Moganshan

I have survived!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually I had a fnatastic week where I managed to astound my colleague by being absolutely hyper and earned the name of 'Happy Camper'!

On Monday, I was picked up by the taxi driver at 5am and then went to pick up MeShi. We chatted to the airport where we met our students and parents were there to wish us well and kiss their children goodbye for the week. Group check-ins are quite arduous and it took us ages to all check in - 52 students and 4 adults. Thankfully, Elyse kindly went to buy me a coffee while we waited to get our luggage on. We were soon checked in and on our way to Moganshan.

We arrived at Hangzhou airport, to be welcomed by Christa and the rest of the APA team - they had even drawn up a banner for us - bless! We then loaded the buses up and set off for Baiyun Villas at Moganshan. There was a lady on the bus, and I guess she must have been a tour guide. However, her English was bad and she wanted to talk to talk to our group in Putonghua. Thankfully, Adam put a stop to this, at which point she decided to sing us a song...in Putonghua of course. Melvin sat next to me and whispered that when the APA leaders arrived, she'd sung to them too. It was weird.

We arrived at Baiyun villas and dumped out stuff in our rooms. The girls were very sweet and exclaimed that I should have the room with the balcony or the biggest room. However, I decided to let them have the bigger rooms and had a centrally located room. We went to have lunch at a nearby restaurant - the food ROCKED - and there was so much of it - not just that day but the WHOLE week!!!!!!!!! We then had a breifing from Christa and went into our groups to do some team building activities before eating yet again! We played 'spoons' except we had chopsticks on the landingwhich was fun - until two chopsticks broke as we were fighting ovr them (sorry Mini Boo- who got a chopstick in the face!)

On Tuesday, we went to do visit a tea plantation and took some cool photos of the area. Our group (the Pink Foot Potatoes) helped to weed and tidy up an area of trail. At this point I nearly stuck my head into a bunch of caterpillars - lovely! We then went back to a place called The Lodge where we ate food that another group had cooked. Then it was our turn to prepare food for dinner. I think the students had fun tearing and chopping the food into pieces. I did have to bring a cabbage food fight to a halt before it got out of hand. The girls came to my room to hang out and chat - that was cool - oh and Rav was there too.

Wednesaday brought beautiful weather and a day of activities. In the morning, we had morning exercise , which was fun and we played 'evolution' - I got to evolve into an HKIS student. We had breakfast and then headed down to the tyrolean cross and the abseil site. I was about the fourth person to do the tyrolean - which I was a little nervous about. However, they needed me to help on the other side. So, after repeating that I was scared about a fajillion times (I always verbalise my fear...and then laugh...very odd behaviour - I know), Mike told me that he was giving me a count of three. So, I gained the fear of being pushed off by Mike, so voluntarily stepped off the platform, screamed and laughed - it was good fun...and over far too quickly. It was more like a zip line with only a little bit of effort to get right to the other side. I was then shown how to detach students from the tyrolean safely. I think I scared Melvin and Chico on the first attempt, where I initially wanted to detach the dafety line - not a good move, but I got a hang of it. They were then freed to start students on the abseil down the waterfall. This I unfortunately didn't get to do due to time constraints, but it was cool that some of the students who found it difficult, overcame their fears and completed it. As we were sitting around a lot too, I got to talk to Ariane and Stef about how I became a Christian, how I came to be in HK and how I got my jobs - it was so good to tell of God's goodness in my life.

In the afternoon - after a spaghetti bolognese lunch at the lodge, we went raft building. This was quite amusing, as some of the locals were there and watched the whole process. A couple even joined in - helping to tie a couple of knots! We had a race, and then tidied up and went back to the Lodge for another meal - potatoes and stew - SO GOOD!!!!!

Thursday was a damp and misty day - and we were embarking on our adventure race. I decided - even though we didn't have to join a student group - to stay with half of the Potatoes and see what they had to do. I was afraid that they would all run off and I'd be left panting behind them. Thankfully this was not the case as my group started by being led by a enthusiastic Rav who seemed to want to venture down every dirt track possible. We got quite lost trying to get to our first station, but we found the other half of the Potatoes and we found it together. We gradually made our way to a few other posts, which built up the team's confidence. I must say that the last hour or so was the best fun as we managed to get a couple of stations. Then as we were walking back to the final meeting place (If we didn't get there on time, we'd lose points.) when I pointed out a roundabout to the students and they looked at me and carried on. Piak, who was with us also pointed out to me that the station there was very close by, which caused me to laugh as my students continued to ignore these subtle hints. As we continued, Rav realised he'd left his backpack a couple of stations down the line. So, he and Piak ran back for it, while I led the rest of the group to the station we'd passed to see if we could get some more points. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the information as it had been removed...and yes, I did proclaim very loudly that it SUCKED! We ran back to the point where we'd split into two groups, Piak rang me and I thought he said he was nearly back at the market - which was close to the end point. he repeated and he was actually saying he was nearly back at Mark's (The Lodge) which was the end point. I screamed and slung my backpack on and managed to get my group running once more to make it back to theLodge. It was so chaotic and exciting - loved it!!!!!!

On Friday we woke early, ate breakfast, boarded the buses (where my lost camera was reunited with me :) ) and we headed back down the mountain to Hangzhou. We spent about an hour there shopping (actually I think most students stopped off at Dairy Queen) before we went to lunch at LoWaiLo restaurant on Westlake (very good food yet again!). We had a group photo, got back on the buses and .....the bus pulled over after a while. I thought the driver was lost again...but it turned out that the guide and the driver were speaking in the local dialect so that our students couldn't translate for us and there was some disagreement about payment. Thankfully, Christa sorted it out and we were on our way to the airport. It took us ages to check in and we arrived safely back in HK.

I just want to say that the following people ROCK:
Mark, Joanna and Isabelle - The Lodge - a sanctuary of good cofee, hot chocolate, brownies, food and music!
Christa, Adam, Hodge (and Joyce), Ebben, Melvin, Piak, Chico and Mike - Asia Pacific Adventure- brilliant professionals and excellent at what they do - you can trust these people with your lives!
Melita, Terry and Peter - my colleagues - so chilled out, cool and hilariful (hilarious and wonderful)!
Our students - so nice, so fun and so much energy - love it!!!!!!!

Nausea

I've felt kind of nauseous today. I haven't been sleeping well this week - often waking in the middle of the night and having to eat chocolate before I get back to sleep. Last night before I went to bed I discovered I didn't know where my passport or Hui Heung Jing were. Then I woke at 2:30am thinking - it should be by my big backpack. Therefore I had to get up - and lo and behold- there it was. At least my mind was at rest about where it was.

I've started packing - but feel kind of unsettled as I also know I need to go away this weekend. I think the fact that I've been marking kids work all day hasn't helped. Plus the fact that I just finished marking one big assignment to then have 100 lab reports and 100 end of unit tests to mark, and knowing I won't be able to do much at the weekend is disturbing. I know - it's not urgent and we shall all carry on living - I guess I just know that it won't be nice to come back to the marking pile when I get back from China. I guess that's partly why I went down to Happy Valley - to watch the U16 team play - to support the girls I know from KCC and Rachel and Jen from school. I could escape and prevent myself from marking work at home and not just sit in front of the telly.

Matthew 6v27
Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Of course not.

Matthew 6 v 32-34
Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.
So don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today's trouble is enough for today.

China - here we come!

It's Tuesday and I just got back from hockey training - one of the only ones I'll be able to make as I normally have either Ministry leaders PLUS or Flight852 leaders meeting on Tuesdays. It was good to have a run around, and get some skills. Unfortunately I won't be able to put them to practice this coming Saturday as I have a Flight leaders retreat. Well, at least I played last Saturday which ended in a 3-3 draw against Val D. Hopefully, my team will have enough players and win against Val E.

Following the retreat I will be heading off to Moganshan, China on Monday on an 8am flight....ugh! I think I have a love-hate relationship with these trips with the kids. I haven't had to do most of the organising, but the chasing up of the little things is still a hassle, plus getting myself ready! I know that once I get there I'll enjoy it. I have a great group of kids to go with- really fun, nice and well-mannered and we're going with an excellent organisation. plus I've been to Hangzhou before, so it is still a little familiar. I'll still have to rely on teh kids for translation as I am limited by my phrases of "How are you?", "Thank you!", "No good!", "I love you!" and "Jesus loves you!". However, these could be enough for the most simple evangelism EVER!

Ideas for teaching

Ugh...I have just finished marking 100 sets of focus questions. This has a high boredom factor attached to it and I'm sure this is bad for my eyes. I have told some students before that I love being in the class with them - getting them to learn stuff, and although I know it is important, marking is one of the worst chores I have to do as a teacher...so laborious, time consuming and essential. I still have about 94 element boxes to mark and will be giving an end of unit test soon. I can't wait until they have that machine like the one from the Matrix, shove it in the back of students heads to probe and measure how much they have learnt and then it's done. Seriously, there must be someone in a hidden lab somewhere working on it.

While they're at it, they can make me some new eyes and an automatic internal caffeine release system.

Holiday:Kota Kinabalu

Yesterday I just flew back in from Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. We had a school holiday from Thursday to Tuesday and I went for a relaxing holiday with my friend, Praise. We stayed at the Shangri La Rasa Ria resort - which was luxurious to say the least!

We flew in and had a quick tour of the city before heading to the hotel. There we settled into the room and then headed down to the outside restaurant for the buffet. We spent well over three hours eating crab, prawns with HUGE heads etc - but we had to pace ourselves and make it worthwhile. There was also a local dance group which was cool and we were entertained.

We went off to some island (I know I'm really good with names of places!) where we ventured into the water to trip over rocks and get scratched by the violent corals. There was a little boy who came over to us and we watched him through the day finding new people to try and make friends with but actually just ended up pestering. We gave up on the idea of being immersed in water and sun bathed to ensure we obtained the obligatory tan. After our lunch of prawns, noodles and crab we continued our lazy afternoon in the sun which ended with the spotting of a monitor lizard on the beach, at which point we made a mad dash for our cameras to record the sighting.


We stopped off in town on our way home and popped in to the other Shangri-la hotel, which I was definitely less impressed with and then we ended up having a curry at Naan back at the Rasa Ria.

Sunday started with rain which we were sad about as it was what we had planned to be our 'animal' day - we had planned to ride horses and visit animals in the jungle next door. We managed to have a one hour horse ride along the beach - past the buffaloes who go there every morning. Now for someone who had never been on a horse before it was cool but I felt very uncoordinated as my guide tried to get the horse to trot with me not really knowing what to do. I finally figured out what to do in the last 15 minutes of the ride by which time I had already acquired the sore bottom. Just after our dismount the rain poured down as we ran back to the hotel.

We later went to the pool at which point we were supposed to be seeing animals in the jungle as we thought it was happening 2 hours later. Oh well. We weren't too disappointed as we then got ready for our 2.5hour spa treatment which included a body wrap where we were covered with powdered rice, egg and lemon. I ended up feeling like a huge piece of sushi. After that was all rinsed off we had a very nice massage and mini facial.

The next day, we went off to Kinabalu Park to walk some of the trails and of course see Mount Kinabalu. That weekend had been the Climbathon where people had raced up and down Kinabalu in just over a couple of hours - good grief - where do they get the energy from, and can I have some? We walked at a leisurely pace looking at the flora of the park including a pitcher plant, orchids, bamboo, naked trees etc. We had lunch and then continued with a walk around the garden where we saw loads of orchids, but most were about half the size of the nail on my pinkie. It made me wonder why are they so small? Well, God can make it that small, so he does..totally amazing and beautiful!



We ended the day back at the hotel and ate at Coast which is a restaurant by the beach with chandeliers shaped like Jellyfish - very cool. Oh...and that was another 3 hour meal!