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i've been hiding from exercise; i'm in the fitness protection program

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

25 day countdown has begun till I return back to the states! For the last month of my contract, we are being relocated from HPRC in Tin Shui Wai to a different long term hotel in Tsuen Wan. Moving was absolutely not a fun ordeal since we had to pack all our stuff up. I used the opportunity to ship a box of some of my winter things home too since the new places lack a lot of storage space. We said our farewells to our usuals in Tin Shui Wai, packed our boxes, and headed out.

bye "dollar" store

goodbye tokyo tsukji ramen

bye amazing noodle place we never knew the name of

Naturally we all put off packing our boxes till the last second as well

Trying to get our very heavy boxes to the cab and post office...

This whole contract we have been having a Harry Potter movie marathon, and before the move we had our last HP party, where everyone dressed up as obligatory characters.

I was Harry's Stag Patronus

Amy (the sorting hat) also sorted everyone into their appropriate houses...

even moaning myrtle was sorted...

Before moving, we held a big dozo to get rid all of our unwanted items that will no longer fit at the new place, where everyone mostly dropped stuff off. It was actually really hard giving away these things.I also took all my little baby coins to the bank, had farewell drinks in the lobby with everyone, and packed up my belongings...

but look what I did pick up from dozo! (repin' the home town Toledo Mud Hens!)

farewell drinks in the lobby

and finally it was time to say goodbye...

bye HPRC

Now enough sad faces...we were on to the new place! We are now trolls because we live under a bridge..

They brought us into this fancy little banquet hall to fill out paperwork and buttered us up with cakes and tea!...it worked.

We then got a mini little tour to our new rooms...

(out of the elevators into the hallway)

(hallway into the room)

(room)

One thing I don't really love about it here is the rooms are very humid for some reason, however, we can open the window here! yay!

A really great thing about this place is there is a beach about 5 minutes away walking distance.

In order to get anywhere we have to take the hotel shuttle bus to the Tsuen Wan MTR station. There is plenty in that area, but the crosswalk situation is a bit confusing and overwhelming. The expat population is also new to this area, so a lot of staring was happening.

Thankfully, we eventually found some food, and it actually was amazing.

Celebrating holidays away from family is always really challenging for me, but luckily, I have my family away from family to help out. For Easter, we all got together for one last Chinese BBQ adventure.

attempting to facetime Mike and hold a plate of meat at the same time

smore on a thin mint girl scout cookie...AMAZING

I also volunteered at an Easter celebration event with Disney VolunEARS, where about 90% of the time I did not know what was happening because it was all in Cantonese but we had a blast anyways! The kids went on an Easter egg hunt at Inspiration Lake, where the kids stopped and played a small game where they had to pass the carrot on a spoon to feed the bunny.

my game partner (and translator, Eric)

I also had to be the one in charge of decorating faces....little did they know I can not draw, ha

After the egg hunt, they broke off into groups to make an animal pinata where they had to use team work and creativity.

This event inspired Tayla and I to have our own little picnic at Inspiration Lake later in the week, enjoying the sunshine that finally had started to peek out!

I love hanging out with kids, and I finally got the chance to go back to Greenpark from my last time here and hang out with some of the preschoolers there, along with Amy, then after went for lunch with the school director.

thanks Karson for letting us hang out!

I had some surprise guests at Disney from Greenpark last time too, Annabelle and her son! We had so much fun going on the Buzz Lightyear ride and walking around the park a bit.

My absolutely favorite activity of the week, however has been taking the Disney mtr train to go eat the best ice cream ever at Emack & Bolio's in Central. They make really fancy cones here dipped in fruit loops, rice krispy treats, cocoa puffs, and sprinkles.

one of the fans even drew us enjoying it because thats how good it was! haha

cake batter ice cream with fruit loops cone!

After we went and got our final bath bombs from Lush, since the new place doesn't have a bathtub.

Tayla and I also got to see "Zootopia" in 3D, the new Disney movie everyone is hyping about. I really enjoyed it a lot and it has a great message to it.

oo fancy movie theater

It is literally always someone's birthday these days. Amy's birthday is next week but since we won't be together we surprised her with a super fun karaoke party at Red Mr. We told Amy we were meeting Molly and Vicki to go get burgers and then blindfolded her on the street and surprised her with not burgers, haha. We also got really lost (whilst Amy was blindfolded) which really sucked cause she is the navigator in the bunch.

Happy Birthday Amy!! I love those girls so much and I feel so honored to call them my friends.

Speaking of friends, here are some pics of Ariel doin her thang...