Early up, showered, packed, breakfast & a cab ride to the airport, which is where we are now.  We checked in – at the Executive First counter – picked up a few last minute things at a store found the Tai Executive lounge, settled in to a salad & sandwich, a glass of red, then cranked up the computer for this last blog posting.

We’ve had a remarkable, unique, interesting experience – & we still like each other – but enough of China already!  It’s great to be going home.  We’re scheduled to arrive in Toronto about 6:00 PM.  Fred will pick us up & deliver us to our haven on Cromwell Ave.  It’s going to be a fine evening on the patio.

Relaxing in the Thai Airways' Royal Orchid Lounge, in the Hong Kong airport (click to enlarge)

Catching up on the blog in the Thai Airways' Royal Orchid Lounge in the Hong Kong airport (click to enlarge)

Welcome Aboard - Enjoying a glass of champagne in Air Canada's Executive First Class cabin (click to enlarge)

Welcome Aboard - Enjoying a glass of champagne in Air Canada's Executive First Class Cabin (click to enlarge)

The flight was good, but 15 hours in a plane is just a bit much regardless if you’re in the cabin with the flat out beds or not!  We watched a couple of movies, had a good meal, a bit of wine & spent time on the computer going through some pics, sleeping on-&-off & reading.  When we arrived in Toronto, we had to wait for about an hour, since Fred, who was picking us up, got stuck in traffic.  We told him not to complain….he hasn’t seen the traffic in Beijing!

It was great to get home.  The yard & gardens looked great!  We spent the rest of the evening on the patio breathing fresh air!  We can feel our lungs clearing up!

BTW, if anyone is wondering if they should ever take a trip to China, the answer is a resounding YES!  It’s an absolutely fascinating country that’s continuously changing.  Teach?  Well that depends on you.  Hong Kong?  Absolutely!  Talk to you soon.

We’ll be adding some photos to the blog if you want to see some more.

Rosemary & Bill, the Aussie couple, stopped by our room this AM before checking out to give us their contact info & an invitation for a place to stay when we’re in Australia.  Awesome!  Australia is high on our list.

After breakfast, we took the Star Ferry back over to the island to continue our Big Bus tour.  First stop, Stanley, which is on the other side of the mountains from the city.  We made a couple of stops along the way at the Aquarium & Repulse Bay, although we didn’t get off.  The top deck of the bus, which is where we sat, is open.  Unfortunately, just before arriving in Stanley, it started to rain.  The driver stopped so that everyone could go downstairs.  We were all given yellow rain ponchos, when we got off the bus, but by that time it was pouring down.  We got under a tree & Bonnie got hers on quickly, but by the time I got mine figured out & over my head, I was drenched.  No matter….we don’t sweat the small stuff (DSTSS).  It’s very likely that I got soaked because I took the time to get my camera bag covered first.

Stanley Harbour (click to enlarge)

So, off we went, to the harbour area & had mini brisket burgers & garlic shrimp at the ‘Pickled Pelican’.  After that, we wandered through the market, yet another area with vendors’ stalls going on forever.  Our 24-hour Big Bus ticket had run out, so we caught a cab back to Central & made a stop at ‘Photo Scientific’ a photo equipment store that was recommended by a photographer I met on the harbour promenade.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have what I was looking for, so we caught another cab back to the ferry.  On the way, I discovered that I had left my sunglasses in the store.  Damn!  Oh well, once again we DSTSS!  We continued on to the hotel, relaxed for a short time, showered & headed back to the docks to catch the ferry back to Central.  We had arranged to meet Wendy for dinner at an Italian restaurant in the IFC Mall, but when we got there, it was closed for renovations.  No problem, the 3 of us piled into a cab & went to the photo store to pick up my sunglasses.  Fortunately, this store is in the heart of everything, so we stopped at an Italian restaurant for some stimulating conversation over an excellent Italian red wine & an tasty meal.

Scene from Stanley - Banyan Tree & Pots (click to enlarge)

Scene from Stanley - Blue Wall & Window (click to enlarge)

Ron & Lynn, if you’re reading this, we gotta tell ya that you have an awesome daughter….you sure did something right raising her & she sure has created an exciting & interesting life for herself.  It was an absolute treat spending time with her.

We caught the ferry back to Kowloon.  I had  brought a camera & tripod along with me, so I tried to get some night shots along the harbour, but I don’t think I was too successful; I’ll have a closer look at them on the plane tomorrow.  Tomorrow!!  We’re going home tomorrow!!

What a great night’s sleep!  Up fairly early, totally re-energized, showered & ready for breakfast.  On the way up the elevator, we met Rosemary, a nice Australian lady.  She & her husband, Bill, have been traveling around the world, including a stop in Toronto.  Unfortunately, she ended up in critical care at Mount Sinai Hospital with some sort of kidney infection, so they didn’t see a lot of it.  They had left home on June 24th, the same as us, away for 2 months, their room was 1514 & ours was 1540 (we laughed about that when we were asked for our room numbers for breakfast), Bill owns Clark Transport & hauls for Caterpillar (I was aware of Clark Transport from my travels to Australia), Bill is 10 years older than Rosemary & I’m younger than Bonnie!  The similarities were endless!

Dragonfly - beautiful creatures up close (click to enlarge)

Today, Bonnie & I were touring on our own.  About 11:30, we headed to the Star Ferry Terminal & bought the 24-hour tickets for the hop on/hop off ‘Big Bus Tour’.  We’ve done this before in London, England & Bath & quite enjoyed this way of seeing & getting an introduction to the city, which helps plan walking/touring time.  We’ve promised ourselves, for the 3rd time, that we have to do this in Toronto too.  Maybe we’ll do it when Randi is visiting next month or with Geoff & Nancy (something to do on a future trip to Oshawa).  Wouldn’t you know it, we hopped off the bus at the Botanical Garden again, since we found it so peaceful &, besides, I wanted to get a few more pictures, or at least try to improve on a couple I took yesterday.  We boarded the bus again after an hour or so & continued touring around the city.  The route we were on, the Red Route, took us mainly through ‘Central’, which is the main downtown area of Hong Kong.  After another hour or so, & totally whipped, we got off the bus at the ferry terminal & made our way back to the hotel.

We had a bit of a rest, showered & went up to the lounge, where we met up with Rosemary & Bill for a refreshment & some snacks.  Bonnie & I then took a cab to the night market, not far from the hotel.  Wow….what a zoo!  The shopping is basically in stalls that went on forever in every direction.  After a lot of walking, looking in thousands of shops (it sure seemed like it to me), we hailed a cab to go for dinner at P.J. Murphy’s, an Irish pub close to the hotel; however, before we got there, we decided we’d had enough to eat in the lounge & didn’t feel much like inbibing, so we just went back to the hotel for a bit of TV & another good night’s sleep.

A note to ‘the kids’ (our fellow teachers, Jenessa – hope you’re having a great time in New Zealand, Chris, Jake, Alex, Miquel – hope you enjoyed your 3 days in Beijing , Sherry, Mike, the Kenneth with the cool glasses:  you wouldn’t enjoy it here, since there are only hundreds of bars, everything is clean, everything works, transportation is a snap, the beds are mega comfortable, the gardens have no weeds, we haven’t seen any duct tape (how’s the warts doing, Chris?), the air is much more fresh & clean – there is actually blue sky & a sun), the driving isn’t insane, pedestrians have the right-of-way, no incessant horn honking for absolutely no reason, we can read the menus & understand what we’re ordering, we can talk with pretty much everyone & nobody pokes their companions & points at us & nobody has asked to have their photo taken with us.  Sounds just like Yantai….NOT!!!

Anyway, Kids, all the best of luck with your real lives & keep in touch.  Jake, try something else before you settle on goat herding in Greece, but remember that ‘In the end, only the good times matter’.

Youre Absolutely Right, Jake!! (click to enlarge)

It’s Monday morning & we don’t have to teach!!!!

View of the Hong Kong harbour from our room at the Sheraton Towers Hotel (click to enlarge)

What a great night’s sleep.  The reason for that could be that there are heavy curtains on the window that keep the room dark, there were no mosquitos & we couldn’t hear any magpies!  We actually slept in until 8:30!  We took our time getting ready for the day & arrived in the restaurant on the 18th floor overlooking the harbour before they shut the breakfast service down.  After a breakfast consisting of fruit, eggs, toast, home fries, Earl Grey tea – anything except noodles & rice – we got in touch with Wendy, our friends’ daughter who has lived in Hong Kong for 6 years, & arranged to meet up with her at 11:00 AM on Hong Kong Island.

We headed for the Star Ferry, which is about a 10 minute walk along the harbour to the ferry terminal.  The ferry, which costs HK $2 (about 25 cents), takes 5 minutes or so to reach Central, the main business district of Hong Kong.  As promised, Wendy met us outside Starbucks & took us on a tour.  We walked through the IFC (International Financial Centre) mall to the world’s longest escalator.  It’s actually a series of escalators that go through many areas of the city, old & new, including Soho (means South Hollywood & has nothing to do with Hollywood in the US).

From there we walked to the Hong Kong Zoological & Botanical Gardens.  There’s no charge to walk through this awesome, open air zoo & gardens in the middle of the city!  The setting is a tropical forest/jungle &, although there are no lions, tigers & elephants, there are smaller animals:  monkeys, alligators, lemurs, raccoons (not sure why), large turtles and a damn big boa constrictor.  There’s also an aviary that you can walk through, with pink flamingos, a stork, several beautiful scarlet ibis, & several other species that I didn’t recognize.  Then we came to the ponds with painted turtles, a lot of large, colourful koi, water lilies & a lot of other typical water plants, very bright dragonflies.  This entire facility is so well maintained, particularly in comparison to the rest of China.  While walking through this park, the sounds of running water, many significant waterfalls, birds & the thick cover of banyan trees, ferns, palm trees totally drowned out the sounds of a very busy, bustling city.  Both of us have been in zoos & parks, but neither of us could think of a better place we’ve ever been in.

There are signs on everything telling the public that whatever it is is disinfected every hour, 4 times a day, etc.  That’s true, not just in this park, but around the city & even in the hotel.  The public toilets are clean & there’s even toilet paper in them!

After spending a couple of hours in the gardens, Wendy took us to the tram station where we boarded  the Peak Tram for what felt like a vertical ride to the top of a mountain overlooking Hong Kong. Of course before you get to see the 360 degree view, you have to go through a huge shopping area. Regardless of the ‘trinkets & trash’ opportunities, it was well worth the ride up.  After some shopping time, we took the myriad of escalators to the ‘Sky View Terrace’ for a breathtaking view of Kowloon (on the mainland), Hong Kong Island & Repulse Bay on the other side of the mountain looking out to the ocean.  We had a cool refreshment & a late lunch/dinner at Bubba Gump’s, the American restaurant chain named after the Forrest Gump movie.

Bonnie & Leif on The Peak overlooking the Hong Kong/Kowloon harbour (click to enlarge)

View of Hong Kong, Kowloon & the harbour from The Peak (click to enlarge)

After dinner, we took the tram back down & would our way, on foot, to the Star Ferry Terminal & back to the hotel in time for free (believe me, we paid for it in the room rate!) cocktails in the Skyview Lounge & another viewing of the ‘Symphony of Lights’.

We woke up to M&M’s this morning!  No, not the rapper or the candy-coated chocolates….mosquitos & magpies.  The mosquitos were dive-bombing us, actually they were after Bonnie, & the magpies were squawking outside.   But what the hell, we had to be up at 5:15 anyway.

Caroline (the newest of the WECL staff & she lives on campus, so she get’s the Joe-jobs) met Janessa, Bonnie & I in the lobby at 6:00 for our drive to the airport.  We checked in for our flight to Shanghai at the first class counter, which, in the end, was a good omen.  The only problem was that we could check our bags only as far as Shanghai, which meant that we had to go through the same check-in & security hassle there.  After our goodbyes to Janessa & Caroline, we went to the gate to catch our flight.

In the Shanghai airport, we had to pick up our luggage & check in again, but we had a couple of hours, so no big deal.  We checked in at the first class counter again – hey, all they can do is say “no” – & went to the gate.  Here’s where the good omen comes in.  While we were waiting in line to board, about an hour after the scheduled take-off time, a gate agent approached & told us we were being upgraded to first class, the style to which we’ve become accustomed!  It was only a 2 hour flight, but we were in comfortable seats & had a good meal.

Once we had picked up our luggage, we had a few options for transportation to the hotel:  bus, train, hotel shuttle bus or cab.  Comparing the 4, they were pretty much a wash price-wise, so we opted for the quickest & the least hassle – cab.  We arrived at the hotel about 7:00 PM & we were pretty much beat after a long day of tripping through airports.  I sure don’t miss those days!  Our hotel (notice I didn’t put quotations around that) of choice for our 4 nights in Hong Kong is the Sheraton Hong Kong Towers, which was highly recommended by my son, Mike, who has been here a few times.  Great choice, Mike!  We have an upgraded room in the tower overlooking the Hong Kong harbour, which includes breakfast & complimentary cocktails in the lounge on the 17th floor, also overlooking the harbour.  Since we had been well fed on the flight, we stayed in & went to the lounge for a couple of free drinks & to watch the ‘Symphony of Lights’ show.  Every night at 8:00 PM, flashing lights & laser lights are projected from the buildings along both sides of the harbour.  The synchronized music is played in the lounge.  It’s all very impressive.

We talked with a couple of guys sitting across from us:  Wayne from Sydney, Australia & Mike from San Diego.  Wayne is here on business & then heading to Beijing; Mike is on some sort of teaching assignment on a US aircraft carrier, but decided to stay in the hotel after 70-some days on a ship with about 5,000 others.  Can’t say that I blame him for that!  It’s very interesting meeting people from all parts of the world, although there are a lot of Aussies here.

We went back to the room to enjoy as much as we can of the comfort, clean sheets, the view, no bugs, no walls falling apart, chocolates on the bed, bed lamps that actually have shades that aren’t falling apart, internet that doesn’t have to be signed in every 5 minutes, air conditioning that can be left on all the time, hot water from the taps, hot water in the shower that doesn’t have to be plugged in an hour ahead, floors that don’t have to be swept every 5 minutes, no sewage smells coming from the toilet….you know, the little things in life.

….but I can’t quite recall what it is.  Three months until my birthday?  Yes, but that’s not it.  Oh yeah, it’s our last day of teaching & last day in Yantai!  We’re pulling away from the hotel at 6:00 AM tomorrow!  It’s going to be really sad to leave ‘the hotel’.  NOT!!!!!

We only had morning classes today, but it was a tougher day for Bonnie than it was for me.  She did laundry & ironed all morning.  I told her that I was sorry I wasn’t in the room to capture her ironing, since it won’t happen again for a long time.  It was tougher for her than me because I had my students watch movies.  After our last lunch in the cafeteria – YESSSSS! – we went over to the school to meet up with everyone to walk to a large auditorium for the talent show & graduation program.  Like most things that have happened here, the communications weren’t that great.  First of all, many of the students didn’t show up today & maybe that’s just par for the course.  Several showed up late thinking that it started later.  Ah China!  The students & the TA’s put on an excellent program.  There were poems, singing, dancing, Miquel even did a rap song with one of the students, skits, certificates were handed out & a representative from each class read a thank you note for each of the teachers.  One of my good students, Joha, did mine & it actually choked me up.

A while after the graduation program, the remaining ‘kids’, Bonnie & I went for dinner in a dodgy sort of restaurant outside the west gate.  It was really good.  That was about it for us….off to bed to get a good night’s sleep in preparation for our 5:15 alarm.

….not that tomorrow will be a tough one.

The students are winding down, it’s getting more difficult to get & keep their attention.  At the end of the last morning period, I told my class that we’d be doing something special during the 2:30 class.  I had a cake delivered to the school & I picked up enough cold ice tea drinks for everyone.  They really enjoyed it, but one dork started putting the whipped cream on other kid’s faces, so I had to put my foot down.  The remaining 10 minutes of the class was spent playing ‘Hangman’.  I got one of the guys to come up to the board to do one.  His line was “Brian is a gay”.  Cute.

Bonnie finished teaching Wan Ting this morning & offered to fill in for other teachers who had left, but really wasn’t needed.  I said that the students are winding down, but so are the teachers.  She did, however, come to my class for a piece of cake & got the Hangman game going & then went back to the room to do the final 2 large loads of laundry.  The domestics do take some time here.

Jake & Alex left tonight.

Bonnie, Nicole & I went to Druid’s for dinner.  We had also invited Reg to join us, but unfortunately he had to bail – he’s staying on to teach for the full semester, which starts in a week or so, & he’s trying to make the meagre pay stretch a bit further.  It was raining so, for the first time, we had dinner inside.  We headed back to ‘the hotel’ about 9:00 PM & caught up with the other teachers who were trying to figure out what the teachers’ act would be for the talent show tomorrow.  We were planning to do a song, which included acting out some parts, but in the end I gave my 2 cents worth:  we shouldn’t do anything.

So our 2nd last night of sleep is upon us.

School days, school days, good old golden rule days…..but no ‘rithmetic.

We both had 4 classes today.  I spent 3 of mine showing my class a movie, ’3:10 to Yuma’.  The movie was quite good, but the sound system is shitty &, wouldn’t you know, the movie quit with about 15 minutes to go.  I tried a few times to get it going, but no luck.  We had lunch at the cleanest dirty table in the cafeteria, & went back to the air conditioned room after classes.  It was stinking hot again today.  Something did, however, happen that we haven’t seen here before…..the waist-high weeds in the gardens were weed-wackered down.  Oops, what I meant to say was that somebody came by to manicure the lawn.

Manicuring the Lawn (click to enlarge)

Nothing says ‘lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer’ like the smell of freshly wackered weeds!

Talk about a room with a view!  Yup, this is our view from the 6th floor below our bedroom/living room/laundry room/office window.  Then the weed wacker came & scared the cat away.

Room With a View! (click to enlarge)

Bonnie did some laundry in the afternoon, but discovered after a while that the machine would fill up-agitate-empty, fill up-agitate-empty, fill up-agitate-empty.  We have the best rinsed clothes in China!  At least there wasn’t a package of kleenex left in a pocket this time!

A bit later, Sherry took 4 of us to the market to for hair cuts.  She’s definitely our protector – she looks after us very well!  I wasn’t intending to take the chance, but figured what the hell.  The difference between a good haircut & a bad haircut is about 1 week.  What a surprise!  That’s the best, & most meticulous, haircut I’ve had since….I can’t remember when.  Bonnie was really pleased with hers too.  Each cut took about 40 minutes & included a wash before & again after.  At 20 yuan each (Cdn. $3), it was one helluva deal!

After that, we went to a BBQ restaurant.  Remember the previous comments about misnomers?  Well, this is the closest thing we’ve seen to a BBQ other than Druid’s lamb BBQ on the beach.  The restaurant has a hibachi set up on the sidewalk outside where a couple of guys grill skewers of various meats – pork or fatter pork is one of the choices – vegetables & bread.  It was really very good.

Us old folks spent the night in, but the young crew (minus Chris) drank some beer in one of the rooms & then headed to Druid’s.  We’ll hear the stories in the morning.

It was another blistering hot, humid day with absolutely no relief in the classrooms.  My first 2 classes were pretty much typical, but the kids were just a pain in the ass during the third class.  I asked one of them if he’d like to come to the front to teach, & in his usual stunned manner, he said yes.  So I said to him, “You want to come up here & teach?”  He said yes again, so I told him to come up.  He didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, but I went & sat in his chair & started talking to one of the other kids.  He just stood at the font not knowing what the hell was going on.  That was after having to tell one of the better students a couple of times to put his electronic game away.  I ranted for a few minutes – I was pissed off & they knew it.

After lunch, I told them that I understood that it’s hot & that they’d rather be somewhere else, but that I respect them for being there to learn & their parents paid a lot of money for them to be there.  I went on to say that I also gave up a good part of my summer to be here teaching, I traveled a long distance to do it & paid a lot of money to get here, so show me some respect; cell phones & people talking & throwing things around when I’m trying to teach is very annoying.  In the middle of this, my TA (Teacher’s Assistant) came in, sat down, started talking to one of the kids & threw a wad of paper at another, so I had to give him shit!  I don’t care much for him anyway.  Once that was done, I asked them to get out a sheet of paper, right down their name, tell me if they feel their English improved during this summer session, if they would return to the school, what they thought was good & bad about the experience.  I got some good answers, some of which we’ll include in the book we put together about this whole trip.

After school, we had what is called a “Coner Session” (conversation session).  Four of the teachers were in 4 rooms.  I talked about photography & showed some of my photos & equipment.  I had about 15 or so kids in the room, which is much more than I expected.  Bonnie did a yoga session for about 12 kids & Alex talked about soccer.  Other than the Saturday graduation ceremony & talent show, during which the teachers have to sing, that’s it for the extra-curricular activities.

Since we didn’t feel much like having cafeteria food for dinner, we walked to Jusco for some bananas, juice & yogurt & had dinner at Pizza Hut.

The other teachers made it back from Beijing last night, so we were back to full staff.  It was so hot today, I didn’t do anything in my classes that would task anyone’s brains too much, including mine.  In fact, I had loaded about 300 photographs on a flash drive before I left home & used them to fill in 3 out of 4 classes.  I took the students to the Video Room & tried a new approach to showing photographs.  The Video Room is air conditioned!!!  I told them that the deal was we’d do that, but when I showed a photograph, they had to tell me what the shot was all about – place, what was going on, etc. – & that there were no wrong answers.  Then I’d tell them the real story.  It worked reasonably OK, but the important thing is that it filled in three 50 minute classes.  My mind is so shot right now, that I can’t even remember what we did in my last home room class.

We had to complete report cards for each of the kids, so I finished that up at lunch.  For the most part, they were short & sweet; however, there were a couple that weren’t that sweet.  I tried to keep it as positive as possible, but it was a challenge.  The best word I could think of to describe one kid was “stunned”, but I changed that to something like “….it was obvious, from his inability to answer questions & participate in class, that he had a difficult time focusing & comprehending what was expected of him.”  In the immortal words of Buddy Wassisname & the Other Fellas, I still think that “stunned as me arse” would have been the most appropriate comment.

Bonnie was back to her regular schedule with her one-on-one student.

At lunchtime, all the teachers were videotaped giving a short sentence or 2 on their thoughts about this teaching experience.  That was a tall order!  My comment was something about this 8 week trip being a fantastic experience & opportunity to see the Chinese culture & that the teaching experience was a “unique & challenging opportunity”.  Bonnie commented that the office staff was good, for the most part the students were enthusiastic & it was a great experience.  All but 2 of the teachers taped.  Hey, what the hell, we’ve now been immortalized in China!  We expect to see photos of ourselves flanking Mao on the front wall of the Forbidden City!

Suki playing the Zheng (click to enlarge)

The highlight of the day was that we were invited to one of my student’s home for dinner.  Suki’s mother picked the 3 of us up at the school at 4:00 PM.  It turns out that their condo is on the 22nd floor of a building just a few minutes walk from the university’s main gate.  The condo was very nice – immaculate, very nicely decorated in a mix of asian & western, but at the same time, minimalist.   A bit about the 3 of them.  Suki is a very attractive, elegant 23 year old 2nd year university student whose English is very good, so it’s no problem carrying on an intelligent conversation with her.  She’s very talented – she’s an artist & wants to complete her university education at an art school.  She also plays a ‘Zheng’ (I think that’s the correct spelling), which is basically a Chinese harp (see photo) used to play traditional Chinese music.  She played for us & is very good.  Her mother is also an artist.  Her father is a semi-famous artist who uses a combination of ink & watercolours to paint in a traditional Chinese style.  We saw some of his work in published books –  unusual & very, very good.  There were a couple of paintings that we’d hang on our walls.

Bonnie & Leif at Sukis home

Jia Rong preparing dinner (click to enlarge)

Suki’s father, Yong An,  also does some photography but, unfortunately, uses a Nikon camera.  We gave each other the gears – the old Canon vs. Nikon argument!  Suki’s mother, Jia Nong, put together a great meal for us consisting of  delicious dumplings, which we helped make, a chicken dish, small muscle-like shell fish,  a meat in a sauce that was put together either on fresh lettuce or small square wraps (very good), shredded vegetables, watermelon, delicious honey melons & an excellent Chinese red wine.  Suki & Jia Nong walked us back to the university gate & we were back to our room about 10:00 PM.  It was one of the best evenings we’ve had here in Yantai.

Leif & Suki (click to enlarge)

Leng Jia Rong, Suki & Jiang Yong An (click to enlarge)

Bonnie, Suki & Leif