Monday, December 29, 2008

well it's been a while and a lot has happened.

god my last post was Dec 8th. that seems like much more than a month ago.

Well i'm out of school I took all of the exams and they weren't quite as bad as i expected. English of course was boring, and Physics and Chemistry i'm fairly confident about. Math however i don't think i did so well. i think i'll pass but i doubt i'll get a good mark. this wasn't due so much to the difficulty of the test but to the lack of studying on my part.

the math test was on Thursday the 18th and i had the two days before it off during which i planed to study all of the strange theorems involved in finding the limits of sequences. however on the morning of the 16th of December my life was interrupted by an Email for Reed College where i applied Early Decision, i didn't get in. With this on my mind studying took a back seat to my more philosophical musings. needless to say 2 days slipped by without me giving more than a cursory glance at my text books. This is my excuse for my poor marks... anywho....

After said test my classmates where quite excited to be out of school for break! We all went out to Karaoke, i was surprised because it was the first social thing i'd seen them do since i got to the school. i had fun never the less. there was a decent selection of pop songs (not my favorite but good enough to make a fool of your self!) and they sang mostly in Chinese but there are random words or sentences in English in all of the Canton pop songs so i got to sing along for that.

19th we had Christmas service and class photos. that all went smoothly and then it was Holiday time!

I've been really enjoying my holidays. I arrived in Hong Kong 1 week before classes started so i barely had time to get my bearings. This time has been really good for exploring and things. Also without my classmates eager to talk to me in English. Over this break I've learned a lot of cantonese (nogh haw gong ho daw gongdongwa)

I've been wandering around with different friends. and spending alot of time with my Host family. I went and saw the Twilight movie which wasn't nearly as bad as i though it would be. I also visited the "hong kong brands and products expo" yes an expo for brands and products, god how much more vague could you get... but it was fun there was all sorts of crazy stuff there. from every type of Chinese food imaginable to vacuum cleaners to rice cookers.

I also went to the hong kong Book Fair. where i picked up a bunch of books for really cheap! Thank you all by the way for sending litterateur along. however Space is limited in Hong Kong and with the approximately 20 books i've received i'll be set with reading for a while. but if i need more book's i'll let you guys know.

Christmas was surprisingly uneventful. My family though Christian didn't have any big plans for the day of. We went to yum Cha (dim sum) which was really good but spent most of the day at home. I lit the Chuannuka candles with them and handed they all presents which they all seemed to like!

The lack of Christmas plans can be partially explained by what we did immediately following Christmas. on the morning of the 26th we woke up at 5:something AM to start our trip to mainland china!

We woke up early and caught a bus from Wan Chai to the Chinese boarder. We got there by 7:00 by 7:45 we all loaded onto a tourist bus. I joined the crowd for my first Asian bus tour! we drove 2 hours into china to a honey farm. There they proceeded to try and sell us honey. after the sales pitch we went off to lunch. My first chinese food in CHINA was good but not what you'd call amazing. it's quite different than the food in Hong Kong you wouldn't think that less than 100 miles could cause such a change in cusine but it did.

After lunch we got to the main purpose of the trip a Massive Zoo! We saw many many many many different animals. and i took 200 something pictures that day of every type of wild life you can name. I've posted the pictures to Myspace so go check them out!

After our jaunt around the zoo which included Hoho (littlest brother) and Adrien (other brother) taking pictures with a baby white lion. we went to the Circus! The circus was part of the same complex that the zoo belonged too. It was more Ringling brothers than Cirque du Soile but still very good. That being said they weren't a normal circus. There where many acts that included the animals of the zoo. (dozens of bears on bicycles) After all the Excitement and dinner it was getting close to 10 o'clock we drove another hour to the Hotel, by this time Hoho was asleep and everyone else was very tired.

The hotel was very nice. The best part by far though was the beds. They had real soft mattresses. I'm not saying my bed here in hong kong is bad i find it perfectly adequate, but it's not what you'd call soft. think something like a pile of bamboo mats and you'll get the idea. It has some give to it but not and nice as those beds.
needless to say after the long day i slept well.

the next day wasn't nearly as exciting though we went to a beautiful garden in Shenzen. the trip ended in the early afternoon and we were home by 6 o'clock.

there was an AFS BBQ yesterday with the other students which was a lot of fun. though some where missing with their families off to mainland or Macau.

That brings us about up to date. I'm sure i've missed somethings, like the fact that i got a computer! but that's all i got for now.

Now that i have said computer i'll be updating more frequently.

Hope you're all doing well over the holidays. Have a happy new years.

Pat

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