Wednesday 23 May 2007

Buddha, The Rain And The ELC


Today is Buddha's Birthday, so perhaps it is fitting I use this public holiday to catch up on the last week . Last Friday Bill took us to see the big Buddha statue on Lantau island. We decided to take the cable car up there, which gave us amazing views of the mountains and ocean below us. The Buddha was only built about ten years ago, but looks like it could have been there for hundreds of years. It’s quite big. It’s located at a monastery, so there were plenty of Buddhist monks to see, plenty of chanting to hear and plenty of incense to smell. It wasn’t quite the spiritual haven you might imagine, largely due to the hundreds of tourists, making it seem slightly commercial. It’s still a great place though, if just for the pure spectacle. Because it’s a real monastery there is a vegetarian only menu in the monastery restaurant; plenty of slippery mushrooms for me to attempt with my chopsticks.



On that same day a fellow DFI student, Chris Holden, arrived. He is working at Galey Toys and had to come faster than he expected. Unfortunately he was not able to sort himself out some accommodation until the other two students who are coming, Mac and Dan, arrive. This means he is living in our sitting room for a fortnight.
Then it rained.


The rain is pretty impressive in Hong Kong…everyone has an umbrella with them throughout the rainy season (most of the shops have a plastic umbrella cover dispenser at the entrance so you don’t drip!) because the rain just suddenly arrives without any warning. It was heavier than any rain I’ve seen before, and apparently was a just a light shower according to our work colleagues. I’m looking forward to a proper HK typhoon!

Work is brilliant…I’ve only worked there for three days but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it so far. We were taken out for lunch with the whole team on Monday which was a lot of fun. It’s a very relaxed and exciting work environment…lots of prototype toys lying around and strange noises coming from around the room. Because everyone is so friendly we’ve been able to settle in easily and I think it’s going to be an excellent (if extremely hard work and tiring) experience.

I’m sorry for the delay is writing this blog entry, apart from work making me very tired I also received some extremely sad news from a good friend of mine on Monday evening, and my thoughts have been with her.
Bill just rang to invite me out for a meal tonight at Discovery Bay where he lives, so that’s something to look forward to!

Speak to you later chaps

1 comment:

Stuart Otley said...

It never rains but it pours, then?