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!