Hong Kong!

I am finally back in Singapore after 10 days in Hong Kong. I have lots to write about so I'm going to go chronologically because it's the easiest to sort out in my own mind.

http://s1105.photobucket.com/albums/h343/Bea_Jolley/Bea%20and%20Iain%20do%20Hong%20Kong/

My last two weeks have been vacation-y with a number of holidays here in Singapore with the Presidential Election and Hari Raya. As you know, I've been dealing with a rather confusing and complicated break up so I really needed this time to sort myself out and get my head around what's happened and changed for me.

I spent lots of time with my friends and Iain's solution to a broken heart is to spend as much time in the sun and swimming as possible because how can you be sad if you are sunbathing. The answer is that you can, but it's a lot better than being sad locked up in your room.

Singapore has a holiday called "Teacher's Day" which is a really cool day for the students to give thanks to their teachers and shower us with presents and gifts. I will say that Singapore teachers are some of the hardest working people I've seen and they really deserve it. Many spend 12 hours a day at school and often weekends too to put on CCA programs, exam preparations and to cope with the astronomical teaching load we all face. If any group of professionals deserved a day, it's Singaporean teachers. It was really touching to have students giving me cards and presents and saying thank you for what I've done. It being my first year as a teacher and being in a foreign context I spend a lot of my time feeling like I'm behind everyone else and trying to tread water and keep from drowning. I know I'm no where near an awesome teacher yet so it was encouraging to hear from students that they appreciate the work that I do.

Then it was off to Hong Kong with my good friend Iain. Now, in the interest of clarity, I will explain who Iain is and why we are friends. He is slightly younger than my Dad and from the UK, as my Dad is and so in a lot of ways he reminds me of my Dad. I'm in between his daughter and his son's ages so I think for both of us we are like family when we are away from home. We have a lot of fun and laugh a lot and people either think he's my Dad or I'm his concubine, but neither is the truth.

We spent the week with Iain's friend Ricky in Sai Kung which is outside of Kowloon. I will tell you that the side of Hong Kong that I saw was not the one I thought I would see. I was expecting bright city lights, tall buildings and fast paced Asian culture, but I found myself in a picturesque fishing "village" which was more like village meets city. They had a Starbucks, but they also had little junk boats that ferried people to the neighboring islands and beaches.

Iain and I continued our sun and swim therapy for my broken heart and ended up becoming very very tanned. We made it our goal to become racially ambiguous and hope that people will mistake us for African.

I managed to get some really great shopping done and found amazing deals and cool new clothes. I'm really pleased with the clothes I got and some are for work, some are for bumming around on weekends but all of them make me feel really good and comfortable.

Some notable places that I went were the Lady's Market and Flower Market, Dim Sum breakfasts, Trio Bay beach, Central up the escalator and Kowloon for shopping. I have posted pictures and videos up to my photobucket, I haven't watched the videos yet but I tried to take some of driving at night and being on the boat to the beach so it will be interesting to see how they turned out.

Hong Kong felt much more like China to me, with the lush green hills in the background and the style of houses it just seemed more like what I imagine China looks like (not surprising, considering it kind of is China...) and Cantonese was spoken much more than Mandarin so I went through the confused Chinese brain thing all over again, having just wrapped my head around Mandarin and Singlish.

This being my first real trip out of Singapore I got a little more perspective on what it's like back here. I realised just how accessible things seem here, I know at any time of night or day that I can get from one place to another and I know how to do it or how to find out how. Things feel more safe but at the same time more contained and in a way sanitised. Singapore seems to me much more like a fish bowl but at the same time much more culturally diverse and full of rich flavours and languages as well as it's own special brand of all of it mixed into one. I also realised this morning when I was woken at my friend's flat by a marching band practicing at a youth arts centre near their place that I feel more like I am in tune with the vibrance and life here on the island. I don't always know what's going on but there's more of a sense of harmony and a common moving towards something. I don't know if that really explains it, but it has certainly been an interesting experience.

It was wonderful to be travelling and relaxing and it's been really nice to come back and have friends waiting for me to step off the plane and go out dancing. Last night we went to an amazing bar called 1 Altitude which is on the 70th floor of a building in Raffles where you can see a panorama of the entire island. It was breathtaking, beautiful and the most fun I've had in a while, just dancing with my friends and feeling confident and beautiful and independent and free. It's been a rough go lately but I do feel that I'm coming out the other side only slightly the worse for wear.

Also: life just feels better when you go through it with a golden tan. ;)