In Macow I played Black Jack. I started with $500HK (about $64 US)and I ended up cashing out with $1500HK (about $192US) So I did alright for myself. There was a time I was to $3500HK but the ferry wasn't coming for another 45min, so by the time it was time to leave I only have $1500, but still a profit so it was good. The casinos there looked the same as the inside of Vegas, but the machines are all quiet, it isn't as noisy and exiciting feeling as Vegas, also allthe hotels and casinos are spread out throughout the island, not in one big strip. But there some free transportion so it was cool. We had a big Casino buffet, it was really good, but different. IT was all asian food, so Chinese, japanese, and Thia. There was tons of seafood (eric, shawn and dad would have LOVED it) there was also lots of different chicken dished and Dim Sum. The deserts were the best they were making fresh crapes and tons of different fruit and cheesecakes.

On monday the first day of surf camp started. Surf camp goes on for 8 weeks and each week is a new set of kids. This is Treasure Island's 3rd year running it and it is sponsored by Quicksilver. The first year 170 kids signed up, last year 300 kids signed up and this year we have about 700kids! it is becoming pretty popular! Myself and the other coordinator, Aaron are swiching on and off doing surf camp, so for the first week I am not on it, I am working on corporate stuff and progrm planning. Next week I will work surf camp. Yesterday I didn't have any corporate work to do so I took pictures of kids surfing, it was fun.

Hong Kong broke a record rainfall for June. They had more rainfall this june than any other month ever in Hong Kong history. There were only 6 days this month it didn't rain. Although it was really rainy, it didn't seem so bad becuase its still warm. When the typhoon game it was a little annoying becuase the rain was really hard and you really coudln't go outside much. But finally it is sunny today!!!!!

We reailzed two days ago that our apt has bed bugs.... My legs are all bit up and we found a bed bug. We went out and bought 4 bug bombs and bombed out house today and also sprayed all out beds and couches. Hoipefully it works, but I have read up on bed bugs and it seems they are very hard to get rid of. Onces we have a few days of sun we are going to bring out stuff outside in the sun, that is i guess the best way to get rid of them, but it has been raining a lot.

I got my visa all set and stamped, I now have 3 pages of stamps! I can now go to immigration and get my Hong Kong ID card. Once i get this I will be covered for health insurance! But even not covered it would only cost like $200HK for a visit to the dr. (about $25US). With an ID card it will onyl cost like $10HK or somthing.

The storms goes from T1 to T3 then to T8 and there are a few different level 8's. I don't really understand the ratings, I think there are colors with them as well. All i know is when it hits a level 8 that everything shuts down and you are told to stay indoors.

The pictures are hard to post at the moment becuase I can only get on the internet when I am at work, so it's hard to find the time to add the pictures and I also broke my camera so I have to go buy a new one. We should be getting internet in our apt. soon and then I will be able to add more pictures.

Yesterday I went to Hong Kong Kong city for a metting with my boss. Myself and the other program coordinator went. After the meeting we went out for dinner. The food was soooo spicy, but after the burning went away it tasted good. I love the curry, it is my fav so far. After dinner my boss took us to some cool bars in the area and to see her friend play guitar at a bar. We got back on then 11:10 pm ferry and then I had to get up at 6:00am to catch a ferry back to the city to meet the volunteers for the surf camp that starts monday and we are training them all day today. Tonight we are going on a hike with them, then an overnight in the woods.

All of our visas came in! So we have to leave Hong Koing then come back. We are going to Macow (sp?) tomorrow which is part of mainland China to do this. I think it under a 2 hour trip. Macow is the Las Vegas of China, there are 10 of us going, so it should be pretty fun. Don't worry mom, I'll be safe and smart.

still super stormy here. It was a level 8 thismorning so we didn't have to go to work, but it went down so we went in at 1pm. A tree almost fell on the restuarant and theres branches and stuff all over. Its still super rainy and windy here. But everything is ok.

Tried to go surfing this morning, but the lightning was so bad we didn't.

Typhoon

Theres a typhoon 100 miles out coming right towards up. Just got back from surfing!

Don't worry mom I will be ok.

The first picture is Of my apt. building from the outside. Then there is a pic of a few people who work with me bartending after a program, and a picture of the beach and the outside dinner after a program.

Ching Chow

Yesterday and the day before we had a outdoor race adventure on Ching Chow island. Ching Chow is a pretty small island with tons of small chinese shops and trails going all aound the island. I was stationed at a cave. The teams challenge when they got to me was to go through the cave. You had to climb down into the ground to get into the cave then it was about 25 meters long but very narrow and very dark. It was really cool. I believe that pirates used to live in the cave.

I also ate some dimsum on Ching Chow island. Dimsum is just this chinese food stuff and there are lots of different kinds. It is meats and vegies wraped in a thin wrap thing and cut into bite sized pieces. I have no idea what was in mine, I used to try and ask what stuff was, but I found it easier to just not know and eat it. It was pretty good though. I also had this other thing, it was white and fluffy and was really sweet, almost like a shortcake, but then in the middle was this thicker sweet sauce with bits of meat. It was delicious.

I bought 2 cute tops and a pair of surf shorts in Ching chow for oh about $15US, and I got paid today so I am going to do some more shopping tonight! (Emma, I am going to a part of Hong Kong where they sell a lot of electronics so I'm going to look for an ipod for you!).

The surf company Quicksilver sponsors the surf camp that Treasure Island has each summer, so they took our sizes and we are going to get hooked up with quicksilver gear. We are going to get surf shorts, t-shirt, surf shirt, had and sunglasses. We also got a 20% discount card for any other quicksilver gear. So thats really sweet!

Training

All the staff for the summer has arrived so today we started training them. We did some games and stuff to get to know eachother, and went over rules and everything. Then the second half of the day we went to the town, Mui Wo and rented bikes to go mountain biking. The trails were insane, for the whole first half you couldn't even ride them. They were going straight up with huge rock, through waterfalls, down cliffs, and we had to carry our bike through a lot of it. It was also about 93 degrees and 95% humidity today. The trail took us about 3 hours, and I have never been so tired and cut up before. I never want to do that again.

After we got back we went surfing for a bit. The waves were very small, but it was good to get out. NOw I am headed off to home to drink some beers on my roof and hang out.

Tomorrow we have the outdoor adventure race that I planned myself, I hope it runs smoothly. I will be happy when it's over, I have been pulling 10-12 hour days trying to get everything ready and in orded for it.

Day off

My day off is today so I decided to have some fun. It started this morning with planning on going rock climbing with Franz, this 5 some year old european crazy in shape guy. He told me he would show me an awesome place to climb. I was a big slugish this morning due to having a lot of fun last night, but I still went. A typhoon seems to be brewing up so it was rainy and very very windy today, so we decided no to climb but go up there so i could see. I rope a bike part of the way while Franz ran the entire way, he is crazy. Then we hiked about 5 miles one way. My head was hurting so bad, and it was 98% humidity and up a mountain, it was hard work, but it was beautiful.

After hiking I was dead tired and my head was pounding even worse, so I ate quick then went to walk home, and on my way I ran into two guys who from Treasure Island who were going surfing, so I did a U-Turn and went surfing for a few hours. It was great! I cought some good waves. The surf isn't too high here, the waves are low, but since the storm is coming it was good. I'm going to surf everyday after work or during break and hopefully get good!

Now its off to nap or go to town buy some things for my house.

Here are some differences frmo Hong Kong to US:
A good difference is in Hong Kong you can buy beer at the store by the can and it only costs 3 Hong Kong dollors per beer which equals 38 cents US! It is crazy cheap. You can also walk around with you beer. So you can walk down the street, go shopping, catch a ferry, all while drinking beer. The bad difference is, all the beer here is crap. It's like drinking a keystone light.

But atleast I'm not in Eric's situation in Alaska where its $10 US for a 12 pack of Keystone.

My first program

For the past two days I have been working in the office finishing planning for some big upcoming programs, but today we had a Corporate Adventure wiht HSBC. The program was awesome. It was a challenge race up "the gorge." The corge is a couple mile loop that starts at the bottom of a gorge that they climb up, then climb a rope ladder up a water fall, and then when they reach the top they go down through a trail down a mountain. I took the trail up the mountain and flagged a trail then I was stationed at the waterfall. There were different activities that they had to accomplish through the journey. Some of the parts were pretty crazy, there would be no way that a company would do some of the things on the gorge because one slip and someone could be really injured. There is one part by the waterfall where it is steep slanted wall, and we hook a rope going horizonally across the wall and they just have to hold the rope and lean all the way back so they are almost walking sideway. Below is a 10 foot drop onto rock and water. It was a lot of fun to work.

Tomorrow we are doing a corporate adventure throughout the city of Hong Kong. They get clues and have to go around the city trying to figure them out. Then I am one of the route leaders so when they figure out the clues and find each place they call me to verify and i give them the nest clue. It sounds like it should be really cool, it will just be hard for me becuase I have never been to the city yet so I don't know my way around.

I get my day off on friday, so I'm sure I'll do some exploring.

Pictures

These are pictures of Treasure Island where I work on Pui O Beach.

Arriving to Hong Kong

I arrived at the airport to go to Hong Kong and found out that there was an issue because my visa is still being processed, so they would not let me on the flight unless I had a return flight planned within three months. So I missed my first flight and was rescheduled on a different plane. I had a 4 hour layover in Chicago then flew directly to Hong Kong. It was a 15 hour flight from Chicago to Hong Kong and it felt like much longer. It was impossible to sleep on the plane. We also hit some bad weather at the begining and end of the flight and it was the roughest flight ever. It felt like I was on a wooden rollercoaster.

I arrived to Hong Kong at 4:00pm, so that was 24 hours after I left my house. I waited for 45 min. till someone met me there. It turns out Hong Kong had just had 2 straight days of horrible rain, which created a mudslide on one of the only two major roads on Lantau Island. Becuase of this we had to take a bus to a subway which took us the city, then from the city we had to take a ferry. When we got off the ferry we waited fro 45 min for a Taxi, but because the road was closed no taxis seemed to be comming. We finally got a ride from someone who works at Treasure Island. It took over 4 hours to get to Pui O Beach from the airport, when it normally takes 45mins.

I got taken to my apartment building, which is nothing special, but it could be worse. I dropped my bags off then went nextdoor where the rest of the people from where I am working live and had a BBQ on the roof! Everyone seems very friendly. Untill the 14th I am the only seasonal girl. There is a guy from Albany NY who got here last week, the others are from all over the world.

I found a huge cockroach on the toiletseat before I went to bed.

My first day of work was great. I am planning a huge program for interns of the major banks of the world. It is really cool.

It is HOT AND HUMID. My feet and ankles are so swollen from the humidity, but they say its normal and once I get used to it they will go down.