Before 2011

I know I haven't blogged for a long time. I will be posting quite a few within the next few days. I am now in Hong Kong for my 5 weeks break. Hopefully I will be going to Singapore and Malaysia too.

My last few hours in Dalian was quite memorable. Thank you Will for carrying my suitcase down the stairs for me. I am going to miss you as my neighbour =( You are always so helpful and a great person to just check in and out with. Thank you to my sister, Anjali, for going to the airport with me. It was sad to say good bye for 5 weeks. Next time, I'm going to hire a driver. On the ride from the qing gui to the airport which is about a 10 minute ride, the taxi driver was yelling on his phone as he was driving. He was almost hit another car on the right side and he started driving on the wrong side of the road. A truck was coming right at us. It would have been ugly. I started this blog while I was on the plane in Dalian because my plane is delayed by 1 hour. They play such cute anime on the plane televisions. Heehee... Just my luck. 

Summary of the end of 2010. I have been so busy with work. I live on the girls campus but in the teachers' apartment. As I was walking home from the boys campus and I entered the gates of the girls campus, I heard a very familiar male voice. One of my students and a few of his friends were on the girls campus. They had permission to be on the girls campus because they were watching the debate but they were wondering around the campus. I could hear and identify that student's voice from anywhere. I escorted them off the girls campus and my student's last words to me were “Do not worry Miss Ng, you taught us how to use a condom properly so we will be okay.” I received a few Christmas presents from my students. I received a lot of chocolates. A student bought me a mini decorated Christmas tree. A student of mine bought a nice white t-shirt and he drew some pictures on it. It is quite cute and very thoughtful. I made 120 cups of hot chocolate for my students for Christmas! It is very popular here to give beautifully wrapped up apples during Christmas time because in Chinese, apple is call “ping guo” and “ping” means happiness. People sell wrapped up apples on the street and their business can move around because it's on a wooden cart. One of my female colleagues received a pack of condoms from a student as a joke. Thank goodness my students did not give me condoms to repay for the ones I bought for them to practice with...

I had a lovely Christmas weekend. On Christmas Eve, we had a Christmas potluck at Anita's and Catherine's. I made stuffing and bought a pumpkin pie. Catherine made a TURKEY! It was the best turkey I've ever had. It was so juicy and moist. Everything was perfect. Each of us had a secret santa and a small stocking. Thank you for making it so special girls (Anita, Catherine, Anjali, Sui Ki, and Rachel). On Christmas Day, Anj and I went to a Spanish Tapa in Dalian City and we spent a few hours at Starbucks. The malls in Dalian were too crowded. For Christmas dinner we had “jiao zhi” (dumplings). We had a China Christmas dinner with good friends. This year I have been to Canada, United States, Japan, and China. Next year, I'll be travelling a lot in 2011.