Last night after getting done with class and going for a brief excursion to Mong Kok (more on that in a bit), I got back to my hotel at around 6:30pm with the intent of dropping my stuff and going out for some dinner. I had been feeling a bit run down, as is to be expected by this time of day, and I took a moment to lie down on the bed and chill out watching some random Chinese game show thing. Fast forward to 3am when I finally woke up, and I’ve been up since. So much for the anti-jetlag plan. Better luck tonight I guess.

Class yesterday was decent, and I was happy to see that the level of English was pretty high. I always hate it when I have to bust out the finger puppets to explain something complicated. Today is the more difficult of the days, so we’ll see how it goes. Normally when I teach I can go on complete autopilot, but when I do that I wind up speaking far too quickly and people start to glaze over, so I’m having to pace myself very deliberately in order to make sure I’m well understood.

Lunch yesterday was pretty good, though high on the random factor. We went to a dim sum place, which basically means you’re going to get about 900 dishes of stuff in flour or rice wrappers that you can’t quite identify. Could be pork, could be monkey brain - you never know. But, it seems the guys that ordered seemed to have kept the “delicacy” (aka let’s see what the gweilo will eat) factor to a minimum.

One quick thing I wanted to point out because people keep making jokes about my height. I’m 6′3″, which I suppose is relatively tall, but I don’t really notice it much in general. Here, though, it’s a different thing. Check out the photo below - I took it at face height, and yes I’m really that close to the ceiling. I think I have maybe 5″ to spare. Combine that with the classroom being pretty tiny and I’m starting to get claustrophobic.

Ceiling.jpg

Class on the first day gets out at about 4pm, so I headed over to an area called Mong Kok, which is a little less touristy than a lot of other places in Hong Kong. One of the things worth seeing there is the Ladies Market, which stretches 5 blocks on pedestrianized streets. You can get damn near anything you can think of in the market, both real and fake, though the fake DVDs, watches, and handbags are slightly less obvious than they used to be. The place is absolutely packed, and I think I need to go back sometime, maybe at night.

LadiesMarket01.jpg

Now I know everyone back home has been waiting expectantly for it to come on TV, but here is your first look at the next greatest show ever: Potato Boy.

PotatoBoy.jpg

I’m hoping the weather improves a bit so I can take some photos of the skyline and such here - it really is pretty amazing. It’s been overcast since I got here to the point of not seeing the sun yet. But, I have a bit of time left before I move on to Australia, so we’ll see what happens.

Off to class…