Short day in lessons & Macanese food

We had quite the slack day today as we were only scheduled to be at the school by 2:20pm & there for about an hour. Virginia had invited us out to lunch, so we met her at noon at the 2nd & 3rd school. Helen & John (Dr. Wu, Helen's husband) joined us as well. As we were approaching the restaurant, Hong poked me & said 'knock on wood that we're not going to that awful Portuguese place' & guess where they took us???? YEP! The place where I had said earlier that I had eaten the worst lunch ever in my life. We played it off as though we had never been there before (I even recognized some of the men eating there, the ones that were staring at me as I struggled with my shrimp with my hands), I didn't want to say anything as I had talked to Virginia the other day about the worst meal we had in Macau, but without revealing the location. They ordered for us & we had a bunch of dishes to choose from. It was actually quite tasty, maybe we just didn't know what to order? (I noticed that the chinese menu was far more detailed than the English/picture menu, many more choices). Over lunch we got some pointers of where we should travel... we are motivated to go to a travel agent on our day of to finally book something!! I can't wait! :) (We have to book through a tour as it isn't recommended to travel on our own..)

We then went over to the first school where we were scheduled to meet with both Primary 5 classes to introduce ourselves. As we were walking towards the gates, we decided to look at the posters that were made for the open house. We saw many familiar faces of students, and of the foreign teachers from the U of C from last year & then... I saw myself. In about 6 different pictures. How the heck did they make up these posters so fast?? We've only been here for 2 weeks! We then looked at the posters a little closer & it was quite funny because there was at least one 'token white guy' as Hong calls it, in all of the posters. & what's even worse - Hong isn't in any of these!! She is so lucky!! They aren't the most flattering poses as well... I think they were trying to capture 'teachable moments', but this didn't work out so well as we're closing our eyes, in the middle of saying something, or when we tell the students to put their hands on their heads to be quiet! haha not lovely.

We joined 5A & 5B for a few minutes in the afternoon. Each day, when they return from lunch, the whole school does 'eye exercises' in their classrooms. It's quite similar to the brain gym that we used to do at Ranchlands, except they only do mini massages on their own face with their eyes closed. It was really neat to see some similarities in strategies to get the students focused for the rest of the day. The students then did some introductions of themselves, basically just saying their name. The first student who introduced himself (side note: & why is it always the first student to introduce themselves in these classes that seem to cause some trouble... hmm), anyways, he said my name is "Cecillia" & the whole class burst out laughing, except for this one student whose name is Cecillia. It wasn't funny. This poor little girl was obviously upset & then put her head down on the table until it was her turn to introduce herself. I understand that kids will be kids & kids are sometimes mean... and I don't want to judge the teacher, but she did nothing to diffuse the situation or deal with this boy that had just humiliated this poor girl. I don't know if it's because these teachers are nervous to have us in their classroom, but even with that student that said he likes to kill us, the behaviour is waved off. I don't understand it. I think that I'm being too judgmental and bringing assumptions into these situations, but it's very difficult not to.

Hot Pot & CDSJ Open House

Last night, the English club, some teachers, Hong & myself went out for Hot Pot! It is much like the fondu that my family & I used to do growing up with meat, veggies & beef bouillon to cook the food. In Hot Pot, each of the tables has a flat stove element in the middle & they place a large wok filled with soup broth on it to boil. The broth is apparently made with boiled meat bones, some herbs & fruit. You then order various types of food (which Hong & I didn't do because everything was in Chinese) & throw it in the soup, let it cook for a bit & scoop it all out & chow down. Some of the types of food that we had were watercrest, romaine lettuce, mushrooms, chinese pumpkin, corn, beef, pork, fish, liver, japanese tofu, tofu, meat/japanese meat/pork/fish/prawn/caviar/cheese balls (they LOVE any food in a ball form), noodles, yam, spring rolls, etc. There was so much food there last night I can't remember it all! My favourite was the cheese ball. It's really strong/stinky white cheese inside of a ball of processed squid. It was very good! Cheese is very hard to come by here, so I haven't had it in a while. I couldn't stomach the liver though... it reminds me of the blood clots that are very popular here. It's typically the blood of duck & it's somewhat like gelatin, but it doesn't cook... it just stays looking like a jell-o ball of blood. So liver, uncooked, looks much like this, and I just can't get over the thought of it. I would like to think that I eat and have tried many different things.. but I don't think I will get over this one. We also tried lots of different drinks, many of them cold teas. One of them, no one would let us try because they think that it will not be good for our digestive system. Finally, they let us try it. They call it 'Chinese tea or Chinese beer'. They use it to counteract the effects of hot pot. Because hot pot if very warm, it cools the body & prevents things like pimples & kanker sores that you get from hot pot. I thought that it tasted very good... but they think that it's not very good, but have to drink it anyways during hot pot. We all had a great time & I was very thankful that everyone got together so that we could have this experience.

Today (Sunday) was the open house for CDSJ. I was unsure going into this what the main goal of this event was, but I asked around again today & found out that the 'purpose of this event is to attract new students'. This is their first year putting on such an event, I think they are fearful that their numbers are falling. The junior high & high school have many students, & grades 5 & 6 at our school are doing just fine, but kindergarten, grade 1, 2, 3, & 4 have very low numbers. I'm really not sure how many new families came to the event, most of the students that I saw are currently attending the school.We had lots of centers set up & prizes to give away. It was somewhat like a mini fair. I was so impressed by all of the technology that suddenly appeared today! There were some smart boards (which look much more advanced than our at home, You know the kind of chalkboards that slide back & forth to have more writing space. Well instead of them all being chalkboards, there is one that is a smart board). As well as these smartboards, there were these large computer screens that essentially did the same thing, but were smaller in size & black. They were HPs, but I don't really know what they are. It was kind of odd though, because at the end of the event, as soon as everyone left all of this technology got taken away! & I don't know where it was going or even if it belonged to the school?

On the way home, Hong & I decided to get some Bubble Tea. Patricia taught me how to order it last night in Chinese, so I wanted to try it out. I was so proud of myself because the guy working actually understood what I was saying!!! :) I think I enjoyed my Bubble Tea even more because of this.

Starting Thursday, Hong & I have a week and a half off... any suggestions of where we should go??

Disneyland & English Concert

On Thursday, Hong & I went over to Hong Kong to go to Disneyland. It is a fairly straightforward trip, but took a very long time. Luckily we met an Aussie after the ferry & she directed us to the Central station where we would start our train journey. She recommended that we purchase food before we get to Disneyland as she said food is highly over priced & doesn't taste very good. We were shocked how much food cost in HK. Usually in Macau, we spend about $30 MOP on a meal, but in HK for lunch, we spent about $70 each! We were so excited getting off of that train... they have quite the display, everything is Disney themed, even the train was all decked out in Disney attire!! Once we had purchased our tickets & were excited to get the day started... we were told that we can't bring outside food into the park. Since we had spent so much money on lunch, we bitterly sat outside of the gates in the rain & ate our food. :(

Despite this, we were optimistic that we were going to have a fantastic day! The highlights of our day included Space Mountain (where we went on it multiple times & made funny faces at the camera each time. Our fellow Space Mountain riders had great fun chuckling at us after they saw the pictures!), The Lion King show was fantastic, & the Disney parade. We were going to stay for the fireworks, but Disneyland HK is quite small... & we had been there for so long already, so we left around dinner time.

We met up with Andrew Rizkalla (my friend from high school) after Disneyland for dinner. It took forever to find each other!! Although we had a cell phone (luckily), neither of us know HK very well... so our descriptors of our location were quite vague. HK is quite unique... lots of people around all the time & there are so many foreigners!! I don't know how people afford this place, it's crazy! A beer at the bar can cost about $80 HK which is about $12 CAD. Isn't China supposed to be cheap? Luckily Macau is. We didn't stay for very long that night, we were pooched & couldn't wait to get home.

Today (Saturday) we went to the English Concert at the 1st school. Each grade had a song/chant/play to perform for parents & teachers. It was very cute. We also found out that for tomorrow, the school's 'open house', we are supposed to have centers where we do activities with the kids? I don't quite understand what this event is about. We keep hearing many variations... one being that it is to recruit new students & another is to showcase the school for current families? Another is just to entertain anyone that wants to stop by? I don't understand. Oh well.. we will find out soon enough.

After the concert, Hong & I wandered around, closer to the 2nd & 3rd school to find somewhere to eat for lunch. We spotted this portuguese place which had lots of people inside & had pictures on their menu. A must! Our hopes were high. & then crashed... I will honestly say that this was the worst meal I have ever had in my entire life. I feel sick just thinking about it. It was noodles, some veggies, & shrimp. Sounds good right? No. The shrimp tasted as though I was drinking liters of sea salt water & the sauce tasted much the same. The meal wasn't cheap either... so mostly because I was hungry, and because I was spending money on it. I ate it anyways :( Yuck!

Going to post some pictures from today! I hope everyone who's reading this is well.. I miss you all!!

Meeting my students & English club welcome party

This morning we had 2 very short periods to meet our students (P1 & P2). We first met Hong's class of P2. It is a very small class, there are only 10 students. This class seemed very sweet. There was one boy however, that had a temper tantrum when he first walked into the class and then continued to kick things, make noises & wouldn't participate for the rest of the class. The teacher tried to include him a couple of times, but her efforts didn't work very well. Poor thing, I don't know what had happened during gym class (the period before), but he was not a happy camper.

We then went next door to meet the P1 class (the class that I will be teaching in). Oh my, there are some interesting fellows in there. During the introductions, the teacher had asked the students (12 in total) to complete the sentence "I like to..." with their introduction. The very first student that she had asked to do this, wound up with a karate type stance & yelled "I like to KILL YOU!!!" hahaha I couldn't understand what he had said at first, but then it clicked. That activity soon stopped. I think the teacher was quite embarrassed, but he was just being a kid.

We walked over to the 2nd & 3rd school for our welcome party from the English club. They had lots of baked treats & some iced tea for all of us. It was great. The students who are a part of this club put it all together themselves. Wherever we go, they ask us to 'Say something to the students'... etc. I think I should start planning out an introduction, it's always so awkward. I usually make Hong talk :) They are planning a Hot Pot night with us & the rest of the English club students for this Saturday. I'm very excited!! It's going to be about triple the cost of any other meal we usually eat, but we get to try lots of yummy food, so it will be worth it!

I think we miss the boat on a lot of what is said.. or it's assumed that we are filled in by someone else, but I always find there are surprises! For example, while we were in the P1 class, the teacher that we went on the English camp with to BBQ the other day came into the class and pulled me out to talk to me. She started with... "For the report that you & Hong are writing.." and I didn't hear the rest because I was just thinking - what report?? Oh well... I will learn the art of flexibility here soon enough.

Barbeque with P4 English Camp

Today was a gongshow. I can't stress this enough. Not only were we going on a field trip with a challenging class, but the school had planned on having a barbeque with the kids while we were there - Oh, and the kids were to cook the food!!! I should have forecasted how the day would unfold when the teacher told us this morning that she was "very nervous". Uh oh.

We took a bus to the same convent that we took the Kindergarten class to (Villa de Santa Isabel). I was way off the mark, I understood that we were going to a beach. Once we got there, Hong & I split up into two smaller groups to take the students on a tour of the convent. Hong & I have only been there once & the tour wasn't in English.. so I'm not sure about her, but I was definitely making up things about the site. :) whoops! They did love going on top of the roof, which we didn't do with the Kindergarten students. You could see all of the mountains around you, a stable, a prison (!!), & even China from up there. We then returned to the main room downstairs to sing some songs. The teacher first sang Head & Shoulders with them, and then Hong & I taught them the Banana song with actions! They loved it! After some more songs, we went outside to play a couple of games while the other teachers started the barbeques (fire pits). We played evolution & wax museum. Even though they have never played these games before, they understood them quite well. Maybe it was due to Hong's & my superb drama skills! We then played a variation of London Bridges that I have never seen before. It looked like fun, but was also very dangerous!! So many kids got hurt. The game finally ended when one of the girls broke her glasses & was crying :( poor thing!

We thought that it was perfect timing anyways... but turns out it wasn't, & the fires weren't quite going yet. So, there were a lot of hungry, cranky students desperate to start eating! The plan... wait.. there wasn't really a plan & Hong & I tried last minute to figure out how to do this! 31- 9 year olds cooking meat with marshmallow sticks over a few coles?? Eek! I was scared. We decided to just give them hot dogs for the beginning & see how they did. The boys had a lot of waiting to do because there was only one fire working & the girls got to go first. Sorry boys! Because of this, they decided to entertain themselves by stomping on spiders & poking at the dead bird on the ground. Hm.. awesome.

When you look at the pictures of the bbq it looks quite peaceful. But those pictures are deceiving... that was right when they got their hot dogs & they were still patiently waiting for them to cook. Hell broke loose soon after. The teachers were trying to cook some other food for the kids but soon gave up & decided to let them cook because they just couldn't cook it all fast enough. I, much to my dismay, became the chicken wing teacher.. as all the kids came to me to ask them to stab their skewers with a couple of chicken wings. Which is fine... but there wasn't any soap anywhere in sight, only cold water to wash our hands. Hmm. As soon as the chicken & ribs became popular, Hong & I were checking kids' food left right & center, trying to avoid salmonella... but many of them were eating it without checking with us & it definitely wasn't cooked. Fleshy. yuck. So as we were occupied with being proactive against food poisoning, we had kids throwing chicken bones to the dogs over the fence, kids poking the dead bird, one kid choking on a sausage & then pewking part of it up, kids running around with sharp skewers in their hands, etc etc. It was craziness. Did that paint a sufficient picture in your head?

Before we knew it, it was time to head home. The teachers had invited us to stay at the school to cook some food as none of us actually got to eat anything, but Hong & I were absolutely exhausted, so we kindly declined.

We have a day off tomorrow, so I look forward to some R & R!

A Ma Temple & Maritimo Museum

We decided to take the trek to the A Ma temple today, which is the oldest temple in Macau, built during the Ming Dynasty (1488). It's one of the farthest points south on the Island of Macau, so we took a bus & arrived successfully :) It was beautiful there. We later found out in the museum that A Ma (/Matsu) was a goddess that brought safety to those at sea and fishermen, and even saved her father and her brother from a horrific storm. The temple is located on a hill, so there are many areas to climb up to and light incense for the various gods.

After visiting the temple, we went over to the Maritimo Museum. There was lots to see! This museum had a lot of information about the history of Macau, of A Ma, and of the various holidays celebrated in Macau. You can look to my pictures for better explanations :)

After the museum we walked around to find a restaurant for lunch. All of the places were fairly expensive, and ended up going for the least expensive looking restaurant which happened to be a Japanese one. It was so tasty!! I just had a shrimp tempura meal that had miso soup (with lots of seaweed.. mm), rice, tempura shrimp, chinese pumpkin, and purple yam. My meal was fantastic! Hong had a sashimi type meal with raw salmon & squid on top of rice with salmon roe (but like a rice bowl, not individual pieces of sashimi), and some cooked octopus in a marinade (so good.. there are pictures of this). I will have to make it over there again!

On the way home, we went to the 'Red Market' which was right near the bus stop. This is the very large market where you get all of the meat, fish, seafood & also veggies & fruits. We stood and watched this lady at the fish station for quite a while. It was amazing. She had these very shallow pools of water on display with a lot of fish in them, so just enough water so that they fish remained alive, but not enough for them to move at all. Actually, that's a lie. They could move.. they were splashing all over the place & Hong, myself, & some other innocent bystanders got soaked. This lady has got to be one of the most efficient fish gutters I have ever seen. The customer has to take the fish out of the water pools, put it on the table, she takes it, weighs it, smacks it on the head with the flat side of her knife, guts it out, cleans it, takes the scales off & then presto, put in a plastic grocery bag & done. This literally took her 10 seconds. It was awesome! Further down there was a seafood stand, with the most delicious & freshest looking seafood I have ever seen. She had octopus, squid, scallops, shrimp, & various types of fish. I just may have to go back there! I'm not quite brave enough to walk around the rest of the market yet... my stomach was feeling weak just getting a glimpse of the chicken area. I think I'll wait a couple of months to go into that area. I'm sure it's really neat... but I'll wait a bit :)

Today is my dad's birthday so.. HAPPY BIRTHDAY POPS!! :D

Dim Sum

This morning we got a call from Miss Mou to meet some of the English club members for 'yam chaa'. Taking this word for word, we thought we were going to drink tea. Turns out we were going to the Hotel Sintra for Dim Sum. Good thing we didn't eat breakfast before we left.

When Hong & I left the appt it was slightly spitting so I decided to run back upstairs to change into pants. When we came back out it was still spitting slightly, made it a little farther from the house & then down pour!! We got pretty wet, no umbrella. The rain feels quite different, gritty almost, could also be because some of it was falling off of the buildings onto us. :)

We went to the 2nd & 3rd school to meet with Virginia, Helen, Karin, Benjamin & Patricia. Benjamin, Karin & Patricia are from the English club of their school, and wanted to go for Dim Sum to practice some of their English. They are both in Grade 11, were great kids & spoke English really well. We (/they because is was all in Chinese) ordered some food, and lots of it! We had a variety of dishes, we had steamed pork buns, steamed sticky rice wrapped in lotus flower leaves, squid with shrimp paste, chinese doughnut wrapped in some rice paper, a pad-thai looking dish, but wasn't pad thai, steamed egg yolk & bun (this was very tasty... really sweet). Helen covered the bill, so we told them that they have to let us take them out for Hot Pot next. I can't wait to try this, Hong really likes it and it sounds somewhat like the beef broth fondu that my family always did growing up.

After lunch, the girls (Karin & Patricia) walked us home and were curious to see our place. I think that they are quite wealthy. They both live in sky rises in Taipa, but Patricia has an appt here in Macau with her sister & nanny as her parents are Tour Guides and are quite often away traveling. They were very sweet, saying how they loved our appt, but we could tell that it wasn't what they were used to, I don't think they had ever been in these types of appts. I think ours is quite nice, I wonder what their homes look like? They stayed for a while and told us about different areas in Macau to see & how to get there. I wasn't sure about the situation as in Canada, you would never have a student at your house. But I guess this is different as we aren't their teachers.

I've posted a couple of pictures from Dim Sum, we didn't take many.

Today is Valentine's Day. Apparently, the people here are beginning to celebrate it, becoming more popular every year. This year the students were told to give our chocolates, as they last longer than flowers, so we had a few students giving us chocolates at the school. Abbie had sent three envelopes with me, one to open on Valentine's Day, one for Easter & the other for my Birthday. So I opened the Valentine's Day first thing this morning! In it were some pictures (which was perfect, I need some pictures to decorate), & some chocolates. Mmmm Yummy!