They Laugh at my accent....

Week 2 at the group home has thus far been going quite well. Last week in the process of making flash cards with my group they would teach me the Cantanese word and then I would teach them the English word... Wow Cantanese is a difficult language... Now let me preface this by saying when I entered Calvin I had to take a Spanish Placement test- I didn't place in any of the classes( and that's not because I was soooo far ahead of everyone) now that was a fairly basic language and somewhat close to English in the sense that some of the words are similar etc. Anyway, it ended with the 2 girls in my group splitting a gut with laughter after listening to me struggle for about 5 minutes over the Cantanese word for passport... This is a language with tons of highs and lows and short and long sounds theres basically 6 different inflections ( i'm not sure if that's the proper technical word but whatever)

In an effort to at least learn some Cantanese in our time here ( mainly so that my students don't bust a gut every time I attempt to pronounce something and so we spend more time on their English than my Cantanese) I purchased a learning Cantanese guide and CD it is a pocket book with phrases with English and Cantanese translation. Tonight the 4 of us sat around my lap top as it played words and oddly repeted the sounds and then laughed histarically at ourselves.... It was quite a site.... Well another week is coming to a close and the completion with one group of kids which is sort of sad. I'll try and do a total recap of this week later when I have a bit more time. Thankfully the scare of a typhoon is no longer level 3 and after a just a 4 day week ( wednesday was a public holiday and Thursday we had an outting) we're all feeling well rested ( slightly sunburned from our day at the beach on our day off) and ready for a weekend full of sight seeing! We plan to celebrate our patriotism on Friday with a trip to get some American food hopefully a steak or burger( we figure if we're in a place that doesn't celebrate the 4th of july then it probably isn't a huuuuge deal if we don't celebrate it exactly ON the 4th either.) Saturday we hope to head to Lantau Island to see the Giant Buddah, and Sunday we're hoping to visit a stilt village. Should be a busy but fun packed weekend! Hope everyone has a lovely and patriotic 4th of July. Happy Birthday Jilly Hutch! Hope you have a great day!

Cheers
Tina

Just one of those days ( in a good way)

Yesterday was one of those really good days. Those days where you're just feeling good about life ( you could step in dog poop and think optimistically think while these shoes needed to be cleaned anyways... This was just a good reminder and besides i'm picking that dog poop up off the street Yay for me! thats all completely exaggerated but really I mean one of those good days)While the rest of the girls went to the Union again I went to church at a different church it was located in the YMCA in TST so that I could go see my friend Dan lead worship and hang out with him for a bit. It was a really great service and he did a great job. After church I went out for lunch with him and some of his friends. We went out for Korean food ( After eating professor Lee's amazing Korean cooking I have a serious love of Korean food so I was like majorly excited for Korean food) It was amazing! I don't even know what I ate and to be honest I don't really care all I know is that it was quite tasty!

Following a nice leisurely lunch I took the MTR home ( yes mom all by myself- I've learned to navigate parts of the city decently well by myself or at least the MTR...) Anyways Lisa Laura and Maggie and I did some program planning, and also watched some movies. Now, if I could add noise I would add a drum roll at this point because this is my most exciting piece of news...

( this is a delayed post I started writting this Sunday it's now Tuesday but) on Sunday I figured out how to get my internet working on my lap top! For the longest time the wireless here was working on Maggie and Lisa's lap tops but Stewart couldn't get it to work on mine :( and on the desktop computer I was unable to send e-mails or use the mouse for extended periods of time..very peculiar. Don't get me wrong I'm still very gracious to have been able to have been able to use the computer at all, but to actually have internet on my laptop is amazing because now I can e-mail upload pictures to my shutterfly for everyone to see etc. It's quite phenomanal! If I could even convey my level of excitement to you all! ( maybe you're getting the point with all the exclamation points? maybe not either way I'm excited) All in all A superb day!!!!
Mmm Goi ( thanks in Cantanese)

Tina

P.S.- New pictures from Hong Kong weeks 2 and 3 at http://tinawestra.shutterfly.com/

" We've got a level 3 typhoon on our hands..."

The title reads correctly... Currently in main land China there's a tropical storm sweepin on through, meanwhile Hong Kong is feeling some of the effects as well. Yesterday the Typhoon level got moved up from level 1 to level 3 ( now please make note that it goes up to level 10 but a jump from level 1 to level 3 is big because there is no level 3 in between. Why is beyond me) Anyways, I'm preparing to go down to Hong Kong park and start collecting the birds ( two of each kind ) and I believe that there is some bamboo that could be suitable for an arc...Justtt kidding but really the rain has been pretty persistant since yesterday.



Yesterday we completed our first week of camp ( i'd lable it a succesful learning experience for both the kids and for us) My cantanese is improving.. I can't tell you how to say anything useful but I can say blueberry and chocolate sooo should anyone ever be in Hong Kong and need to buy some blueberrys or perhaps chocolate ( which is difficult to find.... Hong Kong hasn't exactly mastered the whole dessert thing- their idea of a good dessert is coconut milk with red beans in it... mmmm yum- I'd rather head to McDonalds for a vanilla icecream cone thanks) I can tell you the word for either them... I think we're all developing good relationships with the kids in our groups so next week will hopefully run more smoothly. Also, we have a better understanding of their individual learning styles ( like speaking to them in rapid English hasn't been a succesful method of teaching..) One of the last activities we did was one where we shared Cantanese words we had learned and they shared English words they had learned, and they all seem to have learned a decent amount. I think we were all ready for a weekend of recouperation, but also we're ready to face another week and the challenges it might bring... We have a shortened week next week due to public holiday so no camp on Tuesday. Our outting day will be on Thursday and we will take the kids to a nunnery, the space museum and then a country club to practice manors for lunch( The menu includes some sort of mesclun leaves nashi pears and feta salad followed by asparagus soup and tarragon cream and then chicken more asparagus and warm eggplant caponata- talk about your kid friendly meal... Egg plants delightful as a color but as a food not really on the top of my list of favorite foods....)

After a long while inside Maggie and I ventured into the rain umbrellas at the ready so that I could get a new pair of headphones... mine have become well worn( they might have become some what of a fire hazard... the wires are showing and the danger of electricution is always right around the corner, but I suppose that does make listening to music a bit more interactive and a bit more adventurous.... who knows when you'll truly be moved by the words- whether it's from a massive shock or truly emotional words is yet to be determined...) anyways apparently they don't sell plain old earbuds so I purchased a stylin pair with some killer lightning bolts on them... doesn't get much better than that( they're like neon lightning bolts- they make a statment that says welcome to the eightys on this new age technology.) The rest of the afternoon has been spent planning, lounging, and yes that really sums it up... The evening is yet to be determined but it has been an eventful week in Hong Kong and so some time spent relaxing is always enjoyed. Hope everyone is coping well with the recent death of Michael Jackson.... It's been quite a story here in Hong Kong as well... Well Have a good night/ day!

Cheers

Tina

Proper etiquet... or at least presentability?

Today was outting day at the Mother's Choice Fun With English Cultural Exchange program( A lengthy name for a program where we play games mostly, do some crafts, and then toss in a half our "English time" - and when asked what there least favorite part of the day is they say the English time. sounds like a lot of fun with English to me) Lengthy parenthesis. Anyways Today we started our morning later than normal( 9:00) because we met the kids at the art museum. It was quite rainy out to start today which was making for a pleasent morning ( The thought of attempting to take 3 kids through an outdoor market in the rain and making them say words in English ... yeah I didn't think that would go over real well) Anyways we first went to the art museum where we received a tour( in Cantanese of course- it was very informative I can safely say I know the exact same amount exiting that museum as I did entering- i'd dare say many of the kids feel the same way because the guide was a bit long winded)

Following the museumt we headed to the American club for our lunch. Yesterday we had talked and Maggie and I did a very succesful skit, might I add, on proper and improper manors. So we thought that the lunch would go fairly smoothly. Things went ok until kids went into the bathroom. It was a downward spiral after that as far as lunch goes so much for proper etiquet ( although we did get some pretty good laughs over it all) There were combs in the bathroom which i'm pretty sure probably every kid has like 4 of now, and they all went to the bathroom at least 4 times and burped at the table(we failed to mention that was poor manors). And they certainly have different taste on food, the tomatoe soup was too sour, the chicken fettucini was too spicy because of the pepper( it really wasn't spicy at all it was simply ground pepper they just have different tastes) yet they were soo fascinated by the pepper grinder that they continued to add more pepper, the brownie was too sweet. For Lisa, Maggie, Laura, and I the food was Amazing!!! we haven't had American food( other than McDonalds) since we've been here and trust me we( politely) devoured everything! After that we headed to stanley market which actually went better than the early portion of the day.

Finally, after we had gotten the kids back on the bus to head back to the group home, we headed back into the market for what you might call some retail therapy... very stressful day. Also, an amazing Almond croissant from Delifrance( yeah wierd i'm not in france so why is there a deli from there here right? I've been asking myself that too) but this croissant would've put even the best bonquet to shame... it was amazing! Tonight, we're doing a little planning and relaxing because rather than a half day camp today we spent a full day and were all exhausted( good thing none of us were education majors!)well you live and learn soo hopefully next week will go a bit smoother.

Cheers.

Tina

I like to move it move it .. You like to move it...

Well, 2 days into English Camp and it's very apparent that the kids know less English than expected. They are amazing though! they are soo much fun and are teaching us Cantanese in the process and are laughing at our mistakes which is a good things because it makes the whole process much easier! Because right now communication is difficult we incorporate lots of sensory activities and things that include movement. The first day Maggie and I were preparing muffin batter because we were going to have the kids decorate cupcakes( the ended up decorating burnt blueberry muffins made with peanut oil instead of cooking oil and decorating them with frosting we concoted out of powdered sugar and water.... you work with what you're given they loved it no matter what.) because we were talking about the different ways we celebrate birthdays. As we stood in the kitchen it was clear that the 5 or so kids watching our every move had english levels all accross the board. One girl was fairly articulate compared to the others, while one little boy said nothing the majority of the time until he out of no where said " I like to mov it mov it I like to mov it mov it ... you like to move it" in semi broken English.... of all the things this kid knows how in the world does he know that is my question? I got a good laugh out of it.

The first 2 days have been interesting and day 2 was much better than day one. After day one we came back after a loooooong debriefing session with Siu cho and Don and then did some serious planning and napping because we were all exhausted from the day( I fell asleep on the way home) Monday night we watched a movie and spent some time just hanging out and then Last night we met up with some friends and went to dinner and around Lau Se Fong . It was a lot of fun.

Today is our outting day with the kids so we're headed to the Museum of Art, then to the American Club for lunch and for the kids to practice table manors( and we're all pretty excited for some decent American food anything McDonalds) and then finally a trip to Stanley Market... We're also ( this is not with the kids) hoping to head to the horse races tonight just so we can see them before the track closes for the season.

An update on our camps... Schools have officially suspended so as of now it appears as though we will do 2 weeks in the small group home we are in how. 2 weeks with Foster care children and then 1 week with older students with lower English levels... So each week we will need to make new adjustments and new changes to fit with the level and the skills and abilities of the kids. should be interesting...
Hope summer is treating everyone well!
Peace
Tina

I'm sorry Donald Duck for paralyzing you...

well it has been an eventful few days... Compeltely with very odd eating and all. Friday and Saturday we had traditional style banquets that we attended Friday's was the mother's choice diner and Saturday we attended a traditional baptism..Normally it consists of about a 10 to 12 course meal Fridays was a 12 course meal and Saturday was 10 and both days there was pleanty of seafood ( my favorite.... not) It was quite an experience though and now I can say I tried tons of things I"ve never tried before! including... Shark fin soup, Duck feet, some sort of fish that looks like a tounge and starts with an A. I enjoyed the company probably more than the food. ON saturday night we were seated with the Treats staff which is all of the people Don used to work with. They are great! Winnie is this great woman who is going to show us lots of stuff in Hong Kong and met us at the beach on Sunday. She's like really funny. Also on Saturday we learned to play Majong ( spelled that way wrong) anyways it's a game that supposedly prevents altzimers in elderly... It's like the card game set in the us but played with tiles so sort of like dominos and with chinese symbols instead of English. it's very fun. We also provided entertainment for many people while learning... I'd like to note... I won...( may not win at games in America when I play with my family but I'm bringing this one back and I will...)

In about 2 minutes we head out for our first day in the small group home.. A little nervous but mostly excited.. prayers are appreciated! Thanks
The weather is pretty cloudy and gloomy here but it can change in an instant we've noticed plus cloudy is good after the sunburn I got yesterday.... Welll better go get ready for camp!
peace

Tina

We're not in Kansas any more?

Well I never was in Kansas but the reality in every instance that i'm certainly not in Michigan anymore continues to set in. The internet is extremely spotty here so i'm nabbing it from the local park right now, but hopefully Stewart will come this afternoon to help us sort out the whole WiFi thing. It's hard to remember what we've done in the past however many days, but it has been fun. We went the the Temple street night market which would be a whole post in and of itself i'm afraid. All I can say is that the people watching there was phenomenal...

We also visited one of the primary schools we'll work in if the schools are not suspended. Yesterday afternoon they were supposed to make a decision if they would shut down all of the schools until next year or if they would lift the suspension, but siu cho and the woman at the school both seemed to think that they would close the school until next year in which case we would hold several camps in the group homes for the children there. We're still optamistic maybe they'll lift the suspension...

Anyways the new flat is very nice we're adjusting nicely and It's as if we have done so much and have so much to do before next week that I feel a bit overwhelmed... Thankfully Don is here to help this week and help us to adjust our programs as needed. Once Stewart or rather if stewart fixes the wireless then hopefully i'll be able explain the temple night market...Ok Cheers

Tina

McDonalds and Moving Day...

Yesterday was moving day so the night before we attempted to pack up our stuff as neatly and as carefully as we had brought it, but as Stewart the delightful Brittish man that's a full time volunteer for Mother's Choice ( He does everything from moving luggage to changing ink cartridges-that's likely spelled horribly sorry) put it " have you already packed away more things in one week?" ( I imagine he was thinking about carrying my 49.5 Lb bag down the series of 40 stairs and then small hills and then back up 3 flights of stairls once in the building- and yes mybag was just under the weight limit for the airline) We indeed did have to carry all of our luggage down some hills and up 3 flights of stairs, but stewart and his helper carried all of our massive bags. Stewart is one of those people you just feel happy when your around.. Maybe it's his chipper accent or maybe it's his helpful manor either way he's super.



Our new flat is right accross the hall from the CEO of Mother's Choice and his wife( they're American) and 3 kids who we met on the way. We also met their " domestic assistant" the technical name for a nanny who we share the volunteer flat with. The volunteer flat is lovely and hopefully at some point i'll be able to put up some pictures. Currently we don't have wireless, but when Stewart stopped by to put in new ink cartridges he said he would see what he could do about that since 3 of us have lap tops with us( again exemplifying Stewarts amaziningness) So because we don't have wireless i'm typing from our desktop computer which the view isn't too shabby from :) it over looks quite an amazing skyline which at night produces some sort of laser light show... very interesting.. Anyways our new flat is delightful. Yesterday was spent moving in since this will be our home for the rest of our stay in Hong Kong. We unpacked napped, and then ran several errands including the purchase of a blow dreyer ( necessity) and then last night we watched Just My Luck with Chinese Subtitles... Stupid movie entertaining with the subtitles that we couldn't read...

Because we're so high up the lights from the skyline seriously light up our flat even when we don't have any lights on so it was an early morning this morning. Sui Cho picked us up at 8:30 and we all headed to the MTR station took the blue line to the end got off, took mini bus 48 walked through the hospital to sector F up to floor 8 where we were then at one of the Mother's Choice Small group home ( all in all the commute took approximately 1 hour each way I believe) We got to see the facilities we will be working in as well as meet some of the staff and meet some of the kids. It was great ( although admittedly there so called play ground is very sad) Each small group home is has 8-10 kids and then 1 special needs child. The home also has a house good and a house parent and then a social worker. After our site visit we came back and Wenda picked us up and took us out for a delightful lunch at the Chinese buffet...( strange I think i've seen those in America- but they were nothing like this!) It was very good all except the beef ball and there were a few things I avoided eating because I either couldn't pronounce or they were clearly internal organs... Lunch was very informative we had the opportunity to ask Wenda many questions about Mother's Choice and other things as well( Most people come home with kimonos or chopsticks.... after hearing her talk i'd consider taking home a child) Mother's Choice truly does amazing work. We have spent the afternoon relaxing since the weekend is sure to be busy. I walked down to Hong Kong Park for a bit and also to a book store which was fun. Hong Kong Park is very peaceful and incase I haven't mentioned I love the waterfall and the turtles... Don Comes tomorrow so that will be good and helpful as well. Pretty sure that's up to date although i've likely forgotten a lot. Thanks!
Tina

Question Games and a Sound Track to Hong Kong

Well another day is finishing up and today was slightly less eventful than the past several. Whether that is due to a loss of energy and gusto for sight seeing or the realization that we have a lot of things to accomplish work wise before our camps begin next week I'm unsure but either way today was spent meeting with Wenda and Siu Cho to discuss the upcoming week and camp changes( there have been many due to new government school closings- currently we have just 3 camps that are scheduled and we hope to schedule more in the secondary schools since the closings have been mainly in the primary schools) our first week of camp will be with the Mother's choice Small group Home and we will have just 10 kids... compared to the 40 we were scheduled to have previously. Wow how things change quickly.

After meeting with Siu Cho and Wenda we headed down to put more money on our octopus cards, do some work on our programing stuff at Star Bucks, and then a bit of grocery shopping. Now it would seem that most grocery stores would carry at least some form of soap and/or lotion, but lo and behold this very europeanized grocery store carrys neither soap nor lotion, but it does carry "crazy feet" A.K.A Fruit by the foot.... amazing. So we had to go to The Body shop to find Soap and lotion- very unimportant facts but I just find it all very interesting. After our excursion we made the trek back to our flat Maggie counted that the distance from Kennedy Road to Borret Road which isn't even the all the stairs probably about 2/3 of the stairs we climb when going any where on a given day is 192 steps. I better have some buns and thighs of steel by the time I get back...These aren't even nice steps. They aren't steps that you can take with nice consistency and even stride, no no they are like babysteps that you really have to work your muscles including your arms and be intentional about stepping on each one and you can't take them 2 at a time or you end up in this awkward half step where you are half on one half on other with an intense pain moving up your calf muscle.... very dangerous...Anywho After making it back we spent some time just hanging out I painted my nails which are shockingly long due to the fact that things are a bit dirty here and illness is always just around the bend( and besides my mother always reminds me what a filthy habbit bitting my nails is :) )

While hanging out I started throwing out questions that are stupid get to know you questions like " if you were stranded on a desert island .... " those types of questions anyways One of the question was if you had a 5 song sound track to your life thus far what would it be... It could be just random songs you like or fitting to things that have happend... that got me to thinking about what songs would I use to describe this trip thus far....
My pretrip song I would say would be I Shall Not Walk Alone by Ben Harper
then we've got the plane ride- Peter Paul and Mary Leaving on a Jet plane ( solely because the chorus says I'm Leavin on a jet plane don't know when i'll be back again... seems fitting right?)
Then I'd say Probably Street Lights by Kanye West ( We went to the peak where you can seriously see what seems like all the lights. We went at night so it was spectacular. The first few days were exhausting. It seemed like we were constantly going constantly moving and sometimes it seemed fairly sureal and I didn't really experience it all. Anyways this song besides being quality is decently fitting) then i'd say We all need saving by Jon McLaughlin. My Family wrote me this stack of letters with one to open every Sunday and by the time Sunday rolled around I was missing home a bit thinking about what my family and friends were doing, but then I remembered the stack of letters and opened one up. It was perfect. Not only did I nearly have tears because was laughing so hard. My sisters like really funny :) We'll see what songs pop up for this week. I'll attempt to keep the soundtrack for Hong Kong up to date...

Because we are moving to volunteer housing tomorrow we've been doing laundry which has been interesting.. complete with white shirts dyed pink and loads of fun( yeah that was a sad attempt at a pun) anyways today the extremely odd thing I missed from home- oreos... Wenda was such a dear and brought us oreo's, but oddly enough the oreo's here taste seriously wierd. Like the filling or something is different. It's like a bad attempt at an April fools joke. Anyways please eat an oreo for me:)

Cheers

Tina

Llama Island... no me llama Tina

Soo This morning we headed down to a 9:30 service at The Union which is a small non denominational international church. It was lovely so lovely and truly beautiful to see people from all nationalities, walks of life, ages , race, etc. all coming together to worship the same God. They had this amazing 20 person choir that sounded like it was made up of like 50 people and the pastor was a woman that truly understood who she was speaking to. One of the guys that read the scripture truly should've had the theme from boondock saints playing while he read he had an awesome accent...

After church we came headed back to our flat for some lunch and to change clothes and then around 12:00 we walked down the the MTR at Admiralty and took that to the ferry and then took the ferry to Llama Island ( I have no idea how to actually spell Llama island but I know that's how it sounds) Now the thing is there is no llama's at llama island, which is a bit disappointing, but it was still a fun afternoon none the less. we meandered through a bunch of little local shops and while on our way t owards the beach it started raining quite hard( not just a light dusting of rain but rather a fairly consistent shower) and who wants to sit in wet sand when it's raining... so we decided this would be a good opportunity to expand our pallet by enjoying some more Hong Kong food. We sat and shared several dishes and I gave one of Hong Kong's libations a try... verdicts still out on whether it tasted good or not either way it had a sweet bottle.... Anyways we had some pinapple and pork,( American name- Sweet and sour pork) some steamed buns( loosely translated as hunks of dough steamed dipped in condensed milk.) and then fried noodles and beef ( no easy translation for that it's exactly what it sounds)
After food we went to a place that over looked where the ferry comes in. While there a "police car" and "fire Truck" if you can call them that passed by in actuallity they were 4-wheelers with flashing lights on them painted the respected colors ( police- blue fire truck- red) and with a ton of equipment on the back. I guess you use whatever works and gets the job done, but it was the most interesting police and fire truck i'd ever seen and I would hope that they wouldn't have to take back any criminals in the back of the police car because there was absolutely no room... We sat outside in this little Brittish woman's bar and drank cokes for a while and then we hopped on the ferry and headed back to Hong Kong.

After a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up brownie mix (neccessity), cereal, gold fish crackers, bread , cheese, peanut butter, and orange juice we took a taxi back to our flat to hang out for the evening, make brownies and watch Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. It was over all a very enjoyable day.

One thing that i'm continually amazed by is the mix here. The mix of people, mix of buisness, rainforest water undeveloped and overly developed land, mix of socioeconomic status. It's all this major mix and theres just no way to really figure it out as an outsider. hopefully with time that willl be something we can gain insight into.

This week we hope to have some sight visits to our schools which we've recently found out will be about an hour to and hour and a half away by bus each morning :) The site visits will depend on whether the government opens the schools up again and also if one of the schools decides they want us the run the English program there. We move into our Volunteer flat on Tuesday which is exciting it will be our permenant housing for the rest of our stay in Hong Kong and to top it off it is farther down the hill so biiig hills/sets of stairs we have to climb when heading home from anywhere. which is amazing! Wednesday Don comes which we're all excited about because we're hopeful he can give us some insight into what we must do while we're here and our program etc. It should be a busy week. As of right now though, it has been a very nice and leisurely morning:) The word leisurely and chill had sort of drained out of my vocabulary up until yesterday. Glad to see it could be reintroduced. Still sweating buckets but I think I'm adjusting to that a bit I don't know if i'm adjusting to the heat or to the amount i'm sweating.... Either way I hear it is quite warm in Michigan( this I heard when skyping with my housemates and then some friends who were over at the house which was super fun to talk to all of them!) they said they were all quite toasty at Franklin...which isn't uncommon in our airconditionless home in Michigan... Well Happy Monday, or Sunday depending on where you are...
Peace

Tina

Stars and Sights....

I'm currently scanning the synonyms for the words hot and tired on Microsoft word and coming up empty handed for something that properly describes the extent to which i'm currently hot, sweaty, and tired... Today was quite the full day and still has more to come... I think I mentioned that Laura has a friend named Dianne that lives here in Hong Kong and she offered to show us some things in Hong Kong. So we all woke up fairly late this morning ( late for us right now is 7:30 because we've recently been waking up around 5:00) and had breakfast got ready and met Dianne at Olympic park in Hong Kong Park- about a 15 minute walk from our house- and we then walked to Admirality station where we met her friend Jeff. She invited Jeff because they're friends but also because she felt he spoke better English so incase she didn't know how to say something he could help translate etc. We all headed to dim sum which was verrry interesting.... Some of it waas really really good other things were not exactly up my alley. It's similar in concept to tapas in that it's small portions and you take a little bit of each etc. We had Jasmine tea and then another more bitter tea. I'm trying to think of all the things we had to eat. We had a pork bun with a more fluffy light dough around it, and then 2 shrimp things one with smaller bits of shrimp wrapped in dough and one with a whole shrimp wrapped in dough( those were not my favorites) We had a soup that was made out of some type of egg something with beef or pork one that tasted like an elephant ear, we had spring roles, and then we had some desserts including a mango pudding, sugar roles, and coconut cake as well. It was really all quite amazing... I'm so thankful they didn't make us try any of the pork knuckles or ox liver. While it looked appatizing it felt more appropriate for a more special occasion like... Chinese new year or something ( bummer that we won't be here for that)

After dim sum we took an hour long bus ride to stanley market. There were some great beaches that, but Stanley market's actual market is comprised of local people who set up shop for tourists and have a wide range of items from souvinere chopsticks and fans to knock off gucci bags... It's like being in new york.... a whole lotta stuff in a little space.

We wandered and chatted and sweated a lot. After a while we stopped at Starbucks- You can't escape starbucks.... At one point I thought it was a visa slogan that said " It's everywhere you want to be" turns out they stole it from starbucks.. Starbucks- It's everywhere you want to be- yes much more fitting

As we wandered out Jeff told us that the gentleman we passed while walking out was a Hong Kong Movie Star.... So i've seen American movie stars but really this is kind of the chron boo bon that now I can say i've seen a Hong Kong movie star... not many people can say that. After our star sighting we took a mini bus( which Jeff and Dianne told us you always take ones with green tops not red tops the ones with red tops are crazy drivers) to Causeway Bay which is a place with lots of shopping, lots of restaurants, and lots of people. We wandered around and finallly they decided they wanted to take us to have a few more authentic Hong Kong dishes so we went to what they described as the "IHOP" of Hong Kong. We tried what is litterally translated as a "pineapple role" but there is no pineapple in it it's like a role with butter in it and sweet flakey crust on the outside, one that is like bread dipped in egg similar to french toast but more egg flavored, and then finally a bun with condensed milk on it. All of which were dilicious. After that we headed back to the MTR station and took the MTR back toward Hong Kong Park and tonight we hope we still have the energy to take the tram to the peak. Today was a packed but really great day. We learned a lot about navigating the area and Hong Kong in general.

I realized I think I forgot a lot of stuff probably and as a side note my appologies for any spelling and/or grammer mistakes... I kind of just write things as they come through my brain for fear that i'll for get things and I don't think the spell check is on right now so chances are I've mispelled quite a few things so sorry and hopefully everyone can get past that :) Cheers

Hope you're watching the news....

I'm currently living in a level 6 world pandemic... or something in of the sorts. Currently in the news headlines will read that Asia is taking extreme measures to prevent the spread of the Swine flu, but indeed it is spreading, people area getting quarantined to hotel rooms, airplanes, schools, and now one of the schools we were supposed to run a camp at for 2 weeks is closed for 2 weeks by the government and then they will reevaluate. The 2 week closing will only affect one of the weeks of our camp, but still we were unaware of the severity of the situation. Siu Cho came and talked to us yesterday more about it and told us that because of the Sars out break everything is taken very seriously.... So if you see us in the news you'll know to be more concerned...

Anyways, yesterday we had our firstday of training which was fun and very exciting. Siu Cho came to our flat and we had the chance to as her a whole bunch of questions that we've developed both about our program, expectations, resources, etc. We literally have had no idea what kids English level is, background, or schooling is and so we're pretty much going into this blind and hoping we've put together good programs. After a day it's pretty easy to judge what kids are responsive to and what they aren't but I mean right off the bat it's pretty hard so right now we're trying to incorportate a lot of things and that way we can see what might work and what won't and then also we'll be able to evaluate then for future camps for our other 5 camps. Being able to talk to Siu Cho was a huge help. We found out we have a lot more resources than we expected which is such a great suprise. We spent a few hours working on what we need still for our camps and planning and then decided to do a bit more exploring.

We walked down into Central which is a very upscale and main area of Hong Kong. It is a hub with tonnnnns of shopping. We wandered around and people watched in a park for a while which was sooo great! I'm continually amazed at the number of seemingly permenant or semi permenant foreign residents there are here. It seems that many people who are non-asian are here on a perminant or semi perminant basis... Which I guess is for some reason to me very unexpected... After some wandering around including a trip into the coach store( mainly for my sister Kate and Jenny so I could report back to them) we headed for some what we thought was semi authentic food, turns out it was like what we think may have been comparable to the Hong Kong version of Waffle House..... It was interesting to say the least and a few of us left feeling less than pleasent... We intended to go see a movie, but the only movies showing were either in random language subtitles, which as appealing as that sounds we were much to tired to even attempt to try and follow a crazy plot( or make up our own plot if we couldn't actually follow it), and so we instead went to the harbor for a bit took some pictures and then tracked down a taxi for an adventureous ride back to our flat... After a few wild and somewhat dangerous games of egyptian rat screw we were all tired. All in alll a very eventful and fun day. Today we are heading to Stanley market which should be... memorable... We are taking one of our camp groups there for an outing day. Here you are encouraged to barter and they sell lots of random crap soo we will see. We are going out with Dianne who is one of Laura's friends who lives here. Also More pictures from yesterday :) at
http://tinawestra.shutterfly.com/

Happy Birthday Jules Steph and Kendall!! Wishing I could be there to celebrate with you all!!!

Tina

You want copy watch or copy bag?

Who needs an alarm clock when mother nature will more than happily wake you up at 6AM with Raucous storms.... They were phenomenal thunderstorms. We woke up yesterday and spent the morning getting ready having a leisurely breakfast and so on and then around 10 we headed out to catch the subway. We took the subway to the Salisbury YMCA to meet Professor Bays and his wife who both work at Calvin and were kind enough to offer to take us out for lunch. So went to the pound to pick out our lunch... juuuust kidding we actually went to the spaghetti house. A little Amerasian or maybe more Amitasian ( American Italian Asian) They served a little bit of everything but really a whole lot of seafood and a whole lot of Italian food. It was quite interesting.

We had lots of pleasant conversation and a very fun time and after a very nice lunch
Mrs. Bays walked us down to where the market was where we could do some shopping while Mr. Bays walked back to get their luggage. We walked around and the markets and stored for probably a good hour or hour and a half and it's amazing because you see everything from Gucci and Tiffany's to this little side alley's full of street vendors with tons of just stuff! And the funniest part was - which Mrs. Bays had warned us about- the people who come up to you and say" you want copy watch or copy bag" and they just get right up in your face and are extremely persistent... After an unsuccessful shopping trip ( it was more of a fact finding mission in the words of my mother) we decided to continue on and explore some more. We knew if we headed home we would all want to sleep and at this point we're still all adjusting to the time so sleeping at 2:00 in the afternoon likely won't help that too much...

We walked down to the Avenue of the stars which is like Hollywood Blvd. but in Hong Kong. It has starts like Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee and stuff like that it's quite fun, so we wandered around there and took lots of pictures like tourists and of course we took some jumping pictures. I mean as if we weren't literally standing out above the crowd enough we decided it would be fun to jump.. It was fun. After we'd exhausted the Avenue of the Stars we took the ferry across to Central which is the area where our flat is. After a bit of searching and the successful purchase of a very strange umbrella in the process we ended up at the revolving restaurant which literally did revolve it was up on the highest level it was amazing you could see the harbor, the peak, tons of buildings and in general just survey the city. We sat and enjoyed a cool libation. It was quite enjoyable. We hiked it back up the mountain to our casa and after some hanging out decided to watch a movie which I proceeded to fall asleep during the first 5 minutes...None less it was a great day I'll add some pictures from today and a few from yesterday as well.

Also as I mentioned previously illness is taken very seriously here more specically the swine flu, and because of that our first week of camp was canceled beacuse of a swine flu case in the school. The goverment closed the school for 2 weeks so we will still run a school but it will likely be for a smaller group and we are not praying that we are all healthy. Also that this doesn't happen in any of our other school. The 2 weeks is conditional. The goverment could decide not to reopen the school in 2 weeks in which case we wouldn't even get to run the camp there which would be a major disappointment. Your prayers for health for us and within the schools would be appreciated. Thanks! missing you all a lot! Love

To see pictures visit http://tinawestra.shutterfly.com/

Tina

Lessons from the Konger...

Well after only a day I've learned quite a bit in the Konger....
1. Coughing here is a very serious offense. One who coughs must wear a surgical mask....
-never joke about any sickness or pigs. AkA Swine...
2. American Money is like toilet paper compared to Hong Kong Money...
- May it be clean or dirty toilet paper it is simply boring and not pleasant to look at( just like american money) where as the HK Dollar is quite pleasing to the eye...
3. When all else fails nod and smile- When at the bank and faced with a question in broken English- nod and smile, when at the supermarket trying to decide what food to buy- nod and smile, when the street vendor asks if you'd like chicken or cat meat- nod and smile( that was a joke I haven't had to deal with that yet)

That was only in like a day! imagine what 2 months will bring...

I'd like to personally thank Melanie for allowing me to bring the book "stuff white people like" it's currently giving me a good hardy laugh.

If I'm missing my posterior it's because I sweat it off...

Because Wenda Isn't coming to pick us up until 1:30 we had some time so we decided to go exploring... Because we're living on the peak we started walking down and walked down about a hundred stairs along song roads through some rain forests that over look some cities ( it's all quite bazaar actually) and finally into Hong Kong Park which has gorgeous water falls, flower gardens, bird aviaries, etc. It is a beautiful park. We spent about an hour and a half wondering around there mean while I think I seriously lost about 5 pounds via sweating.. It feels like it's 90 degrees outside and it is deathly humid out... That aside it was lovely to see the city... we looked very American and touresty with our cameras and snapping pictures like what finally when we had all thoroughly saturated our shirts with sweat and were parched beyond beliefe we found a store to buy water and then ventured back up the hundred stairs and big hills back to home sweet home... when i'm not so sweaty and tired i'll put up pictures from the park and stuff....hopefully Michigan isn't this unbareably humid... I think with time we'll adjust to the time and the weather. Love

Bright Lights...

Well after about 16.5 hours on a plane, 3 movies( technically 4 because we watched the pink panther twice), and a 25 minute van ride we finally made it to our Mother's Choice Guest Flat. Wenda and Philip greeted us at the air port and took us on an exciting drive back to Mother's Choice. I say it was exciting because they drive on the other side of the road here so every corner was a bit of an adventure where we sort of thought maybe we were going to die..For one week we live on the 2nd floor of a building that's way up on a hill it's gorgeous. Through the trees we can see the city it's amazing! Sleeping is a bit of a challenge with the time change and everything, but i'm sure with time I'll adjust to that.

Wenda( who is our contact person at Mother's choice) is so precious... she's at least a full foot shorter than me( which is saying something seeing as back home I'm generally a smaller to medium height) One of the first things she said before we walked out side was ok ready? and I didn't really think anything of it, but then the instant we walked outside we understood what she meant.... Although the temp. was only around 77 degrees ( I think that's what it is - they said it in Celsius so that was what my calculation came out to in farenheit) which is cooler than normal due to rain , It was freakin hot outside!! I mean we're talking every inch of you starts to sweat the instant you step out of the air conditioning and into the heat! But I guess i'll get used to that pretty quickly too. Right now we're in the mother's choice guest housing where families who are adopting stay and then next week we move to the volunteer housing. THis is so that if we have the swine flu we don't give it to any of the other volunteers right now.... And yes if you were wondering it's just as the pictures on the news show... People really do walk around with those surgical masks on ALL the time! it's semi rediculous and I don't really get it but whatever! ANyway It's a new day and I think i'm going to try to get another hour of sleep and then sit on the front porch for a bit.... Hope Home is good. Love and miss you all!
Tina

The above picture is of a box of tissues- in english and chinese, and a can of coke also in English and Chinese, our living room and finally Maggie and I's room. Laura and Lisa's room is up stairs... I figured considiring the number of times I have to go to the bathroom having a room upstairs wouldn't be logical... thus the room downstairs...

Also, This morning we discovered a pet.. Maggie went outside to check the weather and survey the city in the daylight and in came a small lizard... Then when we tried to find it and send it back outside... it went missing, so now somewhere in our house is a small lizard. It's a little Nast...

The final Countdown...

According to my "igoogle countdown" I have approximately 3 days 9 hours 7 minutes and 53 seconds until departure on the adventure of a life time, and that time is rapidly decreasing.... I was on the phone with my Sister In Law tonight telling her that I was a bit nervous about heading halfway across the world to Hong Kong for 2 months, and that in a sense i'd rather just go now. Her response was that it would be better if rather than having this anticipation and waiting time you could just be ready and then not know when you were going to leave, but rather just know that at some point you were going to have to go.

She was so right! This whole anticipation, saying good bye, worrying I forgot something, packing, repacking, lists upon lists upon lists of things to do, things to buy, things to pack, etc. It's just so complicated, and so really when it comes down to it i'd rather just not know when I have to leave just know that I'll be going sometime within the week.

I"m so excited to go I'd just like to go now! I'm excited for some serious people watching ( airports are prime people watching places) I'm excited for a new culture, new experiences, and new adventures. I'm excited to use chop sticks ( although admittely I still at times stab my food with the chop sticks rather than actually use them to pick up the food....)
So, In just 3 days 8 hours 31 minutes and 43 seconds ( I got fairly distracted while writing this so it took me a while) I will be on my way to an adventure of a life time in Hong Kong!