Escalators.

Hey everyone, on the left is a pic i tried to take using my cameraphone at the airport on panoramic mode. It went a bit wrong as you can see, but it does show the incredible mountains which surround everywhere in Hong Kong, it is the first thing which leaves you in gawping when you look out of your plane window. Anyway it is now 7.30 AM and despite a late night last night i can't sleep, so I figured I would catch you all up on what is going on. Yesterday (monday) morning we were told via e mail months ago to go down to the lobby of the Hostel to meet Grace our boss, so thats what we did. When Robyn and myself got down there we met the first bunch of other people we will be working and training with as well. Alot of them are from England, there is one guy from scotland, a token Australian girl and about three Americans. We introduced ourselves then met Grace. For a boss Grace seemed lovely, she had made us all welcome packs which included soya milk and toothbrushes and was always smiling. She talked to Robyn and myself about school placements briefly, from the way she was speaking it seems she is leaning towards placing us both in a top end secondry school. It is more hard work and pressure, as 30% is now placed on marks achived in English oral exams. That coupled with the fact that Hong Kong universities do not accept non English speakers means that it would be hard work, but a better school with more support. We shall wait and see see. After this initial introduction all the other English tutors left Grace to wait for stragglers from the airport and walked into town. Most of them have a connnection with Hong Kong, for example one girls boyfriend is currently here, another ones Aunt has a flat, another few guys have been for countless holidays here etc. This meant that some of the gang have a bit of knowledge of things to do and places to go. For lunch we ended up in an Irish bar of all places. We then went for a wander down to the edge of Kowloon which overlooks the Hong Kong island skyline and had our first experience of the Star Ferry which for the price of 17p can load you on and ship you across the harbour like a piece of cattle. It was really nice and a great way to get across the water and see the skyline up close. Once there we headed to an area near Hollywood Road which has lots of bars and we all sat around tables in very plush surroundings getting to know more about each other. There are a couple of people from Devon there, I mentioned that Robyn was from that area too, a place called Barnstaple, they replied "i'm surprised they let people from there out into the community" It seeems Barnstaple has a reputation. After nearly three hours we headed back to Kowloon, this time on the tube to get ready for dinner. Some of the management team were taking the people who have arrived out to dinner and by that time we were starving. We headed back to HK island and i experienced my first mad Honkers moment. There is a road which is dedicated to food which is where we went, it seems the sight of twenty of us looking for a place to eat turned the whole place crazy with little men running outside and waving menus in our faces, crowding round shouting "Ten percent discount" "twenty" "40!" it was insane. They would grab your arms and try to steer you away from the group, then pull you if that didn't work. Luckily we already knew where we were going so powered through and ended up in a Malasian/Thai place called the 'Good Luck House' (Good luck if you survive?). The food was amazing but the spice got to me, Robyn has plenty of Veggy options and there are three others of her veggy species too, so she got lots of stuff to share. Once that was over we paid the stupidly small price for the meal and headed down to the most bizzare bar. It seems normal from the outside, but once inside it has a russian ice section. It is basically a giant walk in freezer which serves a variety of ice cold Vodka shots through a hatch in the wall. They stand outside and give you huge fur coats before you go in and once inside it is so refreshing, even if a bit chilly in comparison to the swealtering heat we are dealing with at the moment. By the end of the night we were walking back and Robyn commented that so far our day had consisted of an irish bar, a malaysian restaraunt and a Russian Vodka freezer. Hong Kong is truely a multicultural city.

My only 'Ben' moment occured when we were in the subway, walking as a group and heading towards some escalators. i decided that whilst everyone was crouding onto the one set of mechanical moving stairs, there was another one which was completely empty going the same direction. I jumped on that empty one and turned to Robyn and everyone else with a smug "im not a sheep" type look on my face, pleased to not be part of the sweaty crowd opposite. That was untill Robyn grinned back and pointed down, i looked and saw that i was in fact being taken a different route to everyone else, three floors below in fact. They were very kind an waited for my bruised ego as I climbed back to them. Thank god there was no Chatteris person there making notes..."Ben: can't seem to work stairs" Bx