Teaching in Hong Kong, Day 15 (Final Day)

The final day started a little late as we didn’t have as much to do. At 10am we kicked off with a quick end-of-course note from me, thanking the students for their enthusiasm and their participation, and their willingness to go along with the whole scheme. They, in turn, presented me with a very large book about cats (a running theme in the course and my own family contains three cats – where, by contains, I of course mean exists for the service of) which they had all inscribed. It was a delightful way to start the day!

Shally and Louis from the OAL came along and we presented them with gifts to thank them for all of their help and support during the last three weeks: Australian wine and excellent chocolate, in case you’re wondering. They, in turn, presented us with lemon cake, a CUHK dessert speciality, which is a sort of lemony.. frozen.. corn flakey… iced? treat that is deliciously indescribable! Thank you again to everyone at CUHK: Shally, Louis, Phoebe, Daniel and Cora, for all of your help while we’ve been here!

Seconds (and thirds) are had.

After a very pleasant 30 minutes, we got back to the final on-campus business, the quiz and the short-answer exam. With that concluded, I was able to inform the students to check their marks to look at their progress and some students will notice that they already have enough raw marks to pass – although they won’t stop now!

That concluded the course, except for a vegetarian dinner at a Buddhist “mock meat” restaurant in Hung Hom, arranged by David, our Alumni Ambassador for Hong Kong and China. The meal was astounding and we got take a double decker bus ride through Hung Hom from the MTR to get there – adding another experience into the mix! Here are some of the photos and dishes from the meal:

All of this is vegetarian but you can’t tell from the taste or the texture.

Here are two pictures with David serving from the (ample) banquet and the students enjoying themselves:

(The very small student is David’s daughter – Ashley.) Those of you with sharp eyes might recognise the fruit on the table as Durian – the King of Fruits and the fruit with one of the most amazing reputations. David went out specially to go and get two beautiful durians for the students to try something new (Kelvin and I needed no convincing as we are both strongly committed to the durian) and most people were very pleasantly surprised that the smell wasn’t as bad as they’d heard and that the taste was very much worth pursuing It is, however, amazingly rich, there’s a lot of the avocado richness concealed in the ultra-mango and (being honest) spring onion flavours of the durian.

Here’s the final picture of the course, standing proud in front of the defeated durian. We came to Hong Kong to learn, to experience and to have a lot of fun. And we did all three. Thank you, Hong Kong!

Thumbs up and mug for the camera!