I am beginning my 5th month in Macau. It is unbelievable how quickly time flies. A group of colleagues and I just got back from a week in Korea. I will do next week's post on that! This week will be about the last couple months...
First of all. Macau is HUMID. Like, I walk outside for 2 minutes and start dripping sweat. I have lost my first item to mold (my travel kit that was stored under the sink), and have purchased a dehumidifier as a result. Every day, regardless of temperature is at least 80% humidity. Summers here are going to be BRUTAL!!!
Secondly, the kids are great at School of the Nations. I have taught many of them how to throw a football (the good American version). We have BBQ'd on the beach where I literally burned a hole in my shoe. I even performed a duet with a colleague at the talent show and they actually liked it! Being able to teach 6 year old boys how to make a bank shot, help seniors with application interviews, and sing "All of Me" with another teacher (Kristin), is a pretty awesome deal.
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| Victoria's Peak in Hong Kong at night! |
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| Amazing Chinese Tea |
Since the last time we have spoken, I have been to China and Hong Kong for Chinese New Year. We had a week off to celebrate. Fireworks are lit every night until 2am to ward off evil spirits and almost every business is closed or has much reduced hours. Zhuhai is the city right across the border from Macau in China. It is a huge city (as are all of them), but is known for how cheap everything is. A couple of colleagues and I went for cheap massages and exploring. We had a blast and also had a traditional Chinese Tea experience. It was lovely.
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| Changing of the guard at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial |
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| View from the tallest urinal that I have ever seen! |
The other major experience was a weekend trip to Taipei in Taiwan. NYU Abu Dhabi brought in a group of college counselors for a fly-in in the great city. Not only did they offer some amazing opportunities for students, they took incredible care of us. We got a great tour of the city, incredible food, and top-notch care. Taipei is a great city to visit and night markets with street food, including something called stinky tofu (I did not try it) as specialties. One of the coolest places we went was the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial and the Taipei 101 (tallest building in Taiwan). It is a city/country that is struggling with its identity as Chinese and independent. It was very cool to hear Taiwanese people talk about how their entire history they have been working to decide whether they want to be part of China or not. If they were to join back with China, it would be similar to how Macau and Hong Kong currently do it as a "Special Administrative Region." I have no idea how it will play out. Regardless, the trip was really nice and the greenery and weather of Taipei were much more appealing than Macau.
It has been a good 4 months here. I miss you all dearly and particularly so on Derby Day. Thankfully, I was able to watch American Pharaoh pull out the impressive victory. However, it was at 6:30am here and there were no mint juleps. Anyway, I hope you all are well. Finally, a couple weeks ago, Alyssa asked many of you to write letters for me as part of her anniversary gift to me. I received them and THANK YOU! I felt so loved and appreciate the time you all took. It was incredibly thoughtful and made my week. Thank you to Alyssa for doing it and for to you all for the wonderful letters/cards/gifts! Until next week!!!
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| You all are the best!!! |
