Hong Kong

An upside of my whirl wind decision to come and move to China was that there was only time for my school to apply for a visitor visa.  It takes time to collect all the documents and get the approval for a work (Z) visa.  This was a good thing for me because you can only apply for a work visa from outside of China, which means once I had all the paperwork needed for my Z visa then I had to leave the country.  This meant that my school paid for me to go to Hong Kong for 3 days to apply for my work visa.  (Side note, Hong Kong and China have this weird relationship and although Hong Kong is separate from China it is still considered a dependent territory.)

I added another day onto my trip because everyone has told me that Hong Kong is amazing and they weren't lying.  I could totally live there.  It is located on the coast of southeastern China and has an amazing tropical feel to it.  While I've never been to Hawaii, it had that tropical island feel with it's lush green hills and the harbor but then put a huge metropolis on the Hawaiian islands and you have Hong Kong. 

The view from Victoria Peak.

While Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of the PRC, it is also a former British colony.  So Hong Kong has this nice mixture of Chinese and British culture that creates an awesome environment and it's very visitor friendly.  Everything was in both Chinese and English so it made everything so much easier.

My hotel was on the island portion of the city and near major shopping areas with lots of restaurants and all sorts of things going on.  It was fun to walk around, explore and eat dim sum. 

View from my hotel.

Casual billboard.

My hotel was on a market street with all sorts of things for sale.

Hong Kong was really excited for Star Wars.

Like I said, my hotel was on the island portion of Hong Kong, oddly enough named Hong Kong Island.  To get to the mainland (Kowloon) I took a ferry, which gives you awesome views of Victoria Harbour.  I explored Kowloon and at night they have a light show, called the Symphony of Lights.  Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated metropolises with an amazing skyline.  Every night there is a light show that involves over 40 buildings on both sides of the harbor.

Crossing the harbor on the ferry.

View of the Island from Kowloon.

A junk boat in front of the night skyline.

To get the best views of Hong Kong you need to go up to Victoria Peak and take the Peak Tram.  I got up there during the day and hung out so I could also get the night views.  It was really windy so I had a fun time trying to snap a selfie without my hair covering my face.

Posing with a tram.

It took forever to get this shot.

Unsuccessfully trying to manage my hair.

When the sun and wind are in cahoots against you.

A night shot with the Harbour.

I wouldn't mind being in the 80's again.

Stray thoughts:

• So my coworker invited a group of us over for dinner the other night and he has the cutest daughter.  Little Ofilia is the sweetest little thing.

•  At school this week we made pizza with our kids.  It was a lot of fun and really good.  Sure, it didn't taste like pizza pizza but it was good all the same.

The pizza factory.

•  I went to see Swan Lake the other night with a group of teachers.  It was done by a Russian ballet company and it was really good!  It made me think of when I was younger and we used to see The Nutcracker every Christmas.  Here is a photo of the corncob at night when we left the performance.

• Here are some more photos of me "being a teacher."  (I promise I really do teach.  But with 3 year olds there is a lot of playing and exploring.)

Thanksgiving and Lots of Snow

Christmas is in full swing at my school and across the city.  Celebrating Christmas is a relatively new commercially holiday they celebrate in China and it's not exactly like back home but it still puts me in the spirit.  It's strange hearing Jingle Bells and other Christmas songs being sung in Mandarin as you go grocery shopping.  I sing along all the same.

Despite Christmas taking over, I am writing about Thanksgiving because I'm slow with my blogging recently.  So understandably the Chinese don't celebrate American Thanksgiving and turkeys don't exist here.  Luckily, a restaurant owned by a guy from Atlanta saved the day.  Zax BBQ saves me quite often, honestly.  Western food is hard to come by here and good Western food is even more difficult to find.  But since Zach, the owner, is an actual Westerner, the food actual tastes how it is meant to.  Anyway, back to Thanksgiving.  An American friend and I went to Zax's Thanksgiving dinner and brought along our English friend for fun and ironic reasons.  Below are some pictures of me enjoying my turkey dinner.

Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, mac & cheese, cranberry salad, and a pumpkin taste with a hot cider.

So I was told when I was coming here that this part of China doesn't really get snow and that has been true except for the one day when we got a lot of snow.  I'm used to getting 4 inches dumped on you over night and then having the city clean it up by the time you get to work.  Not here in Zhengzhou.  Snow plows don't exist and shovels don't really either.  People were using brooms and mops to clear the sidewalks and their cars.  Walking commuters (like me) walked in the road in tire treads so we could actually walk.  Most people didn't even try to leave their houses and quite a few people just abandoned their cars in the street and walked wherever they needed to go.

I didn't write this.  I stole it from a Chinese friend.

Chinese people love snowmen apparently because they were everywhere.

Creepiest snow(wo)man goes to this one outside of a salon.

So I trudged my way to school (in boots I had luckily bought the day before) and only had 13 of my 36 students show up.  So basically we just played in the snow and read snow books and had an adorable little snowy day.

The peaceful school yard before we tore it up.

Funny story, so the food delivery truck didn't show up until mid afternoon when it's supposed to get there at like 7 am.  So the cook got bored and decided to make a snowman in the front of the school.

Stray thoughts:

• There is a random bowling alley down this random little alley on the opposite side of town.  Not sure who found it or how but we went bowling for a birthday party the other night and it was splendid.  Also, every bowling alley is the same apparently.  It doesn't matter where in the world you are.  The screens had those same cheesy cartoons after you hit a strike or get a gutter ball, etc. and you wear the exact same shoes and the place has absolutely the same smell.  I could have been in Wheaton Bowl except this place was empty other than us.

• So the AQI or Air Quality Index goes up to 500 and when you go above that then you are considered Above Index.  Last week, I had the fun experience of surviving two days where the levels were Above Index.  In comparison, the air in Chicago is 24 right now.  The air in China is bad but it's never been this bad for me in Zhengzhou before and it was pretty unsettling.

My eery walk to school.

• Look at this photo of me pretending to be a teacher.

• And look at this photo of one of my students being ridiculously cute.  She makes me think of a Peanuts character dancing.

• I've uploaded photos and just have to do the wording for two more posts.  So if you care, there are posts about my trips to Xi'an and Hong Kong on the way!