The weeks running up to Christmas were busy since we worked right up until 21st December, some CNETs were working right up to and including Christmas Eve. But, we did get to do lots of fun stuff during this time.
As you can see, the weather stayed warm here, I mean t - shirt warm right up basically until I left, which was bizarre but I am ashamed to say it was actually really nice! I may be abandoning my love of the freezing cold winters for the somewhat milder version in Hong Kong!
These pictures of Admiralty were taken on December 22nd which was actually kind of perfect considering I wanted to take some photos of where I lived home!
Christmas at School
Indeed, my school had its annual school picnic on December 21st, in Yuen Long Park, and although it was cold in the morning, by the mid morning, the children were buying ice creams and we were playing big class games all across the park! It was quite a sight to behold. Nearly 900 students and accompanying parents for the younger years and the entirety of the school staff (janitors included) descended on the park. And on top of which we were not the only school there! Even though it could not have been a less Christmas like event, it was a great way to end the term to see all the teachers joining in on games with their students and just having a great time after nearly 4 months of school without a holiday.
At school, I decided to do a Christmas advent calendar board and count down the school days in December until they broke up for Christmas whilst spelling out Merry Christmas (which they got on the very first day so absolutely no suspense there!) and giving them a corresponding English word for each of the letters (a dodgy y for yuletide...!) Moreover, in memory of that great GHS decorate your classroom tradition, I decided to decorate and wrap the pillars of our covered playground up like a present with wrapping paper and ribbons. Although it looked Christmassy, the children I think thought I was insane by the end of the month, when each morning, I would arrive at school and see that once again, more of the numbers of my advent calender board had fallen/been taken off and the wind/rain/bad decorating skills had meant that the paper was once again blowing across the ground or was flapping wildly in the wind. I must mention here our convered playground is convered only by a roof and 2 walls which does sometimes seem to form some sort of wind tunnel. I would make big sad, ovedrdramatic gestures which bless them they took quite seriously and were constantly coming over to help me and sometimes try and fix it before I saw!! The school still have zero supply of blu tack left after this idea.
I also did lots of Christmas games, assemblys, posters etc since it is not such a big holiday at all compared with in England which, for someone like me, who absolutely lives for Christmas, was a hard concept to get thier head around but it was so much fun in a different way. Getting to teach them things that we take as second nature e.g. about Rudolph the red nosed reindeer!
Chatteris Christmas Party!
Chatteris however, were full to the brim with Christmas spirit and put on a fantastic Christmas party for us which was so nice and so appreciated! Santa (of course!) was there to give us all presents and we had lots of food, crackers, mince pies, Christmas carols etc. It was a really nice evening and so nice to have everyone together before people started jetting off for their Christmas break. This is me and self appointed 'Auntie' Grace, the head of the Chatteris Foundation! and some of the amazing project managers who just look after us so well while we are out here!
I also made my very first gingerbread house which was typically a total mess but it was lots of fun and amazing to see where having more patience, care and a slightly more gentle touch can get you..
My final weekend, I also went to see the Big Buddha again on Lantau Island. It was MUCH cooler this time (the first time I went was in August) and amazing to see. We had a walk round, went to the veggie restaurant there, and also went on a wander around the paths surrounding the Buddha. There are some incredible walks to do on this island and also some really amazing scenery. If anyone is coming to Hong Kong, it really is worth a visit.
Rosie and I also went to see the Christmas lights on some of the buildings down by the harbour during the daily Symphony of Lights show. It is a light show displaying a hige amount of strobe and flashing lights put to music. I'm not really selling it to you but what it amazing is the sheer scale and the panaramic view that going down to the harbour to watch the show, affords you. It is quite impossible to capture the scale and the size of the scene on a camera and at Christmas, there were even more lights than normal. Every evening, quite a crowd of people gather by the harbour to watch the show and the evening we went there were hundreds there to see the Christmas display. It was funny to think about the last time I saw the light show, on our second night in Hong Kong. Although it was about four months ago, it seems like so much longer considering that we were now all in flats, and had completed a term of school. It's so easy to forget how quick the time has passed and how short a time it has actually been since we were here watching it competely jetlagged and disorientated and having barely spoken to each other! Here are some of my not very good photos but maybe it will give you a slight idea!
We also went for a fantastic Christmas dinner in a restaurant in Soho complete (for most!) with turkey and sprouts etc since lots of people did not go home for Christmas, it was a good chance to have some British style Christmas food, for some a chance to have some cultural exchange (Rosie was introduced to the British Christmas cracker!) and for others, a flavour of what was to come...!
After a really unconventional and hectic but really enjoyable lead up to Christmas, I finally left for London on the night of 23rd December and arrived home to the FREEZING cold Christmas Eve in London!
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