Adventures in China

So I've been really rubbish at updating this... I could come up with a load of excuses, & I have been really busy with work, exploring Shenzhen, travelling when I can & socialising, but to be quite honest I've just been lazy!

I will (at some point!) add proper entries, at least about my trips (which are half written), but for now here's a summary...

For the Christmas holidays I ended up making a reasonably last minute decision to spend Christmas in Thailand with Caroline& Emma (who I work with) & Pablo (Emma's boyfriend). Definitely the right decision, & much better than spending Christmas by myself in chilly Shenzhen! We were in Bangkok for 8 days, & in that time we rode in a tuk tuk, went to the Grand Palace, went to quite a few temples, saw a giant lying down Buddha, saw a giant standing up Buddha, saw lots of Wats, had a massage on Khao San Road (& accidentally slid down the stairs afterwards!), went to Ayutthaya, rode elephants, did lots of shopping at street markets, went to a floating market, saw a snake show at a snake farm, stroked tigers, took a tiger cub for a walk, walked over the bridge over the River Kwai, went to the enormous Chaduchak market for more shopping, had Christmas dinner buffet at Anantara resort accompanied by lots of mai tais, did more shopping at Patpong night market where we admired the ladyboy parade & ate lots of pad thai. It was brilliant!

I then spent a wonderfully boring 10 hours overnight in Hong Kong airport, the only highlight of which was Skyping my family (this was on Boxing Day), before flying to the Philippines to go to Rhoda's wedding & meet up with Sam (my good friend & the maid of honour). We had an action packed itinerary for the 12 days there... We started in Manilla, where we met Andy (Rhoda's now husband) & Alisdair (the best man) & stayed in the Mandarin Oriental hotel where I enjoyed the luxury of a bath (not many apartments in China have baths, most just have showers, including mine). The next day we flew to Dumaguete where we were met at the tiny airport by Rhoda & Enting (a good friend of Rhoda's), after which we went to Rhoda's house for tea & met her family, then went to Thalatta Resort where we were staying for dinner, drinks & a chill out by the salt water pool overlooking the ocean. Bliss! The following few days were filled with swimming, manicures, lots of food & drink, some shopping, meeting more new people (the Kilty family & Stephen), going to Cebu to see/dive with/go out on a boat with whale sharks, lying in a hammock & looking at the stars, New Year in Dumaguete city at a Mexican restaurant with a scary Tina Turner wannabe & lots of great fireworks & great company followed by Grand Marnier & dancing on the balcony, walks along the seafront & around the city, looking at a half-sunken ship, a feast at Rhoda's house including a whole pig & Magic Sing.

This was followed by two days on Danjugan Island (a private tropical island) where we wandered around, watched bats in their cave & flying at dusk, gazed at the stars, saw tabons, starfish, hermit crabs, clown fish, anemones & many other sea creatures, watched the sun set over the ocean, swam in crystal clear lagoons, slept in cabanas, played the Roxanne drinking game, got taken around Danjugan & Turtle islands on a yacht, ate very fresh fish & got very wet on the trip back to the mainland.

The wedding details started in earnest then, with a dress fitting for the bridesmaid & maid of honour on the way to our next destination, Antulang Resort, where the wedding was held. That evening we had dinner & cocktails with everyone followed by Rhoda's hen do with me & Sam, during which a fair amount of Glenfiddich & Grand Marnier were drunk & a few drunken phone were calls made by the bride! The next 2 days were chill out days for those not in the wedding party; I spent the first morning playing card games with Rosy & little Alisdair while their mum Anne was ill with a migraine, then chilled out in the afternoon & had a nice relaxing massage in the evening, followed by a day of manicures & pedicures, lots of reading & watching the wedding rehearsal.

The climax of this holiday was of course the wedding - the whole thing was absolutely stunning. I had the very important job of tying the groomsmen's ties!

The following day was time to head home - or so I thought. When I got to the airport my flight was not only overbooked but also delayed for 2 hours, which would have meant getting back to Hong Kong at around midnight & home probably around 2am - with work in the morning. The airline offered to put me up in a hotel for the night if I took a flight the next day instead, so after checking with my headteacher that they could cope without me for one more day, I accepted. I ended up in a 5 star hotel with a suite all to myself & dinner & breakfast included plus a free return flight to Manilla valid for a year! It's just a shame I didn't have more time to enjoy my suite or the hotel facilities, as it was 10.30pm by the time I got there & I was picked up at 7am by the airport shuttle to catch my new flight. After finally arriving home around 4pm, I then had to go straight to the bank to get my card unblocked - I hadn't been able to use it the whole time I was in the Philippines, but lucky for me Sam is a very good friend & she paid for everything for me (I did of course pay her back as soon as I got back! & the grand total for 12 nights in the Philippines including internal flights, all food & drink, shopping, 2 nights on a private island & all accommodation was just over £500!).

I absolutely loved the Philippines & can't wait to go back there again, although it'll probably be in the October half term holiday now as my summer is completely booked up.

Ok, so this has turned into a rather long summary, so I think I'm going to stop there for now & do another summary for the rest of it another day!

Well, the Christmas Holidays are finally here! This has been such a long term for me – much longer than in the UK because we started school earlier and October half term was three weeks earlier, which meant this half term has been 10 weeks long! However, we all made it to the end & I now have a fab holiday to look forward to – 8 days in Thailand followed by 12 days in the Philippines!

The strange thing is that, even though it has felt like a really long term it has also gone really quickly – I can’t believe it’s nearly Christmas! I think that’s partly because it doesn’t quite feel like Christmas, mostly because of the weather. It feels more like early Autumn in the UK, and the leaves are all still on the trees, so it can’t possibly be late enough in the year to be December!

The last three weeks have been really busy at school – writing reports has taken up a lot of time, and we’ve had our Christmas Performance of ‘Chinese Cinderella’, performed by Years 2, 4 and 5. Years 1, 3 and 6 will be doing the Chinese New Year performance, which is two weeks after the Christmas holidays. So it’ll be back to school for two weeks, then off for another two weeks, oh what a shame! Having said that, it’s then almost straight through until June, with only a long weekend in April and the first week of May off to break up the term a bit.

One of the highlights of the last three weeks was our work Christmas do last Saturday. We went to the Sheraton Hotel for the all you can eat buffet (paid for by school) & if we wanted the free-flow champagne or wine we had to pay ¥100 (£10) – not bad really! Lots of fantastic food, including lobster, lots of different types of seafood, steak, pizza, pasta, salad, sushi, tex-mex, dim sum, various different mains & lots of different deserts! After all the speeches were done at midday, we tucked in & had three hours of eating & drinking until they kicked us out. At which point, a fair few of us decided it was too early to go home & headed to McCawleys Irish pub for a couple of drinks, followed by a visit to Rapscallions round the corner for a few more drinks & a bit of a dance. It was a fab day & I had a great time! (Photos on FB!)

Now I’m really looking forward to my holiday(s) – really feel like I need a break. Which means I had probably better go and pack…

I can’t believe it’s November already! And it’s been four weeks (make that five, as I had a bit of a break from writing during the week!) since my last blog update – where does the time go?! It really doesn’t feel like November here – more like late summer or early autumn, as a coat or jacket of any sort is still only necessary occasionally, and the middle of the day is still quite hot (I’m in imminent danger of getting sunburnt whenever I’m on duty at lunch time!). I’ve been living in China for 3 months now – in some ways it still seems as though I’ve only just arrived, in other ways it feels like I’ve been here for ages.

So on my birthday (Friday 28th October), we had a Halloween day at school. It was decided that Friday would be a better day to do it, rather than Monday, even though Halloween was on Monday, purely because of getting the kids all excited! Everyone (well, almost everyone) dressed up & there were prizes for the children for the two best costumes in each year group. We had a costume parade on the school field where the prizes were presented. Of course, I dressed up too & got some funny looks as I was walking to Starbucks in the morning! I think this was mostly due to my green face… I was a Witches’ Brew – dressed as a witch with a giant teabag that I made hanging round my neck, stripy socks & everything! The morning at school was full of activities organised by the Year 11 students to raise money to buy computers for a local school for migrant workers – children had to pay ¥20 to come to school in costume & take part in the activities, then there was a small bazaar selling various things – the most popular stall was the candy floss stall. Guess what I had for breakfast?! The children all loved it & had great fun, and in the afternoon, after clubs, we had a class party for my birthday. I brought in some drinks & cakes, & some of the children brought in crisps & other nibbles, so we ate those & watched ‘Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit’ while we ate, followed by games until the end of the day. After school, a few of us went out for dinner & margaritas to a great Mexican restaurant in Coco Park, and everyone insisted that I wasn’t allowed to pay. All in all, it was a really good birthday, and even though I had to go to work it didn’t feel like a proper work day because I was in fancy dress & taught no lessons!

The next day, a few of us (mostly the girls because most of the lads had arranged to go to Hong Kong for the weekend to watch the cricket) went out for Halloween & my birthday (again in fancy dress, but different fancy dress to the costumes worn at school!). We met up at Jen & Alex’s (although Alex was off with the lads in Hong Kong) to have some food & drinks & get ready to go out together. It took much longer for us all to get ready than we’d all thought it would! My costume this time was Charlie Chaplin, complete with moustache, walking stick & bowler hat. I had quite a few compliments on my costume that evening, which I was very pleased about! Eventually we made it out & met up with a few other people at McCawley’s. After a few drinks there, and a small incident with Janine’s false nails, we decided to move on to Rapscallion’s, round the corner, which turned out to be much more lively with more ‘get-up-&-dance’ kinds of music playing. It was a great night, lots of alcohol was consumed (it got to the point at the end of the night when I asked for my last vodka & cranberry juice that they had run out of cranberry juice!), some dancing was to be had, various comments about the numerous costumes were made & new people were met.

Some of the new people were a few Americans who are over here teaching English. We met up again the following week & they mentioned they were going to Hong Kong Pride. I didn’t even know it was on, so of course I invited myself along! Various other normal things happened in the week in between, but I won’t bore you with that! We met up the following Saturday (5th November), horribly early in the morning. The funniest thing at that time was that Sarah, who had organised the whole trip, was the last person to arrive! Which meant I had time to pop to McDonald’s & get a couple of hash browns for breakfast – yum! So we eventually made it to the hostel we were all staying at (there were 8 of us), dumped our stuff & went out for lunch in Hong Kong. We found quite a nice Italian American diner, which had a great deal on for lunch – 3 people get the deal, the fourth meal is free – so we order four meals & split it between the six of us (the other two had opted for Burger King). Near our hostel (which was just round the corner from the parade route) we found a stall selling merchandise, so me, Sarah, Nina & Alex bought HK Pride t-shirts & various other bits like flags, bracelets & pin badges. After chilling for a bit back at the apartment (we had an apartment almost to ourselves, owned by the hostel & rented out by the room) we went to find the parade. Suddenly millions of people were crowding the streets! We ended up walking in the parade, because the security people wouldn’t let us stand by the side (apparently we were blocking the way for other people). The parade walked along one of the main streets in central Hong Kong; it was quite amusing whenever one of the double-decker trams went past on the other side of the road – the people inside were either giving us evil looks or leaning out & waving at us! It took probably about 45 minutes to walk to our destination – a playground area in Wan Chai district, where a small stage & a few stalls had been set up. Hong Kong Pride only started in 2008, which means it’s still a relatively new thing, so it was really great to see so many people there & such a positive atmosphere. There were lots of speeches (mostly in Chinese), which we would generally cheer at whenever everyone else was cheering! This was followed by a few acts – some singing, some dancing, most really good, & of course topped off with a drag queen performing.

Once the whole thing had finished, and we’d got a couple of photos with one of the dance acts & the drag queen (has to be done!), we headed back to the hostel (via a 7-11 to pick up some drinks & Cadbury’s chocolate!) to chill out for a bit & get changed ready for the evening’s festivities. We headed to Lan Kwai Fong (an area in Central Hong Kong) for food & a few drinks. When we got there we discovered there was a carnival on there! The streets are pedestrianized in the evenings Friday to Sunday & lined with bars & restaurants; when we arrived they were also lined with various stalls selling everything from alcohol to sewing machines & millions of people! We went to an American diner for dinner (really good food, huge portions & not too expensive for Hong Kong), during which we spotted a carnival procession walking past – people in costumes & masks, feathers everywhere & stilt-walkers walking impressively down the rather steep street. After this we ploughed our way through the crowd to one of the many bars, had a couple of shots, found another bar to dance in & have a drink & did a fair amount of wandering around, seeing the sights (there were small stages set up at random points with various entertainments, plus all the people dressed up & random drunk people!) & getting the odd drink here & there. Eventually, at about 2am, there was only me, Nina (whose birthday it was) & Alex left, so we decided to call it a night. We attempted to get a taxi back to the hostel (after a small detour to McDonald’s), but the ones driving past wouldn’t stop to pick us up, which then meant we had to wait in the really long taxi queue. So we decided it would be a better idea to walk back (a distance of about 5km or 3.125miles)! We had a few mini adventures along the way, but we eventually (due to my superb map reading skills) made it back to the hostel in one piece at about 4am.

The following day some people left early because they had to get back to Shenzhen, which left me, Ammon, Lindsay, Chastity & Sarah to go for lunch. We headed to Times Square (no, not the same as the one in New York! It’s a huge shopping centre with a giant Christmas display outside) to look in Page One, a fab book store with a good choice of English language books. We then found an amazing Italian steak restaurant (not that any of us had steak) which had a great deal on for a buffet lunch (including dessert) – the food was fantastic, & the choice on the buffet seemingly never-ending (every time someone went to get something, they came back with a different dessert!). I would thoroughly recommend it. We then found our way to Starbucks for a bit of a rest, where Emma (my friend from work) joined us. The Americans departed shortly after, as they had a dinner date with Chastity’s cousin who lives in Hong Kong. Me & Emma wandered off to do a bit of shopping, which turned out to be very successful on my part – Emma persuaded me to buy a new phone (probably because I’d been complaining about the rubbish phone I’ve had since I moved here every day!) - & it’s fab! (Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro, just in case you wanted to know!) I can finally change people’s names in my contact list, take photos & access the internet on my phone! I then took Emma to City’Super – a great supermarket that sells loads of Western food – she thought it was great & we ended up having to drag each other out of the place! I stocked up on squash, cheese & crumpets, plus odd bits like risotto rice & mixed herbs (none of which you can get in Shenzhen, apart from a small selection of cheese at a few places).

At this point it was getting quite late, so we thought we’d better head back so that we didn’t miss the last train to the border… We made the train, but managed to get on the wrong one! Which meant we ended up at the other border; halfway across Shenzhen from where we live, instead of 10 minutes down the road. Doh! We made it home with all our many purchases, which we sorted out on the street corner. Really could have done with another day off before going back to work the next day!

Other things I’ve done in the last few weeks: a trip to Ikea with lots of successful purchases (duvet, clock, fern, cushions), another visit to the Arts & Crafts fair in OCT (where I bought a lush purple bag) & a quick look at Splendid China Folk Village (must go back another time & spend a day looking round), quite a few meals out with various people, a few evenings out having a drink & a laugh with various people, the usual work stuff (including overseeing APP as part of my new role as Assessment Coordinator & running a staff meeting on moderation [I really don’t like doing staff meetings!]), & attempting to learn Chinese (I’ve had 5 lessons now & it’s still really hard!).

One other thing I will tell you about is the school fire drill. Completely different from a fire drill in the UK! Children are supposed to run, bent over double, one hand covering their mouths & the other hand over their head, down the stairs & out of the building onto the football pitch when the alarm sounds. There are four staircases & about 350 primary children & I think about the same number of secondary children all trying to run down the stairs at once, hunched over with their hands over their heads – quite a sight to see! We also had ‘Fit Friday’ today – all the primary children outside at the start of school doing aerobics – with the teachers joining in of course!

On Wednesday a few of us went to the stationery market – 3 large buildings of 3 or 4 floors each filled with stalls selling every kind of stationery plus everything else you could possibly think of! The reason we went on Wednesday was to stock up on Christmas decorations (the same place I got my Halloween decorations & witch’s hat from) – so much stuff it’s hard to choose! I bought a small Christmas tree, loads of tinsel (about 13 strings), two sets of lights, two packs of baubles & a pack of mini silver fir cones, loads of stickers for school, a pack of Christmas cards & some light-up snowmen badges for the kids – all for the grand total of about £25!

There’s probably millions of other things I could write about, but a lot of it is just becoming part of everyday life here in Shenzhen & working at Green Oasis School, so I can’t really think of anything else significant enough to add! Generally I am really glad I made the decision to come here, even though I miss everyone at home. Getting packages from people at home is so exciting! And we’re all starting to count down the days until the Christmas holidays – 3 weeks to go!

I'm just doing a quick mini update, as it's 10pm here & I've got work in the morning!

So, the last three (nearly four!) weeks have been rather busy, but in a good way.

We had a typhoon day on Thursday 29th September, which meant all the kids got sent home from school & we had the rest of the day off! Not as good as a snow day though, as it was really windy & raining loads, so couldn't really go out to play in it!

The week after that was half term - earlier than the UK because it's a National Holiday in China - like the UK bank holidays but for a whole week. I did lots of shopping, including visiting Dong Men (an area of Shenzhen) which is a complete maze of a place full or shops & markets that all meld together. It also has the first McDonald's in China, which was opened in 1990! I also went to OCT (another area of Shenzhen) with people, where we eventually (after walking in the wrong direction for quite a while!) found a cool place called The Loft, full of arty furntiure shops, cafes & restaurants. There was also an arts & crafts fair on which was fab, at which they had loads of handmade stuff & lots of random stuff, like pet snails with hand painted shells - pick your favourite colour!

On the Wednesday of half term I went to Hong Kong & stayed in a hotel there to make the most of it (the hotel was called Mingle on the Wing - great name!). Did more shopping there with Laura & Dan, who work at my school & had been in Hong Kong since the Tuesday. On the Thursday we went up the Peak in Hong Kong - they walked up, I got the tram! Fab views from the top - although it was a bit misty/smoggy, you could still see pretty much all of Hong Kong city. (Photos are on Facebook, but I'll add them on here later when I have more time.) Didn't really want to come back from Hong Kong, but had to as I had to go into work on the Friday to meet up with Laura & sort out staff training on APP (Assessment stuff).

Various other things like going out for drinks, Emma's birthday, Mexican food (fab restaurant) & frozen margaritas, more shopping, watching lots of DVDs, actually managing to sort out banking stuff, eating out on a fairly regular basis, dumplings for lunch (30p for a portion & they're really good, can't go far wrong!) & normal day to day school stuff.

The other main thing to note is that due to the work I (& Laura) did to sort out the assessment stuff at work, I got offered the role of Assessment Coordinator, which also includes a pay rise! So I now have even more to do, as I'm leading the staff meeting on Thursday & training everyone on assessing writing!

I'm sure there's a million more things to write about, & I will write about everything in detail soon, but right now I need to go to bed!
Busy busy!

Creme Brulee!

The next day, Caroline, Melissa, Emma & myself went round to Jenny & Alex’s. Alex escaped to watch the football, leaving us girls in to watch a movie. After a bit of discussion about what to watch, we watched Hanna, as nobody had seen it except me, & I didn’t mind seeing it again. It’s very good, I’d recommend it. Afterwards, I got to raid Jenny’s dvd collection, & ended up borrowing quite a few – Grey’s Anatomy series 7, The Mentalist series 1, Castle series 2, The Vampire Diaries complete collection, The Karate Kid (the new one with Jackie Chan), Unthinkable, Due Date & The Men Who Stare At Goats. Should keep me going for a while! I’ve not really missed having tv, as I’ve got so many dvds to watch. I would like to get a dvd player though (I’ve got a tv, there’s just no channels as you have to pay for them & I haven’t yet), so I can watch things while I’m doing my planning, as at the moment I’m watching everything on my laptop.

School has been fine, if busy, the last couple of weeks. Nothing much to report there, other than I was asked to share all the interactive resources I brought with me with the rest of the staff in Key Stage 2 (years 3-6) at the staff meeting last Thursday, which was a little daunting. I’ve also been asked, along with Laura, to sort out some training on APP (Assessing Pupils Progress) for all the other staff, as we’ve both had training on it & used it in the UK. I think that’ll be even more daunting when we do it! We’ve got until after October half term (the first week of October) to prepare though, so I’m sure it’ll be fine.

On Friday I played netball again with the girls, & this time a few Year 10 girls from the school joined us, which made the match a little more interesting! I enjoyed it again & wasn’t quite so worn out afterwards this time, so maybe my fitness level is increasing slightly! This time we really did go for pizza afterwards – me, Jenny, Alex, Melissa, Caroline & Emma went to Papa John’s in Coco Park, followed by a trip to the Haagen Dazs café, where we had some delicious, if slightly expensive, ice cream.

So to Hong Kong!
Yesterday I went to Hong Kong for the first time. It was fantastic! There’s so much there to see and do – one day is not nearly enough. I had to get up horribly early for a Saturday – we met at 8am by Starbucks (me, Jenny, Alex, Melissa & Caroline). Apparently, if you get to the border much later, the queues are horrendous – it once took Melissa 3 hours to get across! It only took us about an hour and a half in total to get from Starbucks into Hong Kong, including queuing at the Chinese border (of course we were in the queue with the slowest guard ever!), walking over the long foot bridge to Hong Kong, queuing at passport control on the Hong Kong border & getting the train into the city.

As most of the shops don’t open until 10am, we headed to Starbucks (surprise!) for a bit of breakfast & a nice cup of tea. The metro exited straight into Festival Walk, a huge shopping mall in Kowloon Tong, with 6 floors & lots of recognisable shops, banks & restaurants, as well as others that aren’t China, such as M&S, H&M, HSBC, Accessorize, The Body Shop, Tie Rack, Toys’R’Us & Pizza Express, & a lot of high-end shops, like Chanel, Estee Lauder, Calvin Klein, Vivienne Westwood & Ralph Lauren.

Festival Walk shopping mall

It was really easy to open the bank account at HSBC – all I needed was my passport & UK driving licence (as proof of my address) & then I wrote down my Chinese address for my correspondence address. I was given an ATM card & PIN straight away, which I then changed at the ATM, got out HKD1,000 (about 800rmb or £80) & paid it into my new account through the cash deposit machine. Quickest I’ve ever opened a bank account! By the time I’d finished, Caroline had gone to meet her friend who lives in Hong Kong, & Melissa & Jenny had gone shopping , but Alex kindly waited for me (as I don’t think he was that interested in clothes shopping!) & we met up with the girls in H&M. The clothes there are really cheap – I bought 4 tops & 2 pairs of leggings for about HKD500 (400rmb or £40). Clothes are cheaper in Hong Kong quite often, because they are the same price but in HKD, which because of the exchange rate makes them cheaper. There is also a lot more choice of clothes shops with sizes to fit average (Western) people – most Chinese women are very slim & petit, which means it can be quite difficult to get clothes any larger than about a UK size 10 in China.

Alex & Jenny had to head back after that, but Melissa had a few other things to do so I stayed with her in Hong Kong for a while longer. Once we’d finished in H&M, we headed back to the metro, caught the light blue line to Hung Hom, then one stop on the pink line to East Tsim Sha Tsui, walked to the adjoining Tsuim Sha Tsui station (a bit like walking from one line to another at Kings Cross), went one stop on the red line to Admiralty on Hong Kong island & one stop on the dark blue line to Wan Chai. It sounds long & complicated, but actually it was really straightforward & only took about 20 minutes. I used my new Octopus card – very similar to the London Oyster card, except you can also use it in a lot of shops as well as on the buses & metro. We then hunted for Western Union so Melissa could send money home to Canada & on the way I spotted a M&S Food shop – so guess where we went next?! I was so excited! It was quite a small shop, but they had all the same food they have in M&S at home, but of course more expensive because it’s imported. I spent a small fortune on food in there! Although I did get a lot – real teabags (Everyday & Earl Grey), blackcurrant squash, pink grapefruit squash, tinned mackerel, tinned red salmon, pesto, pasta sauce, sea salt & balsamic vinegar crisps, super berry smoothie, pink lemonade, roulade, spinach & ricotta cannelloni, wafer curl biscuits, a chocolate brownie & a nice bottle of Italian wine – which cost about HKD600 (about 480rmb or £48). I figured that I haven’t been many places yet (mostly because of my foot & cold) & I haven’t spent much money this month, plus it’s a treat which I won’t do that often, & I get paid on Friday, so why not! It’s amazing the things you miss & get excited about when you’re away from home for a while.

Once Melissa had managed to drag me away from M&S, we got on the metro back to Tsim Sha Tsui station & the nearby Harbour City shopping mall, where they have a great supermarket called City Super – a bit like their version of Waitrose. I had another field day in there, because they had a huge counter with more cheese than I’ve seen since I arrived in China! (The Chinese don’t eat much cheese, so again it’s not that easy to get – most supermarkets just have the plastic cheese we put on burgers & very little proper cheese, if any.) I then spent a small fortune on cheese, thinking I’d better stock up while I have the chance – cheddar, Edam, smoked gouda, double Gloucester, parmesan, feta & mini babybels. I also found Nutella & Marmite, which of course I had to buy. Thank goodness I brought a rucksack with me to carry everything back! Melissa advised me to put the cheese in my handbag, because it wasn’t pre-packaged & sealed & they were less likely to look in my handbag than my rucksack. As it was, the security staff at customs didn’t look in any bags – we didn’t even have to put them through the x-ray machine.

Before we left City Super, we picked up a couple of bits to eat on the bus on the way back, being 2.50pm by this point & we hadn’t stopped for lunch. We had to leave then because Melissa had to be back for a friend’s birthday, otherwise I’d have been happy to stay a lot longer. We walked about 15 minutes from the shops to the bus station, where we got a bus ticket for HKD35 (about 28rmb or £2.80) to take us from Tsim Sha Tsui across the border at the Futian Checkpoint, which is about 10 minutes from where we both live. It took about half an hour on the bus to get to the border, where we had to get off the bus, go through the Hong Kong passport control, get back on the bus for about 2 minutes, then get off again to go through Chinese passport control & customs. We got a taxi home from there & got back about 4pm. I needed a nap at that point, as I’d had a headache all day & was shattered from too many late nights & early mornings!

Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

Hong Kong from the bus

Hong Kong from the bus 2

Hong Kong from the bus 3

Hong Kong from the bus 4

Hong Kong from the bus 5

Hong Kong from the bus 6

Hong Kong from the bus 7

Hong Kong from the bus 8

The footbridge I walked over from Shenzhen to Hong Kong

Saturday evening, after Skyping my sister, I met up with Emma to watch a dvd & have a drink at hers. As it turned out, we didn’t watch a movie at all, but stayed up chatting until about 3.30am! It was really nice getting to know her. Another good thing about Shenzhen is that it always feels really safe. No matter what time you walk home, there are always people around, cars on the street & security guards outside shops & apartment complexes.

The Shenzhen skyline at night

Today (after a nice lie in) I’ve spent most of the day planning, apart from a break to eat my M&S spinach & ricotta cannelloni, followed by my M&S chocolate brownie, while watching Doctor Who.

I can’t wait to go back to Hong Kong again & do some more exploring, plus all the other places I want to visit. But in the meantime, back to work tomorrow!