One month to go

Borneo was good. Kota Kinabalu is a pretty crappy town, but we ended up staying one night in the city, at a hostel, and then moving a little bit north, to the Shangri-La Resort Hotel. Wow. It ended up being a pretty expensive vacation, but I'd saved up a good bit of money so I'm doing okay. The place was really nice, super nice rooms, nice pool, private beach. The beach was really pretty but the water was kinda seaweed-y. It was super warm though. The weather was hot, being in the tropics and all, and it rained in the afternoons. The sunsets were absolutely gorgeous though, quite possibly the best I've ever seen. There are these big cloud formations in the sky so those get all lit up and the sky turns all kinds of red and pink, with the blue scattered up high. I have pictures which will go up eventually, but they don't really do justice. I made a Facebook account, so if you're on there, I changed my profile picture and you can see it there, but I don't really feel like looking up the link so others of you will just have to wait. It was a good, western, relaxing vacation. Nothing really Malaysian about it, which is too bad, but a good vacation nonetheless. We ate buffet most nights and oh my goodness, real salads! I hadn't had a real salad since I've been here, with all the special fixings, and cheese! So good!

The only other big thing I did while I was there was see the orangutans, Borneo being their natural habitat. The place I was at has phase 1 of orangutan rehabilitation back into the wild. So I paid my money to walk a bit through the jungle to see a feeding platform where orangutans were fed some veggies. They were cute. And then when they were done, the leftovers were raided by some lesser monkeys. Pretty cool.

After I came back from my 4 day trip, I ended up in Hong Kong with one of my students and her mom, who have family there, for a couple days. We were out in Sha Tin and Fo Tan, in the new territories, and it was nice hanging with a family and seeing a new part of hong kong and eating.

Came back to Shenzhen and on the last day of vacation, did another one of those TV/Video recordings for Helen, teaching business English. Not as fun as the last time, but still and interesting experience. I'll be sure to get my hands on the DVDs.

Since then, it's been back to normal, teaching and recording books and hanging around and trying to figure out what to do with my time. I climbed a small mountain, Lian Hua Shan, in the middle of the city this past weekend. Many Chinese people seem to enjoy nature and they use the phrase "climbing mountains" very often. Interesting..

Oh yes, and a happy Mother's Day to you all, and a happy birthday to doon, whose email address I do not have.