Teaching Abroad - Café Con Monica

Dinner with a family?

January 10, 2013

OMG I couldn’t be happier that it is almost Friday. No seriously we wrapped up day 7 of 8 today and I honestly can’t tell you who is crazier anymore. Is it me or is it the kids? They couldn’t even be called children anymore they are little beast like creatures running around screaming and laughing hysterically. Wait…that might have been me. On to other things…

I got invited to dinner with a student’s family tonight. I may have mentioned before that sometimes they like to try and feed me weird shit and giggle when I say no or try it and look like I swallowed something deadly. I was lucky today….well kind of. But first let me share with you something I posted on FB after the last time I went to dinner with a family….

November 12, 2012

Everytime I go to dinner with a students parents the conversation starts like this:
Them: Do you eat snake?
Me: No
Them: how about dog?
Me: No, thank you.
Them: Hahahaha foreigners are so picky
Me: here is what I won’t eat…Snake, dog, cat, any animals neck or feet, any organs without prior discussion of what animal and organ, nothing with dairy.

Is that really so difficult?? Every single time…Don’t even get me started on table manners. No seriously its bad.

They love it. Think its hilarious. Me? Not so much. I am very adventurous when it comes to food I try not to say no unless it is something that really grosses me out. As mentioned above I said no to Snake…why? Because I had it with the last kids parents and its nothing fancy and didn’t taste like much.

Anyway! Today I only managed to accidentally eat what I think might have been part of a pigs vein or intestine. I’m not 100 on that one yet and prefer not to know. It wasn’t awful just chewy. Other than that I had lots of seafood and then for some reason they wanted me to try this wine-like substance poured into half a crab shell…weird right? the wine was bitter and gross so I won’t be doing that again.

Hot pot!

right before I took a sip

wine in a crab shell that came out of that pot from above ^^^

moving it around to get the meat from the sides (I was told to do this)

Why are there tomatoes on her cake???

Happy Happy….

…I have no clue why my cheeks are so pink!

rooftop garden!

My students mom picking chives for me!

Then we picked vegetables from their rooftop garden for me to take home and I was happy. OOh and there was cake, yummy cake with some kind of purple stuff on the inside.

Such an adventure eating at someone’s house in China

Hong Kong part II

January 4, 2013

In case you are just stopping by and didn’t here I spent NYE in Hong Kong with some of my foreign teacher friends. We decided to make the best of the 3 days we had off and spend them bumming around HK exploring. I knew I was going to be back there next month during my holiday break so I didn’t want to do anything too new.

We ate…oh boy did we eat. I just loaded up on Starbucks this past few days (not even sure why) and sweets that I can’t find in China.

the view

the harbor…some hot chocolate and good company

hanging out on the steps

Bruce Lee on the Avenue of the Stars

Ready for my closeup

sometimes I actually manage to take an awesome picture with this damn camera

random art work

Lunching at The Peak with Saffer & Saffersister

SafferSister is a photographer

waiting for our fried noodles

enjoying a random street food spot we picked

The Clock before midnight

Found some amazing Pho!

DIY artwork in the Subway

can’t miss out on a beautiful site

in the tram heading up The Peak

gorgeous day, gorgeous view

My two foreign teachers Saffer & WelshBoy

one of those rare Iphone pics that workout nicely

read the words…oooh Chinglish!

having a cider at Piss Bar

one of many trips to Starbucks

Hope you have a great weekend!

Travel Days: China Check In

December 31, 2012

Ahhhhhhhhhhh my VPN is finally working all the time! yay!! woo woo!

Ok enough of that! I didn’t get to share my Christmas photos with you all because I just couldn’t get it to work and then the days just turned into one long one! Now its going to be NYE and 2013! I can’t believe it! This January marks the start of my 3rd year blogging and I am planning some fun new things for this place next year.

So with this being the last day of the year I want to catch you up and share some things:

Since I left home and moved to Thailand then China I have had moments where I stop and look around and have a minor freak out. HOLY SHIT I am in China! yes! I get homesick, I fuss about the weird cultural differences, and hate using a squat toliet with all my life but I am so amazed and grateful for this opportunity and the fact that after years and years of saying I am going to do something crazy like move abroad to teach I actually worked up the courage and did it.

I couldn’t have made it through the past 6 months without the amazing support of my family and friends. Even with G telling me I should just come home because his life is a mess and missing all the fun new things going on in Snifferelllas life, even with missing my nephew getting bigger every day. Thank goodness for Skype and google voice texting and Facebook for letting me all the pictures!

2012 was a rough year for me and The Boy and I have no clue what 2013 has in store in that department but we are still friends and he has been pretty understanding about this adventure into figuring out my life that I am on.

K and I are officially all booked for our 3 1/2 week adventure around Asia! We start in Thailand, head to Cambodia, then Vietnam, Hong Kong and then end our trip in Beijing! Its going to be a whirlwind of crazy busy and I can’t wait! It will be so great to have one of my closest friends here with me and get to experience new places with her.

I get to spend NYE on a boat cruise around Hong Kong and then bum around for a few days before I go back to work for 8 days! Crazy right? Well in China when you get a couple days off they hit you with a work on the weekend! Sneaky ones I tell you! I have a cute(but warm) dress to wear and I may actually comb my hair and put some make up on!

Last year I posted pictures from every month but lets be serious I have taken well over 5,000 pictures in the last 6 months alone and I don’t even know how many the first 6 months of the year. So for now you get my Christmas pictures!