The Madness that is CNY

 
Most of you know that I live in Canada but what you  might not know is that I live in Hong Kong in Canada... if that makes sense. Basically, the city I live in has a hugeeeee population of Asians, mainly Chinese people which means that Chinese New Year is widely celebrated in my city. This past weekend, my family went to one of the Asian malls nearby without even realizing that it was CNY! It didn't take long for us to realize though because as soon as we entered the parkade, it was a zoo. It's a zoo on normal days but this was a zoo, magnified. As in, my car almost got hit twice in a span of 30 seconds - no exaggeration. O.o

Anyway, my favorite part of this particular mall is the big Daiso store (remember this mall, Nikolett?) Sometimes, i don't even buy anything when I go... I just go to see what new Engrish things I will find.

Beware of magnetic blackboards though.... it could steal your door. Seriously.

Did you celebrate CNY?

P.S - off topic but one of the best parts of my weekend was seeing this.... notice what shirt she is wearing? EEEEKKKK!!!! (okay, for those of you who are new and won't get why i'm so excited... check out my official website here :D)

tweet, tweet // i design clothing: www.herrohachi.com // book of faces

Habby Every Day!

definitely not going to miss the state of our guest rooms! This picture is actually when it was "neat" - it was worse a few days before i took this photo!
Our second batch of exchange students are leaving. It's a bit of a bitter sweet feeling. I'm definitely not going to miss their loud chatter, jumping, running, sometimes screaming and just being 11-13 yr olds. At the same time, i'm going to miss the way they all come out to greet me when i come home from work with a loud and cheerful "KEEEEEEEEEEMMMMM!!!" (Kym) and also their sweet and playful selves. I smiled when I read their farewell letters to our families. They had sweet, sincere words but best of all... it was all in Engrish! hehehe! 
"Herro? Habby Every Day!" 
They're going to be bringing many Herro Hachi t-shirts back to Shanghai... I wonder if anyone will clue them in on what "Herro?" is referring to? haha!
They like play with me b/c i am beautiful girl! hahaha! ;P

Cultural Experience

Yesterday, we had two exchange students from Shanghai arrive. They are here to learn English and will be staying with us for the next 3 ish weeks. Thankfully, we got really nice and respectful 13 yr old girls but the hard thing is that i'm running out of ideas on how to entertain them! Today, we brought them to the mall but evidently at 13, they are not quite into fashion yet so that was boring to them. I did figure out that they really like sports, video games, and tv so we took them to a video game store and thats what excited them. 
The picture above was the little gift they got for me from Shanghai, it's one of the mascots for the Expo going on back home. It's quite hard communicating as you can imagine b/c their vocabulary is limited and it takes them a few seconds to process what you've asked before they can respond with a yes or a no. Hopefully they'll learn more and more the longer they are here. My strategy is to try to learn their language so that at the same time, it makes them think of the phrase in English and connect it to what it is in their language. 
Random note: Their first day here, I was so amused/excited because one of them was wearing a shirt that said "HAPPY WANT TO HAVE" hehehe.
What else can i do with the students? Any ideas?