on the lake.

The next day we hired some bicycles and went for a ride around West Lake. We had breakfast and then, while we were riding, we saw many picturesque scenes, including the Leifeng Pagoda (tower) and many people relaxing and boating on the lake.

After Anita and I got separated, I went to the Chinese Tea Museum and, even though it was closed, I saw a lot of cool traditional buildings as well as the expansive tea fields which radiate out from the main museum area.

That night we had dinner at our friend Ocean's for the second time. Ocean is originally from up North where he started work at the ripe old age of 12. Before he even reached adulthood, he and his brothers had saved up and opened their first restaurant. Now about 22 years old he has opened up several restaurants with his brothers and, even though he's obviously doing quite well, he still spends all day, every day, cooking at his restaurant in West Lake. Many his age might let this kind of success go to their heads but Ocean is still a supremely humble and friendly guy. He continues to send me WeChat messages with the intention of teaching me Chinese and assures me that he has had success with this method before. So, who knows, I may end up learning Chinese through an instant messenger!

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Gulangyu

On Saturday, the 27th of December we headed out to Gulangyu Island. For 36 yuen the taxi took us to the terminal and from their we took the ferry over to the island. After eating and walking around a bit, we ate some more at a place where we got everything we wanted for about 15 yuen each (much cheaper than the first shops you see). Next, we went to a museum which had a lot of stuff from the history of Xiamen and Gulangyu - primarily artifacts from the early interactions between East and West.

Finally, before leaving I had to get some of the famous Gulangyu dried meats which really are quite good. Back on Xiamen, we all took a nap and then went for dinner at the markets. We had more kebabs and Taiwanese food found there as well as some really nice french toast with ice cream.

For the rest of the evening we went to the beach and sat on a big boulder looking out at the water.

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Tulou

On Friday, the 26th of December Anita, Waji and I went on our trip to Tulou - the local way. We took a taxi, bus and train to a bus depot. At the bus depot we had our first experience of local pushers trying to get us to pay their marked-up rates. They told us that the bus wouldn't come for over an hour but, of course, we knew this wasn't true. So, we waited for a few minutes and, instead of paying 50 yuen each for private car, we paid 2 yuen for the bus to the next depot in town. At that depot we paid another 15 yuen and finally got a bus to Tulou! So far we had spent about 50 yuen to arrive in just a couple hours and the tour, at over 150, would have still had us waiting at our hostel to be picked up! At this point we paid 15 yuen for the bus to take us from the visitor centre to all of the sites. At the first site we took some shots from above (picture above) then went down into the community to see it all from the inside.

We were told that the departure time was uncertain so we looked around for a while and then realized that our tour had left. After talking to a few people and trying our best to figure out our options we found that we only had one - start walking. 

It was probably about half an hour of walking, and being offered a ride by a guy on a little scooter (for a price), before we were picked up by some Hong Kongers who were also on holiday. We caught up to our bus at the second site and this time only had a short look around before going back to the bus to wait.

The second site had much bigger structures, with far less clutter, and even had another structure within the structure. The third site was more of a standard village but had a river running through it which actually made it quite picturesque.

After visiting the third site, we had to arrange some transportation because, according to the driver (who we now know was actually just making a quick buck on the side), the last train would be gone by the time we got back to town. This private car that he arranged took us all the way back to Xiamen for a total of about 100 yuen each (about $15 USD). This put us a bit over the cost of the tour but it was really worth it all things considered. The driver actually put us right at the street market that we wanted to have dinner at so the whole deal was quite convenient. 

At the market we bought some tasty goat kebabs and walked around a bit before taking the bus back to our hostel for just 2 yuen.

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