Shooting with a 50mm

Hi All,

Things are settling in nicely again here in Macau.  This however isn't a regular blog update to recap what I've been up to the last few weeks.  This post is solely centred around the new Sigma 50mm lens I got for my SLR camera.  I've always wanted a "50mm" and having worked with one earlier in the year with a school camera, I decided that I had to eventually buy one.  I've literally JUST got back from the store and on the way home I stopped by the downtown "heart" of Macau and took a few pictures at Senado Square.  These are just very "rough shots" but you can see that with no effort at all on my part (other than to open up the aperture to f/2ish... sorry for the technical speak) I was able to take some really nice shots.

Just so you know I'll do another post prior to the end of the week to update you on life in Macau the last few weeks and post some Chinese New Year pictures from around Macau.  Enjoy the photos!  I apologize in advance for the geek speak and awful photo layout, I'm too lazy to battle with the formatting and captioning options. 

Let me introduce you to the Sigma 50mm F1.4 D beast.  It actually weighs a ton too, probably cause of the metal construction and the fact that it has a whooping 9 shutter blades.  She's a thing of beauty. #imageek

Chinese New Year Decorations Set Up at Senado Square

Sharp as a knife

The Grand Lisboa in the distance

European church architecture

Firecrackers galore

Festive colours

Senado Square

The only disadvantage of this lens seems is the lack of any zoom capabilities.

Delicious!

Look at that bokeh (background blur).  F1.6 right here I believe.

A Time to Appreciate

Hello again and Happy 2012!  Things are settling in once more here in Macau with the school having started up again and things falling back into a routine.  I just wanted to let everyone know that I am indeed back safe and sound and back to helping students learn.  I wanted to again thank everyone back home (even the people I didn't see during the Christmas break) and tell you that I'm very thankful to have your unending wonderful support.  While teaching abroad has been an amazing experience so far, coming home made me realize the value even more the little time I have with friends and family back home.

Well that's all I have to say for this post.  It's really just a big thank you to the people I care about.  I leave you now with some photos I've taken during (and a little bit before and after) the Christmas break.

Andrew came to visit Macau.  Good times.

 Hand on Fire!  Science Rocks!

The Teaching Must Go On

Hi All,

Days have stretches into weeks and now weeks into months.  I've only realized how close it is until Christmas and a trip back to Canada.  I'm really interested to find out how I'll handle going back home.  Now that everything has settled into a routine, there is a funny sense of limbo.  A few weeks back I had a conversation with a friend from home (also a beginning teacher) and we marveled at the fact that we were finally "real people" making real contributions to the greater world now.  Yet there are still times when I wonder how exactly I got here.

Life at school has eased up considerably since report cards were done with.  Granted the life of a first year teacher can never really be considered easy, things now do seems more manageable than a few weeks before.  With the handing out of report cards, comes parent-teacher interviews.  I'll admit that I felt a bit of apprehension because I wanted to convey myself professionally to the parents and not have any angry confrontations.  For the most part I had very co-operative parents that just wanted to know about how to get their kids to do better in my class.  The interviews themselves ran from Thursday after school until evening and Friday morning as well (day off school for the students).  Thursday evening was exceptionally busy for me.  I talked straight from 3:30 until 6pm and just barely managed to duck away for dinner.  Friday morning was definitely a good deal less busy but still did manage to meet with a lot of parents.  Over the span of the 2 sessions, I probably talked to at least 30 students parents.  Quite the novel experience and for better or worse there will be a few more of these in the future.

A couple of other blog worthy school activities to mention include a middle school dance for the students.  The dance was 80's themed and despite the fact that I am the youngest member of the TIS staff, having a dance based in the decade I was born in along with the fact that the students have a very poor understanding of the music and culture of the 80's made me feel really old.  Preteen/teenager awkwardness aside, the dance was a big success.  The students really seemed to enjoy it and I definitely enjoyed chaperoning it by interacting with the kids in a less formal situation and partaking in a small bit of dancing myself.  Truth be told, I really wanted to dance but had to tone it down for the sake of professionalism... also didn't want to outshine the kids either.  With regards to other extra-curricular duties, the tennis season has now come to an end and I've started to help out with junior girls volleyball now.  I thought I'd only really be there to lend a hand but apparently I've taken on enough responsibilities that I was told that I would be expected to go to Taiwan with the team.  If you've been keeping count, that means I'll be going to Taiwan twice in the span of a month.  The final roster does have a few of my grade 7 girls, and seeing their excitement moments after making the team is definitely put a big smile on my face.

There's definitely much more happening at the school than I'm letting on but I could bore you to tears with every little thing that happens here.  Outside of school, I've had a chance to visit Macau a little bit more since the end of report cards and interviews.  A few weekend back, I made a trip across the border to "mainland China" to visit the adjoining town called Zhuhai.  While Macau technically is part of China, going to Zhuhai felt like going into a new country.  For one, I had to cross the border to get there and back (I've never crossed border between 2 "countries" in such a short duration, nor walked between 2 "countries" before), the second was that I had to fetch some Chinese RMB currency, third being the fact that traffic orientation was back to the old familiar of North America, and finally that I was hearing a bunch more Mandarin than I was used to in Macau.  My day in Zhuhai, which was spent with another teacher from TIS,  involved walking about the busy downtown streets and partaking delicious food, and trying out a massage for the first time.  I'll be honest, massages really aren't my thing; I don't mind being pampered a bit, but I'm still too young to really NEED a massage.  Unfortunately I didn't bring a camera with me to Zhuhai but I will absolutely be going back to Zhuhai in the not too distant future to do some more exploring, and perhaps grab some "unofficial" movies or tv show dvds and get myself a cheap haircut (apparently there no such thing as a cheap haircut in Macau).

I'll mention quickly that I also went up to Macau, to places like Red Market, and Macau Tower a few times during the past weeks as well.  There was the annual food festival up there a few weeks ago and I actually went twice!  Some of the other teachers started to drop off their food coupons from the food festival with me so I couldn't just let those go to waste.  While I was up at Red Market, where you can get tailored suits for unheard of prices by Canadian standards, I also got a good Mandarin workout by haggling the price of a purchase for another teacher at TIS and her friend from Canada.  For the food festival I did remember to pack my camera and a few of the pictures can be seen below.

Well, this will probably be my last entry before actually being back in Canada again for a bit.  I'm definitely looking forward to seeing some familiar faces again and sharing some more stories in person.  I also want to apologize for rarity of my posts of recent.  Perhaps in the future I may change the format of my posts to more frequent smaller posts about little happenings through the week worth mentioning and longer posts when there is something actually worth talking about.  Hopefully I will see you all soon during the Christmas break. 

Hitting Culture Back Moments: I'm actually be relied on to speak Chinese on behalf of some other Canadian teachers quite frequently of recent.  This definitely helps me feel not completely incompetent with my language skills.  I even managed to conduct one whole interview with a parent entirely in Mandarin.  I can hold my head high, for a little while at least.

The Life of A Teacher Moment: It was suppose to be a (relatively) early exit from school today but I just so happened to run into one my students at the end of the day today.  This student just so happens to be one of my at-risk students both academically and behaviourally.  One thing leads to another and before I know it, he's helping me decorate my classroom for Christmas, which is followed up a quick trip to the gym to shoot some hoops, and finally sitting down to some math homework while he waited for his mom to come pick him up.  This probably isn't what I suppose a typical teacher does at the end of the day, but I honestly enjoyed taking up this bit of time to really connect with this student.  

When I have nothing better to do with my time, I take pictures of flowers apparently.

Delicious nom noms for frying

Culinary delights await

The Macau Tower

Food Festival goodies!

Tasty or creepy?

Steamed treats

The Grand Lisboa in the background.

World's tallest bungy jump is found here.  That's quite the fall.

A Hard Day's Night

Hey All,

Yes it has indeed been quite some time since my last post and you'd be correct in guessing that I have been keep pretty busy here since the Fall Break which now almost seems like a distant memory.  Though the school day might officially end by 3:05, my school day stretches on quite a bit longer than that.  Usually if I can get out of school before 6pm that is a pretty big accomplishment.

You'd think that now having been in Macau for a while now, reality would have started to sink in already.  It certainly has but there are still moments I catch myself thinking it's all still a dream.  Each day is filled with so many remarkable things, whether at school or outside of it, that it doesn't seem real at times.  I try not think about how long I've been here but simply to take things as they come.  That seems almost to be the key to surviving first year teaching.  With all that goes on each day I am always trying to learn from the experiences I have.

It has been a solid 4 weeks of school after the Fall break and things have been busy during the 4 weeks.  This past week was report card week, where the general stress and anxiety level amongst the teachers was at an unprecedented high at the school.  I have first hand experience now in telling you why I always noticed as a student, that teachers seeming to be a bit worn when report card marks and comments are due.  This week was one of long evenings and tons of marking.  I've actually been pretty good about keeping my mark up to date but having to squeeze in 2 unit tests this week was not an enjoyable experience for my students or myself.  For the first time this year it seemed I wasn't the only person consistently leaving school after 5pm.  There was definitely a feeling of "we're in this together" being conveyed whether that was through conversations, or putting in a group order for coffee from the casino/hotel across the street.  I am happy to say that it is all over now and I have finished the brunt of report card business... for this term.  Only 3 more terms to go!


Outside of report card stuff, things have been pretty lively at the school.  I've had the secondary principal and head of school sit in on a few classes and that definitely made me feel like a was a student teacher again.  Thankfully those particular lessons went quite well.  The school has also thrown together a few family events, one being family community day and the other being Halloween night.  I don't really know how it got started but it seems as though I am the backup event photographer when the other teacher who knows photography is busy doing other things.  I got a chance to handle a Canon 7D, which is an incredible camera but also a bit intimidating having never used as high quality a camera as that before. 


Halloween also signaled another dress down day for the students and staff.  Showed up at school as a vampire that day (no not the Twilight type... ugh... more like Dracula) and I think the kids really appreciated it.  It was also a perfect time to do some Halloween science demos.  I first showed them the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide by a catalyst reaction (otherwise known as the Elephant Toothpaste demonstration) and the students were thoroughly entertained by it.  What I didn't expect was how much they loved the second simpler demonstration where I "ate a candle".  By the end of the day, apparently every student in middle school now knew me as "that teacher who ate the candle".  I literally had some of my students running down the middle school hallway yelling "Mr. Liu ate a real candle"... hehehe.


As busy as school life has been, I've still managed to explore around a bit in my spare time.  I finally got a chance to go down to a popular black sand beach down in Coloane called Hac Sa.  Apparently the "must-do" while down at Hac Sa is to try out the Hac Sa barbeque.  I had another go with the pork chop burger and it was AMAZING!  I was actually do there twice within the span of one week.  Once we took our youth group kids for an evening on the beach.  I think they really enjoyed their time at the beach but I was exhausted by the time I got home.  A group of teacher also went to a nearby place called Norman's Pub to celebrate Canadian Thanksgivings.  Couldn't complain about the food (both quality and quantity) or the company and together we roused up a stirring rendition of O Canada.  I also had the chance to swing by Old Taipa a few times, once to catch a bit of the Festival of Lusofonia which was a celebration of the Portuguese culture here in Macau (remember Macau was a former colony of Portugal).  Unfortunately I didn't get to linger for long but it was still nice to get a small taste of an interesting bit of Macau culture.

Well that's about all I can tell you about now.  Hopefully it won't be as long a gap between this and the next post but I can't make any promises.  As before, let me leave you with some photos and a random story.

Getting Hit by Culture moment:  When I first got to Macau, the change in currency was something to get adjusted to.  1 Canadian dollar is equal is approximately 7.5 patacas or MOP.  So during the first few days, when I would eat out at restaurants, even the most simplistic meal (approximately 35 MOP) felt like a lot (which of course it wasn't).  Over my time here I've definitely gotten use to doing such things as paying for groceries with $500 MOP but I worry that once I get back to Canada, I'll look at a price tag and say to myself "$100 only?  Of course I'll buy that".
 

Flowers on a step

Deocrative wall frame in Old Taipa

If you were wondering, it still feels like a Canadian summer here right now... jealous?

The path into Old Taipa

Zoom zoom!

Narrow roads

A happening part of town

The busy side streets of Old Taipa, packed a weekend as usual.

So colourful

A long way up

The Wild Wild East

The past week or so has been quite the adventure so let me get right into things and update you on what I've been up to. 

Remember how during the last post, I said that it would be wishful thinking that the typhoon that was incoming would be upgraded to a T8?  Well turns out it really did turn out to be a T8 typhoon.  Typhoon Nesat, as it was officially called caused the first school day cancellation of the year.  It really didn't seem all that bad in the morning but man did the storm pick up in the afternoon.  Had to activate the phone fan out (refer to my earlier post) and then went straight back to bed.  I ended up staying in the whole day so it was a pretty boring but somewhat productive day.  The funny thing was that another typhoon came rolling through during my trip to Hong Kong, but it only warranted a T3 signal.

Alright, so everyone's here to hear about Hong Kong right?  Well the trip to Hong Kong was a fantastic little vacation (even though most of the teachers went to more exotic locales).  I have been to Hong Kong previously, but was 8 or so and I basically remembered nothing from that trip.  Here's a snippet of information about Hong Kong for all those who don't know the first thing about the SAR (oh you don't know what that means?)

• Hong Kong like Macau is a SAR (special administrative region), meaning again that it's technically part of China but the Chinese government has next to no political influence over the dealings in HK
• Hong Kong was formerly a colony of the British Empire but control was ceded back to China at the end of 1999 (interestingly, some there are some very English names in Hong Kong, like Waterloo Rd, Cornwall St, Cambridge Court etc)
• Hong Kong is significantly larger (1100+ square km) than Macau (30 square km); is about 60km away or 1hr by high-speed ferry
• Hong Kong comprises of 3 areas, Hong Kong island (the downtown commercial core of HK), Kowloon (mix of commercial and residential southern mainland), and the New Territories (expansive "suburban" residential area to the north of Kowloon)
• The city of Shenzhen boarders the northwest area of Hong Kong is the boundary between mainland China and Hong Kong

I arrived in Hong Kong Saturday afternoon and my relatives were gracious enough to take my baggage to their place while I met up with some friends from teacher's college at a shopping mall on Hong Kong island.  Two of them were teaching in Hong Kong schools and were also fellow Con-ed students from all the way back in first year university at Queen's.  The other was on exchange to finish up university in Hong Kong.  We had a pleasant evening at a street side restaurant then watched the National Day (equivalent of Canada Day or Independence Day) fireworks at Victoria Harbour.  After the fireworks we roamed the streets a bit more before calling it a night.  Unfortunately, my friends didn't have the same break I did and so they needed to be back to work/school and that was all I saw of them for this trip.  

Sunday started with my relatives taking me up into the New Territories for brunch and a small bit of exploring in one of the shopping malls.  For the afternoon and evening, I went solo to explore a nearby street market called Ladies Market.  Don't let the name fool you, there's quite a bit of things to see there as it wasn't just the street market where you could get cheap goods, but this market was also right off from arguably the busiest intersection in Kowloon, Nathan Rd. and Argyle St.  I remember being told by several people that the only things worth doing in Hong Kong are eating and shopping.  My impression was that there definitely seem to be an abundance of both after spending my first few days in Hong Kong.

The third day in Hong Kong was more of the same, shopping and eating, although I actually bought something during this day, a pair of "teaching shirts".  In the afternoon I was taken down to the very southern end of Kowloon to an area known as Avenue of Stars.  Avenues of Stars is basically the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Chinese cinema except it's right up against Victoria Harbour with an AMAZING view of Hong Kong Island on the other side.  I was told the view at night was even more spectacular so I stuck around for dinner and came back to the coast when all the skyscraper lights had been turned on.  The view was amazing but I'll let the pictures do the talking.

My final full day in Hong Kong, involved... you guessed it, more shopping and dining out on the town.  In the afternoon I wandered up to a quiet attraction called Kowloon Walled City Park. The park was an area previously uncontrolled bit of territory when the British owned Hong Kong; I'm not too sure about the details but it was part of a colourful past of HK.  As much as I love the hustle and bustle of the heart of Hong Kong, I have to say, visiting this park was definitely a highlight.  Tranquil and peaceful are words that come to mind when I think of the place. Anyways, I spent most of the afternoon slowly wondering the park, snapping pictures with my SLR camera.

Overall, I really enjoyed my trip to Hong Kong.  Having the opportunity to see some familiar faces and exploring a very lively and cultured city definitely helped me unwind from a tough few weeks at school.  My future visits to Hong Kong will likely just be day or short duration trip as it is so close to Macau that I could technically head up there whenever I feel like it.  Well, there's a reason why I came back to Macau quite a few days before school starts again, I have lots to do.  So with that said I'll leave you with my "getting hit by culture moment" and leave you to see a few of the pictures (which are out of order sorry) I took while in Hong Kong.  See you all next time!

Getting Hit By Culture Moment: On the occasions where I decided to use English instead of struggling through Cantonese or Mandarin, the person I'm speaking with always seems to shoot me a small dirty look.  This is probably because by appearance I look Asian but being that inept at Chinese moments of bewilderment for these people.

Hitting Culture Back: As a kid, I used to despise some items in Chinese cuisine.  Most prominently I used to remember HATING stinking tofu.  For those of you know don't know what stinky tofu is, it is exactly as it sounds, smelly tofu pieces that have been deep fried (usually).  Now if you're asking why people would eat stinky tofu, well let me ask you a question in return... why do some people love blue cheese?  Anyways, in Hong Kong I walked by a few street side vendors selling stinking tofu and the smell of the stinking tofu was really getting to me... in an appetizing way.  So eventually I gave in and bought a few pieces.  It tasted amazing.  I'm sure some of you don't and won't ever share my new-found enthusiasm for stinking tofu but this is personal growth and I'm darn proud of myself.  I remember seeing some white tourists walk by these stores with their shirts over their nose shortly after and smiled to myself known that was probably me from just a few years ago. 

 In Hong Kong!

There's one Apple store in Hong Kong that just opened.  300 Staff, 3 floors, and a whole pile of sales.

 Hong Kong by day.

 Kowloon Walled City Park, Chinese Zodiac Garden

 Wow, talk about terrible white balance.  HK by night.

 Flowers in Kowloon Walled City Park.

 Another flower shot.

Well it's been a while since my last blog update and I thought I'd squeeze in a quick posting before having to batten down the hatches for the home stretch (I mean that literally)... Okay so I'm assuming none of you knows what I'm talking about in the last sentence so let me enlighten you.

The last week and a half has been crazy busy.  I've been giving out significantly more tests and assignments and you guessed it, that means more marking for me.  It sounds crazy but first term report card marks need to be submitted in the not too distant future so stay tuned for more excitement on that front.  The last of the new school year excitement has worn off and now it's all business.  Still though I find moments during the day where I just can't help but to chuckle at all the little quirks and moments that students have while at school.  It is true that its the interaction with the students that really make this job worth investing yourself into.

Running tennis as an extra-curricular has been made a tough day even tougher.  Most of the kids that have come are very much beginners and need a lot of assistance.  Since they can't really hold a rally with their partner I often times have to jump in to sustain a rally so that I can see if they've actually improved from the drills.  I am happy to say that I am seeing some significant improvements with some of my players and that feels just as rewarding as having a student have a striking epiphany of understanding in class.  Despite the physical exhaustion at times, I'm very much looking forward to helping them continue to improve. 

Between all of that I really didn't much of a chance to do anything remarkably amazing this weekend.  I did swing by the Venetian again to buy some more casual clothes.  Running tennis practice made me realize how small my athletic wardrobe really was.  So I picked up an extra dri-fit shirt and an extra pair of shorts while window shopping through the Venetian.  I really should start working out even just a little, because the only physically straining thing I did prior to tennis was walking home from school everyday.  I'll be honest, picking up my 2nd pay check almost tempted me into splurging since for the first time since I've arrived I wasn't worried about running out of money.

But things aren't all doom and gloom, next week, the school has fall break meaning we have one glorious week off school to do whatever we want.  Most of the teachers are visiting other neat places around Southeast Asia but for me I'm just going next door to Hong Kong.  I'll be sightseeing, visiting some my fellow B.Ed grads from Queen's teaching in HK and visiting some relatives over the week.  Probably won't be in Hong Kong the whole week but it will be great to unwind for a bit.  I'll update the blog with tales of my adventures in Hong Kong when I get back. 

So unfortunately, that's all there is to tell you about this time.  I'll have plenty more stories when I get back from Hong Kong.  In the meantime, a T1 typhoon is making landfall here in Macau in a few hours.  If it somehow strengthens to a T8, school will be cancelled.  I'm not holding my breath for that though. See you all next time!

Random Macau adventures:  So ever since I've got to Macau, I have not eaten at the same restaurant more than twice... until yesterday.  If you wondering, that means 6 weeks and approximately 30+ restaurants before doubling back to the same one.  It's always sad to have a good streak like that broken but it would have ended eventually.  Also, if you were wondering it was a Japanese restaurant that we went to through the dinner club that ended the streak. 

Short But Not So Sweet

Howdy everyone, and thanks for stopping by to catch up with me.  This past week has been quite short as it is Mid-Autumn moon festival here in Macau and we also had a PD day right after that, meaning we only had a 3 day teaching week.  A short week but perhaps the toughest one yet.

Last weekend was spent eating out (what else is new?) and touring about the casinos that are literally next door to the school.  Honestly, TIS is located in the most bizarre area.  We are on the Macau University of Science and Technology campus, across the street are a couple of the biggest casinos in the world (probably bigger than the ones in Vegas), and one street over in the other direction is the Macau International Airport.  Didn't get the chance to tour Old Taipa all too thorough as I'd hoped but as a consolation, I spent the better part of Sunday afternoon inside the Venetian, browsing the shopping area.  There was definitely times during the afternoon where I forgot we were at a casino/hotel and thought we were at a shopping mall, it is that huge inside.

Our PD day was actually quite informative.  As a student teacher, I would hear all the older teachers grumble about PD days but nobody at TIS seemed to be grumbling and most teachers found something useful during the many workshops during the day.  The really exciting part of that day was our weekly teacher's supper club.  This week we were at an Italian restaurant called La Gondola right up at the very southern tip of Coloane, Macau where we had not only great food and company but also a gorgeous beachfront sunset as well.  It was my first time traveling Macau public transit as well and I  only just realized just how convenient the buses really are.  It will encourage me to frequent Coloane and Macau mainland more often now.  Not to mention the price of public transportation was quite good compared to Canada.

Things in class really got kicked into high gear this week as I was piling on the quizzes and assignments for my kids this week.  As much as they complain, I dread it more (even though I'm the one deciding these things) because no teacher, not even the staunchest most dedicated teacher can claim to enjoy marking.  For me marking is bearable if students are doing well because I can fly through, dishing out check marks.  But... I seriously bog down in "poor work" because I always feel the need to give feedback about corrections and I can never leave alone errors in students work.  Let's just say this is going to be a tedious weekend.

I also started coaching the tennis team this week.  Some students just want to learn, others wanted to play competitive in the Macau school tournament at the end of October.  All in all it means a lot of additional commitments I have to invest in.  Regardless I love it because it gives me a chance to interact with the kids in a different way.  I was exhausted after the first practice already though.  I'm going to have to involve myself less with the playing part in these practices, so hopefully the tennis learners can pick things up quickly.  There will be 3 practices a week on top of weekly staff meetings (we have A LOT of meetings at TIS, don't believe me ask anyone who's ever worked here), and 3 a week tutoring sessions for a gr. 12 student in biology and perhaps pure math as well.  I'm definitely not looking forward to tutoring pure math, it's honestly been awhile since I've needed to solve logarithmetic equations that complicated.

Despite all of the hard work, I find that an unspoken motto of the teachers at TIS is that we work hard but we have to play just as hard.  On thursday, we had a staff volleyball game.  I LOVE volleyball but was honestly a little rusty having not played in months.  The teachers at the school (no offense to them) don't quite provide the same level of challenge as the people I used to play pickup games at Queen's with the last few years.  Still though, I love volleyball no matter the skill level because I find even the casual players can really get a lot of enjoyment out of it.  I'm really starting to look forward to the teacher vs. students games upcoming to help our volleyball teams (first year TIS has volleyball teams) get ready for their tournament.  A bunch of us went out to a hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant afterwards.  Apparently it has a great reputation with foreigners to Macau and I will say that the food there was AMAZING!  It definitely warrants another visit, and soon.

The other noteworthy outing of the week was to hang out with the kids from youth group at my church for the first time.  When I walked in, my mouth was practically on the floor.  Practically half the kids were kids I taught at school, and all of them were from TIS.  Even the other two youth group helpers were teachers at TIS, both in middle school with me too.  For those teachers reading this, you'll be aware that this poses a profession boundaries issue.  These sort of things just don't happen anywhere in Canada.  But Macau is so small that it really shouldn't have been a surprise.  Despite an initial period of awkwardness, I really enjoyed the opportunity to have a more relaxed sort of set of interaction with my students (yes I let them call me Jason under the condition that they understand the appropriate title to address me during school).  All my kids are amazing kids (despite possessing limitless amounts of energy) and I'm blessed and grateful to have the opportunity to get to know them more personably through youth group and extra-curriculars like tennis. 

Okay I think I've literally told you everything that's happened this week.  As I mentioned I have a mountain of marking to do (yay!... not!) so I better get cracking.  Here are some pictures to amuse you with in the mean time.  See you next week!

Getting Hit by Culture Moment: Another teacher (who is white) and myself got into a cab last week.  He used Mandarin to say we wanted to be dropped off at different locations and told the driver his stop.  I followed up telling the driver (in English) my location.  The cab driver didn't understand me so I had to describe where I wanted to be dropped off (with the help of the other teacher) in Mandarin.  Biggest language fail of my life and I will forever remember (and laugh about) that moment.

 What is that?

 The main entrance "display" in front of the galaxy casino/hotel

 The curtains lift to reveal... a diamond.  Extravagant much?















Teacher's Supper Club this week at La Gondola in Coloan.

The view of the South China Sea at sunset sitting at La Gondola.

 Mid-Autumn moon festival.  I had to show a picture of laterns. 

A wall of dragons.

 Pork chop burgers. Delicious!

 A shot of the Ventian not very spectular from this side. 

 The Galaxy, one of the 3 big casinos/hotels right next to TIS. 

 Inside the Venetian.  Feels like I'm in Europe or something. 

 Shopping under the clear blue sky.  Okay fine that's not a real sky.













The Venetian really went all out to make you think you were in Europe.

 Free mooncakes?  Yes please.

Get in my belly!