I'm a Working Girl!

It's with mixed feelings that I give up my 'lady of leisure' days for a return to the working world...

Tracy and Tom Dicker

First, last weekend (the week after returning from Bali) we had house guests come to stay with us for 5 days.  Tom and Tracy Dicker (friends from Toronto) were here for a visit on their way to a vacation in Bali.  It was wonderful having guests from home, who arrived with Ketchup Lays in tow (key to my heart!).  We went out for dinners, had a late night in LKF (bar/club district), and saw some of the favourite HK sites.


The day before Tom and Tracy arrived was my first day at work.  I looked for a while last year for a part-time teaching position for an English Language school.  With my main qualifications being in Business Studies, and being choosey about how far I was willing to commute, I found that pickings were slim.  Most teaching positions here are full time, unless they involve teaching English at a 'learning centre'.  I had no interest in working at a learning centre because their hours are primarily on evenings and weekends, which is exactly when I didn't want to be working.  I ended up finding a part-time position at The Island School, an English-instruction school not far from our home.  However, it isn't a teaching position, it's as an EA (Educational Assistant) position, working within the classrooms, supporting the higher needs students.  I'm happy with the role because it allows me to focus on kids in a way that is difficult to do when I normally have 30 kids in a class back home.  The role is also much less responsibility than teaching (minimal planning, no marking, no reports), with the tradeoff being that I miss actually teaching and I earn a dismal pay.  Overall I'm quite happy to be back in a school setting and to get exposure to the education system over here, although I am slightly sad to let go of my leisurely lifestyle.

My new school

Signs we're not in the TDSB anymore Toto...
* they never even HEARD OF lockdown drills here - crime isn't an issue in HK (uber safe here, minimal street crime or drug issues, only real crime is the white collar variety)
* it's a private school with eager students, wireless internet and every student with their own laptop, every classroom has a data projector, and all lessons are kept on line... it a whole new world for me.
* the high schools here go from 'year 7' to 'year 13', and they start school one year earlier than home.  I'm primarily supporting year 7's and year 8's.  These are kids the age of grade 6 & 7 back home, as young as 10 years old!  A BIG adjustment for me.  I feel like I don't even know how to talk to these kids.  Most of them are just little kids who forget instructions and can't work alone for more than a couple of minutes.  I don't know how my friends who teach elementary school do it... props to you all.
* the students are split up into 'houses' called names like Flemming, Rutherford, Wilberforce, etc.  It's similar to Harry Potter where these kids will stay in these houses for their entire 7 years at Island School (best to get along with your housemates).
* the entire teaching staff is made up of expats from all over the world which is very cool.  The only local people on staff that I know of are the Chinese subject teachers (Cantonese and Mandarin)
* I'm pretty sure there are more 'white kids' than any class I taught in Toronto, but that said, these are truly international kids.  Today we did an exercise about identity, half the kids were born in HK, but only half of those hold HK passports (half are expats), and the 27 kids in class were born in 11 different countries.  Amazing.
* all hallways and staircases are outside, with only classrooms indoors.  School is organized in 'blocks', which are connected by foot bridges... it's a maze, but beautiful.  However, it's so hot here right now (111 degrees today with humidex) that when I have to climb 5 flights, outside, I'm sweating excessively when I arrive in class... classy.

Brian Wilson rocking out at 70 years young.

After the first week of work, we had a lovely low-key weekend.  The highlight was definitely going to the Beach Boys concert on Saturday night.  We went with friends Rina and Dustin (from Canada) and Gillian and Pat (from NYC).  It was a riot grooving to the oldies (with, admittedly, many oldies in the crowd).  The Beach Boys (getting on 70 years old) had excellent harmony and sounded absolutely great.  Imagine dancing to tunes like Kokomo, Surfin' USA, Wouldn't It Be Nice, and California Girls in the Convention Centre downtown Hong Kong.  A hilarious and fun night.

Beautiful Bali

Last week we were basking in the beauty of Bali, feeling like the luckiest people on earth.

When I posted to facebook that we were in the plane, heading to a week in Bali-paradise I had an impressive array of responses, many of people saying they've always wanted to go to Bali.  I don't know how much of it stems from 'Eat, Pray, Love' and Julia Roberts, but I've also wanted to go for a long time.

I was surprised when talking with several different people here in HK, when Bali seemed to come up short in their opinions.  It's a common destination to go to from here, being less than a four hour flight away.  Unfavourable descriptions like 'dirty', 'sub-par-beaches', and 'not-worth-the-hype' were used to describe this oasis I saw in my mind.

Sketchy money exchange business

I think it was because of these nay-sayers, and our subsequently lowered expectations, that we loved Bali so much.

Again, as always, I will allow the pictures to tell most of the story with a few extra anecdotes along the way.

Beach Peddler

First, Indonesia is a developing country, and has some of the realities typical to developing countries.  The sewers stunk under the sidewalks a little, there was some trash on the streets, and there were poor people trying to sell you stuff at every turn.  See the above photo of a money exchange business set-up in a sketchy vacant 3-walled structure... doesn't scream confidence.  The currency has an exchange rate of over 9500 rupiah to 1 USD, so Bali is wonderfully cheap.  We had delicious dinners with several drinks for under $40 Cdn.  Mike also got a 45 minute foot massage for under $5.  Everyone is trying to get a piece of the tourists money so we did find we were 'sold to' a lot.  There were many peddlers on the beach trying to sell you anything and everything from sunglasses, hats, sarongs, to surf lessons and kites.

Taking out over 1,000,000 from ATM.

Bali really is a surfers destination, with huge waves.  The waves were so crazy that we couldn't actually swim in the ocean... you'd just get knocked over by the waves, tossed in the surf, and then try to right yourself in time for the next wave.  Kids on boogie boards had a grand time as did surfers.  Also, because of the aggressive break in the waves, the sand was constantly turned up and throughout the water.  No joke, we were home for over a week and I was still getting sand out of my ears.  Sand gets everywhere when you swim in the ocean.  Other than that I really couldn't see anything else wrong with the otherwise stunning, clean and breezy beaches.

Beautiful beach walk, note the coolest kite ever, the 3D pirate ship

Views of the mountains near Ubud, Bali.

Our highlight was the day we spent going inland, to the mountains near Ubud.  We booked a day of adventures from mountain biking in through villages and rice fields (hello Julia Roberts), to riding an elephant in an Elephant Safari park then white water rafting down the Ayung river.  Mountain biking introduced us to some local life and industry including production of Kopi Luwak.  If that sounds familiar to you, it's the coffee that Jack Nicholson drinks in the movie The Bucket List, and it's made from coffee beans that are eaten by the 'Asian Palm Civet', then pooped out, cleaned and roasted.  It's the world's most expensive coffee.  I didn't try it... couldn't get over the pooping factor since we just watched the animal eating the beans with poopy piles below it's cage.  Ekk.  Riding the elephant was lovely, knowing that they are treated well and cared for in this conservation safari park.  They also had an elephant show with many strange elephant tricks like playing basket ball and playing the harmonica.  But of all three activities, white water rafting was our favourite.  Unfortunately, it's also the one with fewest photos since I couldn't bring my camera on the raft.  If I were able to, you'd see photos of beautiful waterfalls, high green cliffs on either side of the river and monkeys playing the trees beside us.  It was truly extraordinary.

Foley biking through a small village

biking farm back roads

Local spider on the side of the trail... not dangerous, just scary looking

Asian Palm Civet, eating a coffee bean to poop later for a delicious (?) cup of joe.

joy... or excellent training?

Sitting pretty... looks uncomfortable

Old Elephant playing the harmonica

Our other favourite part of Bali was the zen-like lifestyle of indoor/outdoor living.  In our villa (one of the most beautiful places I've ever stayed) the only part enclosed in walls and a ceiling was our bedroom.  Aside from that, the bathroom, kitchen and living room were all outside.  We also had our own pool and trickling waterfall which was heavenly when those crashing waves of the ocean waves were too much to face.  Absolute paradise.  We spent a couple of lovely evenings after a nice dinner in some local restaurant sitting on our outdoor couch, watching the Olympics.  The evenings were a perfectly cool temperature... [contrasted to the night after we arrived home to Hong Kong. I checked the weather at 2am, it was 95 degrees F with the humidex... That's just wrong.]  Bali was so lovely weather wise.

Overall Bali was wonderful and we loved it.  Now we're already starting to look forward to our next trip in October... possibly to Japan.  I love living in Asia.

Fancy dinner out for our anniversary

Foley consulting the map before his scooter ride

'I can get 90 miles to the gallon on this hog... got room for one more if you're going to Aspen.'

Thought I may never see him again... Foley rented this for $5Cdn for the day.  Kuality with a K.

'It's a boy... and WHAT a boy!'

Ideas Worth Spreading

If you haven't heard of TED Talks, you really should check them out (http://www.ted.com/talks).  Search any area of interest to you on the site, and you'll see experts in their fields giving the 'talk of their life' in 18 minutes or less.  The slogan is 'ideas worth spreading'.  These TED events happen all around the world, all of the time.

About 2 months ago, I received an email from a friend, telling me about this opportunity to get involved and volunteer with TED.  With a marketing background, and as a business studies teacher, I have been a TED fan for quite some time... this seemed like a perfect way to meet people and get involved in my new city.  I showed up to the volunteer meeting thinking they would need a minion to serve food or drinks at the event or something... I walked out of that meeting as the Program Director for TEDx Wanchai 2012.  Gulp.

Me and Kyle, the intern.

As Program Director I have spent many, many hours over the last two months doing run-throughs with our 7 speakers, meeting with the curator (the boss man) to plan details of the event, and when they were ready, taking the presentations by each of our speakers and plugging them into the program Prezi, editing them and putting everything together.  The job intensified (sometimes a bit too much) as the day got closer, but it was wonderful content, and it was nice to use my brain again.

backstage!

TEDx events generally have a theme.  The theme of TEDx Wanchai (Wanchai is a neighbourhood in HK) was Charitable Impact, so each of our speakers were involved with or ran some kind of charity in Asia.   These are amazing but ordinary people who have done incredible things with their lives.

backstage, managing live feed online

One man started a Village Rights Handbook, the first of it's kind, to help protect the rights of the Villagers in Laos (did you know Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the world?!).  A guy who started an online forum to match volunteers availability with organizations who need support.  There was a young HK girl started a volunteering program for the youth of HK as well as a magazine to encourage youth to 'dream and share their dreams'.  Another HK woman spoke about the ingrained tradition of shark fin soup in Chinese culture, and her struggles with her family and friends as she decided to become a shark conservationist.

Robin Huang

Some really incredible stats came from Robin Huang, whose family started an organization called Foodlink. They take the leftover food from hotels and restaurants and redistribute it in less than an hour to homeless shelters and places with people in need.  Everyday in Hong Kong, there is 1.3 kg / person of waste.  A total weight of more than 200 double decker buses worth of food waste goes into landfills every single day (landfills are expected to be full by 2015).  This is also a city where 1 in 5 live below the poverty line and 1 in 4 children don't get 3 meals a day.  Foodlink helps get the leftover food to people who need it.

Rob Lilwall

Rob Lilwall spoke about his insane adventures of biking from Russia, down through China, Japan, around Australia, up through Nepal, Afghanistan, and eventually back up through Europe to his home in the UK... a 3 year bike ride.  He was raising money for Viva, a children's charity, which he now works for.  Earlier this year, he also walked from Mongolia back to his new home in Hong Kong (5,000 km!).  This guy was amazing.

Scott Neeson

Finally, one of the most shocking stories came from Scott Neeson, former president of 20th Century Fox (released blockbusters Titanic and Braveheart)  He sold everything after an eye-opening trip Cambodia, and he moved from the ultimate Hollywood life to run a children's charity in a very impoverished region.  He has established an organization that focuses on getting kids out of a garbage dump (where they live), to get them into schools.

All the speakers and curator, Paul Angwin

As you can imagine, talking with these incredible people, most of them weekly, over the past two months has been pretty amazing and inspiring.  I can only hope that the audience of 300 (+ online viewers) on Wednesday night agreed that these speakers truly had 'ideas worth spreading'...