Second Post

Ni men hao!

It is difficult to make the time to update the blog because there is so much to do and I don't want to miss out on things. My HK visit is now officially over and I have arrived in Shenyang, China (which is like 3 hours North of Beijing) visiting with Nikki and Nate.

HK was an amazing time. Chris was a great host and helped us get around and see parts of the city that normal visitors would never get to see. We got to meet a lot of people on staff at his school and we went for a tour of the school last week. You would not believe how nice the school is and how many resources they have. Each student has a laptop, they have an artificial turf soccer field, a full swimming pool, a beautiful auditorium with two levels of stadium type seating and on top of that the school is built on the side of a mountain overlooking the water. I can see exactly why Chris has been in HK 8 years and has enjoyed his time so much! It was cool to also see how it would be like to actually live there. One day I went with Chris to a track meet for the kids that he coaches and helped with the timing (which of course I have done many times back in Windsor). It was ridiculously hot, but the kids toughed it out. It was funny, but the athletic director at Chris' school is a former Lancer track athlete Mike Balo and he knows a lot of the same people, so we had some good chats!

A lot of the pictures I am going to post this time are from hikes that we did. I did not expect this part of HK; all I pictured was the hustle and bustle of an exceptionally dense population. In fact, there is a very interesting portion of HK with trails up and through mountains. One day we visited a famous Budhist temple called the Big Budha. It was like 300 steps or something to get up to see it but well worth it. As you will see from the pictures, the architecture is fascinating. But the more unbelievable part of this experience was the hike after seeing the Budha. It was a part of the area where not too many people ventured. The hike was pretty much straight up....non stop stairs. When we reached the peak, the sign told us that it was almost 1000m! You might not realize, but the descent was actually the toughest. It was slippery and really took a toll on the legs!! Overall, this was probably one of the most interesting parts of HK and definitely a good way to try to stay fit while on holiday!

After being in the city for almost 10 days, Kali and I decided (upon the recommendations of Chris and some of his friends) to go to Boracay Island in the Philippines. We wanted to take a side trip and craved a vacation from our vacation. As such, the powder white beach and crystal clear water was an ideal choice. We relaxed on the beach, had dinner on the beach, shopped on the beach and drank cocktails on the beach. It was a great 3 days and very relaxing!! The pictures won't even do justice to how nice it was; really touristy but beautiful.

Overall HK was a great city to see and it was awesome to get to spend some time seeing what it is like for Chris living there. I am very thankful to have such a great host and fun Uncle to spend time with out there!!

On Friday night, Kali and I arrived in Shenyang and Nate picked us up at the airport. We drove about 45 minutes outside the city to their flat and have spent some time looking around the area. We have done a couple runs and gone for a few walks. Shenyang is a lot more Chinese than HK, but cool. Nate and Nikki are quite the conisseurs of food and have introduce us to a lot of awesome Chinese dishes. Tomorrow we are headed to their school to check it out and meet some of the kids. I plan am looking forward to playing a little bball with Nate and the other teachers at lunch!

Anyways, I will update again soon. Kali plan to head to Beijing on Tuesday to tour around. We are going to see Tienamin Square, the Forbidden City and of course hike the wall!

Happy Birthday Mom! And Happy Father's Day Dad! Let me know when you are home and I will skype you.

Take care everyone!

First Post

Good day all and welcome to the blog of my Asian Adventure!

Since I am finally starting to get settled here in Hong Kong, I decided that it would be good to start blogging about it so that everyone can see what I've been up to!

I arrived here at 1:15pm local time on Friday. It was a direct flight that left TO at 10am on Thursday, so as you can see I lost a day pretty much. The time change is a full 12 hours ahead, so for me right now it is almost 7pm but for you it would only be 7am and I'm sure very few of you have started your Monday! As such, Friday was a tough day for me. I only slept for an hour tops on the flight because it isn't the most comfortable and also because I was just really excited to get to HK! When I arrived I could just feel my eyes hurting; since I had like 5 hours to kill until Chris got home I decided to lay down for an hour, but I didn't want to sleep too long or else I would hurt any chance I had of avoiding jet lag. My lay down however turned into a solid couple hours of comatose like sleep that ended with Chris having to shake me to wake me up! After getting my bearings, Chris and I set out to meet some people at a local pub where we had a few pints and relaxed. We stayed out fairly late so that I would sleep well. This turned out to be a good idea because I slept soundly until 11am! Chris showed me around a little on Saturday and then I went with his good buddy Mike Bailo and his wife to the HK football club (like a country club) to go swimming and then for a run with him. What a beautiful place...you can see the pictures below! After a full afternoon at the pool, Chris and I went to his staff athletic banquet where we had some solid food and hung out with all his friends. It was a lot of fun and there are also some good pictures.

Sunday was an unbelievable day. Chris' colleague convinced a parent of one of his students to allow him to use their family's yacht. I've been out on several nice boats back in Canada, but none of them come even close to the boat I was on. The pictures can only describe what I am talking about. This boat had three huge flat screens, three levels, four bedrooms and a couple nice decks with a couch like spot to sunbath. There were about 15 of us on the boat and it felt like there was no one out there. To put it in perspective, we had a crew of 4 Chinese workers to drive us around for the full day! We anchored and swam for a while, then drove to a marina where we got off to have a phenomenal seafood dinner and then got back on the boat and went to watch a light show in the world famous Victoria Harbour. The light show consisted of all the building along the coast doing something unique with all the lights and elevators and stuff in their building. Pretty cool...I couldn't get any really good photos but I will always remember it.

Today (Monday) was interesting for me. Chris had to work (who does that by the way?!) so I went out exploring by myself the whole day. I wandered aimlessly at times and navigated the MTR (subway) throughout a lot of the city. It is really really busy here; people are everywhere. It can be kind of overwhelming but I am getting used to it quickly. The heat can be tough on the body too, as the humidity is really high. You would think I could get prepared living in Windsor, but it is to a whole new level here. Despite this, I'm told the temperature is uncharacteristically low for this time of year?!

I think that is all for now. I really hope everyone is doing well back home! Keeping up with these posts will be a goal of mine, so that I can let you all know I'm doing ok and so I can make sure to remember all the cool things that happen on my Asian Adventure!

If you want to send me emails, send them through facebook or to my hotmail. andycoates@hotmail.com

Hopefully I can get this site in China, if not I will let you all know that it has changed!!

Take care,

Coatesy (Andrew)

PS. I'm working on a way to put photos on here for those of you that don't use facebook, but for those of you that do, here is the link http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2151817&id=122701550