It has been the most wonderfully almost week but this week was the last one I had with Lucy as she left for Vietnam on Monday 10th, after 25 days in Hong Kong. It has been a week of trying to cram in lots of things and having a great deal of fun. This included throwing a surprise party for Katie's birthday, bowling, MacDonalds and a good night out in LKF. All of these added up to being a wonderful week that had a multitude of different emotions, mostly happy.
We were celebrating Katie's birthday on Wednesday but because she had decided not to celebrate it, Lucy and I decided that she had to celebrate it somehow. Plotting on Monday morning with Chris over Skype messaging, the three of us managed to persuade Mike to let us use his centre where he tutors which was the perfect place to have it. Once Lucy and I had sent around the message, we gathered at the centre on Tuesday. Lucy was keeping Katie at bay as a great group of us, half of the people I had actually never met, gathered at Mikes. Having hurriedly made a paper chain made from the paper strips I had left over from making the paper chain at Christmas, we hid in the next door room, turned out all the lights and waited.
It wasn't long before Lucy and Katie arrived. I had forgotten to tell Lucy what excuse Mike was going to make for him taking them to the particular room, it was some poor excuse about having just dinner with the three of them, before we burst out from behind the window of the adjacent room and thoroughly surprised her. With great local food and cake with her name, it was an awesome evening and Katie felt thoroughly surprised. It was a chance to meet new city, celebrate the life of a fantastic friend and get some AWESOME karaoke in! Turns out that Jeff has got an incredible voice and was blowing us all out of the water with his vocals.
On Wednesday, Katie's actual birthday day, further surprises greeted her. We had ordered pizza for lunch which we managed to persuade her from going out to buy lunch and instead lured her to the office where an abudance of pizza and snacks greeted her. Furthermore, she had a lesson at the end of lunch with the K3 whole day class. In the morning, I wrote 'Happy Birthday Miss Katie' on a huge sheet of paper that Sandy had provided and we hid in the classroom. When Katie came in, a chorus of Happy Birthday rose up which was a nice surprise for her and the children all wrote their names on the paper for her to keep.
On Friday, in the midst of packing and getting to say a few goodbyes, Lucy and I managed to have an evening where it was just the two of us, getting a final evening together. We decided to forfeit the idea of cooking and made our way down to the McDonalds by the boys at Melody. The options in Hong Kong are slightly different from England and we both settled on something that we both knew we like, I had the McSpicy Chicken Burger which is really delicious, a little kick to the chicken separates it from a regular chicken burger. Another the great additions to Hong Kong McDonalds, are the McCafe's. These are, as you can guess, little add ons to a McDonalds chain and serve a multiude of drinks as well as delicacies. I have discovered the joys of the New York Cheesecake that is served there and so Lucy and I treated ourselves to a slice each and took them to the bowling alley where we got in a good hour and three games of bowling in. I managed to win the first one, by some strange way, but Lucy thrashed me the next two times. It was a wonderful evening that was relaxed and full of laughter and sass.
It was only fair that Lucy got another night out before she left and so on Saturday, we met up with Chris, Jeff and two of the latter's friends for a night on the town. We headed first to The Globe pub, a fairly noisy proper pub that felt very British in the midst of Hong Kong and served a range of drinks of all kinds and we had great fun trying to decipher what exactly was in these concotions. Afterwards, we had to hit LKF and so went to Graffitti, a club I hadn't stepped inside. It was very packed and there was a lot of people there. However the energy was high and it was hard to tell where all the time had gone when I called it a night and went home, not feeling amazing.
On Sunday, Lucy and I woke up beautifully late and made the decision to get food on our way to The Vine. I realised that Lucy had yet to be treated to Ebeneezers and so we dropped by LKF where we knew there was an outlet and ordered the chicken curry and rice that they produce so well. Great food and company, we went over to The Vine where it was Seeds For The Future Sunday, the annual review looking at what the church's finances were and how we could help. it was actually really interesting to hear what was going on, in the financial aspect of the church, and then to hear about Andrew's heart for the future of the church.
This morning it was a rather heart-breaking but warm goodbye to Lucy. I had to rush off to school and she had packing to do so we were both up and early but we managed to get a final photo together to commemorate 25 days of awesomeness.
It will be strange not having a flatemate for the first time since Christmas, and then before that since October. But I look forward to seeing what the next four months that I have left in Hong Kong will bring.
Until next time,
Batkinson
Cantonese word of the week: pronunciation -
Quote of the week: 'Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get.' - Forrest Gump
Prayer points:
- I am still in great need of sleep, I want to go to sleep earlier again
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