Hong Kong or Bust!

It’s for sure; I’m heading to Hong Kong on the 20^th of October and will be there until the 24^th!!! I can’t believe how much has happened today and all of the things that have fallen into place. I will start at the beginning, from yesterday (sorry I didn’t really mention it yesterday but I didn’t want to get too excited and not have it happened- been there, done that, and didn’t like it (nope didn’t buy the t-shirt either)). At one point I had talked about going with Nathan and Sallee to Hong Kong when they came, but when I realized that they would be going in the middle of the week I figured that there would be no possibility of me going with them, I also had talked with Natalie and she didn’t really want to go with me. Time is running short and even though I wouldn’t be going with others I really wanted to go to Hong Kong so I decided yesterday that I should probably start talking to Yuling about possibilities of when I could go and making the plans. Yesterday during lunch I went downstairs and first brought it up to Yuling by asking her if it is scary to travel to Hong Kong by yourself, I had previously talked to her about the whole idea of going with Nathan and Sallee, and she was like “why, what happened- aren’t you going with your brother?” I explained to her the situation of Nathan, Sallee, and Natalie and then said that because of that I figure when I go it will be by myself (mind you I was not even thinking about asking to go with Nathan and Sallee, in my mind it was during the week and so it was not a possibility). She started asking me about what days they were going and started saying something about how that is almost a week (I was a little confused at first, I didn’t really get why she would care how long Nathan and Sallee would be in Hong Kong), she kept talking for awhile and then I started to think “is she really saying what I think she is saying”, then I started to think “she is saying what I think she is saying” and then I started to get really excited. I told her that I would talk to Sallee last night and then get back to her today.

So at lunch I went downstairs loaded with paper to take notes and a copy of Nathan and Sallee’s travel plans. I handed it over to Yuling and she got on the internet and started searching. It wasn’t long until she told me my options, for only $5000NT I could leave around 1:30 on the Monday that Nathan and Sallee would be leaving, I didn’t know if I would be able to get the same as the them so figured that an hour off would be better than nothing so I said that I would like to go with that. While she was searching she said something about that as long as I was staying till Thursday I might as well stay until Friday ( I had been thinking that I would go on Monday and then come back on Wednesday so I am not really sure where the Thursday and Friday came from- but I’m not really complaining :D). Yuling then also found for $600NT more I could be on the exact same flights as Nathan and Sallee. I was like heck yes! It ended up being $8300NT or about $260 round trip, and I get to go for the whole week and be with Nathan and Sallee the whole time! I am so super excited!

Next really big news, when Yuling and I were done getting my ticket it was time for my afternoon class and so I headed to that, I was in the middle of my 2^nd class when Yuling walked in and said excuse me- I walked over to the door to talk to her. The first thing that she told me was of this awesome deal that she had gotten for Nathan and Sallee while they are staying in Hualien and then the next part that she told me was that Green Island was closed and that we wouldn’t be able to go there next weekend, yeah I was a little disappointed. But then she made it better by saying that instead she had somehow gotten train tickets to Taipei for the weekend (I don’t know how she did it, but I figure that it is better not to ask questions). We will be leaving Thursday night at about 8:10pm, the bad part is how late this whole trip is going to be, we will stay in Taipei until Sunday night- we leave at like 9 and so won’t get back until nearly 1am. Natalie and I have been looking at our calendars and the Chu families calendars lately and were having trouble finding a time when we could all go together, so I am extremely grateful to Yuling to finding us these tickets. Natalie and I have just decided that we will have our lesson plans and evaluations done before we leave.

Oh I almost forgot to mention, I had told Yuling that I would be willing to have my lesson plans completely written up for the Chinese teachers for when I go, but she said that would be a bad idea as they wouldn’t understand what I had planned and so they will write their own plans. I feel kind of bad about all of this but at the same time I think that the excitement is far outweighing the guilt—especially because that means that now I am even further ahead in my lesson plans :D.

Now for one of the last exciting news of the day, I guess that Yuling had asked Stephanie yesterday about some membership she has where they can get big discounts off of hotels and about the possibility of me using it. Stephanie was talking to me about Yuling having asked her about it, I didn’t really push it because I wasn’t sure if she was actually offering it, but later on Bob stopped by and Stephanie told me that Bob was going to go home and find their membership code and that Stephanie would bring me the code tomorrow so that I could look for a place to stay for Nathan, Sallee and I in Hong Kong. I really wish that there was a way that I could thank Stephanie/Bob and Yuling/Joseph for all that they do for Natalie and I.

Ok now that I have semi-covered my exciting news of the day (when all of this was happening I felt like I was going in a million different directions because of everything) I can tell you about the rest of the day.

In my morning class we played a game called peanut butter, I so wish that I had brought my camera to class with me, it was hilarious. I would say something like “hand to hand” and then the kids had to find a partner to stand with hand to hand, I would keep on saying other things and they had to keep on “sticking” to each other until I would yell out “peanut butter” when they would separate and search for a new partner for the next thing that I would yell out. The one that would make me laugh the most was when I would say “nose to nose,” I would look around and it would just be so cute/funny that I would start laughing, I love that the kids will do whatever I say and they don’t even question it.

For my middle class we made our own puzzles, I had drawn out the pieces on paper in black marker and copied it, I then gave each kid a “puzzle,” they drew their own picture across it and then could cut it out and have their own puzzle. Most of the kids didn’t really get the idea and so would just color each piece a different color but some of them did get it, they had fun though- I am pretty impressed with mine (see pictures in post Puzzle Mania).

You know what happened during my lunch time, so I will move onto my afternoon class. If you recall this week our theme is “All About Me” and so today in my class I talked about friends and in Natalie’s class they talked about family. It was kind of funny because this afternoon we were talking about what our plans were for our lesson and I told her that I was pretty excited because I was going to just make a power point of pictures of all my friends and she started to laugh because she had been planning on doing the same thing but with pictures of her family. We figured that it was a pretty good idea because the kids love seeing pictures of things from home, I thought that mine was pretty good because I placed a picture of the kids every other picture (between pictures of home friends) - the kids loved that and would get really loud and excited every time a picture would come up of them. When we had finished looking at the pictures the kids got to draw a picture of their friends, it was interesting to see who they chose to draw as their friends.

Today is my crazy day of tutoring, I feel like I am going, going for 5 hours straight after school (which I am basically), I will be glad when I get more used to my Wednesdays and Fridays. Now tutoring is done and I am finished with this post and I have two more picture posts to put up. I love you all and hope that you are having an amazing Wednesday. ~Betherd~

P.S. I AM GOING TO HONG KONG!!!! (if you didn’t catch it from the beginning of this post :D)

P.P.S.

Official Countdown

9 Days Until They Leave

11 Days Until They Land In Taipei

13 Days Until I See Them In Hualien (Yeah, still 3 days later it is the best one :D).

Loves Again!!