Friday, August 31, 2012
HOT HOT HOT!
This is the HOTTEST soup I have ever had! Nate and I went out to lunch with two of our bosses. James explained that there were four levels of "hottness". I chose mild and Nate chose hot although James encouraged him to have medium. My mouth was numb and on fire. My face was red and my eyes and nose were watering. If we had been there alone I think I would have just left. But because we were with James, I had to finish! (Please refer to post 1).
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Work Visa!
To activate our work visa we had to take the high speed ferry over to Macau as it is considered it's own administrative republic. (i.e. we left the country of Hong Kong) Macau is known for it's gambling. it took us about an hour on the ferry. Macau was previously a territory of Portugal so there is plenty of Portuguese influence around the island. We walked through the main square where they were handing out plenty of pastries and jerky to try. We walked up to see St. Paul's ruins. Much like Hong Kong there were street after street of various shopping stores. We headed back to the ferry to return to Hong Kong. After waiting in a short line we placed our work visa into our passport. Bada Bing Bada Boom; We have a legal work visa for 12 months!
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
First Impressions
The 15 hour flight was not as bad as I thought. The worst part of the entire flight was my restless leg syndrome. It was pretty bad a few times. All of the movies and TV were free. I think I watched six movies. Two out of the six with Zac Efron, not bad :) I was trying to fight sleep so that when we got to our hotel at around 9:00pm I would sleep and wake up completely refreshed. After my two glasses of wine and two Xanax, this didn't happen. Somehow after I woke up in my Xanax haze I managed to stumble to the bathroom. In the meantime I somehow lost a flip flop and broke my brand new skull candy headphones. Note to self, two Xanax is too much!
After we landed we quickly made it through customs and onto the streets of Hong Kong. Nate had heard that a taxi ride through the city at night is a spectacular sight to behold. Unfortnately for me, my Xanax haze was still in effect. Nate would say, "Lil do you see that!" I would wake up for 2 seconds and fall back asleep. Xanax 2, Lily 0. Once we arrived at our lovely hotel I immediately crawled into bed. The lovely front desk man told Nate that there was a grocery store next door. As I was drifting off Nate said, "I'll be back". He arrived back as excited as a kid on Christmas, "Lil, look what I bought!". He had in his hands a can of Pringles, a can of cheeze balls, 3 Tsing Taos and an EIGHT pack of Coca Cola Light. TYPICAL!
We woke up refreshed around 9:30am. As I woke up I thought, haha I beat jet lag, I feel great! We decided to hit up the local grocery store to get some snacks for the hotel room. As soon as we walked into the store, I knew Nate would be ok. (For those of you who don't know, Nate is a very picky eater, as in, he only wants to eat pizza, french fries, burgers, much like a 5 year old). They had my favorite Greek yogurt as well as CHEESE! They had some fruit I had never seen before, but for the most part they had everything a normal American grocery store would have. I will admit, I was a bit dissapointed!
We got ready and headed out to find the subway to meet James with Goodie English. James was to give us our Visas and show us where we would be working. It was a bit confusing trying to find our way to the subway. We kept saying how easier it would be if our iPhone's worked out here. After about 20 minutes we found our nearest Subway Station. The first thing I saw was.....Starbucks! Ahhhh, it taste so good. To use the transporation in Hong Kong you must purchase an Octupus Card. These are very convenient and re-loadable. You can use your Octopus card like a debit card at stores as well! Genius. Hong Kong 1 America 0.
We met up with James at the designated spot. James took us out to lunch. When he asked what type of food we wanted to eat we told him since it was our first day in town we wanted some traditional Hong Kong food. He took us to a little hole in the wall place. We found that throughtout Hong Kong almost everything is in both Cantonese and English. There was not a word on English in this entire place. James was nice enough to ask us what we would like and order for us. Nate ordered curry rice noodles while I ordered udon noodles with beef and vegetables. They put down tea cups and plates with a bowl and two tea pots. James filled one bowl with water and rinsed everything. Hmmmm, interesting. We received huge heaping plates of noodles. They were delish. Our meals also came with an old school glass bottle Coke. I haven't seen one of those in a long time. I ate as much as I could and proclaimed, "oh man I am FULL". James looked at me and said in Hong Kong there is not always enough food to go around so people should only order as much as they can eat. I therefore began shoving my face with more food. I still could not finish. Don't they have to go boxes? James told me not to worry, my stomach might be able to grow while I'm here.
We walked down to the Goodie English Office to get our Visas. The bulding was in a nice area and was very colorful. We then took a ferry ride over to Hung Hom. We walked around to see my school. We saw some very traditional markets. There is a LOT of meat hanging around. The smell was not the best I've ever smelled.....Another thing that is very common is knock off Crocs. People wear them and they are sold in the tiny markets everywhere. We made our way to Whompoa and I saw the school that I will be working at. Don't worry everybody, it's by a giant mall that is in a giant ship. We walked around the area a bit more so I could get a feeling for the area.
We bid farwell to James and made our way back to our hotel. We had been out and about for about five hours by this time. The walk was brutal. It was hot, humid and my feet were killing me. By the time we arrived it felt like I had just completed a 90 minute hot yoga class. I literally had to peel my sweaty clothes off. And that's when the jet lag finally set in....
Day 1 in the books!
After we landed we quickly made it through customs and onto the streets of Hong Kong. Nate had heard that a taxi ride through the city at night is a spectacular sight to behold. Unfortnately for me, my Xanax haze was still in effect. Nate would say, "Lil do you see that!" I would wake up for 2 seconds and fall back asleep. Xanax 2, Lily 0. Once we arrived at our lovely hotel I immediately crawled into bed. The lovely front desk man told Nate that there was a grocery store next door. As I was drifting off Nate said, "I'll be back". He arrived back as excited as a kid on Christmas, "Lil, look what I bought!". He had in his hands a can of Pringles, a can of cheeze balls, 3 Tsing Taos and an EIGHT pack of Coca Cola Light. TYPICAL!
We woke up refreshed around 9:30am. As I woke up I thought, haha I beat jet lag, I feel great! We decided to hit up the local grocery store to get some snacks for the hotel room. As soon as we walked into the store, I knew Nate would be ok. (For those of you who don't know, Nate is a very picky eater, as in, he only wants to eat pizza, french fries, burgers, much like a 5 year old). They had my favorite Greek yogurt as well as CHEESE! They had some fruit I had never seen before, but for the most part they had everything a normal American grocery store would have. I will admit, I was a bit dissapointed!
We got ready and headed out to find the subway to meet James with Goodie English. James was to give us our Visas and show us where we would be working. It was a bit confusing trying to find our way to the subway. We kept saying how easier it would be if our iPhone's worked out here. After about 20 minutes we found our nearest Subway Station. The first thing I saw was.....Starbucks! Ahhhh, it taste so good. To use the transporation in Hong Kong you must purchase an Octupus Card. These are very convenient and re-loadable. You can use your Octopus card like a debit card at stores as well! Genius. Hong Kong 1 America 0.
We met up with James at the designated spot. James took us out to lunch. When he asked what type of food we wanted to eat we told him since it was our first day in town we wanted some traditional Hong Kong food. He took us to a little hole in the wall place. We found that throughtout Hong Kong almost everything is in both Cantonese and English. There was not a word on English in this entire place. James was nice enough to ask us what we would like and order for us. Nate ordered curry rice noodles while I ordered udon noodles with beef and vegetables. They put down tea cups and plates with a bowl and two tea pots. James filled one bowl with water and rinsed everything. Hmmmm, interesting. We received huge heaping plates of noodles. They were delish. Our meals also came with an old school glass bottle Coke. I haven't seen one of those in a long time. I ate as much as I could and proclaimed, "oh man I am FULL". James looked at me and said in Hong Kong there is not always enough food to go around so people should only order as much as they can eat. I therefore began shoving my face with more food. I still could not finish. Don't they have to go boxes? James told me not to worry, my stomach might be able to grow while I'm here.
We walked down to the Goodie English Office to get our Visas. The bulding was in a nice area and was very colorful. We then took a ferry ride over to Hung Hom. We walked around to see my school. We saw some very traditional markets. There is a LOT of meat hanging around. The smell was not the best I've ever smelled.....Another thing that is very common is knock off Crocs. People wear them and they are sold in the tiny markets everywhere. We made our way to Whompoa and I saw the school that I will be working at. Don't worry everybody, it's by a giant mall that is in a giant ship. We walked around the area a bit more so I could get a feeling for the area.
We bid farwell to James and made our way back to our hotel. We had been out and about for about five hours by this time. The walk was brutal. It was hot, humid and my feet were killing me. By the time we arrived it felt like I had just completed a 90 minute hot yoga class. I literally had to peel my sweaty clothes off. And that's when the jet lag finally set in....
Day 1 in the books!
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