Sorry my entries are becoming so spaced out. I have been working all week to get the office set up in our apartments since all the offices have gotten wiped out. Three of the six computers work! I was very surprised that they worked. The new office is starting to look nice, and I can wake up at 8:45, and just walk downstairs in my pj's for work at 9am. It's kind of like being in college.

My friend Kryn is coming this saturday! Work really needs help these next two weeks because there are so many camps (500 kids in one week), so i got her to come out for two weeks to visit Hong Kong and work. I am excited to see her.

Last night me and a few people went for a walk down the trail behind our apartments and there is a part after the last house before the hill that there is kind of high grass on the side, and while we were walking I heard some thing so I stopped. I turned on my cell phone flashlight and right in front of my feet was a huge snake, it was black and yellow stripes. (I'll add the pictures I took later). We weren't really too sure what kind of snake it was, but seeing there are about 6 deadly snakes i our area we didn't want to take our chances so we slowly retreated from our walk. I checked this morning and it turned out to be a Banded Krait, which has the most deadly venom in the world. The venom is so deadly that one bight worth of it could kill 12 full grown men. At the same time they are usually pretty mellow snakes and rarely bite humans, but they do say at night they are way more active and are seen as more dangerous at night time. American soldiers in vietnam called it the "two step snake" because (exaggerating ing a bit) when someone gets bit by it they are dead within two steps. There is also no antivenin for it. I am glad that we had enough sense to just leave it, because we didn't know what it was. But I happy I got to see it, because they are rare in Hong Kong,

Well the typhoon did hit us. We went surfing for most the day then went home. at midnight we decided to go look at the beach because it's fun to do during typhoons, and they are usually pretty tame here. As we walked down the path to the beach and where I work we saw water coming up and waves crashing over the roof. We watched till about 3:00am Waves smashed through the windows washed everything out to sea or pushed it back to the parking lot. Waves were between 20 - 30 feet high. My office door was ripped off and flooded and debris everywhere. The office next to mine had a palm tree in it. Our copy machine was pushed out a side window and ended up in the parking lot. The entire concrete structure outside the restaurant was caved in. All the cement walls that stood about 3 feet high around my work were smashed down. My boss is obviously devastated.

I spent a good part of today trying to find things in my office that were keepable, and trying to get the water and sand out. Tomorrow will be much of the same. We are moving out office into our apartments for the time being. Our next camp is on tuesday and it is just a day camp. We are planning on having it, and the next camps to come, working on finding another site to hold the camp maybe.

It is really horrible, but it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. It was incredible. Other part of Lantau Island have also got hit hard. Tai O, the fishing village was hit very badly and a lot of things were destroyed. I saw on the news firemen walking through the street in chest high water. No one was killed on my island that I heard of, but I think there were some injuries.

A woman I work with has lived here for 30 years and she said she has never seen a storm so bad. Waves never have gotten that high.

I will add pictures to my webshots soon.

My mouth is healing well i believe. The stitches are still there, but I started eating solid food yesterday. I go back on Thursday for the dr. to check things out.

Work has been extremely and it will be like this from now till November. There are pretty much tribal school camps planed each week. I don't enjoy the tribal camps as much as the corporate programs. I decided I don't really like working with kids all day. They really annoy me sometimes. I don't get my own groups which is cool, I am basically just the coordinator for the expedition we do with camps to this island called Cheung Chau. It is a pretty fun expedition, but a full day, and I do it with different groups at least twice a week. This week I do it monday-thursday, so it's going to be a long week. However, there is a possibility of a typhoon hitting us sometime tomorrow, so that would be awesome, all the kids would go home and we would surf!

My TOOTH IS OUT!!!!! Iwent to a oral surgeon yesterday recommended to me by a dentist. It turns out the oral surgeon in American. Although I am sure Chinese Oral surgeons are just as good, the added comfort from understanding exactly what they are you explaining to you is huge. It is a bit unnerving when doctors or dentists speak to you and you can hardly understand what they are saying to you. So the toothy came out. I was awake while he did it, just just numbed the area. THe tooth came out in two hardy pulls, then I get the hole stitched back up. This guys also told me the x-ray is a 2d picture of a 3d thing, so the tooth may not me punctures through the cavity, it could just be in front of it, but there is that possibility. It turns out that there was no puncture through to my sinus cavity, and I can also move both side of my face.

My infection was so horrible before I went in to get surgery that the pain and discomfortable from having the tooth pulled is almost non existent I feel great. everyones in a while just a little pain where the tooth was pulled, but nothing compared to the pain I went through before.

I got to sleep into 1:00pm today. I think I might go rest some more, and then go back to work tomorrow.

Although I have said many times that I really enjoy the fod here, I have been randomly having some odd cravings for foods back home. the one food, that I am still convinced I will be able to find somewhere is Stove Top Stuffing. I have also been cravnig the green bean mushroom soup and crispy onion dish, and also some good corn on the cob. Oh well I am sure I will make it lol. But I think about those kind of foods and other foods mom used to cook in the oven (I don't have an oven here).

went ot the hospital in the city yesterday to try and get better medications. They gave me stronger antibiotics and stronger painkillers. I am still in a lot of pain though, even with the new painkillers. I did find a dentist that would take me on tuesday at noon, so hopefully I will be getting the tooth out sometime this week. I don't know if I can take this pain any longer, so I'm going to push for as soo as possible.

I was meant to work today, but my top wisdom tooth started to come in a few days ago and it has been pretty painful and then I woke up at 5am to agonizing pain and it was difficult to move my jaw. I went straight to the medical clinic this morning. They gave me some antibiotics for the infection, but only ibuprofen for the pain, and it doesn't do much, so I have just been laying and trying to sleep all day. It hurts really bad. I have an appointment with a dentist in Hong Kong on wed. and then we will see about getting my teeth removed.

Last week was a few days of staff training so the new staff that just arrives. For staff training we had many different activities planned. I have had heaps of exercise the past few day (-today). I climbed the highest peak in Hong Kong (might be the 2nd highest, trying to find out exactly). It took about 3 hours to hike to the top, but we didn't start from the trail head, we took a bus to a road that goes through the trail more up the mountain so we would have time to do the other things planned for that day. From the peak we hiked down to the Wisdom path of Ng Ping that connects to the Big Buddha. The humidity has gone down a bit, but it was still very difficult to hike up the mountain; it was about 92 degrees, and for 2.5 hours we were above the tree line with no shade. However the view from the top was amazing and well worth the struggle to the top. from the top I could see the beach where I live and all the way across the island to Tung Chung and the airport is. We also did this tour called "Walk with Buddha" where we learned about Siddhartha's life and how he became Buddha. IT was a very cool experience.

The next day we went to Cheung Chau where the new staff completed the challenge that we take the corporates on and the kids camps. I was assigned to find these different new places we could use for the challenge, and it was very hard to find my way around to these new locations. I found myself pulling out the Learn to Speak Cantonese book I just bought to ask people questions. So that was a lot of running around. We then took the ferry to Mui Wo on Lantau island and got bikes to do an adventure race later. However out boss wanted everyone to see the trail the kids hike after the Cheung Chau challenge so we had to take our bike up this trail. it was only 1.5 Kilometers, so about a mile long. But the entire thing was up a mountain. It was all stairs which required us to carry the bikes on our backs. i believe it was more difficult to do this than to climb the peak the day before. BUt I made it.

Sorry it has been so long sing I wrote last. I have been extremely busy at work and the internet stopped working at my house.

I had a great time with mom dad and emma. We did A LOT while they were here, constantly on the move! We went to Tai O, the Buddha, Macao, Cheung Chow, Down town Hong Kong and some more. Mom and Emma had a hard time with the food. They were big babies... I took them to my favorite Chinese place and they hated it, and emma ate McDonalds later, and then we went to this Bamboo buffet a they hated that too. they didn't like the Thai food either, but the the one thing they did enjoy was the Nepalese food. Emma ate a lot of McDonalds while she was here though.

Today I am going on a hike with the new staff up to the Big Buddha. It will take about 3 hours and 2/3 of it is straight up a mountain... It's going to be rough, but very beautiful.

I'll update again soon.