Do Re Mi - Tsim Sha Tsui
Oh, it's been tiring today. I really had a rough day today, I can teach most kids but I have the hardest time with the younger children. By "younger" I mean around 4 years old. I nearly lost control of the class today. I think part of it is I'm exhausted from the weekend.
I started the weekend by having drinks with a new friend Friday night. She's an interesting girl who I think is actually taller than all the other girls I'm friends with. What's interesting about her is that she is one of the few girls I know who really is pushing to be her own boss. She is working with things that are similar to what Kevin works with right now.
Saturday night was kind of a write-off. I had promised sometime past that I would attend a birthday event held by another friend's friend. We ended up at a place called Haven in Lan Kwai Fong. It is located a bit down the slope from Volar. The environment was okay but the song selection was horrible. The place is basically a lounge we can sit and chat in with a karaoke screen on the side. We socialized just a little bit but still left pretty late.
I woke up around 1 pm Sunday just so I could go out to Tutor. I did about two hours out near Kwai Hing and took a walk in Prince Edward to do a bit of shopping. I was browsing through the fake t-shirts and I found a pair of cargo pants for $59 HKD. They seemed pretty good and for that price I might as well give them a try. It is a pretty good place to shop if you're looking for t-shirts (lots of fake bathing ape, supreme, etc) but some of the name brand knock-offs are so obvious it isn't worth buying. Polo comes to mind, the font shapes are so off. I always hear that these clothes are either factory outlet stuff or factory rejects but I wouldn't trust what people say. The font and logos are often so obviously wrong that there is no way they can be related to the authenic article.
After my shopping spree I went to meet up with a new co-worker Bonnie. She's working down at SME with me. Well, I only have one class left to do there so she won't be a co-worker for much longer. We headed over to Do-Re-Mi out in TST with her friends who are all really into Japanese songs. Do-Re-Mi is famous in Hong Kong for their Japanese song selection. Actually I kind of like that place so I'll probably go back. I did my usual songs, "Oukina Furudokei" (大きな古時計) and Southern All Star's "Tsunami". Nanase taught me the former and Yuki (guy Yuki) recommended the latter.
I helped my co-worker Pamm out with her class and now it is left me really tired. I'm going to relax a bit now, go for a swim in the public pool and then have dinner with Hiroko later on tonight. Today has been tiring for all my co-workers.
Labels: Friends, Karaoke
One thing I want to really do this summer is to get out onto the water as much as I can. I had some success this past Sunday when Raymond, Connie, Patrick, Daisy, and I went out
wakeboarding for the whole day. It was a little expensive but at least we were out the whole day on the water. I applied sun block probably every 30 minutes, I was so afraid of getting sunburnt this time around. I managed to pick up a bit of a tan without getting burnt so the operation was a complete success.
There are a couple of interesting movies out this summer. I went to watch
Superman Returns with Denise and Hiroko the other day. Actually, I completely forgot that it might be related to the previous released movies but when the opening credits came on and the theme music played it all came back to me. Brandon Routh did a pretty good Superman in my opinion. The initial Clark Kent scene when he had his glasses on was particularily convincing. Kevin Spacey as Lex seemed a little lacking. Maybe it was his voice, it just seems so dramatically different than the original cast. The next movie on my list is
Pirates of the Carribbean:Deadman's Chest. I saw the first one with Ryoko a long time ago and I had really enjoyed that experience.
The summer is still pretty busy. It has been good to a degree, work hard and play hard. I had my hair cut yesterday but the outcome wasn't what I expected. I guess because I had a different stylist. The cut isn't bad though, I suppose because they're both Korean stylist (my previous stylist and the one who just recently cut my hair) but it certainly feels different right now. I've experimented enough with my hair over the last year that I know I need to give myself some time to adjust.
Labels: Friends
Summer English Just Started - I'm Dying
This is my first week back full time at
Readership and it has been pretty hard. There's probably several things contributing to this. The few weeks before I had an over abundance of free time. I was consistantly waking up after 12 pm and staying up at least until 4 am most nights. The second problem is that there's some sort of damn virus running around Hong Kong. People all around me are coughing and sneezing and generally seem to be sick, but it isn't a really bad sickness. But I know I'm sick, I woke up the other day with that "something crawled into my throat and died" feeling. I've been really going through my mouthwash in the morning.
The upside to the summer courses is that I get to be with a lot of cute kids again. Some of them I've met before, others I'm just seening for the first time. We're a little short on English teachers so if anyone is looking fire me off a message if you plan on being in Hong Kong.
The other good news so far is that I finally got paid a portion of what was owed to me by SME Education centre in Yau Ma Tei. They're still a poorly run operation but some people seem to be trying to fix things.
This is a kind of last push of fun before my full time summer job starts. I'm back at Readership this summer and like last summer I expect it to be intense. I didn't do much Friday, I needed a day to relax because I was a little stressed over Saturday. The only thing that happened Friday was that I went out with a few friends to the cat cafe in Causeway Bay. What is a cat cafe? There's an actual cafe where cats run around while you sit, eat, chat, and relax. Several of the cats have gotten quite fat and all of them are extremely spoiled. Half don't like to be touched, they've probably have been groped too often, and the other half are too lazy to move when you get close to them. They were still cute though in their own feline way. Henry gave me a call last minute to go Karaoke in TST but I wanted some rest that night since Saturday was already a full day.
The background to Saturday. About a week or so ago Kennis asked if I could help her book a table at Hei Hei. I called up Terence and he, and some guy name Mook, hooked me up for Saturday. Actually originally they planned for Friday but Kennis forgot she needed to work early Saturday and shifted the date to Saturday. Now, Celia's been planning her party for a while and I already made plans to go to her birthday Saturday. Luckily it was also at Hei Hei so I figured I could do both, book a table and hang out at Celia's birthday party. The event planning had started and I decided to consult the queen of event planning, Tiffany. A few problems came up right away, after they shifted the date from Friday to Saturday we lost a few people. Actually most of the people from Kennis's original plan. I didn't want to cancel the table because Terence had gone through the trouble of setting it up for me so I called out my friends to fill the spaces. Oscar and Nikki came with their friend Jimmy who was visiting from England. Kennis came out with two girls he picked up on the MTR but because of dress code reasons he was turned away at the door. Agnes showed up and I helped her get a wack of girls in. Then Henry surprised me and showed up as well dragging Ally out of bed. Ada actually dropped by but it wasn't for clubbing. She just happened to be eating in the neighbourhood and guessed that I might be at Hei Hei. She probably saw it on my MSN name. It was a crazy night where I was running around saying hello to the Birthday girl and her friends, making sure all my friends got in since they were showing up at different times, and just spending time with new friends at the club. I met some singer apparently and took a picture with him but I really have no clue who he is. There was a private party at Hei Hei that night before they openned it up to the public. It was hosted by Milk and Stussy. They flew a DJ down from Japan who spun a pretty good set.
It was a fun night, to top it off we ended up getting Lebanese food afterwards in Central. I haven't had Lebanese food in so long, it was delicious. But I was starved by 5 am.
Labels: Birthdays, Friends
That's how they do it in Hong Kong. Soccer fever is everywhere here(or foot ball for the British crowd) people everywhere stand around in malls, out in the heat on the street in Mong Kok, hanging around in the bars, clubs, and for us the karaoke establishments. Saturday night after my class I recieved a call from Henry and his friend Phyliss. Henry had some kind of incident and was a bit depressed so we went out to TST to have dinner. We had some basic Shabu Shabu (hot pot) and beef sashimi down along Kimberly road. Afterwards Phyliss's friend Ally gave her a call and invited us down to Hei Hei. We ended up going and I was introduced to Ally and her soon to be roommate Cen. That night I ran into another teacher from Readership (I think all the teachers at readership club) and my old University mate Tracy. We partied with depressed Henry until morning then he drove us out to some remote place to have breakfast. All I remember was that we could see mountains around us and there was a lot of haze/fog. It was a pretty fun night.
My Sunday was killer though, I had promised my friend Pak To to have lunch with him around 12ish. We ended up meeting about 2am, but I was up earlier than that trying to figure out my day. Ricky and the group apparently went swimming down at Stanley but I had to tutor. I did that right after lunch and then went home. We had dinner that evening with Priscilla before she leaves for Canada. After dinner Ally had invited
us to watch the final
World Cup match with her friends at Red Box in Causeway Bay. Henry was suppose to come out and Hiroko ended up coming out instead of him. We stayed until the MTR openned up in the morning and then had breakfast before heading home. What a weekend!
Edit 2006.07.21 -
Pictures from JenLabels: Friends, Karaoke
Canada Day came and went again. Actually I remembered it was Canada day but I totally forgot about HKSAR Day in Hong Kong. I've been spending a lot of time out at night these days. Nanase is leaving back to Japan on Weds, my co-worker Dennis's birthday just past, and of course Canada Day. Actually it didn't seem very Canada Dayish with all the world cup fever that's been running around. We tried to get most of the Canadians out to play but a few sold out to watch the game. Good luck to Alvin and Tina who travelled back to Canada Sunday. It was nice to see a few friends whom I haven't seen in quite a while. Overall it has been a very busy start for the summer. I'm starting to feel it in my wallet.
Labels: Friends
