Casual Tuesday

Tomorrow is Causal dress day at school. I had to give them 20 dollars (hk so it's 2.50) which apparently is going to charity. never the less the fact that you have to give the school money to be able to wear normal clothes or for air conditioner fee's is very very strange to me...

Anywho.. I just got through another amazing weekend! I went to a Birthday party with the other exchange students... It was for Nelson's sister. (Nelson was one of the first friends) soo all the exchange student's hung out ONCE AGAIN! it was awesome... there were these little speaker things so I put on my music for everyone... me and the other kids spent a lot of time flipping through my Ipod saying "I LOVE THEM" and "HAVE YOU HEARD OF" it was a good time had by all...

Sunday I was going to go see a friend play a show... but my host family told me at noon that my support contact was coming over... so I told my friends I had to bail and went out to buy school book's.... Ozgur the Turk* showed up he happened to be on HK island so we hung out for a while...

*

I met with my support contact and told her everything was going dandy, and that leaves me at today...

Today was more school, P.E. where I played basket ball and realized I've forgotten completely how to shoot a basket ball, and closing the day with triple Math's... I caught up on some reading I've been meaning to do....

Paperwork here is like a religion. I keep getting thing's for my parents to sign even 1 month into the school year. I applied for a library card... but that needed to be revised because it needed a photo copy of my gaurenteer's HKID card. I tryed to get My Student MTR Card Today and they wanted a photo so they wouldn't take it... anywho...
it'll all get done....

You guy's keep on surviving.

Patrick

P.S.
It says "that's where I live if you where wondering" click the picture if you want to see it bigger...

It's the same picture as the blog header...

School and a Typhoon

So I got off school on wensday for the Typhoon.

it got to level 8 wich is why we got off. unfortunately it came through at night... it started really picking up at about 8 or so at night and by the time I woke up the next morning it had passed...

So i'm waiting for the next one to go dancing in the rain....

School is pretty boring but that's ok

Hope your all doing welll

Patrick

Typhoon level 3 has been posted...

if it goes to level 8 we get to go home!

there is nothing between 3 and 8 i don't know why

the levels are 1 (which is ignored) 3 (pretty much ignored) 8 (everything shuts down) 9 and 10 (JESUS CHRIST PLEASE SAVE US)

just thought you would like to know

Pat

ONE MONTH DOWN!

Sorry for the lack of updates...



School this week was fine... a fairly normal week... For P.E. we did swimming and played "water polo" (the pool is 3 feet deep so no one was swimming)



Thursday I BOUGHT A CAMERA!!!!



specks for the nerd friends out there!





8.0 mega pixels
5x optical zoom
4 gig sd chip
facial recognition
and more features than i would know how to use...



It's small and has a big screen which makes it perfect...



I've been taking a lot of pictures too many to try and up load to blogger...


Blogger's photo upload interface is fine for 5 or even 10 or so photos but i took a lot so I'll put them up on photobucket.com



the Internet is being finicky.... it's rather annoying...



soo Thursday was Cantonese lessons as every Thursday is... After we went out to fast food Japanese.... all good I fell asleep at probably 11





Friday was another good day and after school I went to a BBQ party at the Icelandic Exchange student's house. It was a great time. It took a lot of newspaper and failed attempts to light the charcoal but eventually we got it going and a good time was had by all... I left Baddi's House around 10:30 I ended up at home at 12.





Sign up's for after school activities must be done through the web the deadline was Saturday night at midnight so i was up till one getting ready for bed and signing up for Football (soccer) and Chess clubs'





Saturday was ORIENTATION!!! the orientation that was scheduled for the day we got here. we finally had it.. One month to the day after landing. So it was up at 7:30 and out the door at 8 to get to the other side of the new territories... if you care to look the meeting was at the Fanling MTR station on the light blue line i live at Fortress hill/North point on the dark Blue line (called the island line).





Camp was good because of the other students... the material was the same boring talk about culture shock they had given us in every book and in the us orientation, so that was fairly boring but it's hard to have a bad time with 30 of your friends and you hanging out. soo we played basket ball and talked about everything, school, host families, a lot about the differences between here and our home culture. It was great!





We had a talent show so I solved the Rubix cube. everyone was very impressed.





One German boy has been playing piano since he was 2, I think, and sat down at a piano and just whips out this beautiful piece of classical music from memory. he is an amazing musician it's crazy... and for him it was no big deal... he seemed to be bored... I wish I could play like that but just thinking of the practice involved make's me cringe....





for dinner was BBQ again... this time I helped light 2 or 3 fires after having figured it out the night before... they do BBQ differently here than in the US... in the us the Charcoal goes in the bottom of the BBQ and then you have the grill over it where you put the food down to cook... here you put news paper in the bottom to light the charcoal on chicken wire and you cook over the charcoal on sticks.... ummmmmmmm.... Meat on a stick... It was all very tasty....





After words we went to "bed" meaning we all sat in the Court yard talking all night... I was up till 4 my time... and wake up call was 7 am.... toooo early.... but i got a nap this afternoon... I'm behind on sleep over all...





We where at a camp. a summer camp, camp. bunk beds. soccer Field basket ball hoops room's to meet in and a Canteen. The canteen food at lunch on Saturday wasn't bad. it's camp food though and it's very strange to think of Chinese camp food... It was definitely passable... I mean I ate it... but think of the camp version of burgers or camp version of spaghetti and meat ball's. Now think of the camp version of mushu pork... of fried and glazed fish... any who...





Breakfast consisted of cold Hom Bow and a noodle soup of some sort... it was ok but not what I (or any of the other kid's at my table) where looking for in breakfast... Looking at the half empty serving bowl of noodles I found their opinion of breakfast personified in a "sign from the heavens"* camp got out at ten and we went off to find food. unfortunately by the time we caught the bus to the MTR to Kowloon tong... it was Noon so we gave up on breakfast and had lunch...





I got home at 1:30. I'm reading Harry potter (in it's entirety) to my 10 year old brother, we have finished the 1st book and are on the second one. so we watched the first Harry potter movie... I started falling asleep so i went off to take my nap...





anywho both my brother's want me to read to them soo I'm off...





Hope your all well





Patrick








*there's your sign....

to see photos

go here

http://s60.photobucket.com/albums/h18/inky232000/hong%20kong%201/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival

hey it's the end of a Monday here and we had the day off for Mid Autumn Festival.

I really don't know much about it even after living through it... everyone seemed really excited for it and then just sort of went through a few motion's and there didn't seem to be much point... we went to a park and lit candles and played with lanterns.... that was it... there wasn't any ritual to it... it seemed odd to me... espeically after all they hype I've gotten about it being some great holiday...

anyways I've got more pictures for you

These are From the Peak of Hong Kong Island, The big building is the IFC the tallest building in Hong Kong you might know it from Batman (he jumps off it)

look at Hong Kong again from the peak. My house is in this picture but i'm too lazy to highlight it now.
my host dad standing at the peak .
a view of the other side of the island fromt the peak
My little brother adreil durring the daily battle to make him eat dinner

Mid Autumn Fetival

some of the many amazing lanterns at Victoria park

Adreil and Sandy Host brother and mother
More lanterns with Hong Kong in the background
more lanterns
even more
Different angle on the same lanterns
another angle

More lanterns!

More more more!
Different angles looking at the latnerns!!!
A man dressed up as a ferry with guess what a lantern on his head and on stilts.
Angles lanterns

Angles and lanterns

more and more and more

Me and my Host Dad

Candles we burned
The little brother
Taken from the living room of our house Sail boat racesMore pictures of boats!

The last week has been good, I've been going to school. Math class is the most boring thing I have ever had to sit through repeatedly. after math class it's like someone snapped my brain... it's a horrible feeling... any who... the rest of school is good i really like my class mate's though I don't have any pictures of them up yet... I'm going to buy a camera this week. at the Moment I'm operating on a camera borrowed from my host family.

I'm sooo tired right now. we got home at 11:30 and went to sleep at 12:30 here last night and left this morning at 9 to go swimming. They are used to it... I need more sleep. but it is absolutely useless to try and sleep in. other than the fact that my room faces east and is one big window. my little brother is up at 7 every morning and if I'm in bed he's yelling at me and poking me... for no good reason... I haven't been able to make it past 10 asleep...

on September 30th there is a day we don't have to wear our school uniform if we pay 20 dollars (a form a extortion if you ask me) but you need to pay it through an online system they use called pps... of course I'm not on any system and soo i spent all week trying to give them money that they wouldn't take... any who.

They told us on Friday that to sign up for after school activities you have to do it through eclass... an online program through the school.................................................................................... that will be this week's battle...

more school more school... orientation for AFS kids is this coming weekend and that will be fun soo yeah...

stuff too look forward too...


Pat

Hard Rock and More School

Sunday was good.

I woke up at 10 and read some Atlas Shrugged, then I read to Adriel, then I read to Adrien. Finally i slipped out around 4:45 to head to Tsim sha tisu to meet everyone and go to the Hard Rock Cafe. My bus took forever to come... but it was Sunday afternoon...

so I was a little late... it was good though and we all had a great time. I realized that the Hard rock is real American food. McDonald's isn't. Anywho... After we walked around and ended up at the star ferry pier looking out at Hong Kong it was nice being with friend's hanging out.

I met a German kid who had gone to the same school as me... he wasn't wild about it. also a Hong Kong kid who spent his exchange year in the Cezch Republic. It's interesting because growing up in the suburbs I'm excited to live in a city. However whenever I talk to people here about not liking the country they all look at me funny. They all like the country, I have a feeling though it comes from growing up in Hong Kong, and they don't really know how boring it is...

Back to school... More of the same... I've been playing a lot of chess with the other kid's. I've mostly been loosing but i won one game today.

I hope you are all doing well.

Patrick

P.S. I just found the camera today so no pictures from this weekend from me. I'll see if I can get some from the other kid's to post.

Mong Kok on a Saturday

Hello everyone,




yesterday was another exciting day. All the exchanges students came together again for another day of weekend fun... this week's destination Mong Kok, Imagine Time Square Crowded all the time and for about 20 sq. blocks. That's Mong Kok, it's the cool part of the city. It's got cafes and Karaoke bars and the Ladies market*, and many other thing's to see and do.

Mong Kok at Night

However we soon realized that Mong Kok was not as easy a place as the beach for a gathering of 20 exchange student's. The Beach is easy you all show up and some people swim some people sit there it's all straight forward... Mong Kok is almost like it's own city there is ton's to do and it's all very different... there is no way to keep together 20 student's for 12 countries with a variety of interests... so we got to the Ladies Market* (oh all right I'll explain the ladies market here. The Ladies market is a BIG STREET full of people selling knock off everything, watches, t-shirt's, Rolex's, Gucci bags, anything you want you can get there, cheep if your willing to bargin.) and we decided to split up and meet up at three o'clock, because trying to shop in group's of twenty is like trying to skydive with a duck for a parachute, it end's badly... so Aadne the Norwegian (pronounced odd neh), Tim from Belgin, and Dylan the Aussie, and I got some grub at a local cafe.

Mong Kok Ladies Market

The cafe was on the second floor. We got there and ordered stuffed snails to share around the table and deep fried soft shell crab also to share.. and a "chocolate milkshake" each... The chocolate milk shake was more like chocolate milk with some crushed ice and (because it's Asia) chunks of chocolate jelly at the bottom, like a bubble tea. They where ok, the Crab and Snails where very good and we went on our way...



We got back to the appointed place at 3 o'clock, and of course, no one was there. They had all gone for lunch at, do you want to guess.... McDonald's....... AGAIN, it's like some weird obsession for these kids or something...



so we called them and said "where are you?"
"McDonald's"

"okkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk, Which McDonald's?"

"It's in a mall"

"Which Mall"

"It's by the MTR"

"how bout this, go out side and give us a street name...."

"WHAT"

"whatever, bye"



to give you an idea of how unhelpful their directions where.. it's like trying to find someone in Seattle and they tell you, "I'm in a Starbucks"



Every building in Hong Kong is or has a mall, even my apartment complex has a mall under it, with a toy's r' us. and there is a McDonald's on every other block.



Eventually we found them. Once we did they wanted to go back to the ladies market.. so me and the 3 other's above mentioned + a German kid decided to go off our own way and check out the computer center.



The computer center is a special type of mall in Hong Kong. It's 3 stories, full of small booth's, all of them about electronics, Laptops and components galore for ridiculously cheep. we spent a good hour looking at different laptops and such... it looks like about 5,000 hk$ for a good laptop. We also saw a lot of E PCs or mini lap top's which i find very interesting. I'm not sure if i want one but I like the idea...

The Computer Center

we saw one that was like 6 inches by 4 inches it was just big enough for a keyboard, (that you couldn't type on) and no mouse pad so it had like the little mouse nub and two clickers off on the side... It was cute but stupid...

Another Shot of the Computer Center

Next on the agenda it was decided was food and a movie... we found both in a mall however the only non chick flick in English was... Bangkok Dangerous, the most generic and predictable movie I've seen in a while. What's worse is it had Nicholas Cage, who I despise. However I got some good Indian food and the rest of the day was good so, I'll let that be.



Tonight we do it all over again... but this time lead by me and my "first friend". about 15 of us are meeting up at 5:30 and we are going to the Hard Rock Cafe. It will be epic.



more later



hope your all well

(Photo's from flickr)

The Weekend

Sorry I haven't posted in a while... been busy...

School is finally going... we're actually doing thing's in class chemistry is a little complicated... and physics is easy so far... Math is putting me to sleep...

The other kids at school are a lot of fun to be around. we have been going out to lunch together... it's crazy cause we all descend on a place like 15 of us and take over... today we had Japanese food... I got basically sushi in a bowl... it was little cubes of different fish, some shredded seaweed, and fish eggs on a bowl of rice. it was really good...

I had Cantonese lessons last night with the other AFS kids... after we went to where else the worlds restaurant, the internationally acclaimed McDonald's.... yes it's sad but true...

Every time we get together it seems like they all want to go to McDonald's...

oh well...

I'm excited for the Weekend... tomorrow I'm going to Mong kok which will be tons of fun and Sunday night I'm going to the hard rock cafe.

I'll take pictures and write more soon...

Oh and BTW the stories about the having rolls Royce taxi's here are all lies... maybe executive taxi's but EVERY taxi I've seen has been the same boxy old Toyota....

Pat

Ebb and Flow

point counterpoint, action reaction, stop and go.

There is a lot of that in Hong Kong. For me it's very conscience. Crossing the street is a dance of other people and traffic. I wonder if the people who live here even think about it anymore. they do it 50 times a day every day.

It was another boring day at school. We still haven't started to do anything. Tomorrow is the real first day. I exchanged my book's from form 4 for form 6 book's. I'm ready to fight the new year. ready to weather the storm that is school. (i hope.) It should be good though.

It is raining today... It's the first time it's rained since I've been here. it's really more of a drizzle... but it counts... it's very cloudy and thankfully it's cooled down some today... the atmosphere is strange a cool and warm mixture always tinted with the dampness of the rain.

Hong Kong is very much an Umbrella Cultrue... unlike Seattle... Eveyone carries a small umbrella in their bag... weather for sun or for rain it's always on hand.

The busses here are much simpler than back home... I'm already confident enough to ride the bus into Wan Chai and back. Where as the busses in Seattle take a Phd to navigate. They are all clearly numbered and like everything else can be paied for with your octopus pass.

My school gave me an RFID card wich is my Student ID for now. It doesn't have my picture (yet) and is unerving and annoying for me... they don't take roll at my school you scan your RFID when you walk in the front gate and again when you leave... so they will know if your even one second late...

It's amazing the proliferation of technology into every day life here... it's not that they are very far ahead in what they can do, but they are light year's ahead at doing it in everyday life...

I'm reading Atlas Shrugged, becasue I loaned War for the Oaks to an Italian girl at the beach (she didn't have anything to read and wasn't swimming) It's good so far... But i'm only 40 pages in...

I'm reading Harry Potter to my 10 year old brother and the rest of the family. Sandy my host mom who tought english for 10 years is very keen on having me read in english out loud to the kids. I tryed to read Harry Potter to Adriel but he doesn't understand all the words...

It's strange to think that english isn't his first language when he can already speak it so well. Adrein seems to like it but we are only one chapter in.

All this week school starts at 7:40 so I have to leave the house at 7 which mean's waking up at 6:30.

Much too early to be waking up for school espically a school you didn't sign up for....
Although i suppose in a way i did... but what ever...

My school is a Christian school, I'm supprised that no one has figured out that I'm Jewish yet. I thought it would be a tip off that I have to read the Lord's Prayer out of the book... but I suppose they aren't looking at me...

I'm in the Destdedit house (sound's like destitute) for p.e. apparently it's this big competition inside of the school they have Volly Ball games and ches games and quiz games, and a track and feild meet and other competitions and who ever get's the most "marks" win's. I think it's annoying and unnessary... but i always thought school spirit was in High School.... But worse that that you are REQIRED to do a sport for your house... so i suppose i'm going to do Shot Put, Javalin, and Discus. So I can avoid running and swimming... wich are the only other two options....

Tomorrow's Wednesday.

Another day another adventure

(P.S. the picture at the top of my blog is from the Peak of Hong Kong Island At night)

First day of School

MORE PICTURES!!!

this is me and the Australian Kid. In the background is Hong Kong at night (isn't it pretty..... :-P) we where in Kowloon, but the camera didn't get it soo well...

The camera in night mode... you can see the city much better and me and two friends very creepily!!!
a picture of just Hong Kong at night...
taken from the window of the closet, where the computer is and I am right now...
I have more pictures.. some from the peak of the mountain on hong kong island... I'll post them later..

Today was my first day at the school here... it was a half day and full of handing out papers....

I got bumped up to form 6 so thing's should be interesting at least in the school work... My class mates seem like really nice people... The school is about 1,200 kid's like MIHS but it's forms 1-7. soo my grade is about 90 people... who are split up into three sections... Sciences (where i am), Arts (not really arts it just called that... it's really humanities... history, economics and geography), and something else i can't remember....

HSBC skrewed up my bank account... they mixed it up with another exchange student... but I cleared that up today.. and me and Maria (German) hung out for the rest of the day, we got coffee and talked about thing's it was good...

I went to the Beach this Saturday with the other AFS kid's I had TONS of fun.. swimming... i also got a big sunburn but it's healing well soo I'm not worried... it's very hot here...

92 degrees and 80% humidity... so i sweat all day... except inside where there is AC

I've been eating all sort's of different food... My family went to Spaghetti house (basically olive garden of HK) and we got a set menu with ribs, risotto, pizza, and spaghetti with cuddle fish ink sauce... which surprisingly, despite it's black color is very good

I've also eaten chicken feet while here. Thing's I expect to eat before I leave include... Goose, Snake and other things...

all the food here is very good... My school uniform isn't bad either and I'll Post a photo of me in it soon...

I need to get off the computer for now... But I'll up date soon

hope your all well