Sunday, February 2, 2014

December- February

Sorry it’s been a while to update the blog but I’ve been so busy! When I last posted, I mentioned that Rory, Max, Liam and I set off for 6 weeks holiday travelling around Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. I’ve always wanted to travel this part of the world and I can safely say that we had the most amazing time and of course some unforgettable memories. I think out of the three countries I enjoyed Thailand the most and in particular Phuket because it was nice to see the place where I lived for a year, when I was one. It was great to see James Bond Island, as well as Ko Phi Phi and I look forward to going back to Thailand in June to do a full moon party on Ko Phangang! Other fond memories include: seeing the sunrise at Angkor Wat, shooting an AK47 in Vietnam, Cu chi Tunnels, nights out in Bangkok, Tiger Kingdom, Koh Rong and finally elephant riding in Chiang Mai. It was so weird being away for Christmas and I think I can speak on behalf of the 4 of us that this was certainly a time where we all missed home a lot. What was even weirder was that they don’t celebrate Christmas in Vietnam, which meant that all the westerners became somewhat of  celebrities to the locals in our Santa hats. Nevertheless, despite the non-existent hype, we were determined not to let this ruin Christmas; so we did a number of things such as: a secret Santa and found a place that did a full Christmas meal. It was also nice to be able to Skype home and see what the family were up to! New Years was equally as enjoyable and we decided we’d finish of the travels on a high note by staying in a 5* hotel for the night. We made sure we got there as early as we could so we could get the most of the price we’d paid and I’ll always remember the concierge’s look of disgust as four rogue travellers, with big rucksacks strolled in through the doors. Obviously there was a lot more fun stuff that we did but I’m conscious of keeping this short, so hopefully the pictures below will suffice! 

Tiger Kingdom- Chiang Mai
Elephant riding- Chiang Mai
Angkor Wat
Ko Phi Phi



















Over this period I've also had some time to reflect on my first few months and i've set some goals for this next year. The three that I've come up with are: improving my teaching, learning more Malay and to explore Borneo more. Hopefully these should be achievable and if I’m able to do so I can say that year really has been a successful one.
The 1st of January brought about the time when Mum and Dad were due to come out and visit and we planned it so we’d meet each other in Kota Kinabalu airport; as our flights were landing 15 minutes apart from each other. Their flight arrived before ours and it was so odd seeing two familiar faces waiting for me at the airport. After one of the Brothers from MYTC kindly picked us up, we spent the first night at Montfort.  It was a shame that the Montfort boys were still on holiday but it gave my parents an idea of the place I’d stayed at for my first week prior to heading up to my project, in Kiulu. 


View from the hotel at New Year
The good thing about this was that it allowed mum to take her compulsory photos for the day! 
The following day we were driven up to my project and it was so nice to be able to show my parents things of which I’d talked about over Skype. I think one of my fondest memories about this day was when we arrived all the boys flocked into our room to say that they’d missed us and asked about what we’d done. That evening, I introduced the boys to my parents and i was proud to see that some of the boys went up to them on their own accord to ask how they were and other questions. We spent only a day or so back at the project because I was keen to show my parents Kota Kinabalu over the weekend. Unsurprisingly, I was still shattered from the travelling I’d just done and it was exceptional to catch up with some sleep, relax and show my parents some of the food I've enjoyed such much since I've been out here. We spent the Saturday just chilling out and in the afternoon I saw it as an opportunity to take my parents to the imported store ‘Tong Hing’, as it’s a place I can’t usually afford to go to. I bought some things that I hadn't had since I’d left such as: Marmite and milk and put it this way I most certainly abused the fact mum and dad’s budget stretched a little further than mine! On the Sunday Rory, my parents and I spent the day sunbathing and snorkelling at ‘Sapi’ island, just off KK. The weather was unbelievable and it gave me an opportunity to make immense for coming back from my travels looking like a ghost. My parents left on the Monday and it was very sad to say good bye to them as it was now the second time. However, although we didn't do a huge amount that weekend I think it was lovely just to be able to catch up with them and find out news from back home.


Sapi island
In this past month I've done a huge amount and two highlights have been a football match V.S MYTC and Chinese new year celebrations. In the midst of this busy month I've also been appointed to be in charge of sport and recreation. This means that I have been organizing what sport is done each day as well as writing up a report if a boy gets injured and thankfully none of the boys have! The football game against the Montfort boys was on the second weekend and Max and I organised it. We trained extremely hard for the game and we even had home advantage but unfortunately the size of the Montfort boys meant that our boys were pushed off the ball resulting in a 4-1 loss. Max and I both played for our respective teams and fair enough to Max I haven’t heard the end of it! However, I’ve gone out and bought some boots off the back off the result as we plan to organise another fixture and I’ve told the boys that losing is not an option. Tuition has been a bit tougher this year because the new form 1+2’s level of English is quite low, which has meant that sometimes I’ll have the whole class staring at me blank faced. Nevertheless, I've enjoyed the fact that it’s made me think on my feet a bit more and hopefully has improved my quality of teaching.  It's good to be challenged and most importantly it’s been great to see some of the new boys’ confidence rise in this small space of time. In the coming weeks I’m really looking forward to redecorating the classroom and we plan to get some of the boys to help us with the painting as well as choosing new posters for the wall.  I’m keen to make it look half decent and I’ll upload some photos of the final result to see what you think. For Chinese New Year, the boys went home, which gave Rory and I and Opportunity to go to Montfort to see Max. Brother Thomas kindly invited us to celebrate Chinese New year with his family and he didn't disappoint in saying that there’d be more than enough to eat! The spread of food was superb and I was not alone in going up for seconds and even third helpings.  The thing that I found most thoughtful was that Chinese tradition means that at this time of year married couples give out a little red envelope called an ‘Ang Pow’. We received a few of these from various individuals over the weekend and I was shocked to find out that Inside contained money; especially as we had just me these poeple! 
Team line ups

Cramp


Kiulu Team

Setting up the nets for the game..

View of Mount KK from our village


A couple of the boys













Mum, Dad and I in KK
It feels odd to think that January is already up and even more startling is the fact that I've now got less than sixth months before I fly home. I’m looking forward to seeing if I can achieve the targets that I have set out for this New Year and I have no doubt that February will be equally as fun. I expect I’ll probably be as slow in uploading the next blog so you can look forward to another essay when i get round to it.

Hope you’re all well back home!


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