Happy New Year!!!! - 20th-27th January

I know what you might be thinking, whoa you're a bit late catching on to the fact that it's 2014...but actually due to the content of my other posts you may know why I am saying Happy New Year, or at least Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year! This year will be the year of the horse, so there are lots of pictures of horses all around the place, photos will come as soon as I can gain access to the website on.my laptop. Trust me, it doesn't make sense to me either.
So this week finally marked the end of the first term or semester, at school. And what a term, I thought the Christmas term back home was bad enough!! Term finished today (Monday 27th) and we are back in full swing on Monday 10th February, raring to go for the next 5 months until we break up in July (with various says off and a week for Easter in April when I might be going to Australia, funds have to be consulted there! I'm so excited for my trip to Cambodia, I fly on Friday and I've got an action packed week planned with plenty of tourist stuff because that's what you do on holiday!!
I spent Monday and Tuesday teaching K3 about Chinese New Year, or at least specifically about the Good Wishes signs that are often hung up in homes at Chinese New Year, wishing for good luck on that place for the coming year. We got the kids to write their own ones that they decorated in a later lesson which went down a storm and they all enjoyed it, I hope...
On Wednesday most of the Tuen Mun group plus Yuen Long, met up for sushi. With no battery in my phone and with the only clue of going for sushi, I wandered around a little before remembering the last place we had all gone for sushi which thankfully turned out to be the place where they were. It's very good sushi and a lovely atmosphere so combined with excellent company, it made for a great mid week meet up.
On Thursday I travelled down to Wan Chai as Murray and I were due to meet up with some of the worship team as both of us have been feeling called to this area of serving the church. Sadly neither of us had been told that the jam session, as they had called it, had been cancelled because Jon, Worship Pastor, had a wisdom tooth flaring up so he was in no state to do much/any talking! But we found friends of Murray putting together a collage of prayers that the congregation of The Vine had written on multi coloured pieces of paper last Sunday so we helped stick them on and it looks like an image of Jesus, which was the idea. So it was not an evening wasted, just spent not in the way we thought it would go! Got to love lots of surprises.
Friday was the last day of lessons, although it wasn't really as we had our monthly Birthday Party which was combined with a flower market. These are markets that crop up all over Hong Kong at Chinese New Year and sell a variety of things including flowers, Chinese paintings, clothes and Best Wishes signs. We gave the children fake money and each year came out and 'bought' items that the teachers were selling, ranging from horse piggy banks to the Best Wishes signs that the K3 children had made to flowers. It was hugely successful and all of them loved it. This was followed for each year by a performance from the K3s. In the morning, the whole day class had learnt a dance to show and there were some performing  a lion dance which is a huge costume that was very well executed. In the afternoon, the children were shown the lion dance as rehearsed by the afternoon children and two very talented K3 children showed the routine they had been learning in...I'm not quite sure which martial art it is so I will get back to you on that one as I don't want to make a mistake and be highly embarrassed...but they are very impressive, disciplined and sharp, incredible for two 5 year olds.
On Sunday Ruth, Becky, Lucy, Tom, Will, Katie, Ben and his friend from England Tom and I travelled to Tai O, a dishing village on Lantau Island. It was very quaint with rural fishing life mashed with the arrival of tourists and the effect hay as having. It was fascinating to see what as clearly a much poorer part of the city and see it has Hong Kong may have been before it became so modernised.
From there, all of us minus Will and the Yuen Long crew, went on to the Big Buddha. This is a giant statue of the Buddha overlooking beautiful scenery and a monastery and temple. We had to climb up over 200 steps to get to the top but the view was very much worth it it and it strongly reminded me of my visit to Christ the Redeemer on the mission trip I went on in October 2012. We then saw the temple before getting in the cable car that had a glass floor, allowing us stunning views of what was below as well as around us.
In the evening, the same group minus Will and plus Becky and Tom met up for some more bowling. Turns out Ben's friend Tom is quite the bowler and almost managed to get the better of Ruth in the second game. I magnificently lost both games but I did get a strike and a couple of nines which is something to be proud of at least.
Now I am on holiday, I cannot wait to fly on Friday to my holiday in Cambodia. It's going great fun but I cannot promise that I will be able to write my blog so apologies if you don't st one next week, you can have double in two weeks time!
Apologies for the lack of photos again, there's been some trouble accessing the website on my laptop so I've had to do it another way where I can't access my photos to upload...
Until next time,
Batkinson xxx

Cantonese phrase of the week: pronounced - san Lee fy lo; translation - Happy New Year (used for Chinese New Year)
Quote of the week: 'Maybe God has a bigger plan for me than I had for myself. Like this journey never ends.' - Jamie Sullivan (A Walk To Remember)
Prayer points:
- that I feel refreshed by my holiday and don't get overwhelmed by it all.
- that I feel calm as I a little worried about it, flying out again with stopovers...it's a little nerve-wracking...
- that I recover from the horrid cough that has been plaguing me for the last couple of weeks and has not been nice.

Out in a boat on the sea, going rather fast!

Homemade doughnuts, warm and sugary, delicious!

The Tai O market, a fascinating place to be in!

 Mis-spelling of the week...I assume it was supposed to say snacks...

This probabaly would have been where several houses would have stood, now all that remains are charred stilts that they stood on

Should we be concerned about this?!

We did it!!!!

Gee, thanks Ben for the photobomb of what was going to be a perfectly good windswept shot!

That's much better!

The view from the top, pretty impressive huh?

The view from the top, pretty impressive huh?

12 of these lined the walk way to the Big Buddha, eaach representing one sign of the Zodiac. This is the dog, the Zodiac year in 1994 when I was born!

The temple we visited after the climb!

 The sun starts to set as we begin our descent on the cable car...

 The cable car route that seemed to stretch forever!

The glass floor we had in our cabin and the stunning views below!

Cheering on Tom and Will as they took their turns!

 Ben and Willow...



What Is Happening To Me? - 13th-20th February

I promise that this post isn't as dramatic as its title and I assure you that nothing serious has happened to me but I had a change of routine and did something that me a year or so ago would never have done, a lot of exercise. I can pride myself in the fact that I willingly took part in four sorting activities this week. Granted two of them were my twice weekly trips to the gym but it still counts, right? Am I actually now willingly partaking in sporting activities?? Seems like Hong Kong is doing me some good after all.
I finally managed to tie down my Chinese New Year plans, I am heading to Cambodia with Ruth! It's only a week, we leave on 31st and return on the 8th but I'm rather looking forward to exploring this completely new culture. I am not sure whether I will have internet access there but if I don't, I can promise you that I'll have two blog updates for you all on the 10th, first day of the 'second semester' *cue shiver that they call it semester rather than term*.
The Americanization of the English language that is taught is something I still haven't quite got used to yet. I first discovered it when doing phonics with K3 and found that they are taught to say 'zeebra' rather than 'zebra' which has started a long journey of figuring out it as I go along. While it at times has been rather infuriating, as I can slip up as a teacher and shouldn't really be doing that in front of the kids in terms of which term I use, I have been mainly successful in working out which words are used and which are not.
On Wednesday evening, Ruth and I headed up to Yuen Long where Becky and Lucy have a set of basketball courts near them. Lucy brought the ball and the four of us, plus Ben, Will and Willow, had a great time trying to get better at both dribbling and shooting, the latter had far more advancements than the former and even Becky' s unique style of play turned out to be rather successful. Admittedly McDonald's food did follow but we had learnt it!!!
Friday turned out to be another methodical day as I now like to call them. The last methodical Friday was when we were binding the art folders. This one was us putting together the CDs of Mandarin Chinese and English songs that the children will be learning and singing in the second term. By creating, I don't actually mean burning the songs onto nearly 1500 CDs, we had to put stickers on each one, saying which year it was for and which language it was. Then we put them into the sleeves/wallets/pockets that hold them, there we found ourselves in another language debate on what to call them!
On Saturday Ruth and I travelled up to Yuen Long with Ben, Will and Willow for a bike ride with the guys working up there. It was gorgeous weather, absolutely heavenly as if it was summer rather than January, we even had ice cream!!! In January!!! It was a wonderful experience, spending quality time with people that I have grown to respect and care about over the last four months.
I'm looking forward to the last week of school, finally!!!! I don't know what it will bring but I am sure looking forward to seeing what surprises the holidays will bring.
Until next week,
Batkinson xx

Cantonese word of the week: pronunciation- hoi mun; translation - open the door
Quote of the week: 'life is only as good as the people you get to share it with.' - Darren Criss
Prayer points:
- I'm a little nervous about my holiday, so many things could go wrong and I want it to be relaxing rather than stressful.
- that the last week of school isn't too stressful and I enjoy myself

 It doesn't help that the girls are a lot shorter than the boys when it comes to trying to steal the ball

 Although it's out of focus, Will's shot at goal captured here seems to have some kind of quality here

 Will in action as boys vs girls gets very heated!

 You pointing at me?!

GET THE BALL!!!!

 No, I'm not quite sure why he was in amongst the clothes either...

Willow waiting for the boat

Ben getting something from his bag

Our only way of crossing the river, a VERY dodgy boat that was only supposed to take on three bikes and had six...

Houses built right on the river

The old abandoned house on our bike route, fascinating place in the middle of nowhere

The inside of the two room building downstairs, abandoned and forgotten

Wash basins? Cookers? Who knows? Maybe we never will...

 Will and Tom on the ledge we found on the second floor

The view from the roof

Were they really that upset by the beautiful weather? I think I just managed to capture great facial expressions instead...

Lucy and Becky chilling as we stopped off for lunch

Enjoying cheap ice lollies in 20 degrees Celsius heat...in the middle of January...

Becky and Ruth weren't convinced by the safety of the raft for 99.9% of the time...

The raft across the water we decide to walk, very wobbly but great fun all the same!

Turtles chilling quite happily in the last stop we had on our bike ride!

Natural Beauty - 6th-13th January

It is a wonderful feeling that I slightly doubt I will ever experience again unless I become a teacher in Hong Kong or China, of getting through one week of school in the knowledge that I only have two weeks or so before we are given another holiday for Chinese New Year. I certainly cannot complain about this and have been feverently trying to make plans, despite many things standing in my way, to go abroad. I have not got anything down in concrete yet but I loom forward to seeing what this nearly two week break will bring.
As this week has been peacefully gentle, I can muse for you on another part of Hong Kong life that I am sure I will miss when I come home. This week especially, I have been enjoying the contrast of views that Hong Kong offers on my LRT and bus trips around this city. There are quite a few pictures of Hong Kong to illustrate this below but perhaps one of the most unique things about Hong Kong is the way that it has been built. Especially in the New Territories where I live, you are greeted with stacks of tower blocks, lined up like dominoes waiting to be pushed over, with the backdrop of looming mountains.
The busy motorway that takes my bus to church from Tuen Mun all the way to the connection to the island, is set into the mountain side with the steep but fairly picturesque face to one side and steep drops or more communities of domino tower blocks on the other. It is truly a city where nature meets man made creations in perfect harmony. Perhaps some of the most stunning views are those from this motorway, across the water to the island, connected by a large bridge and the mountains that make the island visible are completed Hong Kong style by the tower blocks. As it is only seen from afar, it looks like a silhouetted picture that still makes me smile with joy every time I see it.
I have been fortunate enough to see these stunning views twice this week. After a curious first week back with teaching both K2 and K3 about food ans eating utensils, I was glad to have Friday with only one lesson. Little did I expect to have an interesting and informative time putting the K3 artwork folders together. It was a learning curve as we used a curious machine that looked suspiciously like a type writer to punch holes in the side of the papers and then insert into these binder things, I'm not sure what the technical term is, which was an arduous process but it was a good time to chat with Katie and Will who were also doing this with me.
I had quite forgotten, having managed to have a fairly quiet PE lesson with my K2 class last week, how energetic my 18 kids could get. One of the great things about playing with this age is that I can take games that I used to love playing as a child and teenager and then simplify them so they can understand. Having taught them Grandma's Footsteps last years, it remains a great hit, traffic lights and music statues completing the lesson meant that they, as well as me, were thoroughly exhausted by the end of the lesson.
On Saturday I travelled down to Mong Kok to buy a couple of goodies at the ladies market. This is  a set of pedestrian only streets with towering stalls selling a variety of things that are often cheap but you can easily barter with the stallholders if they speak English. I was thankful it was a successful trip and it was a wonderfully relaxing day and I felt thoroughly rested.
After a glorious few hours in Mong Kok, I made my way to Wan Chai to get to oneighty, the student/young adult event that happens every Saturday at The Vine. It is a wonderfully relaxing time where I got to catch up with friends I had made over the last free months as well as meeting more new people which is something I enjoy doing thoroughly. Hong Kong is such a fast paced place, it is very nice to have a place that is so relaxed and gentle as well as still feeling like you are in the same place.
I received a wonderfully pleasant Facebook message from an old friend in London to say that he was going to be at church on Sunday morning and so I forced myself awake at early o'clock and got myself to church and it was lovely to catch up. I also discovered the delights of La Creperie, a crepe and galette cafe immediately opposite The Vine. With a couple of friends I had made at church, I treated myself to the incredibly tasty treats.
In the evening, it turned out that the boys in Melody Garden had a bowling alley just below them and so Ruth and I headed over there to meet Will, Becky, Ben and Mark who joined us later for a good hour of bowling. I had forgotten quite how much I had relied on the barriers in previous games and as we all opted not to use them, I think I held the record for the most amount of gutter balls over the  nearly 2 games we played. Despite my two strikes in the second game, I lost spectacularly and I only narrowly beat Becky into fourth place for the first game. Perhaps my talents in that respect will only ever lie in Wii Bowling...
I am looking forward this week to hopefully being able to tie down my plans for Chinese New Year as flights get more expensive with every day and seeing what another week of school will bring in the way of surprises.

Until next time,
Batkinson xxx

Cantonese word of the week - pronounced: lido; translation: here
Overheard on the MTR: "please be aware of the difference in levels between the train and the platform." You Know they could have just said "please mind the gap"...
Quote of the week: "fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself." - Hermione Granger
Prayer points:
- for my CNY plans to finally come together as it has been a long and arduous process
- for the children to settle back into their normal routines as they are still a little restless after their holidays

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!! - 30th December-6th January

Well, look at that! We have managed to reach 2014! I have a feeling I should change the url of my blog to hkgap2014, what do you guys think? As with Christmas, New Year was pretty low key but I was very fortunate enough to have all my wonderful friends back from Thailand to celebrate it with. I hope that you all managed to have a wonderful holiday and time with family and friends. I am now very much looking forward to Chinese New Year, celebrating the Year of the Horse this coming year, at the end of the month which will be good fun as I have always wanted to experience Chinese New Year in Hong Kong. But perhaps I will get some travelling in, I'm not sure where yet but it will be good fun to try and see some other countries while I am out here!and I have been working on my ukukele playing skills since I purchased it on Boxing Day. Having 'mastered' Edelweiss last week, I moved onto Over The Rainbow (from The Wizard of Oz) which is a classic song to learn how to play on the uke. It is harder than I thought and some of the changes between the chords is quite hard given that the fingering of those chords can be harder because the neck of the ukulele is much smaller than a guitar. Nevertheless, it has been a great experience to have something to occupy the time after school when I am not writing or sleeping!
New Year's Eve found a group of us at the boys in Melody, the group had got back from Thailand just that afternoon and we spent a wonderful evening playing heated games of Extreme Uno and great company. I had received some cheese for Christmas and as it was nearly at it's best before date, I bought some crackers which was very well received and it was a relaxed atmosphere that greeted the New Year. Having made clear the rules, all of which were broken in the first five minutes because that is the way that Uno works, we had many heated rounds with 8 of us getting very much into the game.
Re-entry to work was pretty tough, on Thursday, as I had seven lessons with K2. Having had many late nights, it was strange to have to adjust to getting up so late and going to bed so late, it was strange having to get up so early but I am sure that I will get used to it and back into the swing of things, just in time for the Chinese New Year Holidays...
On Friday, we took K3 to the Hong Kong Science Museum. It was very reminiscent of the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum in London and the children absolutely adored all the interactive exhibits that were admittedly more interactive than informative but they did learn lots of different things about gravity, electricity and dinosaurs. There were many dinosaur skeletons in an exhibit that isn't here for very long but it was cool to see some more and to read about the dinosaurs they have found in Asia over the years. The class were fairly well behaved, that I was assigned to, and while there will always be the slightly more troublesome ones that exist in every single class that you teach, they were generally a well behaved and polite class, singing very loudly on the coach on our way to the museum.
On Saturday evening, I travelled over to Mong Kong to DBS where Jack had invited us over to check out where he lives and the rooftop view that he has. The boys from Melody, the Yuen Long trio and Willow were there and having discovered the large amount of Uno cards in the DBS office, another great set of Uno games ensued which was just as hilarious, fast paced and heated as the New Years Eve games had been. The rooftop pictures can be seen below and had some incredibly stunning views across Mong Kok and to the rest of Hong Kong which was beautifully stunning.
Tuesday will mark the fact that I have been in Hong Kong for four months, that is a third of a year!! It means just six months left until I come home and I look forward to keeping up with all of you over this coming year. I am sure that 2014 will bring many more adventures for everyone and I look forward to sharing them in the blog and hearing about your adventures.
Until next week!
Batkinson

Cantonese word(s) of the week -  pronunciation: lukh, chat, baht, gow, sap; translation: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Ukulele song of the week: Over The Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz
Quote of the week: 'In your world I have another name. You must learn to know me by it. That was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.' - Aslan (from The Voyage of The Dawn Treader)
Prayer points:

- That I get back into the swing of things with school, it is quite difficult having to readjust and I would ideally like it to be at least fairly smooth.



 

 

 

 The moving triceratops who would look scary if it didn't have kind eyes...

 

 The largest dinosaur skeleton found in Asia, not as large as the diplodocus in the Natural History Museum in London but still impressive!