Fradkin Follies

Lost in Translation Part II

2009-08-15T20:20:00.000-07:00

I write this update in the smoky internet cafe across the street from the Okurayama apartment. It is strange that with all of the social graces and advances of Japan, there is still smoking in most restaurants and the bullet trains all have smoking cars and designated smoking areas.

While Mark and Kamaya were working Saturday, I went into the Shibuya and Harajuku area of Tokyo. I walked to the Meiji shrine and saw not one but two Japanese wedding processions. The information boards in Japan are all oriented to face the direction relative to where you are standing and this means that the top of the map is not necessarily north. That took me off course a couple of times before I figured it out. Now it is actually really helpful. However, fate is an interesting thing because the second time I was off course, and really fed up with how big Tokyo is, I saw somebody that I knew. No joke. The year I was at Trinity, he was head of college. It is a crazy world. He is actually moving to Hong Kong in two weeks (jealous) and will likely live abroad for a long time.

Sunday was the first day of my now activated Japan Rail Pass and thus began a very busy week of intense travelling　and walking. I am not sure my toes will forgive me any time soon. Something interesting about the Japanese politeness: it occasionally will clash with my sense of Canadian politeness. For example,　you are not supposed to talk on the phone while on any trains, and not supposed to eat or drink while walking (!) but it is perfectly acceptable to paint your toe nails on the shinkansen (bullet train). Anyway, I went to Osaka,　transfered trains,　and then continued on to Hiroshima. The train system is very detailed, and mercifully homogeneous in its design and delivery. All of the stations have the names written in Romanji (English letters) so at least I could tell where I was going. And even though many Japanese don`t like to speak English because they are shy, all of the stations have tourist information with people who will.

One thing that I have found since being here is that in some ways it is easy to navigate, until you make a wrong turn, and then it can be very difficult. For example,　the directions to my hostel from the Hiroshima train station told me to take the tram to Dobashi station and then walk in the same direction as the tram and pass two pedestrian crossings before turning left. Problem was, I wasn`t sure if the first crossing included the one I got off at...or not. And away from the main areas, there are no English signs on the streets so a map is completely useless. Many maps for travellers have landmarks instead of street names. Anyway, I asked a nice lady which street I was on and where my street was. Many Japanese can read English but can`t speak it. She took me across the street in the wrong direction but at that point I was already committed to getting her help! In a couple of minutes I had 3 helpful Japanese women trying to understand my instructions. Eventually, one asked me which hotel I was staying in and when I said J Hoppers, they all said oooooo and once of them took me right there as she walked her dog. Later on that evening I said a different Japanese women escort a group of spanish backpackers in a similar fashion.

Again, I will have to write more at a later time. It has been a very busy week.

Leslie

So, so, so Lost in Translation Part I

2009-08-13T01:12:00.000-07:00

I know that this is my first attempt to post since arriving in Japan. But there have been a couple of reasons for this. Internet cafes are hard to find, expensive, and the Japanese keyboard drives me absolutely insane.

I am right now enjoying my last hour in Kyoto before taking the shinkansen back to Tokyo tonight. I am not even sure how to begin the telling of this part of my adventure. I left Hong Kong last week and did the most amazing thing: "City Check-in". At a couple of the major stops along the airport express route, you can check in like at the airport. So all I had to do at Kowloon station was walk up the the JAL ticket counter, like I would at an airport, and give her my luggage! No line-up! No carrying that backpack all over the HK airport. It was very civilized. I wish it was like that everywhere.

Upon arriving in Narita I followed Mark's in structions to find the Kesei line and take the Limited Express to Nippori. It's amazing that I was able to do the things necessary for this to get done. I got some cash and followed signs. But I had to laugh out loud because I have never seen so many people in an airport in my whole entire life. I got on the train and then had to sit for an hour scrutinizing each stop to see if it was "Nippori". All of the announcements were in Japanese so in the process, I learned that "Nippori des" means "this is Nippori". Anyway, Mark warned me that it would take over an hour and it did. I then got off into a station the size of Union back home (and this is a small station!) and after a few false starts eventually found the North gate where he was waiting. Good thing too because we knew that if something went wrong, we had no alternate plan. He wasn't even sure which train I was on. But it all worked out and I had my first introduction to the Tokyo subways system because it took 3 more trains and another hour to get to my apartment...or else it would have if Mark hadn't forgotten they key and we had to make a pit stop at Kamaya's office.

Since Kamaya's job as an English teacher comes with an apartment, and they live elsewhere, I have my own little tiny place about half an hour from the main subway lines of Tokyo. I don't think I can begin to describe the sheer size of this city. You can't walk around. Even a single neighbourhood is difficult and time-consumming to do walking. It just goes and goes and goes. That night we went out to their favorite sushi restaurant in Okurayama (the stop where I am) and had some fantastic sushi. My new favorite is scallop (hatake). They restaurant owner had a tendency to repeat our order very loudly and announce every dish as we ordered it and as we arrived. I have learned that this is custom and meant to show us that he approves of our choice. You can't even buy a banana without the clerk announcing the banana, the cost of the banana, how much money you are giving her, and how much money you are getting back. All in Japanese, all with little bows. It's great.

The next day was Saturday and Kamaya works Saturdays and Mark spent most of it recovering from jet-lag and preparing slides for his talk at the conference in Sapporo. So I went into Tokyo on my own and chose the neighbourhood closest to me: Shibuya. I went in to Harajuku station and walked to the Yoyogi park and saw the Meiji shrine. I saw not one but two wedding processions. Two attendants dressed in kimonos leading the way, and the bride in a gorgeous kimono with a giant head piece.

I will have to write more later. Have to go to the station. Thanks for visiting.
Leslie

A three hour tour

2009-08-05T20:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon I hiked up to the observation tower of Victoria Peak. It was a spurious decision that was born out of a need to explore without having any kind of concrete plan. Following instructions, I took a series of outdoor escalators up to the base of the park area and from there began to climb a series of concrete steps. I stopped counting at 350. These steps soon gave way to a concrete path that switchbacked up the side of the mountain. It has been raining for days because of the typhoon and if it hadn't been raining, I'm quite sure that it would have been so disgustingly hot that I would have turned around and gone home. But as it was I didn't see a single soul for the first 45 minutes. In fact, I started to get concerned that I would take a wrong turn and have to walk the entire way back without actually getting anywhere in the first place. But as luck would have it I ran into another hiker, 60-year old Roselyn and we accompanied each other for the next half hour or so up the main path that circles the top of the mountain. She pointed me in the direction of the scenic route around the mountain to the observation deck and I then happily followed the edge of the path around for another 45 minutes. I had gone so far that I was beginning to think that I had again lost my way. The path took me beside massive estates belong to the extremely wealthy and along the way I stopped to read the information posts about the flora and fauna of the area. I wasn't worried about getting lost exactly, but the path system is such that once you commit to a certain path, there is no going back unless you turn around. Just as I was losing faith (again) I asked some hikers where the tram terminus was and of course it was literally another 30 seconds along the path I was following.

In this country at this time of year it is a good idea to carry a change of shirt so after I cleaned myself up a bit, I enjoyed a victory latte in the coffee shop. I have to say that after walking up the hiking path and seeing hardly a soul and being surrounded by lush greenery and the calls of strange birds, the kitch of the tourist trap that is the Peak Tower Plaza seemed particularly garish and harsh to me. I rode the tram down and the entire decent took only 10 minutes. It's a very steep tram.

I hadn't really planned on hiking for a couple of hours and I felt very much done for the day when I returned home. So I did something that I think every tourist needs to do at least once here. I had a foot massage while breathing incense and reading my novel in a dark room. Releasing the tension in feet, ankles and lower legs left my ankles aching and I spent a quit night in the apartment with rain absolutely pouring outside. I think I have been as fortunate as possible with the weather here since it has been so unstable. I was able to get to Lamma for those couple of hours when it was sunny right before the typhoon clouded the sky. I got a day in at the beach, and like I said, the rain takes the edge off the heat. In Hong Kong at this time of year the rain and the air are warm so getting rained on is not the bone-chilling experience that it can be at home.

Web check-in for tomorrow's flight to Japan is done. The next post I make, will be from Tokyo.

Thanks for reading.

It was the best of times...

2009-08-04T20:07:00.000-07:00

I write this from an internet cafe that I have found near the apartment. The entire place is full of sounds of gunfire, explosions, screams and grunt sounds that are booming out of the computers because the entire place is full of 10-year old boys. I am definitely the only adult, foreigner, and woman here and also definitely the only person doing anything other than playing Halo3.

Yesterday afternoon I decided to chance the T1 typhoon warning and take the bus to the south side of the island to Stanley. Stanley is much like I remember it and aside from visiting my favorite shops in the market and my favorite juice bar, I also tour an English tour of the Hong Kong Maritime Museum. This museum is in a historic Edwardian building that used to be in downtown Hong Kong but was packed up and transported to Stanley. The guide was terrifyingly knowledgeable and had a phenomenal memory for all things nautical. It was a treat because in addition to bringing our attention to the various models of ships through the ages, he also told us stories about how the pieces were protected during the second world war, Japanese invasion, and bombing of Hong Kong. There is a fantastic 18 metre long scroll depicting a battle where the pirates ( like the mafia on ships ) were defeated. The scroll used to be encased in a coffee table belonging to some bourgeois in Paris and was protected from all damage for the longest time. Madame Defarge, eat your heart out.

It's hard to believe that this leg if the trip is almost finished. I hope to see some of the New Territories tomorrow (weather permitting) and also spend the late afternoon and evening down in Amberdeen.

That's all for now and thanks for visiting.

Culture Shock Redux

2009-08-02T19:24:00.000-07:00

I am writing this little update from inside a shopping mall at the base of an apartment building in Hong Kong. There are serveral places where you can get free internet for 15 or 20 minutes. Long enough to write in installments...but photos will have to wait.

I endured a very long trip from Vancouver to Hong Kong that included a 4 hour layover in Tokyo's international airport. I arrived safely and after some wandering around Hong Kong's airport for about 15 minutes after clearing immigration, I eventually found the kiosk for the shuttle bus to the hotel I had reserved for my first night here. It was a great little hotel with a glass wall in the bathroom so that I could look over the mountains and the Ngong Ping gondola while I showered. Bathrooms encased in glass seem to be more common than they should be here.

I admit that my sojourn at the airport hotel and in the suburbs of the city did not adequately prepare me for the inevitable culture shock that I encountered when I took the MTR in the old city and tried to find Adam's office with Jerry who held the key to the apartment. The little office smells like a brewery since a good third of the floor spaces was occupied with cases of Beer Lao. The security guards gave me the absolute strangest look when I wandered in there with my giant backpack with the giant Canadian flag on it. They were so convinced that I was a lost backpacker that I had to show them Adam's printout email and point to the office number on the board before they smiled and let me in.

After picking up the key I took a taxi to the apartment and I have to say that even with a map, the address and detailed instructions with landmarks given to me by Adam, we still couldn't find the apartment. I got a little freaked out when the cabbie asked me if I was staying there alone so I asked him to let me off anywhere and I would find it by foot. I blame a serious lack of sleep and food that lead to that. Also, one should never allow one's cousins to make one watch a movie about women being kidnapped and sold into the slave trade while travelling prior to ... well travelling. After Jerry convinced me that I wasn't going to get kidnapped I decided to walk around the trendy SOHO district and look for dinner. I did eventually find it in the form of a very spicy thai soup and salad. I read a book and tried to ignore that everyone in the restaurant was watching me. In fact, since I'm staying out of the tourist area this time around, I am finding that I am getting stared at a lot. Not used to that at all.

The next day was spent looking for an adaptor to charge my cell phone and camera battery and it took me to the bustling Mong Kok district. An extremely dense and too crazy to be believed area where you can get pretty much anything from T shirts to frying pans to cell phones to Nike shoes. After finding the adaptor and searching the malls in vain for my favorite clothing chain store, I went back to the apartment. Even though I have a lot of choices for transit...double decker buses with comfortable seats and air conditioning, and those crazy little toon town mini buses, I prefer the tram. There is a single streetcar track that runs along the bustling historical section of Hong Kong island. It is slow, rickety and hot and sticky but I love it because it goes so slowly that I can actually see where I am going and where I need to get off ... Whitty street...it take me about 10 minutes to get to the Sheung Wan MTR station from my place. It also kind of reminds me of the charming inefficiency of the TTC back in Toronto. This whole experience is mine for only 2 HK dollars (about 30 cents).

Saturday evening I met Barb and Ann for dinner and wandered around Mong Kok a bit. I woke up at 5:30 am (as I have every day since I got here) and visited tourist information before meeting up with some of the AYJ Global teachers and headed out to the beach at Shek O on the south side of the island. This particular beach reminds me a lot of Wasaga beach near Toronto because it is where all the 20-somethings go to strut around and splash and scream in the water. We bought some beach mats, rented an umbrella and relaxed for a couple of hours. There are some fantastic waves and breakers at that beach and I had a great time people watching and riding those waves. Again people were staring at me and it took me some time to realise that it wasn't only because I was a foreigner but also because I could swim. I felt pretty bad for a man from Pakistan who waded out as far as he dared and felt the surf, but could not surrender to it.

For dinner we had some decent sea food and I had a first-rate freak out when one of the creepy things almost touched me arm with it's tendrils. I am pretty sure I screamed and nearly jumped onto Barb's back. I am such a wimp. But people who know me should actually be proud that I went into that fish market at all.

Yesterday I took the ferry to Lamma island and survived 2 hours in the extreme heat before going home, showering and going out to Soho for dinner. Lamma is about a half hour ferry ride from Central and there are no cars allowed anywhere on the island. There are several islands with no cars. There are however little diesel powered carts that transport goods around the village. There is a stunning beach and beautiful, family-friendly walking trails all over the island and linking the two major villages. I think it would be an easier place to visit in slightly more temperate weather when the 90 minute walk would be more comfortable.

After dinner I met up with Jerry and chatted a bit with him and the Nepalese owner of the little bar hiding in the north-east corner of the SOHO district. That area is a terrific place for people watching.

That's all for now. Perhaps if the typhoon continues to intensifies as it seems to be, I will have a chance to write more soon.

That's all for now.
Leslie

Beautiful, beautiful Vancouver

2009-07-28T16:43:00.001-07:00

Let me start by saying it's really hard to believe that my week in Vancouver is nearly over. It's been a wonderful visit full of friends, favorite sights, great food, and new ideas.

Once I arrived I took a taxi over to Rachel and Mike's place in Kerrisdale and we enjoyed a BBQ on their balcony and then poked around the little boutiques and shops in the area. Friday morning somehow got spent organizing and planning and in the afternoon I followed Rachel to the pool at Kitsilano beach where she met up with another triathalon buddy and swam for over an hour and a half. During this time I sat and chatted with some people, napped, and splashed around. We then had a terrific sushi dinner at the foot of Yew street. Don't ask me for the name because I can't remember. But all I can suggest is to order the Chef's special sashimi because that pretty much guarantees you the freshest fish. After this we headed over to her friend Renee's place prior to heading downtown for a night of live music and then DJ dancing until the wee hours. I forgot how great it is to do that when you don't have to work the next day.

On Saturday, I went into Granville island for a bit and then took the Aquabus across to downtown and walked to the church. I had carried everything I needed in my backpack all day...or so I thought. Let me just say that the relaxing 40 minutes I had given myself to get all pretty was completely necessary for me to sprint down to Robson street, tear into La Vie en Rose, fix the problem, and then run all the way back with my dress mostly done up in the back. We sat down just as the minister was starting to get everyone's attention. The ceremony was beautiful. Traditional and warm. I couldn't stop smiling the entire time.

After the ceremony but before the cocktail hour at the Vancouver Club, Rachel and I had a chance to walk around downtown a bit. The reception was great. Rachel and I tore up the dance floor so much that one of Richard's cousins asked us if we were wedding crashers. Tempted to say yes.

On Sunday I had a bit of a visit with Megan and Richard at Megan's family's home and the Rachel and I drove to North Vancouver to check out the Caribbean Festival there. Hugely hot, huge crowds, ginger beer and good tunes are the impressions that I left with. We cooled down a bit in the forests of Lynn Valley at the foot of the mountains before heading home.

Yesterday I went back to Granville island and took the Granville Island Brewery Tour. During the introductions round I announced that ever since the Yukon Brewery tour of 2001, I was on a quest to see every micro brewery in Canada. I really don't know what possessed me to say that but I now feel like I have my life's work laid out before me. We had a few tastings after the tour and since we were a small group sharing 4 pitchers of beer, by 1:30 I realized that I now had to face an hour or so of trying to walk through artists' lofts without looking buzzed, without knocking anything over, and without buying anything for fear of having altered my sense of good taste. But luckily the feeling passed and I had a great afternoon. Rachel dropped me off at Gary and Tara's last night and the day ended with dinner on their rooftop patio.

Today has been a great day. I went to Kinko's and printed off some very important instructions and directions to various places in Hong Kong and Japan so now I at least feel partly prepared to leave tomorrow. I also bought something Mark had asked me for and picked up a first-rate fantasy novel at Chapters. It's been a long time since I read one of these books and I am very excited to get caught up in a good story during my flight over the polar ice caps. It's great how you never really grow up. I got a few more things I needed and then book Tara's bike into downtown and biked the perimeter of Stanley Park along the Sea Wall. I now understand how that is something that everybody has to do at least once. I reapplied sunscreen SPF 60 at least twice but I'm sure that I will come back from this vacation looking quite a few shades darker than my normal white self.

I think that tonight we will go out for some Vancouver sushi and then I can say goodbye to Canada for a little while.

Thanks for reading and I welcome your comments. I am computer-free this time around and am relying on the hospitality of my hosts and coffee shops. I'll try to post again soon.

Leslie
ps. If anybody has any suggestions how to make the photo not sideways, let me know.

Winnipeg

2009-07-21T14:50:00.000-07:00

Ah the triumphant return of the travel blog.

Winnipeg is much like I remember it and I am enjoying the hospitality of my extended family. Highlights have included a failed excursion to Bird Hill Provincial Park (low cloud cover = cold and rainy beach weather...who knew), a driving tour of the North End of Winnipeg, a family BBQ, late-night movie shinanigans and the usual spectacularly well-executed lunch and dinner circuit with the Trachtenbergs.

Olympiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

2008-08-11T06:38:00.000-07:00

The night of the opening ceremonies in Beijing, Sorina and I went out on the town. Actually, it was more like I followed her around while she picked up some jewelery she had made, and visited some stores she wanted to see. We were supposed to celebrate the last night in Hong Kong but ended up at a massage place at 9:45pm and we weren't out of there until 12:30. It was a tiny little place with faded reflexology posters on the wall and it felt like someone's living room. The guy had to call in a friend to be the other masseuse. I missed all of the awesome ceremony dances and so on, but did see a lot of the parade of countries. While this woman was pounding on my back with her elbows, I remember thinking "Hey that sounds like Sarah Brightman" and then nothing but agony. I did get to see that guy fly on cables and light the Olympic torch.
On Saturday those of us who didn't leave early went to Stanley market. This was my second trip to the market and tomorrow morning I have to go a third time because I'm having a dress altered. The bus ride up there is worth the trip alone. The double decker bus climbs over and around the mountains towards the south side of the island and you get some fantastic vistas and panoramic views.
And then everybody went their separate ways. Most stayed in or nearby to pack and get ready to leave the next morning. I was doing a practice pack because I was changing rooms and figured I might as well make sure that I had enough space in my luggage for all of my stuff. In the middle of that, Adam got in touch with me and we ended up meeting for a drink downtown. The next day I followed him and Jerry around in the afternoon while they tried to promote Beerlao to the some of the bars on Lantau island. Even though I've been to Lantau island a couple of times that was my first time taking the ferry. After about 40 minutes we arrived at Mui Wo village and I took pictures while they walked around giving away beer and speaking to bar owners. We took a taxi deeper into the island and enjoyed a very fine pizza and a very fine bitter ale at one of these places. It took us a while to get back to Mui Wo because we had to wait for the bus for a while and it was Sunday. There are wild cows around Hong Kong (I heard it was because farmers just let them go when they had to shut down their farms!) and I saw a couple of them putter across the road and almost get hit by a giant bus as it tore around the corner. And then a few minutes later I saw someone's dog have a similar near-death experience. I don't know how there are not more accidents on these roads. The Hong Kong drivers might be crazy, but the are really, really good.
Adam and I then met up with a friend of his who was in town and we watched the US vs. China men's basketball game on a big screen. The US won but it wasn't as easy as everybody thought it would be.
Today was seriously raining and I first went back to Sham Shui Po to return a cell phone that I bought that did not work. I don't want to talk about it. All of my experiences with phones on this trip has been highly frustrating and I know when I've been beaten. Anyway, that sort of set up the day because I thought it would be cool to check out the Hong Kong Heritage Museum because I heard it was fantastic. And it was, but it took me 2 hours of walking around in the rain to find. I don't know what I was expecting but I was thrilled when I realised that a big chunk of it actually dealt with the actual formation of the landscape and it started billions of years ago. They had artifacts of dinosaur eggs and other cool things. Not surprisingly, Hong Kong is in the centre of a bunch of now-defunct volcanoes and a lot of it is silt rock. But there was a lot more. Wetland, marshes - and at one point it was even a desert. And of course the most recent ice age carved some valleys too. The museum also dealt very well with all of the ecosystems of Hong Kong...different types of forest...freshwater...saltwater...all very interesting. Then there was a lot on the different people who have lived in Hong Kong. Different clans with different trades and lifestyles. There were whole floors of that museum that I didn't even see because I got tired. There was a small section dedicated to the sophisticated way people would crystallize salt from the sea and then use it to make shrimp paste.
I walked around for a while and walked down the Avenue of Stars and snapped a picture of Jet Li and Bruce Lee's stars. I couldn't help myself. I also shot a short video of two birds sharing a piece of bread or maybe a cookie. One of them keeps following the other and chirping to be fed. Watch the feathers!
Thoroughly wet and ready to go home by this point, I took a bus and sat in the top floor first seat through the rush hour traffic and tried not to doze too much as I went back to the hotel. Tonight I've just been watching the Olympics. China beat Poland in women's volleyball and it was a great match. It could have gone either way. I also watched a bit of synchronized men's 10 metre platform. Who could ask for more.
Tomorrow's weather is supposed to be nicer so I hope it's a good day for Stanley and the flower market.
Thanks for visiting.
Leslie

Typhoon Lagoon 8

2008-08-11T04:24:00.000-07:00

I woke up early on Wednesday morning because I knew our field trip to the Lions Nature Centre in Sai Kung would be canceled if there was a tropical cyclone warning level of 3. So I found the web page for the Hong Kong SAR Observatory and saw the number 8 with winds from the southeast. I thought to myself "Gee, doesn't that mean that school is canceled"? And of course it was. People kept calling me to make sure that I knew. I felt sorry for the credit teachers because it's the last week of summer school and they really can't afford to lose a day. But as for me I stayed in bed all morning reading a book, had an extended lunch in the cafeteria, and then worked during the afternoon on lesson plans. I realised that the poor night staff, who are on from 8:30 pm or so, were also stuck there all day because no one was coming into work. Poor William and Moon. I've been here so long that I know all the night staff and they all know me. I will miss them.
There were very few things going on outside. The wind was roaring and there were periods of pretty serious rain. Sometimes the rain went sideways. There was also hail and, I swear it because I'm from Ottawa and I would know, snow. Little bits of flying white water that fell more slowly than rain. Very, very interesting. By the evening the typhoon has been downgraded to a tropical storm and we went to the shopping mall for dinner. Classy. I think the eye hit landfall around 180 km away from Hong Kong. We found out that street signs has been blown over uprooting the stones from the sidewalks and scaffolding had fallen off a building just down the street from us.

Typhoon Lagoon T1

2008-08-05T02:46:00.000-07:00

Hong Kong has a number and symbol system for warning of incoming hurricanes. Since last night we have been under a T1 warning which means just wait-and-see. The air felt unsteady for the past day or so and the clouds just rolled over from the mountains this afternoon. Now Hong Kong is misty and damp. Apparently it's going to be like this for the next few days. If the warning gets upgraded to T3 then my little field trip to Sai Kung's Lions Nature Centre gets cancelled tomorrow and I will have to somehow add another day of curriculum. No problem.
After school yesterday I hopped on the MTR and went a couple of stops to Diamond Hill to see the Chi Lin nunnery. On the way there I passed by the Nan Lian Garden and decided to go inside. It is another classical sculpted garden in the style from the Tang Dynasty inside the city with different kinds of trees, rocks, ponds and some buildings. It has a circular pattern and you can only walk in one way and walk out another way! I was struck at how few people there were inside the garden. Visitors were outnumbered by the number of security people. I felt really conspicuous. I don't know why more people don't use it just to hang out or relax. It's not very big, and I don't think it's as nice as the Walled City Park in Kowloon.
Afterwards I went on to the Chi Lin Nunnery and admired the Lotus Pond with lily pads and dragonflies. The nunnery is Buddhist and the part open to visitors was really the main courtyard where you could walk around and peer into the various chambers but could not go inside. I saw some beautiful woodwork and some fantastically scary representations of Buddha's guardians and companions. There was burning incense and piped chanting coming from all around, and offerings of fruits on little glass dishes. A very nice experience.

2008-08-03T06:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a really long day. We left the hotel at 10am and rode out to the edge of town and then caught a bus to the Tai O fishing village. It amazing...downright astonishing that a village like that exists so close to the ultra-modern Hong Kong. When we got off the local bus we found a little tour outfit that for about $3 CAD drove us on a twenty minute boat ride through the town and out into the sea. The town is built around the little baylets that feed the sea and because of the tides coming in and out, a lot of houses are on wooden stilts. Having helped to install our dock this season, I had to wonder how they kept the wood from rotting. We were so close we could look into people living rooms. In fact, the whole town is like that. People sometimes leave their doors wide open. Once we got out into the sea our driver started looking for dolphins because there is a region around there where there are these famous pink-white dolphins. Too bad for us but we were not lucky that day. We did run into tourists later on who had seen them. Too bad. Maybe next year.
We wandered around the village for about an hour. We had lunch at the local noodle shop and then wandered some more. People bring in their catch and then hang the fish out to dry. On the main street there was shop after shop selling bushels and bushels of dried fish slices and other things I didn't want to look at too closely. A lot of them also seem to string pearls and bottle their own bean milks and there is a dark red berry juice that appears to be everywhere. I wasn't feeling brave enough to try it since I'm not sure they know the meaning of the word pasteurization. But it sure was interesting.
We stopped off at one of the new malls that just opened up and meandered for a while. That mall had a lot of upscale stores and it had a very curious layout. It was zoned into "Wood Zone", "Water Zone" and so on. I just didn't have the mental energy to try to figure out where the Ecco store was even though I was curious. I barely made it past the H&M. There was some kind of music festival going on in the mall so I watched a bit of a Capoeira show and wondered how they dared do some of the stuff they do on the extremely hard marble floor.
After our stop at the mall we went on to Victoria Peak. This is a must-see in Hong Kong. We caught a bus that snaked it's way up the mountain. The mountain is so high and steep, and the condo buildings downtown are so tall, that we could practically see into the windows of the people who lived on the 40th floor. The ride was great. There is also a tram but the wait was too long. At the top we found the lookout point and watched a bit of the famous Hong Kong lights show. Every night the buildings are all lit up with moving and flickering LEDs and it's really something to see. I'd like to see it again from the Kowloon harbour side some time this week. There are only a few places to eat up there and we ended up at...Burger King...(I know I can't believe it happened either...and I tell you...NEVER AGAIN). But then we found the Pacific Coffee and I had a fantastic latte (although they called it a cappuccino) and we relaxed a bit while overlooking the city lights.
We snaked down the peak again but this time in a taxi and then took the Star Ferry across to the harbour on the other side before taking the bus back to the hotel. A lot of walking and a lot of feasting for the eyes.
Today was a lazy start and we headed out to Stanley market for an afternoon of bargain and stuff hunting. This is another must-do because the ride to the south side of the island is gorgeous. I am figuring out all of the buses for these things. I talked for a bit with a locals heading to one of the beaches for a barbeque and birthday celebration. I saw those BBQs on the way home. They are these concrete fire pits with grills on top. Imagine having access to such a stunning day trip using fast public transit that costs less than a latte. The only drawback is that the water around the HK harbours are kind of dirty and if you (non-locals) want to swim you should go out to one of the outlying islands.
Stanley market is a large permanent series of shops stuffed with everything you can imagine. handmade cheap cloths, knock off purses (I tried to find a decent Coach copy wallet and could only find ones with nasty vinyl inside-disappointing-but I will not buy a copy purse for myself-I don't wear the real thing - what's the point), silk kimonos, mass produced oil paintings - real art galleries with original oil and water colours...I stayed in one of those for a long time admiring a painting. Only $1000 CAD. The art galleries are nestled among so much junk and crap that it's hard to believe it's serious business. There are also lots of places to buy jewelery of various grades of quality. We got a lesson in jade from a really nice man who sometimes spends his weekends at Stanley but other times teaches gemology here and there. Got his card but could not figure it out. He put my the bracelet I bought in Shenzhen under a UV light and put a piece of A jadeitte next to it. He let me know that I did not overpay for my bangle and it's always nice to hear that. In fact I got a pretty good price. Apparently there are two types of Jade. Jadeitte is a generally more desirable and come from only certain parts of the world. When you shine a light on it and look at it through a special filter, you can see different colours to gauge the grade and type. Jade comes in different colours and even in the "green" family there are so many different types. The rarest colour is this "ice white" and it kind of looks like surface of the Rideau Canal frozen over but maybe with a hint of green. The purple jade is expensive because women like that colour. The dark green jade that we see as BC jade is valuable because it has a very desirable meaning (although after seeing a lot of jade lately I think it might be the other kind of jade from BC). Very interesting. And all this just for the joy of sharing knowledge. He didn't even try to sell me anything.
Barb and I went back into downtown and returned to that noodle place for another shrimp wanton bowl of noodle soup.
All in all another good day and an excellent weekend.
Thanks for visiting.
Leslie

Week 3

2008-08-01T16:49:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I did go to the Big Buddha as I had hoped. We took the MTR out to Lantau Island and then stood in line for an hour waiting for the Ngong Ping cable car. It's a novelty in Hong Kong so there were a lot of locals and families also out for a day by the Buddha. Spectacular views. I tried to capture it on my camera but of course couldn't do it justice. There is a little village that has been created at the top that reeks of tourist trap. But it was clean and with lots of things to see. And I tell you that after snaking the Disneyland-style lineup for the cable car, the Starbucks iced mocha tasted really good. We then went into the Nature centre and talked to a couple of nice kids who worked there. There weren't any English tours so the nice kid, who wanted us to call him "Stone" told us to join his Cantonese tour and he would do his best to translate into English for us. And thus we ended up on a nature tour of flora and fauna around the mountain for about an hour. Saw lots of butterflies the size of birds and plants. Don't ask me to repeat what they were because I have zero talent for that sort of thing. But it was beautiful. In Hong Kong it is so incredibly easy to get away into the countryside. Much much easier than Toronto - oh wait, there is no countryside within an hour of Toronto. I climbed the 188 steps to the Buddha and walked through the exhibit section. They worship a bone relic there and the relic was held inside of a tiny glass urn surrounded in a large altar built for it.
We toured the Temple a bit but decided to come back because there was a sudden change in the weather and it started to rain. In fact, cable car service was suspended for about half an hour. All of the people decided to go home at the same time and we waited another hour for the trip home. But all in all it was a great day.
Tuesday has become a regular social meet-up day in Lan Kwai Fong at Al's Diner for happy hour. I had gone to Causeway Bay beforehand to try and get some cloths because people tell me the shopping is good there. This was the same place I had tried my first weekend here. I definitely went the wrong way the first time because this time, when I had people who knew where to go, I found the outdoor markets and the giant shopping mall. I have decided that a lot of the fashions here are u-g-l-y. Overly drab or overly vibrant colours and cuts that generally are not suited to me. And I am so tall that the "dresses" look like tunics and I can't quite decide what to do about that. But the pants, shorts and shoes are good. I picked up a couple of shorts at the end of seasons sale. Nothing crazy. After happy hour, a few of us went to a noodle shop that was recommended to us by the owner of the restaurant we went to on Monday. For 2 dollars CAD I had a bowl of soup with noodles and the freshest shrimp wantons I've ever had. I'm turning into my father when it comes to food but I suppose there are worse things that could happen.
Wednesday after school a few of us went out to visit a new mall in the suburbs. There is a free shuttle bus from the MTR station and since there were a couple hundred people waiting, we thought the mall must be pretty good. That was until we saw all of these people returning from the mall without shopping bags. I did find a cute pair of shoes suitable for going out so I don't have to wear my Naot with skirts anymore. But all in all not so great.
On Thursday, almost all of us went to a Moroccan restaurant in Soho called Sahara. It is on one of the little side streets and you might find it if you meandered but I know that I probably would have never gone in there. We had a private room on the second floor with cushions and candles. We were celebrating two birthdays and Dan had negotiated a special menu and price for us. Delicious lamb and chicken, and some kind of fish.
Last night I visited the Jade Market. It is a giant permanent set-up with dozens of merchants all selling you the same thing. The tinkle of glass was everywhere. And they all have lighters to try to demonstrate to you that their jade is the real thing. I bought a couple of glass beaded necklaces, and then some silver and pearl necklaces from a woman who makes jewelery. But after that I was pretty much done with that place and went on to Canton Road. That road is full of little shops that sell the authentic stones and metals. The prices reflect it but it was great to just wander and ask what all of those stones are. I had some jewelery made for me and bought a gift here and there. I love shiny things and bright colours so the allure of Canton road might bring me back. If anyone wants freshwater pearls in any colour you can imagine, or any other strong of stones, now is the time to place your orders.
We then wandered on to Temple St. and at dinner in one of those popular places by the night market. On the advice of an American who had lived here for seven years, we ordered a crab dish that was seasoned with something mysterious and delicious. Of course, it takes more calories and brain power to find the meat than you can physically extract from the crab so to make up the deficit we had some garlic scallops and singapore noodles. After that we walked the gauntlet of the night market. We got lured into a back alley where a merchant had all of his fakes and would have bought some gucci wallets if there had not been a bunch of other tourists there with their wallets open. They were easy targets and Barb negotiates like a pro so we came away from that one empty-handed. The same thing happened with a different vendor about 10 minutes later. She had a goal. I decided I had the same goal, and went along for the ride. But I did get a couple of watches for cheap. If you want a watch, let me know.
We ended the night by finding a juice bar on Nathan Road and for $2 CAD I had a little woman prepare me a fresh mix of cucumber and strawberry juice. I highly recommend that. Very, very highly recommend that.
Thanks for visiting. Send me shopping orders. I can't believe I'm going home in a week.
Leslie

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

2008-07-26T18:32:00.000-07:00

Friday night, Sorina and I decided to go see a performance at the University where we are staying. There is some kind of international dance and body movement conference going on and this show was one of the highlights. The production was called "The Pearl Sea" choreographed by Robert Wood from New York. About 150 people showed up for it and he gave a little introduction to the piece and described it as a work in progress. It was two hours long without an intermission and I think it could have been half that length. Why do something once when you can do it ten times? It was an interesting combination of classical ballet (burst of exercise-like sequences) and chinese movement. There were some really memorable parts like a simulation a pole boat with the women standing on the men's backs holding long bamboo staffs, but there were other parts that I found kind of long. But overall very interesting and not bad since it was free-will donation. Afterwards, there was a champagne reception with dumplings, noodles, little sandwiches and other fun things. That was unexpected. We were there so late that we just went home afterwards. It made me miss Xing and Simon and my little dance family. I am trying to find a class here but it's like finding a needle in a haystack.
Yesterday, we did a harbour tour on a Chinese Junk boat for an hour. It was made of wood beams and tar. Very authentic. Lots of fun. The buildings of Hong Kong look even more impressive from the middle of the water. After that we took the subway line out of Diamond Hill, then a bus into one of the surrounding villages, and then a taxi through a park to a secluded beach. It was a long trip but worth it just see a place where there are much fewer people. We had the beach almost to ourselves. The water was so warm. No Ontario lake here. We had rented masks but the water had a lot of sediment so visibility was pretty bad. There are coral reefs nearby but I didn't try to swim to them because we didn't have enough protective equipment and I didn't want to get stung by a sea urchin (poor Dan got fifteen stings and had to sit for half an hour while Mischa got them out of his foot).
We were in such a remote place that none of our cell phones got signals so it actually took us quite a while to get back to the village from the beach. We were standing at the end of the road swatting away mosquitos for half an hour or so. While we were waiting I made a trip to the public toilet and can report that it was "just fine". It was sweet how the girls I was with didn't want me to go alone. Although I admit I almost screamed when I saw the lizard on the wall climb behind the paper towel dispenser.
The little village itself was BEAUTIFUL. No time to explore it because it was so late. I had a soft-serve ice cream at 9pm and that was before dinner! There is a boardwalk of sorts along the harbour with seafood restaurant after restaurant. There are massive tanks with massive fish and shellfish everywhere, and the people there will pull out a giant crab and ask you if it is okay. The restaurants there pull the fish from the ocean that day and prepare it fresh. It really was the best seafood I have ever had. My favorite was scallops served in the halfshell covered in garlic and glass noodles. And I'll also add that after the long day and the long wait and traveling, the beer tasted really, really good.
It took us a little over an hour to get back to our hotel and I slept really well last night. Today I hope to go to the Peak or to the Big Buddha. Depends on who I can rally to come with me. Now I don't want to come home.
Love Leslie

One Two Three - Five Six Seven

2008-07-24T06:32:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that the program is almost half over. Tomorrow I say goodbye to my first group of students and welcome the second group next Monday. It's different spending all day with the same group. I will miss them I think.
Yesterday the other science teacher and I took our classes on a field trip to the Hong Kong Wetlands park. www.wetlandpark.com. It was so incredibly hot and the only fauna to see were dragonflies and damselflies. But the facility is beautiful. It was much more sculpted than I (Ontario girl) was expecting. A very nice sculpted marsh with a very well laid out boardwalk. I saw the famous Pui Pui crocodile. He poked his eyes above the water for us.
Last night I went out for dinner in the Soho area with one of the other teachers. This neighbourhood twists and turns with street leading off of street and each seems more hidden than the last. It's pretty obvious that this is one of the primary tourist destinations for food and it has really earned its reputation. There are people-movers (like the ones you see at airports) and escalators outdoors so you don't have to walk all the way up a long, steep hill. We had a really nice meal at a Thai restaurant called Pukhet. We then had a lychee cocktail before finding the salsa bar that was her ultimate destination. I haven't danced salsa in over a year and it took a few turns on the dance floor before everything started to come back. The place was tiny. Apparently the salsa community rotates locations going to a different place every night. There were only a handful of people who actually knew how to dance. And there were a lot of people there for whom dancing salsa was not so much a priority :) A little Bachatta, a little Meringue, a little Salsa... I'm satisfied. If we do this again I might have to buy a pair of shoes.
Tonight I went down to the harbour and walked around a bit. Sorry about the sound quality - I took this with my digital camera's video function.

Then I walked around the Tsim Sha Tsui area for while just taking it in. Stopping where I wanted to without worrying about a group getting away from me or anything like that. I found some fast Indian food that was hiding in an indoor market that I would very much like to try.
I managed to find my way back using the bus system. In addition to the little Toon Town city buses there are massive double decker buses that serve as the primary above-ground transit.
Everything is air conditioned. I even managed to figure out when to get off without getting lost. That was a first for me.
Thanks for visiting.
Leslie

These bad boys are catalogue only

2008-07-20T16:05:00.000-07:00

After Saturday's big day into La-La Land, yesterday was relatively quiet. I stayed in my room all morning working on lesson plans in order to make this week less stressful. It seems to have worked so far even though I am only 7 hours into this work week.
Anyway, in the afternoon I met up with a few of the others and we went for a foot massage/back massage. I have had a few down-to-business massages in my day and this one was by far the most painful experience of my entire life. It was like she found every single knot in my calves and shoulders and tried to rip them out with her fingers. Kind of stiff this morning and I'm sure it will get worse before it gets better.
We then took the subway out to Tung Chung because one guy has a cousin who lives in one of the condos out there. It is at the end of one of the subway lines and then there is a private shuttle to take us to the complex. I felt like I was in Florida. Beautiful palm trees, courtyards, a restaurant and a pool the size Luxembourg. But all this paled in beauty to the actual mountains. There are dozens of giant high rises (60 stories +) all in one little place nestled between the little mountains up there. Our friend's condo is on the 53rd floor and it was all quite breathtaking. We spent the evening in the swimming pool and it was relatively quiet and a great getaway after the bustle of Hong Kong. A large proportion of foreigners seem to live out there. It is the urban sprawl of Hong Kong.
Afterwards we went to the shopping mall there at the edge of the world and it is full of outlets. I bought a pair of Puma shoes and a sports bag for when my duffel bag breaks. All in all a great Sunday. Unfortunately my camera had no battery life so no pictures this time around.
All the best,
Leslie

Krusty wants off

2008-07-19T04:32:00.000-07:00

I love everybody (especially my brother) who will appreciate the title of this entry.
Oh fine you're right I love everybody.
But especially Jeremy
It's Saturday night here. It's hard to believe how the time has just flown by. It's scary to think that my time is here one-quarter over. Kind of sad. But it makes me realize that I'll be on a plane home before I know it.
Thursday night we took the little city bus to Kowloon City. The little city bus is an experience in itself. Remember the movie "Herbie"? Yeah. It's like that. Only on a little bus that is straight out of Toon town, that flies around corners and has a digital display of the velocity in kph so that the passengers can calculate the force of impact using F=ma, and you have to yell out to the driver when your stop is coming and he waves to let you know he heard you. Tough to do when everything looks the same and the streets twist and turn. Also, the return route is never the same as the original route. I don't know why they have to do it this way.
So we arrive and follow the signs to the Walled City Park. The city of Kowloon used to be walled and somehow outside of the British mandate back in the day. It got torn down and turned into a very impressive Feng Shui park. I could have stayed there all night (and I would have if it hadn't gotten dark). To anyone who's seen Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's Chinese garden in Vancouver, it's like that only much larger. I tried to pay special attention to how every window, and every tiling pattern is different. We looked at the little collection of Bonsai trees and peered into the little ponds. Very pretty place and truthfully a welcome break from a very tiring week of school.
We then wandered the streets looking for options for dinner and found a restaurant in the basement level of the shopping mall. I know it doesn't sound very exciting or romantic but it was the best Cantonese food, presentation, and service I've had here. Although I am getting a bit tired of rice. After dinner I followed Barb around as she tried to find masks for all of the students for their excursion to the cookie factory (no I'm not kidding - my brewery field trip is still better). This really cute girl in the grocery store actually ditched her boyfriend with a cart full of groceries led us back into the streets and then on a 10 minute walk to the drug store. He showed up a little while later. She was so excited to use her English. It was really really nice of her. He appeared to be very tolerant of the whole thing.
Friday night, a few of us had a nice Thai/vietnamese meal in the TST area (Tsim Shai Tsui) which is like Yonge street back home. Then one of the other teachers and I walked around peeking into all of the little shops. It's like those little trading companies in Toronto only with way, way more stuff.
Saturday wasa big day. After my first week at work, spontaneously waking up at 5:30 because of jet lag, being woken up at 4:30 by a wake up call that was supposed to come at 6:30, and staying out in the evenings, I can't believe I woke up early enough to be in the lobby by 6:30. Our tour guide picked us up and we drove in a bus to the ferry which took us over to China. We had stickers with the tour company name and each of has a number. We had to line up in order to go through Chinese immigration. I find it strange that there were over 10 people working there but only one agent on duty. They scrutinized our passports and finally let us all through after about half an hour. One of our students got pulled into a room and had to empty her purse. Pretty funny actually, some of them were actually kind of secretly laughing as they watched our reactions. They put her passport under some kind of machine and then one of them brought it to within one inch of his face. So much for Chinese Efficiency.
Shenzhen used to be a fishing village and now it is a city with a population of 14 million. I don't even know what to say about it. Because the urban infrastructure is new there are modern highways and avenues. They are lined with trees and so on. The people live in very, very tall buildings. On the way home I marveled how it is possible to have so many people and no urban sprawl. Just skyscrapers.
First our guide took us to an amusement park called "Window to the World" Apparently it's 18 hectares of reproductions of famous sites from around the world. We didn't go in, we only stopped to take photos that the photographers could try to sell us later on. I don't know what to make of that. There is a little tiny blue monorail that circles the park. Hence the title. I could not wait to get back on the bus.
Next up was a visit to the small collection of terra cotta warriors. The bulk of them are in the north however there were five on display there. They were in different poses with different clothes representing different ranks and positions. We also got an introduction to all of the different types of jade and sample some light, delicate tea that I will try to find and bring home. I had no idea there were so many different colours of jade. There is the green and it ranges in intensity, but there is also red, yellow, pink, and purple. I asked one of the girls in the gift shop how you can tell high quality jade from low quality or fake jade and she explained that it feels cool to the touch, is very smooth and hard, and has a high clarity when put up to the light. They had some beautiful pieces for sale that would cost a fortune in the art shop in Hong Kong and only cost a small fortune there. I knew we had a long day and didn't want to carry around a large rock for the rest of the day. I may regret that, we'll see. However, I did buy a bangle and a dragon pendant. That was a nice spot. We were the only people in the whole museum and everybody was very nice. Sharp contrast to my general experience here (although people are nice here) and a huge contrast to where we went next.
We visited a silk factory and I found out that it takes 33 square meters of mulberry to provide enough food for enough silk worms to produce one silk shirt. And that is probably a small shirt for a small person. Makes you think doesn't it? There were stunning quilts with silk covers and stuffing that were very reasonable considering what bedding costs back at home. I had never even heard of a silk quilt. If I hadn't just bought a feather one, I would have been tempted. Beautiful things. However, not exactly a tourist attraction which made us wonder what kind of scheme our tour company has going here - either that or they think there really is nothing to see in Shenzhen. They don't even know how beautiful the country side is for tourists.
The final stop was a shopping mall. All rules are off here. There are no prices, all the stores are broom closets and sell the same thing, they run after you and grab your arm and yell prices at you as you flee down the hall. Because the Olympics are coming the police are cracking down on fake purses and jewelery so you need to look through a list, tell them what you want, they make a phone call with one eye on the door for police and one eye on you to make sure you don't walk away. Ten minutes later some runner shows up with a garbage bag full of purses and then the haggling begins. Some of the girls have done this before so I watched them, fascinated, and tried to stay out of the way. I then followed one of the other teachers around as I figured things out. She would say how much, and once they told her she would laugh in their face and walk away. They would run after her and cut the price in half. She would then say something like "I have to go" or "You're crazy" or "I only have so much money". She would yell it at them with an angry face but a twinkle in her eye! After watching the first transaction. I informed her and the other teacher I was with that this was a personal circle of hell for me. I might have said "I'm in hell" ten or twenty times. I don't remember. I watched them buyfour 32 gigabyte fake ipods for 20 CAD each. Good deal but the whole process took an hour. You have to love the hunt and love to argue or else you will never survive. The shops crammed together and it's like walking a gauntlet. They grab you and say "missy missy" want sunglasses/belt/pretty cloths/Tiffany jewelery etc..After I got the rhythm of things I went off on my own to buy some junky cloths to wear here. I would not buy anything serious there. You pay for drek...
The amazing thing is how fiercely they argue and how aggressive they are and you have to be. You literally have to walk away and they will chase you. TWICE. After the price is decided however, they settle and become normal, smiling people and want to know all about you. I kept getting asked if I was from Australia. They love to chat and practice English. Then they give you their card and tell you to come back! It's one big annoying game. You can't do any serious shopping there because the whole ritual takes FOREVER!
For the last half hour, I escaped into one of the foot massage/pedicure parlours for 30 minutes. It was hilarious. The size of my bedroom with 10 women in comfortable chairs being tended by 10 people sitting on tiny stools hunched over their feet. When the guy saw my feet, he insisted on scraping away all the callouses and I tell you I was powerless to stop him. Then another girl went behind my chair for a shoulder massage, and when they realized I was running out of time, a third one started on my other foot. All this was going on while a nice woman from Hong Kong was getting to know me and the ladies in the parlour were smiling at me. I must have been quite the spectacle. It was a ridiculous experience. But my feet look much better now, and it really was much better than running around in that crazy place. Thank you Adam/Bernard for suggesting that.
We took a light rail train back into Hong Kong and were all wired/exhausted from that day. I was a little stunned and shocked from the experience and could not make any decisions until I self-medicated with a toblerone bar. Even then a few of us couldn't figure out to do so we ended up at Macdonalds for dinner.
This was a long one. I'll try to post more often. Thanks again for visiting.
Leslie

Kicking it ex-pat style

2008-07-14T15:34:00.000-07:00

Apparently, Hong Kong's population is 10% Canadian. I guess that's because of the Hong Kong Chinese with connections in Vancouver.

It's now Wednesdayafternoon and I've been here for a little over 3 days. It's hard to believe it's only been that long because these have been long, long days. On Sunday, I spent a quiet morning organizing my room and that sort of thing. Sunday afternoon I met up with the son of one of my mother's friends. His phone died in the middle of our conversation so I had to follow my principal around the giant shopping mall all morning because I left Adam her number on his voice mail. He told me that he, his business associate and some friends were heading to the south side of the island to so some beer-pushing shmoozing at the local tiki bar there (he imports beer from Laos into Hong Kong). I said "I'm sorry there is no south to Hong Kong island because my maps end after the downtown section". It was an adventure.

The landscape is beautiful. Much more like what I've seen in pictures of the South pacific than any part of the west coast of Canada. The water was warm but filthy so sadly I didn't go in despite having carried my bathing suit and towel and other stuff all around the Mong Kok shopping mall waiting for him to call Bev's phone. By the way, the shopping malls here just go up and up and up. They remind me of the Victorian houses in Toronto. Very small plot of land but with many tiny tiny shops piled one on top of the other (and I mean 40 stories high). And they all have ridiculous names like "Me love Princess" jewelery, or "Ju-C Sushi".

As it turned out, the dj they were in contact with wasn't there that day because the weather was poor. So we went back to Central station and split up temporarily to get ready for a typical shmooze party. I tried to find an outfit to wear to this because I was dressed like a bum. I am not good at shopping under pressure especially since I don't understand the currency. And furthermore, the styles here are not designed for my body type. Chinese girls have this way of making a potato sack with a sash look elegant and winsome but I just looked like a washed-out white girl in a potato sack. So I went dressed as a bum but lucky for me the bars in Hong Kong love girls no matter what you look like.

I love parties and I chatted happily with a couple of Chinese guys who were their contacts. Turns out one of them went to public school in Brockville and was delighted to learn that I was from Ottawa and Adam, having grown up in a small town too, actually guessed the name of his high school. The party was in a swanky place in the bar district near Central station. It is a pedestrian-only series of winding streets with lights and signs everywhere. People get their drinks and stand in the middle of the street. This party was for a restaurant owner named Massimo and every now and again a group of drunk girls and boys would yell out "Eh! Massimo" and toss back their drinks. I had some very nice Pinot Grigio and pizza. There was a DJ that played re-mixed 80s songs and they had a violinist who was plugged in to the stereo system and he just improvised on top of the music mix while he wandered around the room. He wore those giant black-rimmed glasses with slicked-back hair. It was awesome.

The ex-pat lifestyle is a bit more than I can handle and I am looking forward to some Ontario peace and quiet.

The school is a concrete block with courtyards that are open to the sky and walkways that have no exterior walls. Everything is rusty and ancient except for the computer rooms which would make Morris back at Earl Haig cry. It's a good thing I remember what all of the tabs in Microsoft word are because I tell you the commands in Chinese are totally un-guessable. I have class of 21 students. I don't know what I was expecting but they are spirited, cheeky, happy little guys and girls who love to chat and play fight and so on. It reminds me of teaching ESL grade 9 back at home only without the emotional problems that come with being yanked or thrown halfway around the world.

Last night a big group of us went for dinner in the Central station area and I had some fantastic Thai food on a tiny cobblestone twisty street. We walked through a crummy little alley past all of the junk to get back to the subway entrance. All this right around the corner from the giant Coach store.

That's all for now.
Leslie

No plane should be able to stay in the air for that long....

2008-07-12T01:17:00.000-07:00

Back by popular demand, it's this travel blog! I hope those reading this can appreciate the lengths I went to to remember my ancient username and then create a google account just so I could post here.

I woke up at 5:30 on Thursday to finish cleaning the place and left Nimue under the bed and hiding. I'm sure by now she has figured out that I'm not around. Whose ankles will you attack now? Huh?

I took a taxi and was at the gate two and a half hours before boarding. How was I supposed to know that the traffic would be light, customs would have no line and security would be a breeze. They made me take my shoes off and all I could think of was "D'oh. I have holes in my socks."

The flight to New Jersey was in a tiny plane with almost no overhead storage or leg room, and tiny yet very cushy leather seats. It felt like one of those old boat cars from the 70s only in airplane form. It roared and swayed and hiccuped as it made its approach into New Jersey.

We then had a couple of hours before boarding our flight to Hong Kong. We had to take a shuttle bus to terminal C and then find gate number C123. As we walked along the little concourse, I had to stop in the Body Shop and was happy to take advantage of the sale on body butters. I had actually been sad that I would be going to Hong Kong without taking advantage of that sale so I was very pleased with myself. We wandered through duty free and I decided that the new Burberry scent is a good one. We had to check in with the desk at our gate because the Boeing 777 was oversold. It was one of those giant double aisles things. I had been dreading it because the thought of flying over the Pacific on Continental Airlines really didn't appeal to me at all.

In the end we were on that plane for over 18 hours. The lights were off most of the time. It was one of those new planes with individual televisions on the seat in front of you with a choice of over 350 movies and various tv shows and games. After watching 27 dresses, princess bride, step up 2 - the streets (and yes, it sucked), and pirates of the caribbean, and then playing solitaire over and over again until I won, and trying to play galaxy quest, I just could not stand to look at anything anymore. I do not want to talk about the food. Just let me say that a hot cheeseburger in a vacuum-sealed bag thrown onto your tray mid-flight is a crazy, crazy idea and who ever came up with it should have to eat one.

We passed over the polar ice caps and since it's midnight sun season, a lot of us had a look out of the back window. Sheets of broken ice as far as they eye could see. And so bright that my entire vision was in a purple haze for a minute or so afterwards.

We took a shuttle from the airport to our residence and for some reason the shuttle did not have a storage compartment under the bus so we had to lift all of the luggage onto the bus with us. It was hilarious. My first views of Hong Kong were lit up bridges and skyscrapers with lights. I didn't really see the mountains until this morning.

We are staying at the Baptist University in a ghetto area in the New Territory. The university is all concrete brick that smacks of iron curtain slovakia. The skyline of the city is very promising and I hope to do some exploring of that tomorrow. When I walked into the room they assigned me, it was like being hit in the face with a blast of mildew shot out of a blow hole of a whale. I kid you not. Even after turning on the air conditioner, the room was really really bad so I actually complained, and asked for another room, and, after being told that there were no rooms, to they didn't know, to they had to check, to come back to an hour, to "oh yes here you go", I moved into my current room at midnight. At this point I had been up for 32 hours. Anyway, the new room is fine and I write to you looking out some of the city. Check the video.

So far I've learned that people drives like maniacs and it's hard to orient yourself because there are beautiful steep mountains and water all around. It's rainy season and there are fingers of clouds that have been hovering over the mountains all day. It's very beautiful.

We visited our school today and all of the hallways are outside and everything is open concept. Very hard to describe. A very different place. I hope to arrange a field trip to the Wet Lands for my class and the other science class. They look breathtaking.

That's all for now. Thanks for visiting.
Leslie

Last few hours in Amsterdam

2005-08-22T08:31:00.000-07:00

This morning was a lazy morning and I spent most of it reading. After eating some lunch I biked to Rachels school. It was a beautiful 40 minute ride that follows a canal and passes a goat farm and ends in a sweet little village called Amstelveen. The houses there are huge and with massive windows but somehow typically dutch. The entire route had a lane for a bicyle. Even though I don't start work for two weeks I still got that FEELING walking through the place. It is more or less circular with two stories. All of he rooms and common areas are geometric shapes and there are almost no right angles anywhere. I peeked into the chemistry rooms and saw that there are only about sixteen students in those senior classes (IB curriculum). Everything is neat and tidy. I've also traded emails with the chemistry teacher and it will be neat to compare notes. Who knows. I also spent te better part of an hour helping Rachel re-decorate the bulletin boards in the grade 4 common area. I don't even like doing the bulletin boards that I use at school because it takes so long and I'd usually rather be doing some other work but I didn't mind doing it for her. Must fix us classrooms at Haig...

We then bikes home and I'm waiting for pizza for dinner before I go to the airport.

Oh, did I mention that yesterday Dana and I found a book fair and what did I buy? A Jet Li movie and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. People who know me will probably not be so surprised. The entire description is in Dutch and I don't think the movie is Dutch but we will see...

Jewish Quarter and crowds

2005-08-21T10:17:00.000-07:00

Last night Rachel and her friend Jennifer and I went to a party on Princesgraacht that was hosted by one of their colleagues. Jennifer taught in Tokyo for three years, then in Norway for four years and now she is in Amsterdam. We took the tram to her place. She owns this great place on the top floor of one of those Amsterdam houses. She lent me one of her extra bicyles and we bikes to the party together. It was crazy trying to navigate through amazing crowds on one of those clunky dutch bikes. Anyway, eventually we had to stop and lock up the bikes because there were too many people to get by. Last night there was this live musical performance on the canal and the canals was choked with boats and the streets were full of crowds watching the free show. We stayed at the party overlooking the music until 2am. Rachel and I then had to bike home and it was not until 3am that I got to sleep. But the experience of biking so late at night was really memorable. It's just what you have to do.

Luckily, I got up in time to meet Dana at the train station. We walked along the IJ for a while looking at some of the tall ships because this weekend is the tall ship festival (Sail 05) in Amsterdam. There were some great pirate ships and navy ships to look at. We then meandered our way down to the Jewish Quarter and had really good felafel at this kosher restaurant. We then went near but not into the Portuguese Synagogue. In retrospect I'm sorry that I didn't pay for us to go in because Dana read something that said that this is one of the most interesting and historical synagogues in the world. It is surrounded by a low brick wall and you would never know it was there. We even stood dubiously by the door until somebody saw us and buzzed us inside.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around and battling crowds in the downtown. We walked through the red light district again and I almost bought a parasol for 2.5 euro in a Chinese import store. I don't think it would travel well. I left Dana at the train station and returned to Rachel's.

The opium den

2005-08-20T06:16:00.000-07:00

I am now safely back in Rachel's house in Amsterdam after being dropped in crazyland for a great 24 hours. After the internet cafe yesterday, Dana and I returned to the boat and I was left to myself for a few hours until the show started while they warmed up and got ready etc. The show is called "Vanishing Currents" but since the audience kept leaving before the show ended the cast has kept the name a review gave them calling the show the "trick of the vanishing audience".

When we got back, chairs were being dropped over the brick wall onto the beach and the crew were setting them up. Apparently they were expecting about 300 people because the entire evenings block of tickets was purchased by the contractor of the apartment building across the river and all of the tenants were invited for free and given free drinks! So I was reading and reserving seats for Rachel Pieter and Dana (she starts in the audience) and people started to come an hour and a half early! The were happy and friendly with each other and chatting happily and enjoying the beer. I couldn't help feeling weird for them because I didn't know if these same happy people who were here to enjoy free theatre would soon leave in confusion before the show ended! Anyway, Rachel and Pieter got there and found the boat with no problem (much to my amazement because the ship is on the Utrecht "beach" and it is off my map and looks like a bit of sand poured onto the edge of a dock area...with a little tiki bar...and you definitely wouldn't want to swim. Oh, and the beach washrooms were what all 20 of the crew were using because the toilet on the ship was full and had to be pumped out...sound familiar? anybody? anybody? mom?
Okay so the show started at 9pm. The refugees (actors) were seated in the audience and when their number was called they were hauled onto the set by another actress. The basic premise is that a United States sound-a-like has declared all of the people that we consider refugees to be terrorists and so they put them on this ship and were taking them...somewhere...The had a tower off of the ship with large TV screens set up where they had a mock CNN. The CNN was pretty funny actually. TERROR SHIP-exactly the kind of sensationalism that media does so well. The refugees were put into a container inside the boat. You could see into it because the walls were mesh. Good for the audience but unfortunatley not so good for pictures. There was this narrator charactor hanging from a circus hoop high up in the rigging and singing all kinds of neat poetry "-all aboard for the river Stix" and so on. Kind of like he narrator for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Each refugee had a story to tell through a combination of very nice monologues and chanting songs. One only danced and one only played instruments. Eventually, the refugees convinced the new first mate that they weren't terrorists but only trying to live their lives and that his country was the evil one...then there was a mutiny and they trapped the ships captain and crew (other than the first mate) inside the ship and took it over -that was when CNN called it a Terror Ship with possible weapons of mass destruction.

Then the plot sort of... went out the portal. Apparently they were approaching some dock and planning on putting on "some kind of performance"...?...so there was a huge build-up to this performance. When the performance started, it started with two "silks" performers. You know those acrobats who tumble down a big hanging piece of silk...well they did that. Only it was dark and they used black lights on their costumes. That was my first wtf moment. Then, there were 3 actors dressed in black light reflecting skeletons costumes doing some martial arts display with a staff. Then 2 dances were attached to rappelling cords and bouncing and spinning off the wall. More wtf. Then they all twirled fire on batons or ropes (supposed to represent them chasing away the army by making them think the ship was on fire? I don't know. Then they all celebrated that they had gotten away...and one of the actors came into the audience on STILTS trying to sell weapons...not real ones of course...and then someone asked him if he had any toys in his bag...and he took out something and started whirling it around. and then the cast started singing their final song about how art is the weapon of mass jubilation. No I'm not kidding. The end. Amazingly most of the audience stayed.

After that we showed Rachel and Pieter the boat and they drove home. Dana and two of the other actors and I went to a local coffee shop. Definitely Maroccan or Turkish. There were only men in there playing Bacci and smoking. We stayed there for about an hour and then returned to the boat. Dana kindly offered me her bed and was going to sleep into the salon. She sleeps on the bottom of three bunks in a room smaller than my bathroom. as I was lying down I wondered when the last time she had washed these sheets was...and then I wondered if my hepatitis B immunization was up to date (Sorry Dana). Fell asleep only to be woken up again when Dana's roommates came back from the disco and then again when Dana gave up on sleeping in the salon. I call the salon the opium den because it is richly decorated with rugs and cushions.

Yesterday morining we got up and took the train back to Amsterdam and met Dana's friend Laura at the train station. We went out for pancakes. They are like crepes only unfolded and topped with much more stuff. Too much food for one person really but live and learn. I had one with peaches and vanilla ice cream, cherry liqueur and whipped cream.

We then went to the Anne Frank Museum and waited for 30 minutes and got in just as it started to rain. There is no furniture in the rooms at the request of Otto Frank but you can still see the pin-ups of movie stars and other pictures on the walls of Anne's room. That is pretty surreal. Original old photos of Ginger Rogers and children picking flowers. Most of the staircase is not accessible to the public but we were able to climb through the book case door and up the stairs into the annex. There was some looping footage of Miep (one of the helpers) describe the day that Otto Frank asked her to help hide his family, and a woman who was in Bergen Belsen with Anne but she was in a section that was for non-Jewish prisoners and she describes throwing food over the wall to Anne...I had never heard that story before. The museum is small and really only served to tell that one story. If you want a museum about the Holocaust, go to Yad Vashem.

In sharp juxtaposition to this, we then walked through the red light district. Now when I said a city is a city...that no longer applies. There are people-sized windows and the women are right on the other side of the glass in their lingerie beckoning to the men walking through the narrow cobblestoned streets. And it didn't feel sleazy despite the nature of the area. We then accidentally found Chinatown which is really just the typical Amsterdam buildings with Chinese signs. Kind of cool. I feel like that part of the city had a lot of character then you can'tget elsewhere so I hope to get a chance to explore that a bit more tomorrow when I meet Dana again.

Today we got up late and helped packed their place up a bit. I then explored the closest dike and river system. There are two kinds of ducks and even herons that live here. Pretty interesting. Anyway, I don't want to be rude any longer because Rachel's friend Jennifer is here and tonight we are going to a party. So I'm going to go and help pack.

In Utrecht

2005-08-18T07:27:00.000-07:00

This morning I got up really early and made my way to the Central train station in Amsterdam. It took about 45 minutes on the tram! Rachel told me that the people in the trams stamping tickets sometimes misunderstand her because the word for 2 sounds like the word for 3 and sure enough, the man stamped three zones on my stripenkaart instead of 2.

I arrived in Utrecht via a not-so-interesting route. Utrecht is surrounded by industrial areas so unfortunately there wasn't anything very interesting to look at out the window. Dana met me at the station and together we walked to the boat. The boat is outside of the main touristy section of town and I would have never found it without her. It is a tall ship but the sail was bound and the set covered most of the deck so it isn't much to look at most of the time. Inside the galley, it's actually really nice. Beautifully finished wood everywhere and lush cushions...all covered in the remnants of last night's "wine and cheese" party. It was pretty funny. People were waking up just as I was getting there so everybody I met was in the same state of tired and out of it. :)

Today we explored Utrecht. We ate a picnic lunch in a nice shady square near the Domkerk-the oldest church in Europe! Unfortuntely a large portion of the church collapsed when a tornado hit the area in the 1600s but the tower is still standing and is so gothic it's great. It's nice to see a true gothic church after seeing so many Baroque churches in central europe. We paid 7 euros and took a guided tour up the tower. The tower is over 450 steps high or so and it was pretty cool. Very narrow winding staircase that got more and more narrow the closer we got to the top. From the top we could see for miles in every direction and the sky was clear but a little hazy. Very cool. Utrecht central itself is a very typical small european town with a central square and church and with lots of winding little cobblestoned streets. Bicycles fly by and it's hard to stay out of their way because the pedestrian walkway areas are often covered with parked bikes or with patio tables. But so far everyone has been very polite and I'm having a good time. The pace is much slower and more likeable than the grimy big city.

We then walked around town for a bit and had a beer with lemon at canal level and rested our legs for about an hour. We then explored some of the cloisters that are surrounding the church area. They are all lovely with pretty little gardens. Now we are walking back to the boat and have stopped at this Maroccan (I guess?) internet cafe/coffe shop...? I'll see the show tonight.

Zandvoort and beyond

2005-08-17T13:05:00.000-07:00

We started nice and late to day and met a Gijs, a friend of Pieter's for coffee. The coffee shop was nothing special but the area of Amsterdam was just west of the downtown so it still had a lot of Amsterdam character (tall buildings) but none of the crowds.
Rachel Pieter and I then took a train first to Haarlem and then on to Zandvoort. Zandvoort is on the coast and is actually a huge beach resort town. I understand that real estate is worth a fortune there. The beach is all pristine sand and it stretches on as far as the eye can see in either direction. The weather today was just beautiful and I think that it is probably the nicest weather the Netherlands has seen this summer. It was totally packed with people despite it being Wednesday. And I mean lots of and lots of people. There were lawn chairs and wind shelters set up and they occured in waves of differenct colours as different companies sponsored different sections of the beach. So there would be a sea of pink (Ola ice cream) and then blue...and so on. People were just lying out and baking in the sun! There were resaurants and bars where you could get a snack and a few kid rides like the beach in Huntstanton in England only this was much, much more on a grand scale. We sat and read on the beach for a while and then sat and had a beer at one of the restaurants called No Name Bar (I'm not kidding).

We then walked to the edge of town and walked on these sand dunes for a while. The ground is sand and there is a fine layer of grass and shrub that grow. It is kind of rolling landscape and protected because it is fragile. That was very very relaxing. We saw some wild bulls and some birds of prey flying around. People of the town also have these little plots of land where they have a little shed and a garden because they don't have gardens in town. These little gardens are protected by barbed wire fences. Apparently this is very common in Holland!

We ate dinner at a place in town and I tried not to think about what 20 euros means :). We then took the train, then the metro and then the street car back into town. The train from Haarlem to Amsterdam was so packed with people that it felt like Toronto in rush hour! Apparently this is not the norm but one of the cars had a problem with it's wiring or something like that. Anyway, a very squished and hot fifteen minutes.

Shopping in Amsterdam

2005-08-16T09:16:00.000-07:00

Today Rachel and bicycled into Amsterdam and walked around doing some shopping. It was really reat to bike into town. I borrowed Rachel's bike and she rode Pieter's. Rachel is quite a bit taller than me so we discovered that we needed to lower the seat a bit to prevent me from falling on my face. Her bike has backpedal breaks! I haven't been on a bike like that since I was 6 or 7. Only one gear on this bike and this big touring handle bars. There are all kinds of rules about cycling here. There are separate lanes everywhere and each bike lane has its own set of lights at intersections. The light is a little bicyle shape that is either red or green. So it was a pleasant little 30 minute tour into town. We got into Amsterdam by going through this park near the south-west edge of the downtown core called Vondelpark. This park is just mostly grassy with trees and big broad paved paths as well as more narrow dirt paths weaving through it. It was a nice way to come into the city.

We parked our bikes at the edge of the park and walked into town. Right away, I saw the combination of canals and tall buildings that you always see in photographs and paintings of Amsterdam and are always hearing about. We spent hours wandering around the western section of the downtown core and did a lot of window shopping (of course this is one of my favorite ways to spend my time and just get a feel for the place). I looked into a shop selling Delftware and saw lots of tulips; both the fresh kind and the brightly painted wooden kind were everywhere. I think I'll buy a bunch of wooden ones as a souvenir. There are large streets as well as more narrow little winding streets all wit interesting sights and shops. We ate lunch at this great pizza place right next to the Palace. Not only was it great pizza, but I think the owners were sephardic jews because there was some judaica on display in a case behind the bar!!! Kind of surprising and pretty cool and it just added to the experience. The city and shopping areas were chocked with people and by 4:30 we were tired and headed back home. Ending the day with a relaxing bike ride back to Rachel's place was a great way to finish off my first day in Holland.

Rachel lives above a series of practical stores including a post office and a grocery store and so we bought some food for dinner and then I bought one of those transit cards called a strippenkaart. Tomorrow Rachel and I will take the train to Zandvoort. Zandvoort is in Noord-Holland and is a short train ride from Amsterdam. I'm looking forward to exploring the beach and walking a bit along the dunes. Someday I'll have to come back and have a proper tour of the actual countryside.

Arrived in Amsterdam

2005-08-16T02:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a very long day of annoying travel from Cambridge to Amsterdam. I had to take the city bus into Cambridge and then sit on a National Express bus for two hours to get to Heathrow, take the train to terminal 4, and then check in. In Heathrow's defence, they are busy constructing terminal 5 and the bus station is also being renovated so this explains some of the chaos that I encountered when I first got here. I got to the airport so early that I was walking around for hours before I even found out where my gate was.

Rachel and Pieter are doing very very well. They have this great big place in a suburb of Amsterdam called Osdorp. Today we are going into town for a little shopping and sight-seeing. So I'll sign off now and write more later.

Cambrdige without kiddies

2005-08-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

This morning Mark and Lindsay were up at 4am to get ready for a 5am departure for the airport and then Toronto. I got up with them to see them off but very quickly went back to bed.

I got into Cambridge and signed up for the 1:30pm walking tour of Cambridge. The tour was a good way to see Cambridge and get some important background information in a hurry. Really, it was pretty much a tour of the main sights of the colleges. It included a peek into the Cambridge Cavendish laboratory courtyard where all of these important discoveries have been made in science (such as the discovery of the electron and the Watson-Crick model of DNA). A memorably bit was the pub where Watson and Crick did most of their discussing and thinking. At Cambridge University you can't walk on the grass unless you are a senior fellow. Everyone has to stick to the paths. Pretty funny. The tour also included the interior of the King's College Chapel. This chapel is more beautiful and ornate than the one at Westminister Abbey. It was started by Henry VI and was not finished until the time of Henry VIII. You can see homages made to his various wives that help to date when a particular piece of wood or glass was commissioned.

After the tour I walked around by myself for a while and took some pictures and then went to the Eagle Pub (the Watson and Crick pub) and drank a couple of Guinesses and ate a sticky toffee pudding. That was pretty much all I wanted to accomplish today. The only thing to regret is that when I got home I dropped and broke one of the souvenir mugs that I bought. I bought two of the same ones intending one to be a gift so it isn't a catastrophe but still never fun.

Cambridge with kiddies

2005-08-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Lindsay, the kids and I went into Cambridge for a little sight-seeing. We rode bicycles and I was surprised to find out that taking a bike is almost as fast as taking the bus. There is also a parking lot of bicycles where you can lock them up for free. We then walked for a while and they they took me through all of these cute little alleys and backways. Apprently, most of the bridges the go over the Cam river are owned by the colleges and you can't use them unless you pay to get into the college. But of course my wonderful tour guides took me over one of the only public bridges.

We then found a nice pub and sat outside right on the river and I was re-acquainted with the wonders of English cooking. Fa-bu-lous (ick...everthing picked and fried and flavoured with boring). But you couldn't beat the atmosphere. We then went punting, as this is the thing to do. Our tour guide's name was Frank and Frank deftly steered us around all of the amateurs screaming in all kinds of different languages as they tried to steer the lumbering rafts along the water. He also told us about the colleges as we sailed by. There are a variety of interesting bridges to go under including one designed by Newton called the mathematical bridge. Legend has it that initially it needed no bolts or supports of any kind but it was somehow destroyed. Another bridge has a section of a concrete ball chopped out of it. Frank had stories explaining these phenomena but I think that part of the job of being a punter is to come up with imaginative lies to tell the tourists. Whatever. It was a lie. But an entertaining lie. And in the end, isn't that the real truth? The answer is no.

Anyhoo, I returned to Cambridge this afternoon after a bried trip to the teeny tiny Histon Public Library. I spend a couple of hours in the Cambridge University Botanical Gardens. They were a nice way to spend a couple of hours. There is a greenhouse complex with interesting fragile plants from around the world. There is a miniature bamboo forest...not exactly Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon but still interesting for someone who has only see little bamboos chopped up into 8 inch sticks and put into water with rocks. I think that the best time to visit the Rose Garden is probably not in late August. There are may clusters of flora to look through and all in all very relaxing.

I then walked back into downtown and managed to find the tourist information booth. By the time I found it I decided that I was staying in Cambridge for the weekend. Friends in York were just not getting back to me and there are still many, many things that I want to do here. I want to go into the Colleges for one thing so I picked up some information on a two hour walking tour. I'll take that tomorrow morning after Mark and Lindsay leave at the crack of dawn for the airport. Poor them. They are actually leaving at 5am.

Well, I think I had better go see what else I can do to help them get ready.

English coutryside

2005-08-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

I flew into London yesterday...or was it the day before? I flew British Airways and was looking forward to a good flight. All in all I don't really like flying long distances and was curious to see if British Airways was really any better than Air Canada. The verdict: not really.

I took a cab to the airport because I was carrying a gigantic bag of presents for my hosts. When I got the airport 2 hours early, I found the British Airways check-in line so long that it wove all the way through its waiting queue section and the continued all the way to near the end wall of the terminal. When I found the end and then asked the question that I subsequently got asked many times: Is this the line for British Airways? I guess that people couldn't believe it was so long. Eventually they split the line by flight but it still took me over an hour to get checked in.

Security was surprisingly fast and they didn't even ask me to turn on my cd player or camera. I bought a couple of boxes of maple candy for Dana and Rachel and Pieter (and winced at the cost because I had been looking for a box for a couple of days but ran out of time). I ended up with a middle seat (in a side bay). Luckily the people next to me were really nice. The plane was a 777 and each seat had a tv screen with choiced about what you could see. There was also a map channel where you could track the progress of the flight and get weather reports about where you were going. Kind of mesmerizing. Like the weather channel on mute and with the same story over and over again. Dinner was salmon and they offered everybody complimentary wine because of a late start! Air Canada would never do that... But...the seats were so close to each other and we had so little let room that it was difficult to get in and out especially when seats were reclined. I was surprised about that. That is a long time to be that squished.

We landed late because we had to circle the airport for 20 minutes. Then I seriously underestimated how long it would take me to get to Cambridge. First we had to get onto these little buses to get the Termial 4 from the plane. Then we had to go through customs and get our luggage. Then I had to find how to get to the other terminals. Then I had to wait for that Heathrow Express train. Once that train arrived we all had to wait for a few minutes while they did some kind of security sweep. Didn't look like anything to me. When I got to termial 2 I had to find the bus station. Signs are not very clear and there aren't enough people to ask questions. Eventually I figured out how to buy a ticket to Cambridge. The woman sold me a ticket on the milk run bus and when I showed the driver my ticket and told him where I was going, he told me that the bus next to him would have gotten me there 90 minutes earlier! But apparently there was nothing I could do. And it was 4am for me and I had hardly slept. This driver was pretty short and rude to this poor man travelling with two bitchy teenagers and I felt pretty sorry for him especially since he was nice to me (in fact lots of men were...play the single girl card when necessary-I have no pride).

Anyway, got to Cambridge and has to wait a while for the local bus. It twisted through Cambridge for a while and very soon I was at Mark and Lindsay's place. Their kids have really grown. Sean is a bigger version of himself and I can't get over how much a baby changes from six months to one year. She is super cute and talks all the time. No one has any idea what she is saying :)

Today we drove up to a beach on the North Sea. The beaches all have these concrete boardwalks with tons of cheesy money-sucking kids games and candy stores and rides and stuff to distract people. It was pretty cold but we played in the sand for a while and splashed in the water. After that we went to Castle Rising Castle and toured around. Neat standard castle built in various stages since the 1400s or so. The grounds are pretty and I read Sean a Curious George story while sitting on the ruines of an old chapel. I tried to stay awake on the drive home but sadly Lindsay had only Sean to talk to.

Good times so far. Gotta go help Lindsay with dinner and Sean wants to play games on the computer.

Oh yeah...I have a blog

2005-07-04T14:58:00.000-07:00

Hello........................

I was recently reminded about the fact that I started a blog last year by a friend who is planning a trip across Canada with friends (you know who you are :) ) I'm impressed with myself that I still remember the username and password.

Since that blog started with the purpose of posting information about my Sanikiluaq adventure for teacher friends back in Toronto, I feel that it is only fitting to inform my one reader that I will be continuing the blog as I begin to fly solo in my planning of the next YMCA cultural exchange:

Earl Haig exchanges with Ascention C.I. in Bay Roberts Newfoundland April 2006!

The Sanikiluaq experience was so traumatising for poor Brian (see earlier postings) that he has sworn off ever ever EVER travelling with students again. Famous last words people...keep working on him. So read on, dear friends. Read on.

Starved for adult conversation

2004-06-01T20:13:00.000-07:00

Last night I hardly slept at all because I was supervising the sleepover in the tent at the edge of town. Lisi had set up this tent and equipped it with a home-made wood burning stove complete with chimney. We also had a propane stove for heating water and a gasoline lantern. Lisi had laid out cardboard boxes on the hard, rocky ground because Inuit tents have no floors to them. The kids brought camping mattresses and sleeping bags and we all laid ourselves out very well. I was equipped with a box of cookies which were apparently were very popular because I never saw them again after I opened the package and discreetly set them down on a rock. Most of the girls were there in the end. Only a few opted out. I was the only grown up there and I tell you I was definitely treated like one of the girls last night. Brian was around for a few hours for the experience and to keep up company. What ended up happening with him is that he ended up as chauffeur for the girls who didn't really want to pee on the ground until they absolutely had too. Pretty funny. Some of them had absolutely no idea how to roll up a sleeping bag. No joke.

Anyway, we did some throat singing (some of them are getting really good) and then I taught a few children's campsongs. Someone had brought along this freaking annoying noisy game called Bop It. The machine has two handles and gives you order to twist it, pull it, spin it or bop it...I'm probably missing something. The thing is covered with little thingies to carry out the little orders on. Rachel must have played that game all night...

We could see a bit of the norhtern lights at about 11:30 or so. I'm surprised by the amount of light that Sanikiluaq produces. There are a lot of streetlamps. Also, the moon was almost full so we probably didn't see them as well as we could have. But the sky was clear. When I get back I'll get that astroglobe out of the library again and tell my grade 9 class that I've never seen Orion right over my head before.

We also played children's memory games and other silly games. Some of them were getting so over-tired (haven't used that term in years) that they were rolling all over each other and me also. It was like going backwards in my life to a typical grade 6 slumber party at Micheline Gregoire's house. The only difference is that some of the games have changed a bit since I was little. They finally settled at about 2:30 and I think I fell asleep at 3 or 3:30. I know that some of them sayed up all night. They kept telling me to go to sleep so they could gossip. That was a unique teacher-student experience let me tell you. We woke up around 7am and got chauffered home in shifts on all terrain vehicles to eat breakfast and get ready for school.

This morning Brian and I missed the tour of the city to deal with a discipline issue. I'm kind of disappointed that I didn't get to see the RCMP and a few other interesting things around town. I'm more sorry that neither of us were on the tour to back Lisi up.

This afternoon, we finally got to Kingaaluk. It is just across the harbour. You can get there in 10 minutes by skidoo. Since we were still short on skidoos and most of them needed gas, most of us walked across the ice at least half way. It's pretty spooky walking across that much ice. We know that it's solid (4 feet at least) but it's covered in snow that is rapidly melting to slush and water under the sun. The water on top looks like a tropical blue. Kind of nervewracking.

Kingaaluk is a large hill made out of canadian shield rock. The kids climbed up it and slid down. There is apparently an inukshuk at the top but I didn't see it because I decided to take a break from the group and walk in the opposite direction. I walked over smoothed small rocks and then larger boulders. And then I reached a plateau of solid rock. Had a great view of the bay. Very stark. I hope that my photos come out because for some reason neither Brian nor I can get the camcorder to autofocus.

I'll have to write more later because the school dance is ending and we need to close up.

Did I mention that all the kids here can imitate Canada Geese? And do it well?

Darn it all I missed the sports

2004-05-31T18:20:00.000-07:00

We ended up cancelling our trip to Kingaaluk at the very last minute because everyone had gone out on the land and there weren't enough skidoos and kamitiks to carry everyone around. The students spend the afternoon doing more crafts. One of the neat things that a few of them have made are little purses made out of fish skin. They are small (about 7 cm by 5 cm) and have a folded flap like a woman's pruse. They are tied by little pieces of rope and they have a tiny "shoulder strap". One of the Sanikiluaq kids' boyfriend Jobie is an apprentice carpenter and he made four little framed just for these purses. I'm amazed at the skill because they are very nice. Skill like that would cost a lot of money in Toronto.

I'm kind of sad because I missed the Inuit sports. I met up with Lisi to help with the tent set-up but of course everything is on northern time so it happened in bits and pieces over the course of the evening. Since I was totally useless I went home for dinner. Brian and I had arranged to take shifts supervising tonight's activities at the school at the games demonstration started at 7pm. There was no way I could make that and still make dinner and since I'm sleeping in the tent tonight with the girls, I decided to get some dinner. I also prepared tomorrow's dinner for Margaret as a kind of thank you (although cooking for her is intimidating because she is so good). So anyway, by the time I got to school it was 9pm and I had missed the demonstrations. I had kind of hoped that they would continue until the school closed at 10:30 but I was disappointed. Brian tells me that they were mostly endurance games and one game was like a tug of war. There was another where they had to kick at and do other acrobatic-type things to a piece of fur hanging from the basketball net. The demonstrator Jasonie was apparently very athletic so I'm pretty sorry I missed it and unfortunatly Brian didn't have the camera for that one.

I'm just killing a little time until all the girls have to be in the tent by midnight. It was a gorgeous day today. Much more like the weather I was expecting. Clear blue sky and it is still as light as day out right now. We should be able to see the northern lights tonight.

I think I'll go check in with the gym now and see what everyone is doing. Nice to hear from you Kurt. You are clearly better at web logs than I am.

Leslie

Sunday was pretty uneventful

2004-05-31T06:40:00.000-07:00

Brunch was served at Margaret's. Brian and his two hosts, Terry and Marilyn, came over as well and brought a really good lemon pie. Margaret is a great cook and there was plenty of honey garlic spare ribs, chicken legs and sushi! No traditional food in sight. I was so full by the end of it all at 2:30 that I had no room for dinner. There was a potluck at the school last night and there was tons of pasta dishes and other hearty staples. Somebody brought some cooked lake char but I think the winning entry was frozen raw lake char served in a green garbage bag. Brian took a piece and I think he hoped that it would melt to sashimi by the time he had finished the other food. I don't think that happened and I can't report whether or not he ate it because I actually didn't see. After the pot luck, Lisi literally escorted everyone to church. The church is in the shape of an igloo with a domed shape and white inside. There was a lay minister and assistant minister who read the entire service in Inuktitik. Brian tells me that other than the fact that it was in Inuktituk, it was a comepletely typical Anglican service with readings and hymns. The choir was three old women in teal and red choir robes over their boots. The church was packed to capacity and there were little kids rolling all over the place. The community really needs a bigger space to worship. There are only wooden chairs and when they are supposed to kneel, they can only bow in their chairs and cover their eyes with their hands.

Today we were supposed to go on an all day trip to Kujaavik, Kataavik and Kingaaluk. Unfortunately, there is no more seafood so we are only going to Kingaaluk in the afternoon. Lisi was hoping that we could split the group and take them on overnight trips to some cabins not far from town that are owned by one of the families. After a lot of last minute organizing on her part I'm sure, the plan had to be scrapped because one of the cabins is occupied and it would have been too much trouble to straighten out all of the necessary paper work. But instead, Lisi is setting up a tent outside of the school and we are going to sleep there in two shifts. The first group along with Brian will the there the first night (tonight) and the second group along with myself will be there Tuesday evening. There is a live auction fundraiser Tuesday evening and apparently they are a lot of fun so I'm looking forward to being able to go.

To people who are posting comments, thanks again and remember to put your name somewhere in the message so I know who you are. Maree! So nice to hear from you!

Leslie
T

Forgot the geese...

2004-05-29T19:33:00.000-07:00

Now, our students are strictly forbiddent to touch fire arms...and so far so good despite many "they'll never know" temptations. Today, the three Sanikiluaq boys NOT OURS of course went off on skidoos to hunt a goose. And a goose they hunted. It sat on the Canadian Shield rock for the duration of the afternoon until we could bring it home. I was watching little kids play with it. They would expand its wings, poke its eyes and nostriles, pound on its chest to make it squawk ( that was brilliant). During this time I played with rocks and contemplated the golf potential. Everything is bog and rock Guy. You would have to drill little holes with TNT.

I'm beginning to get comments now and thanks to everybody who is saying hello and sending greetings and advice. Keep it coming. And I'm the only one writing this blog because Brian only wants to sleep all the time (I wonder why..........) and it's my password. But I'll pass on all the greetings and encourage him to start his own. Cheers. Leslie

Ice Fishing and Seal skinning

2004-05-29T19:18:00.000-07:00

After yesterday's teacher fishing expedition, there was movie night at the school. They show movies projected onto the wall of the gym using and lcd projector. They typically show 2 movies. The first movie was Peter Pan and I caught the last bit of that. Little kids were running around and slinking around under my chair and grabbing onto my feet. I'm constantly being asked what my name is because all of the students only begin to learn English in grade 3 and I suppose that conversational English starts with "Hello What's your name"? The second movie was Scary Movie 2 and I, like most of our students, decided to give that one a pass.

Today we took the students out on the land to go fishing. This time I rode both ways on the Hamatik which is a large sled that the skidoo drags behind it. The students had a great time lying on the ice looking for fish and jigging their lines. I don't think any of them ever caught anything other than each others lures. Our hosts lit a campfire and cooked us up some hot dogs on sticks and a kind of stew prepared in tightly wrapped aluminium foil. One of the packages broke and spilled its contents onto the grate over the fire. Lisi started to rescue pieces of food as quickly as she could and flicked them onto the lichen-covered ground next to the fire. She called the students over and I had a great time videotaping the kids while they picked pieces of chicken off the ground using sticks and feeding them to each other. We all got a little sunburned. My nose is pretty red (again) despite three applications of sunscreen with spf 45 today. And it has been very overcast the entire time we've been here in Sanikiluaq. Imagine if I hadn't worn any at all.

After we returned and freshened up, it was another night at the school. Lisi had hired a hunter to go out onto the land a kill a seal. We all watched while the seal was skinned and butchered in the skin room (aptly named). I got some great video footage. She cut through the skin and then scraped the blubber away from the meat. Each of us were offered a piece of the raw liver (a delicacy meant to honour guests). And I gotta say, our students for the most part were receptive, and excited and ate their liver. I've also got some great video of them eating flesh from ribs, drinking blood, and eating brain. I even have footage of the squeamish one shyly looking over the others from outside the doorway. I tried the flesh from the rib myself and well, it tastes like...blood. But you have to expect that and seal is the stape bread and butter food of the Inuit. They eat it, use it for light, heat, games, cloths and all kinds of things. An elder explained the importance of the seal at the end of the evening.

Tomorrow is church day and I plan to spend it relaxing and hunting down some nifly inuit soapstone. Best to all.

Leslie

Crafts, fishing, snowmobiles and tundra

2004-05-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

It is now the end of the school day on Friday and again I'm writing from the Sanikiluaq school. Yesterday was spent doing crafts at the school. The co-principal and trip coordinator Lisi Kavik had been telling Brian and I that she was looking forward to paying her craftspeople as professionals and they were worth every penny. Students signed up for workshops for yesterday and today. I have to admit that that structure pretty much fell apart yesterday afternoon but it worked out very well regardless.

Our students got to try their hand at Ulu making. An ulu is a traditional moon-shaped inuit knife with a wooden handle. Considering the problems we had coming up (did I mention that a student almost made Brian miss the Montreal flight because he packed - yes - nail scissors in carry-on.), we had better make sure to tell them to pack the ulus in cargo. They also got to make and polish wax cast silver rings, grass baskets, bolas, duffel socks and soapstone carving. I tried my hand at basket weaving and MY GOD do I have a new found RESPECT for women who do this and do it well. It takes a huge amount of skill and patience. The instructor Sarah has been to native art conferences in Ottawa and she makes fabulous baskets with soapstone carvings on top of the lids. It must take days and days.

Now speaking of soapstone carving, since we got into town, I have been solicited by 7 different soapstone carvers who want to sell me seals or loons or walruses. It is getting to the point where I'm afraid to answer Margarets' phone anymore. It doesn't help that I can't remember anyone's name because there are ten carvers named Simeone or Isaac for example and their last names all sound the same like Tukaluk or Iqaluk or something like that. I've decided to search out a couple of carvers who do original and interesting work, and then after that make my purchases of small loons or ducks or whatever. My luggage is going to be full of rocks. Everyone is getting soapstone. By the way, if you want me to pick something up, post a request and I'll see what I can do.

Last night, the students had the chance to experience a cultural night at the school with one of the elders and they tried on traditional clothes.

Today, while the students were at school doing more crafts, some of the teachers went out on the land to go ice fishing. So Brian and I got ourselves bundled up by our hosts (me more so than he) and we met at the edge of town on the lake. Well, the snow was blowing and it was an absolute white out. Apparently this only happens a couple of times a year. They kept asking each other "do you have gps"? "no. do you"? "no". But of course the Inuit teachers led the way and everything was fine. My ride was a teacher called Mike from Saskatchewan. We travelled on skidoo for about half an hour to the first fishing site. This is hard to describe. The terrain is kind of rolling bog with absolutely no vegetation other than juniper like trees and lichen. The inuit drill holes in the ice, fish out the slush and lie down on their sides or stomaches. They peer down into the hole and do jig fishing meaning they dangle the hook and lure and jiggle it. When a fish bites, they pull the fish out. Got some pictures. Looks really impressive. I did try fishing for arctic char but after aboout 20 minutes, the line came loose and I lost my hook. Lucky for me Betsy fished it out again later. But anyway, you can see all the way to the bottom of the lake and I could see little minnows swimming around but no large fish for me. Betsy caught three somewhat impressive sized char. Pretty cool. At around noon they made a fire and everyone shared bread, munchies, rice crispy squares, tea etc. We headed back around 1:30 or 2pm and now I'm back at Nuiyak school. The students tell me they are having a great time and knowing them I'm sure they didn't give the teachers any trouble. This evening is another cultural evening with elders and tomorrow we go out on the land with them.

The whole thing is so surreal. It's not like the Yukon where there are trees and mountains. This is really, really barren land. But we saw geese and Mike is pretty sure he saw a fox.

Anyhow, I'm going to swing home now for dinner. My hostess is a wonderful cook.

So we almost didn't get here...for so many reasons

2004-05-27T07:27:00.000-07:00

Writing from the staff room of the Nuiyak school in Sanikiluaq.

The flight from Toronto to Montreal was uneventful despite a couple of students going to Terminal 2 instead of Terminal 1. Terminal 1 smells like new terminal and looks like it was ordered out of the IKEA "design your own terminal" page of the catalogue.

All of the things that went wrong yesterday with the trip from Montreal to Sanikiluaq will take too long to write out so I'll only hit the high, and low, points. Some students took off to downtown Monteal without telling us and thus were were late leaving the next day. We couldn't all take the airport shuttle because it was booked by another group. Our itinerary said we were flying First Air and I discovered after I got to Dorval that First Air had no idea who we were and the employee suggested I try Air Inuit. The other half of the group took cabs and we got ourselves checked in with 30 seconds to spare before she had to close her wicket. Brian had to take his boots off at security four different times. A student lost his boarding pass so I had to drag Brian off the plane to buy him a new ticket on his VISA. The flight itself was the most relaxing 4 hours of the past 48 hours. We stopped in La Grande and then Kanijjuaraapik (on the hudson's bay-lots of ice-it was here that I started to think "I didn't bring enough cloths"). We then landed in Sanikiluaq. There were stunted trees in the other communities but here there is nothing...the landscape looks lunar but with tons of snow. It isn't actually too cold (hovering above zero) but the wind is a killer and there are always flying ice pellets. Before the plane left, Brian and I had to run up to it waving our arms at the pilots until they lowered the stairs. All this because we forgot a large stuffed easter rabbit that a sanikiluaq student had bought in Toronto and then had not brought home. Little did we know at that time that not all of the luggage had been loaded off the plane. Luckily, the same plane returns at 4:30 and it all worked out alright.

Some students were picked up in all-terrain-vehicles and the rest of us were chauferred around on the school bus. There are no paved streets and everything looks very frontier as they call it. Very few buildings are more than a single storey.

Sad to report that found alcohol in the luggage of a couple of students and as a result, Brian and I spent a rather unpleasant evening last night dealing with that. There have also been a couple of other things that we have had to deal with.

There are only a couple of trucks in Sanikiluaq. Everyone drives aroun on atv or skidoo. Honestly, trucks would have a very, very hard time getting around on these roads.

The school is very nice with all kinds of crafts and photos on display. This community is full of artists. As I was settling in yesterday afternoon, three soadstone carvers knocked on Margaret's door to meet me and sell me carvings. I will be coming home with a lot of rocks in my luggage.

The kids all had an absolute blast driving the Honda atvs. Honestly, they could go home happy right now. Last night I had cariboo and am looking forward to a few days of clean (freaking freezing) air and snapping photos. Hopefully, our major mishap quota has already been spent getting here an I anticipate some great times ahead. Can't wait to go out on the land and go seal hunting and seafood collecting. I'll try to get over my fear of all things marine.

I'll try to post as often as possible. See everyone soon. Leslie

are we comment enables yet?

2004-05-25T11:54:00.000-07:00

well are we?

Pre-Nunavut

2004-05-24T16:59:00.000-07:00

It's the day before I leave for Nunavut and I just realized that I'm confused over the dates. I can seem to figure out why we are returning on Wednesday the 2nd of June instead of Tuesday the 1st. I had better figure this out fast and I hope that none of the students find out that I have no clue what's going on...