Hong Kong Trip

Hey everybody. I just realized October is nearing an end and I have yet to blog...oops. This month I had a bit of free time to take a vacation to Hong Kong. I went to visit a couple of friends who are former teachers here at CMS. One is Michelle Cavalli, who now teaches 2nd grade at the elementary school of Hong Kong International School. The other is Mike Kersten, who teaches history, humanities and a service course at the high school.

The trip was a great chance to get away and relax for a bit. Honestly the hightlights for me were just being able to hang out and play cards. A couple of activities we did include looking at some scenic temples and statues, walking around the central part of Hong Kong, going to Michelle's 2nd grade classroom, and eating at several American restaurants.

I don't have a whole lot to say about it and have not uploaded any pictures yet to my computer. Maybe I'll have some good ones to post.

Some cultural things of note:

1. People drive on the left hand side of the road, this comes from the heavy British influence.

2. Recycling is not popular in Hong Kong. Here in Taiwan, we recycle everything, even trash at McDonald's. In HK, I did not see anything at all for recycling.

3. One of the most interesting sites I saw was a statue outside of one of the banks. Hong Kong is famous for 4 or 5 of its banks, and outside one of them were two statues of lions. The lions had holes and gashes in them, and Michelle told us that these wear bullet holes from WWII, when the Japanese had come. I thought it was wonderful that the city chose to keep the same monuments on display at that the public can walk by today and see damage from fighting that happened over 60 years ago.

4. I saw the skyline several times, including some of the buildings that were used to shoot the new Batman movie (I would have to go back and watch to be sure which ones I saw). Anyway, I guess the filming of it caused a bit of a stir because of problems with lighting and usage of these buildings. I don't know if it was a huge deal or not, but was informed it was a little troublesome for the city.

Ok, that's it for now. I'll blog more later to talk about the track and field day we just had here at CMS.