Happy Birthday!

 

Today is Hong Kong’s “Dress Special Day”. The tagline is ‘show you care by what you wear’. The local Community Chest group (helps raise awareness for the underprivileged) markets this day for the general public to dress up and collect donations for street sleepers and cage residents. (Some of HK’s homeless reside in warehouses filled with cages, not far from looking like an animal shelter. Heartbreaking.)

It nicely coincides with today’s casual day and birthday party celebrating the student’s whose birthdays fall in August or September. I am writing from school, since the kid’s English class has been postponed in lieu of the celebration. I am embarrassed to say I rocked up in yoga capris and my trainers. I figured comfort over fashion. Apparently no one else did-- the other teachers look phenomenal. One of the more mature teachers has the coolest outfit on. She is way stylish. Skinny jeans and kitten heels under a tunic and cardigan. Will try to get a picture. Even my principal is looking great in cigarette pants and metallic flats.

Tomorrow is National Day. It’s a public holiday celebrating the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. If the weather cooperates, we are expecting the city to be in full carnival mode with lots of festivities, including fireworks and concerts. Should be a good time!

I just finished a thriller by Robert Ludlum, creator of the Jason Bourne series that I picked up in our local library. The action unfolds in Hong Kong and I couldn’t describe the city better: “Most skyscrapers in recent years had been built in Central and Admiralty, while new commercial development projects were under way west of Central. Across the narrowest neck of Victoria Harbour was a fourth section, teeming with activity and humanity- Kowloon, […] an oppressive blanket of heat and high humidity […] Walking into it was like hitting a wall of diesel fumes and saltwater air, spiced up with the stink of fried meats and fish. He was engulfed by the surging masses of people, cars, and buses.”

We had a great weekend going out Saturday night with our teacher friends, including our two new male teachers from the UK, and venturing to Sai Kung’s Half Moon Bay beach for the afternoon on Sunday. We rounded out the weekend with a stop in Times Square and California Pizza Kitchen (yummy hummus!!) in Causeway Bay that night.