WELCOME TO MY NEW HOME

This is the side of Tirsa and me. As you can see, I have the upper bed since it isn't cleaned up!

Ellie's and Nina's side

Entrance to our bedroom/ part of the living room

Living room + Elisaveta

Kitchen/ hall

Chalkboard

Alcohol stash 

Patio

Bathroom/sink

No sleep sign in our bathroom

LOST IN HONGKONG

Today we had class till late so Elisaveta and me decided to take the bus home since Beatrice, one of the girls who lives in the same building, had said that the bus is so easy to get home. Well, is was definitely NOT easy.. We knew the bus number so what could go wrong right? We didn't expect that the stops were written in Chinese characters so we couldn't read a thing. There are thousands of characters and in four days of mandarin I only learned about twelve or so.. Let me tell you one thing, we never ever take the bus again. There was a traffic jam, the airco was on -12, we couldn't read the characters and we didn't recognized where we where. On top of all of that we both had to pee. Going by bus was a really bad idea! We went out of the bus somewhere we thought was close to Lai Chi Kok. There we bumped into a really nice flea market where we should definitely go back to, so it was kind of nice actually that we got lost because now we found out a new place to go to! It really felt like a world tour but finally, after a hour, we got home.

Here are some pictures we took on our tour through Hongkong:

You'll probably not going to believe it, but I will go for a run with Fieke in half an hour. I'll show some proof later, hahah

LOTS TO DO IN HK!

I wanted to show you guys some pictures of the last five days. It already feels a bit like home now also because of the cosy (but a bit chaotic) apartment with all the kind people who live in the same building. In the next post I will do a tour in the apartment. All kind of arty farty people live here, we even have our own Facebook page where all the artists put there work on and all kind of events are shared on it.

You can see it here 

 Literally everything is different here: the smell, the streets, the people. I'm still walking around every day like it's unreal that I will be here for four months. I'm starting to get a bit in the rhythm, though I find it very hard to get up early to go to school. I still didn't learned that much mandarin words but I do know how to draw like 10 of the million characters and I can ask somebody how they are doing. We will be pro's within 4 weeks.. It makes no sense though because they speak cantonese in Hong Kong. Tomorrow we will start with the culture classes and afterwards we will meet with Stuart, our WRAP teacher, at the Marco Polo hotel for drinks and some horse racing at Happy Valley afterwards. On thursday Susan, Fieke and I will go for some jogging and we'll go to a skybar in the evening with all of the girls and on friday we'll go to a closing party at XXX with the roomies. My schedule is kind of full already and I'm not even here for a week!!

The meeting at McGregor was kind of a disappointment because we still don't have our company assignment. The office is really nice though just as the view,we're on the 13th floor of the Kitec building. However I can't wait to start working over there, there's enough to do but I expected a little bit more out of the meeting from today. To get to work we have to get through a huge shopping mall every time, that might be a problem for my wallet. I bought a scarf at Zara, but since I really needed one for the airco and it was in sale I don't feel guilty.

Well I should be doing my Chinese homework now so I will stop writing for now. I'll keep you updated! XOXO

psy 'gangnamstyle'  iphone cover

hertitage museum - virtual make-up

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

After a really nice weekend full of shopping, clubbing and nice dinners it was time to go to school today. We went to bed at half past 1 at night because we couldn't get asleep, so waking up was a bit hard for me. Although I had 'chinese eyes' it didn't stand out here!

Class started at 9.30 AM. We were divided in two groups, level 1 & 2. I'm at the beginners group with Tirsa, Leanne, Nina and Mirella. We all have our privet tutor, which you can see on the photo. Today we got our Chinese names. Mine is Ài Shā which means beautiful girl, from today on we have to call each other by our Chinese names, which are very hard to remember! We also learned the pronunciation of tones which was really funny because some are really impossible for us to pronounce so we were repeating them for 50 times. I do noticed that there is a kind of competition going on between the tutors. If one of us gives a good answer in class they get really happy because they learned it to you. If you don't give the right answer the other tutors will giggle because your wrong. However they are not doing it in a rude way.

We finished at half past 12 and after class we ate at the canteen at PolyU which is really cheap and you've got plenty of choice. Because it was still quite early we decided to go to Hongkong island by star ferry. This takes only 7 minutes or so but it was really nice to see the view! We went to Hollywood road to do some shopping and sightseeing and afterwards we took a taxi to the mall at Nathan road were we ate sushi.

So, I go to bed now because have to get up early tomorrow for school again. In the afternoon I will have a meeting at McGregor. Hope we will finally hear our company assignment! XOXO

MOVING TO HONG KONG

Well, finally the day arrived that we were moving to Hong Kong! After a journey of 14+ hours or so we, Mirella and I, arrived at the airport. We first went to London Heathrow and from there we took the plane, which was HUGE and full of noisy Chinese people. We wanted to pick up our suitcases at the luggage belt but we couldn't find them. They were already standing next to the belt because apparently we were the last ones. Everything is going so fast here! Unfortunately we found out that Mirella's suitcase was broken so we had to fix that first before we went out.

At the arrivals was a Chinese man who had a sign with 'Stephanie Henze' on it, mister Choi was picking us up. He was bringing us to our apartments, mine on Lai Chi Kok Road and Mirella's on Nathan Road (which is a shopping walhalla btw!). We first went to my apartment to drop of the suitcases. I was really nervous because I had noooo idea what it would look like. I was kind of surprised by how big it was! We have a little kitchen, living room, our own bathroom and toilet and we have to enter our bedroom by walking through a closet, really funny! There are also living really nice young people in the building. We will be having a BBQ party tonight, so we get to know each other better. I will put pictures of the apartment on the blog later.

At 7 o'clock mister Choi and his son James picked 'Mailella' (Mirella is really difficult to pronounce for Chinese haha) and me up at my apartment. They were taking us for a nice Chinese dinner. We were a bit nervous what he would order because we only know the familiar 'dutch' Chinese food which wasn't what we will be eating. It started out quite nice, some chicken and pork but then a hot pot with soup was brought to the table. James was really kind to explain everything what we were eating, however I wish he didn't.. There it was, a chicken leg in the soup!!! I think we will see those more often since chicken feet are real delicatessen here. I think everybody understands that at that moment we stopped eating the soup, haha. I was really happy when the dessert arrived, which was just plain fruit, something I recognized ;p After the dinner, they took us for a little sightseeing tour through Hong Kong. James showed us the PolyU university were we will be start on monday. We had such a nice first day!!

Apart from the fact that I had the feeling that I was sleeping in the middle of  a highway and my pillow which was as soft as stone, my new house is very nice! I will be living here the next 4 months with Elisaveta, Nina and Tirsa. Today we're gonna do some shopping to make it more cosy and our home. Marian will also show us how to get to the PolyU by public transport today, so I have to get dressed now!

XOXO

after the 8346583765 check at shiphol..

we couldn't get our suitcases closed hahaha

lai chi kok road with mailella

nathan road by night

james, me, mailella and danny choi at the restaurant