Teachers' Sports Days

Pain, endurance, strength, speed, embarrassment... Teachers' Sports Days is a grueling competition of massive proportions. Hundreds of the most highly-trained teachers hailing from all ends of the school's campus fight for victory over the course of at least two days.

Melissa competed in the 50 meter basketball carry, and made a truly historic effort. Despite the PE teacher's many deliberate false starts, Melissa's spirit remained firm. It seemed, however, that the Olympian gods on high had other plans for her. In the end, she did not win. Perhaps the gods were keeping Melissa humble?

A day later was my event; the relay race. This ancient and beautiful race was made more grand by the ferocity of the competition. However, I came prepared for victory! Among my equipment was the mythical running shoes from the god Adidas. The powerful shoes were almost too swift for me to handle, but I quickly regained my balance. My opposition ate my dust!

Cullen

Hong Kong: Lantau Island

Lantau Island lies to the East of Hong Kong Island, but is easily accessible by way of MTR or ferry. It is billed as having a number of cultural attractions and loads of natural activities, such as hiking and swimming at beaches. The two cultural attractions that I wanted to see were the Tian Tan Buddha and the Po Lin Monastery (there is also a fishing village and Disneyland, but since we didn't see those places, I won't comment on them). These seemed like nice, authentic sights to see before we wandered off to take a dip in the ocean.

We arrived by MTR and discovered that we would have to take further transportation to the statue and monastery. We would have to take either a bus or a cable car dubbed the 'Ngong Ping 360' (The cable car ends in a village called Ngong Ping, but as far as we could tell, the village is just a terminus for the cable car. Seriously, it's just a newly-built street lined with expensive souvenir shops). We took the bus (partially out of spite towards the cable car's name), which we later found was a terrible mistake. It was a winding and jerky 45 minute ride up and down many mountains, that I felt should have taken far less time, as it seemed like we were driving in a roundabout way. I just asked Melissa if she wanted to add anything about the bus ride, and she replied, "Just that it made me wanna puke." Well said. Anyways, 45 minutes later, we get off the bus from Hell, already feeling violated by this tourist trap. We look around at the hundreds, maybe thousands of tourists flocking up the stairs towards the Buddha statue and join them. 

By this point, Melissa was an unhappy camper. After we had walked up many, many steps to the top, I started to feel a little used. I mean, the statue is big and all, but there were so many people getting in the way of everybody else's pictures that it was hard to enjoy it. I kept telling myself that there must be some saving grace to the Buddha. Maybe it is a few hundred years old? I later found out that it was built in 1993 (it's as old as the students I teach) and that it faces North (towards Beijing), instead of West (towards you know where). Son of a...

The monastery was a lot more interesting than the statue, but that isn't saying much. There were still a lot of people walking around, but there were so many ornate details in the decor that everyone kind of blended in. In fact, that is the thing I remember most about the monastery. 

The walls, ceilings and smaller statues were intricately detailed with lots of colors and etchings. They provided a vegetarian lunch that Melissa describes as 'PBBBBBBBT!' Needless to say, no pics were taken of that, but we did agree that we would need to at least try to locate a beach. That, however, was easier said than done.

First, we ended up wandering up a service path, lined with broken televisions and old dog houses. It may seem like an honest mistake, but we were actually hoping to take the path less travelled. We wanted to do some get-back-to-nature trailblazing. So, we went off on the path that nobody was taking (and for good reason). Then, we walked up to a fork in the road, where we discovered that we were miles and miles away from any beach, and many hiking trails were closed due to rock slides. 

But all was not lost! Right at that very spot where we stood was the ancient Wisdom Path! Okay, so it's not ancient, or even authentic for that matter. It's a bunch of split trees with Buddhist sayings carved on them, which are arranged in an infinity symbol. Well, as you may have gathered, we did not end up finding any beach, or anything off of the planned tourist areas. So, we were pretty bummed about that. 

Maybe we felt like we were wasting our time on Lantau Island because it was our last day in Hong Kong, and there was still so much that we wanted to do. At least that gives us some more incentive to go back!

Cullen

Hong Kong: Kowloon Park in the Morning

On the second morning, I dragged Melissa out of bed at the ass-crack of 8:00am to take a stroll through Kowloon Park, which was located about two blocks away. The above photo is taken at the Southern edge of Kowloon Park. 

Overall, the park is pretty nice, if on the small side (I think it's 6 square city blocks, or so). As shown from the above photo, there were a bunch of birds hanging out around the park. The birds that could get away, however, were penned up in an aviary.

This is a shot of the 'Chinese Garden' section of the park, which is where Kung Fu lessons were taking place for a group of youngsters.

It looked like Tai Chi was being practiced in large groups all over the park. Notice the strange statues around this group. I actually came to the park wanting to see people practicing something that rhymes with talon song (I won't write the actual name, because I don't want our blog to be blocked). I read that these people would be in the park during the morning hours from a book called Lost on Planet China. However, when I arrived, I realized that I wouldn't be able to recognize them if they slapped me in the face. Oh well.

Here is Melissa being brave and smiling for an early morning photo. What a trooper! 

I too wanted proof that I was in the park, so Melissa took this shot. Yay!

Cullen

Hong Kong: Dinner Cruise

I wanted our first night out in Hong Kong to be special, so I went out of my way to book what I thought would be just that: a dinner cruise that soaks up the Hong Kong light show (yes, there is a nightly light show). After taking an evening dip in the hotel pool, we got all dressed up and made our way over to the designated pier and waited for the ship to arrive. It turned out that we overestimated the classiness of the event, as we were way overdressed compared with the rest of the guests that started to gather. Awkward number one!

Once we got on board, we found our assigned seat, which turned out to be part of a large table situated next to the dance floor/stage (with live music) that we shared with a group of rowdy Europeans and a Chinese family. Strangely enough, we preferred the Chinese family. Awkward number two! 

The dinner was a buffet of international cuisine, which Melissa and I appreciated very much. However, just after getting our food, we were informed that the light show would be starting momentarily. Awkward number three! So, we scarfed down our plates and joined everyone on the top deck for the viewing. The show was pretty good, but the photos I took didn't really come out very well. So, I hope the above video will suffice. One thing to note about the light show was the amount of Christmas lights on display. Entire squares were decorated to be included as part of the light show. Weird.

After the light show ended, we went downstairs to finish stuffing our faces. While that was awesome, what first was slightly annoying live music quickly turned into an unbearable cacophony of pop-noise, hardly better than karaoke. The trio was made up of two middle-aged women, one of whom sang while the other tried to get people to dance, and one keyboardist. The pain train skewered the atrocious hits of yesteryear, such as 'Don't Cry For Me, Argentina' and 'Dancing Queen', for an entire two hours straight. This would have been awkward number four had it not been for the constant heckling provided by the Europeans and the alcohol provided by the ship's bar. 

All in all, the cruise was not what we expected, but it provided a ton of entertainment for the night. 

Cullen

Hong Kong: Ocean Park

Hey all,

 

For our first full day in Hong Kong, we decided to visit Ocean Park, which is located on the Southern end of Hong Kong. I know this sounds like a touristy thing to do, considering that we could technically go to Sea World or something like that back in the States. Well, we didn't think about that at the time, so back off! 

Excuse me! Sorry, I'm just passionate about marine life. Now, on to the show!

Our first stop was a large bird atrium, packed with exotic-ish birds. It was here that Melissa told me that I am a Chinese tourist, because I take about a thousand pictures when I go on vacation. Well, excuuuuuuuuuuse me! 

Next stop was the Jellyfish Extravaganza! 

After that, we checked out the incredible Chinese Sturgeon!

Then we went to an exhibit that was actually an artificial reef with hundreds of fish, sharks, rays and turtles on display, and the only good picture that I took was of this boring seahorse. 

Okay, so this one came out, too. Pretty weird looking, right?

On the other side of the park was the panda exhibit, and to be perfectly honest, it wasn't all that awesome. Don't get me wrong; it was great to see these rare animals, but they were in such a confined space that it was hard for them to live up to my expectations. Also, the one panda that was eating bamboo right in front of the glass got up and moved to the back of the exhibit as soon as I elbowed my way up to the glass. So that sorta ruined it for me. Dumb bear! Look at me when I am taking your photograph!

After that, we managed to see a show starring a flock of dolphins and two wacky sea lions. I say 'managed' because we didn't make the show time to get a seat, and instead had to use all of our cunning to locate a standing view of the show. The show was set to music and featured a tale about how people and animals are supposed to live together in harmony. However, I'm sure that the sea lions would hold their handlers down with their flippers while the dolphins ram them in their crotches, given the opportunity. 

This big guy is looking at the worker in charge of feeding him, who is standing to my left. He did a pretty good imitation of the dramatic chipmunk, as he pretty much flung his entire upper body into his stare. You can actually see a small fish in mid-fling heading towards him in the picture. Yum...

Ocean Park was a lot of fun for both of us, and I like to think that the animals had a good time as well. 

Cullen

Last Minute Notice

Strange things are a-brewing here at Yueyang No. 1... I thought that since we missed the sports days when we visited Hong Kong, we were off the hook for the relay race, jump rope, etc. Turns out, we have the teachers' sports day in a half hour from now. It's cold outside and I'm not feeling so well, so I'm not too pleased with this. On the bright side, we have Monday through Wednesday off of next week, so we are trying to plan another vacation. We're thinking Shanghai, but it's tempting to just go back to Hong Kong. 

When did we learn all of this information? Why late last night, of course. There's never been enough time to properly plan a trip, so far. Oh well. So, I'll blaze through posting the rest of the Hong Kong photos for you before we take off for wherever!

Cullen

Hong Kong: Around the City

Let me start by saying that I didn't take enough photos of the actual city part of Hong Kong, and these posted photos don't really do it justice. I kept joking to Melissa that if New York City and Beverly Hills adopted a Chinese baby, they would name it Hong Kong (I'm lame, but I think it's true). Hong Kong is just so busy, clean, modern, trendy and  spectacular. The above photo shows how the road is wrapped around a large tree. It seems the city planners would not part with the thing.

This is a shot of Canton Road looking in the direction of our hotel. We spent most of our time walking around Hong Kong in the neighborhood called Tsim Sha Tsui, which is where we stayed.

This is a shot of Melissa standing in front of Nathan Road, which is also in Tsim Sha Tsui. This neighborhood was especially expensive-looking, and there were high-end fashion shops everywhere we looked. Notably absent from the streets was any sign of poverty, not counting the very few beggars we encountered (I counted five). What did annoy me were the many people trying to sell me handbags or tailor a suit for me. What was weird about this was that they were all really well-dressed Indian men. After a while, I could spot them from a distance and prepare my avoidance techniques before I encountered them.

Back to the city. This is a shot of Melissa standing in awe of the Hong Kong MTR subway system. Each MTR stop was like a mini airport. Every stop that we saw had clothing stores and food stores, and they were all impeccably clean. As you can see from the picture, there is a glass barrier that opens when a train comes to a stop to let the passengers in. Behind the glass barriers are flat-screen televisions that show local television programming. Melissa and I agreed that the Hong Kong MTR really puts the New York City subway system to shame. 

Hong Kong is actually a very big place that spans an area that includes a number of islands. The above shot is of the Southern end of Hong Kong island, which has many pretty bays with fishing villages and beaches. As you can see, Hong Kong is also very tropical and hilly. The place is just absolutely stunning. 

Weird photo above. On our way back from an activity, we hit pretty heavy traffic. As we inched along, we noticed this rather crowded cemetery. Melissa's reaction? "I didn't know there were so many Christians in Hong Kong." Oh man...

Above is one of the only night shots we took. It really doesn't do the city any justice at all. The place springs to life at night with crazy neon signs and many light shows.

I guess we're just gonna have to go back and take more pictures...

Cullen

Hong Kong: Around the Hotel

Hey, so I know that we're in China, and we're supposed to be living on a budget, but we thought 'What the Hell?' and spoiled ourselves rotten in Hong Kong. We stayed at the Marco Polo Hong Kong Hotel, which is pretty luxurious. It overlooks the water and supposedly gives a great view of the Hong Kong skyline (our room was not a harbor-view room, so I can't actually confirm this). It's also attached to Harbour City, which is a high-end shopping mall with about 750 stores. The above photo shows the lobby. Oh, and there's an outdoor pool.

Here's where we stayed for the three nights we were in Hong Kong. Behind the television is a walk-in closet and to the left is the bathroom. Very important details, I know. We actually picked a great time to come to Hong Kong, as it's not a peak vacation time and the temperature was right around 80 degrees (it was sunny the entire time we were there). Because it wasn't a peak travel time, the hotel gave us a bunch of freebies, such as a free room upgrade and free buffet breakfast every morning.

But the celebration was short-lived, as Melissa started to feel really sick at the hotel and was miserable the entire night! Oh no! So, while Melissa slept in the room that afternoon, I sought out pizza and fried chicken and chocolate cake and a java-chip frappucino (things that are impossible for us to find in Rong Jia Wan).

After tasting victory, I took Melissa to a pharmacy, where she bought cold and flu medicine. We both took this medicine and shut ourselves in for the night after ordering a little room service (lobster bisque).

The next morning, Melissa felt much better, and we wandered downstairs for the breakfast buffet. As you can see from these pictures, we were very happy to find such a familiar and delicious assortment of food!

Melissa and I agreed that the buffet breakfast was one of the best things about being in Hong Kong, not so much that it was delicious, but more because of what it represented. The freedom to choose such a great number of tasty morsels was a great vacation in and of itself. It really helped us appreciate how good Westerners live, compared with most Chinese people. Well, enough about the hotel, and on to the actual city...

Cullen

A Bunch of Stuff Happened

Cullen: I know that we haven't blogged in a while. So sorry. Me apologisey. We took one look at the results of our survey and came to the conclusion that we had nothing to say diary-wise. However, since we like blogging about our vacations so much, we thought we would take another trip! Okay, so maybe that wasn't the reason for the trip. Here goes...

Our school has been promising us that they would be holding a 'sports day' where we were expected to do a relay race, jump roping and a mystery basketball-type race. Needless to say, we were thrilled to be included in the events while the doctors have been telling us that we should avoid exercise while being treated for rabies. Thanks for caring, administration! Anyhoots, the events had been delayed a number of times due to the constant rainy weather we've been having here in Rong Jia Wan. They finally decided on a couple of non-rainy days last week, which was initially Wednesday and Thursday. We were then told with about 24 hours notice that the sports days would be Thursday and Friday. At last, a long weekend!!!! We pounced immediately and booked tickets to our travel destination. 

Melissa: Okay, fine, I'll go along with this, but only because I am your devoted, loving partner, and you are logged in under my account, thus involuntarily putting my stamp at the bottom as the signature of this "conversation".  So, after much hassle and several failed bookings on elong.com, we made it to Shenzhen, a Chinese port city only about an hour from Hong Kong, then crossed the border by bus.  It was warm, sunny, and palm trees abounded as we made our way to our hotel, the Marco Polo Hong Kong.

Cullen: Okay, I just got back to the computer and Melissa is telling me it's my turn. Apparently, she does not like keeping you guys informed through a collaborative blogging effort. And yes folks, we are blog-arguing in real time. 

Well, before we made it all the way down to Hong Kong (which is the coolest city I have ever visited, but more on that later) we had to clear up something. Our last rabies shots were supposed to be on Friday, so we had Rock take us down to the clinic at noon (the day we were to leave). Luckily, we were able to get these last shots. So now I don't have an excuse not to exercise. Rats. 

What else happened before we left for Hong Kong? We got new teaching schedules, and I could not be more jealous of Melissa's schedule. She has a four day weekend. Every week! Four days!! And I only have a two day weekend! I'm jealous!

Melissa: Back to the live-blogging argument.  Apparently, I do not have my own name-color.  I just have boring old blue.  Thanks, Cul, thanks for that.  Anyway, yes, I have an awesome schedule, but Cullen also had a day off during the last schedule, so he can't complain for a few weeks when my days off have caught up to his.  Well, I guess this is all we have to say for the time being until we can get some photos of the trip up, but I concur that Hong Kong was, in fact, the coolest, cleanest, dare I say prettiest city I have ever been to.  

Cullen: THAT'S RIGHT. BASH THE BLUE. What did blue ever do to you? I think it's a nice shade... I'm just jealous that you have a long weekend. My day off was a Tuesday. Whoopiddy doo. I still had to plan a lesson for Monday, and now I have earlier classes on Monday. So, now I can't plan the lesson on Monday morning. I literally weep myself to sleep every night in fits of jealousy.

Melissa: Pitiful.  For a year and a half I had to get to work earlier and leave hours later than him, and now he's nit-picking over the disbursement of endless free time.

Cullen: Touche. I lose. Anyways, a bunch of stuff happened, and I think we covered a lot of it.

Happy Belated Halloween!

Hi all,

Melissa and I have successfully eaten our way through many kilos of chocolate, thus signifying the end to the Halloween season. We may have gained a few pant sizes, but we installed a plan to even everything out. You see, we shared the sugar rush with our students by making candy a part of our lessons. So, the students are now that much fatter, thus negating our relative augmentation. Yahoo!

Seriously though, we did feed our students candy last week. I know what you're thinking. You're probably thinking, 'These kids must need bribes to talk because you're such a bad teacher!' Well, you know what? You know what? Yeah? So???

Actually, it wasn't so easy for the students to get the candy. In order to receive candy, they had to:
a) Sit through a lengthy vocabulary presentation on Halloween-related things,
b) Watch the first five minutes of The Nightmare Before Christmas (you know, the part where they sing 'This is Halloween'?),
c) Stay awake as I read them 'The Yellow Ribbon' (a scary story)
d) Rack their brains and write a scary story, and
e) Tell their scary story to the class.

Most of the kids got into it, which was good to see. One of Melissa's students told a good scary story, which I will paraphrase here:

"There once was a little boy who could only say the word thirteen. His parents tried everything to get him to say anything else, but their child could only say, "thirteen, thirteen, thirteen..." They finally tried a psychiatrist, who dedicated much of his time with this interesting case. They worked together in his office, at a local playground and at a park. They had been working together for many months now, and the child could say nothing but the word thirteen. They took a seat by an old well in the park, and the man again said to the boy, "Why do you only say thirteen?" As an answer, the boy pushed him down the well. The boy watched the man hit the bottom of the well and said, "fourteen, fourteen, fourteen..."

After all of this Halloween goodness, we are rearing our heads over Alaska, as we prepare for America to once again disappoint us. I sent in my New Jersey absentee ballot about eight days ago in Yueyang. At least I know that I did everything that I possibly could have done to discontinue the Bush White House's policies. Melissa, on the other hand, did not even apply for an absentee ballot from her battleground state, Ohio. For shame.

Our fingers are crossed!