Open House, Halloween, & Staycationing

Last Saturday Tripp was assigned to team teach at my school’s Open House. After a (heart stopping but patriotic, reliable --and delicious-- Egg McMuffin & McDonald’s iced coffee) breakfast, we arrived to find the teachers stayed late Friday night to transform the school into a colorful kindergarten wonderland. The designated English room had a “stage” and audience chairs for our lesson. I wish you could have seen us storytelling and dancing in person, but we got some hilarious pictures! Prospective students and siblings of current students were bottlenecked out the door, and we ended up having to shorten the lesson to accommodate three more than originally planned due to the number of people wanting to watch! Tripp was a huge hit! (He probably will be embarrassed to see this on here, but he is a big deal at his other school too—one of his student’s Filipino foreign domestic helpers slipped Tripp her name and number after his nursery playgroup! haha!)
It was a carnival atmosphere with a clown creating balloon animals, different games in each classroom, and goodie bags and snacks being passed all around. Tripp and I spent some time that morning loading up crates of corn nuggets—that seems to be a really popular snack around here! In our classroom, we handed out seaweed flavored crackers. (At first I was skeptical, but after all that dancing and singing they actually tasted pretty good at the end of the day!)
My roommate Liza had Saturday off, so she went to Vietnam this weekend! She booked the flight and was planning to do some solo travelling, but amazingly enough, a mutual family friend from Columbia on a business trip in Ho Chi Minh was able to pick her up at the airport and touring her around! How cool for a quick weekend getaway!
Tripp and I hung around the Kong, and took a quick MTR and bus ride to see the Gold Coast. It had been recommended to us by a parent, and we absolutely loved it! The Gold Coast has a beach and amazing swimming pools—Hong Kong’s largest free form pool and it is surrounded by coconut palms! They have an amazing piazza overlooking the marina, where we saw a mega-yacht parked. Google the Ambrosia out of George Town if you want to see it. We tried yummy new foods—prawn curry and a spicy Indian cauliflower based vegetarian dish for me, and naan bread and an Indian pizza for Tripp. The piazza had a Mediterranean feel to it—a breezy open air courtyard in the middle, and restaurants, a tiny grocery and pharmacy, and other tourist comforts. I really want to knock Richland Mall down and recreate one in Columbia.
Street vendors sell their wares at night, and we were really excited to sit down at a well known caricaturist’s tent. We got a hilarious drawing of us with the Hong Kong harbor as a background. If any of the local readers are interested in getting one, contact Eric Chow through his blog, http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/ericchow. Eric started snorting with laughter when he looked at Tripp’s arm hair—HAHA!—everyone here is “naturally hairless”, as our new favorite BBC commentator Louie Theroux says. We hung out at the pool and on the beach all day! After a pina colada and a blueberry freeze by the sea, we arrived back in the city feeling completely renewed and ready for another week dancing to “Wheels on the Bus” and “Old McDonald”!
Liza and I attended a hot yoga class on Friday. They cranked the heaters up, and it was awesome! The room was absolutely silent, and everyone seemed too focused on finding inner peace to notice my awkward moves. Liza was a gymnast in her former life before pole vaulting, so her poses were incredible! The toned teacher gave instructions in Cantonese, then glanced over at me and Liza and repeated them in English. At the end of the hour, I felt so limber! Really a fantastic way to end the week, as all your cares and stress melt away (in the heat, no pun). After a quick grab-n-go dinner at the “Western” grocery store (pesto chicken salad for me, Tex-Mex wrap for Liza—YUM!) we met Geoff and Tripp for a bit in Tsim Tsa Tsui. Liza and I came back after an hour or two since we had early Saturday school, but Tripp and Geoff stayed out making all kinds of new Chinese friends!
Between Saturday school and our side income playgroup (oh yes-- and the adidas/Nike warehouse sale!) I had less than half an hour to pull together a costume, shower, and get ready for Halloween! Maggie bought all the teachers in the company passes to the German Oktoberfest at the Marco Polo Hotel. After several false starts, I settled on an decidedly uncreative (but cheap and comfortable!) Tom Cruise/Risky Business getup. I’m still not sure what exactly Tripp, Joe, and Geoff were. Some sort of Chinese priest meets the Mask of Zorro. Regardless, we had a blast celebrating with our boss and all the teachers (we met several teachers for the first time!).