Party Time!

I spent over three hours baking them, but it was certainly worth sharing my Welsh cakes with the other teachers at the school! Today was a birthday at the school, which meant no teaching and even more fun than normal! The school has one birthday party every three months, celebrating each child’s birthday that falls on any day during the three months. Today we celebrated the birthdays of children that fall between August, September, and October.

Unfortunately, typhoon level three was still in place during the morning, which meant the morning classes were suspended. Lunchtime was great, as the teachers were forced to eat the birthday cakes for the morning birthday party, they weren’t aloud to go to waste! They were also forced to eat my welsh cakes, and pretended they loved the burnt taste and tough texture. Surprisingly, none were spared! By lunchtime, school was re-opened and back in business!

The afternoon party was fun. I felt like I was some famous person at many points throughout the day, being swept away for numerous photographs with the birthday boys and girls, I felt like it was my birthday at times! I also introduced a new game to the K1 and N1 students, involving small mats, jumping, music, and apples. Although it didn’t go completely to plan, once adapted for their level of coordination skills, the children soon begun to enjoy themselves!

Overall, thumbs up to birthday parties at school! I can’t wait for the next one!

Typhoon? What typhoon?!

Typhoon fanapi hit Taiwan a few days ago, and was rumored to skim HK, So, in true Hong Kong style, the locals put major precautions in place. A rainstorm warning system has been created to help inform the public of the possible dangers that may await. The warning system consists of several different levels of typhoon, and each have their advantages as far as work days go. For example, if a typhoon threatens to hit the city posing a level three threat, (Strong winds are expected or blowing generally in Hong Kong near the sea level, and the wind condition is expected to persist) then all children are suspended from school, i.e. – NOT teachers! Yet, if a level eight hits, (Gale or storm force winds are expected or blowing generally in Hong Kong near the sea level from the SW/NE/SE/NW quadrant, and the wind condition is expected to persist) THEN schools close down completely.

Unfortunately for me, a typhoon warning of three, was announced the evening before a birthday party in my school. This meant that if the level three was still in place the day of the party, I would miss out on party fun, games and no teaching! L If I am completely honest, I would have to say I think there is a bit too much fuss made with level three. In my opinion, a level three typhoon in Hong Kong, just felt like another ordinary day back in Swansea…

An evening out

There haven't been many of them, mainly because of the lack of time and money I have at the moment!

Even tough my job takes up majority of my time these days, I have vowed to put some of the little time that I do have, aside, to meet new people in the city. I attended a couch surfing event last Thursday, and met some awesome people. Everyone was very different, and had their own story. Some were traveling, some working permanently, some temporary, and many locals were there too! A lot of people in the group organize many events throughout the month, so I am looking forward to meeting up with everyone again, and maybe actually discovering a bit more of what Hong Kong has to offer, as well as the rest of the world!

The First 10 Days as Lou-si Lyndsey

The first 10 days of teaching are over, and as well as teaching a lot, I have learned a lot too!

The Commute…

I must admit, I am not a great fan of the commute. Many of the other teachers have commutes of under an hour, and many work in the same direction, meaning they get to commute together. I am quite envious of Jack, as he gets to commute with Amanda everyday; her school is located across the road from his. At least they have each other to chat to and make the commute seem somewhat quicker, whereas my traveling time seems like it takes forever! I shared my Thursday commute with the Artic Monkeys and Adele, thanks to the discovery of that cheap mp3 player I had purchased before I left Britain. Considering I have only added two artists so far, the journey was still a lot more bearable, although I will need to add a lot more music from my itunes, if I am going to survive this year!

I have also discovered that there is an alternative way in which I can travel to and from school, and I only have to get one form of transport! One of the other teachers explained that the last English teacher used this route, which takes a bit longer, but is less hassle. She was kind enough to write down the directions in which I needed to take, and also wrote it all down in Chinese for me, in case I got lost! I braved the walk to the bus station, and got the bus home on the Thursday afternoon, and it was surprisingly easier than I imagined. There was a bit more walking involved, but the journey was very scenic and I also had a seat! I also save some money, which is always a plus!

The Other Teachers...

All the teachers at the school seem very friendly and helpful, which makes things a lot easier. Not many of them speak English, so it is quite awkward to communicate a lot of the time. All the teachers have their lunch in shifts, and they all bring in food and share it. This is great to experience different traditional foods, and share my food, that Jack mostly cooks the night before. I have bought a small notebook and have vowed to learn a new Cantonese word everyday at lunch, it is a great way to communicate with the other teachers and attempt small talk. I am hoping we can develop our relationships over time, and I can learn more of their language.

Teaching The Kids...

Naturally, I was very nervous about my first lesson. I had planned it all out but knew it wasn’t going to go completely to plan. It was the first time I would meet the children properly, so it was more of an icebreaker opportunity more than anything. The kids were so shy, and all they did was stare at me and touch my face. None of them cried (thank goodness), they all giggled at me most of the time. I think I would probably do the same if I had some crazy foreigner jumping around, speaking to me in a language I have never heard before!

After the first few lessons, they began to open up a lot more, and participate in the lessons. It was great to see them enjoy themselves and have fun, and also great to watch their progress within the first few lessons. During my last few days of the week, I found that miming was a great tool for teaching. The kids loved copying my impressions of eating a banana and being a tiger. I have already been given a nickname by my K3 afternoon class; Miss Lyndsey Tiger, and I soon established that they love high fives!

I have taught two different age groups of older children so far, which is a large work load in itself, but I will begin teaching the first year, as well as nursery this week, which leaves just 30 minutes split into 15 minute blocks, to plan over 6 hours of lessons per day. I am fining this very challenging at the moment, so I have the feeling next week will be extremely trying. The school mentioned they have more students this year, than any other year, which means they have split classes into groups, leaving me with more classes. I am hoping I can get a bit more time to plan lessons, I guess I will just have to wait to see how next week pans out…

Back to School!

Sorry it has been a while since I last posted, but I have since become part of normality, working a day job for the fist time in my life. I must admit, it has been more than challenging (the early mornings that is), but I am slowly getting used to it. I always said I would never work a 9-5, but never mentioned a 8:15a.m. until 5:15p.m. (7a.m. till 6:30p.m. if you count the commuting).

I began work last Wednesday; the journey to school was horrific! I have to get two buses and the metro to get to school, and it takes around an hour and twenty minutes in the morning, which means a 6am wake up call for me. I am not a morning person to begin with, and my body is usually dead to the world until around noon. I thought that the best thing I could do, was to put together my own concoction of coffee for the road, also giving me the excuse to use my new thermos flask, purchased from the ten dollar shop, for just ten dollars! I left the apartment at 7am, giving myself plenty of time for the commute ahead. I had traveled to the school on two other occasions’ with no problems, although this was my first day - things weren’t meant to go swimmingly.

I boarded my first bus from outside my living complex, only to find, the bus concluded it’s journey just half way to my destination! I was the only person left on the bus, while the driver shouted at me in Cantonese; I assume he was saying, “get off the bus you stupid westerner!” In a fluster, I called Maggie to make some sense of the situation. She chatted to the driver and found out that not all the buses with the same numbers actually go as far as I need to travel! This doesn’t create the best of scenarios for me in the mornings, as it’s just a bit of a gamble if I get on the correct bus or not. The bus luckily went back to the complex, and I could join the queue of 20+ people, to take the next bus gamble to work.

First impressions count for everything in Hong Kong, so I certainty didn’t want mine to be a bad one by turning up late for my first day of work. I finally arrived just five minutes late, which I hope was not noticed by the principle. I struggled to perform my first door duty, short of breath and sweating in the stifling 31 degrees heat, and 80% humidity. Never the less, I braved a smile and greeted every single child with a “good morning” and handshake welcome. Door duty is something I do every day on four occasions during school. It’s an opportunity for the children to first of all, meet me, learn to greet in English, and finally, for the school to model their new English teacher. After door duty, I had the opportunity to prepare my lessons. Whilst rummaging around my bag for the required books, I was horrified to discover that the small remains of my coffee concoction had only leaked all over my new books. This was not the best of starts to my first day, but I fortunately had no teaching that day, so it didn’t get any worse.

Even though I had no lessons to conduct, I did get the opportunity to meet most of the children, pop in during their lessons and say; “Hello, I am Miss Lyndsey”. It was lovely to hear the children call me Miss Lyndsey, they are all so cute and ever so small! I made the most of my time by preparing lessons for the coming week, and attempting to decode my new timetable. Before I knew it, the day was over and it was home time. I encountered a few teething problems as far as commuting goes, but the teaching was yet to begin!

Macau

It was an early start today, as we all had to meet Maggie to get the ferry to Macau. We had entered Hong Kong as visitors, which meant that we had to leave again and then re enter in order to activate our working visas, and obtain residency. Macau is around an hours ferry ride from Hong Kong Island, and is known as the Las Vegas of Asia. We thought that if we were going to visit Macau, we might as well spend the whole day there, and explore the island. It used to be owned by the Portuguese until 1999, so there is still a lot of Portuguese architecture to see, and restaurants to visit.

We planned to leave really early, to get the 10am ferry over to the island. Not knowing your way around a city, can drastically affect how swimmingly plans go! We managed to make it to the port, and boarded a little later at 10:30am. The boat ride over was an experience! I was not expecting the ferry to travel at such a fast speed as it did, which made me feel uneasy (I think the early morning didn’t help!).

When we’d reached Macau, the queue at immigration was incredibly long, and took around an hour to get through. Once we had finally passed through immigration, we boarded one of the many free buses outside the port, and headed to one of the casinos for a buffet lunch. I would of preferred to sample some of Portuguese food, but at the time a buffet with a lot of variety, also appealed to my hungry tummy! There majority of Macau has been taken over by big, flash, casinos, but there is a section of the city that still has the remains of old Portuguese ruins and narrow cobbled streets, packed with touristy shops and Portuguese restaurants.

After our meal, we all headed to the old area of the city. It was such a hot day, and crowds of people filled the narrow streets. It was great to see some remains of the Portuguese architecture, and experience the more historical part of the island. Macau is also famous for the world’s highest jump from the Macau sky tower. This was something I had heard about and was keen to see what all the fuss was about. A few of us headed to the tower, although we didn’t see anyone attempt the 764 feet jump that day, it was nice to have a cool drink in the tower and admire the views of the city.

By 6pm, Jack and I were exhausted. We caught a ferry back with two of the other teachers, and went for a cheap chicken curry, locally. It was great to visit Macau, and escape the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong. I just wish I had more money to gamble with the mainlanders!

My School

Here’s a quick update:-

I finally got to visit my school this week. I went in on Monday to meet the principle an be shown around, and again on Wednesday, just so I know I can get there independently, without getting lost!

It is a Buddhist school, and relevantly small, but caters for the whole neighborhood! It was sooo much more colourful than I imagined, and the teachers defiantly go all out on decorations! The thing that kind of spooked me out was the smell when I first walked through the doors; it was so reminiscent of the smell from my old primary school, and brought back so many childhood memories! The co-teachers are very friendly, and the principle is lovely too! I also get my own classroom and desk, which I think is pretty cool. Unfortunately there were no children around, so I will have to wait until next Wednesday to meet them all!

Photographs to come….