Hello from the other side of the world! Just a little warning for you, there is a lot of "shop talk" in this post. I do talk about the city of Hong Kong and the little bit of time I had to explore, but there is a lot about my experience as a coach and a teacher coming your way...
It is very fitting that I am writing this post at this time because it is my final weekend of volleyball this year. I have absolutely LOVED coaching, and it's very bittersweet that it is ending. I am happy for all the free time that I will suddenly have (although I will quickly fill it with concert preparations!), but am so sad that my time working with these students is ending. We have six seniors and an underclassman who is moving to New Zealand shortly, so I will really miss this group when they have all moved on!
I sort of fell into this coaching gig by accident. My principal struck up a conversation about volleyball in the lunchroom one day. This did not strike me as odd at the time because I am very tall, and it is typical for people to ask me if I played basketball and/or volleyball. I told him about my playing and reffing experience, and then he told me that they needed another assistant coach for the high school volleyball team. I have a hard time telling people no - especially when it comes to my job - so I agreed to go to a practice to try it out. They liked me and thought I would be a good addition to the team, so I ended up accepting the opportunity to be an assistant coach for the girls.
Initially, I was really worried. I have played extensively (at a fairly competitive level) in the past and I was a referee for intramural volleyball in college. I even reffed the finals! (Side note: I often reffed frat night because I could actually put those frat boys in their places. Ha!) Despite my previous experiences with the sport, this coaching opportunity held a lot of firsts for me. I have never coached. Well, technically I "coached" track at one time, but it was not a very strong program. In that previous experience, most of the girls came to practice to meet boys, the head coach had a very different style than I did, and I ended up not having enough girls show up at the track meet to qualify as a team (and therefore did not get paid for the season). Also, the oldest grade level I teach now is sixth grade, and the volleyball team is for high schoolers. I student taught high school, but that was for six weeks in the Spring of 2008 (I'm not sure how it's possible that it was so long ago!). When I went to the first practice here and accepted the position as assistant coach, I almost cried when I saw the schedule. It. Was. Intense. Practice Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after school, conditioning on Tuesday after school, and an additional practice on Saturday mornings as well. I was worried about balance. Being in a new school, teaching new grade levels, living in a new country, starting grad classes again... there were a lot of obstacles in my life at the time. As it was, I was staying at work until 7:00 or 8:00 at night. I started to panic a little about how I was going to be an effective music teacher.
I think that this opportunity was a blessing in disguise for me. Those of you who know me in a professional capacity know that I am a workaholic - sometimes (often) in excess. Having concrete times that I had to stop working and be at practice made me also stop obsessing over unit planning and assessments and all of that noise. In addition, it made me more productive during my limited time that I did have to plan because I knew that I needed to be efficient with my time in order to get everything done. It also gave me a break from my "day job" because it was so different from what I do with the littles in the music room. All of those logical things aside, this coaching experience was wonderful for me simply because I enjoyed it. I realized how much I miss and love the game, and it was amazing to work with these girls and help them develop their skills. Some of my fondest memories from high school were from volleyball seasons and club tournaments, so it was really cool to be a part of that with this team in Yangon. Also, I absolutely loved working with high schoolers. It is so very different. You can talk to them on a completely different level, and they just get it. They also physically can do so much more. I just can't say enough about the experience. Yes, it was time-consuming, and some weeks it got very hard, but I would not go back and do it any differently. I was hoping to coach middle school volleyball next season because it seemed that a position was opening, but I lost the opportunity to someone here who has more seniority. It was hard for me to swallow at first because I lost the position due to number of years at the school, and not due to experience or knowledge. But that is life. It was a bit disheartening, but I am hopeful for the opportunity next year. In the meantime, there are 42 girls who came out for middle school volleyball, and a good chunk of them are sixth graders. I like to think I had some influence on that :-)
Things did get really busy when grad school was at its peak, but the last few weeks I have enjoyed coaching even more, knowing that I don't have 2-3 hours of work waiting for me when I get home. While I thoroughly enjoyed being an assistant coach from Day 1, I really fell in love with it on our trip to Hong Kong to play at an invitational tournament.
First of all, I experienced a lot of nostalgia. When I was in high school, we used to travel all over Florida to play tournaments. Most of them were single-day tournaments, but every year we played a two-day tournament at Disney's Wide World of Sports. It was always my favorite tournament of the year (and generally one of my favorite weekends of the whole year!). I always considered myself lucky to grow up so close to such a great sports arena and to have that experience. When I accepted this position as assistant coach, I found out that I would get to travel to Hong Kong for the tournament. Of course you can imagine all the excitement oozing out of my wanderlust self. But then when the weekend came, it was so cool to be on the "other side" of things - to be a coach at a big time tournament in a place with amazing facilities.
Throughout the weekend, we also spent a lot of time with the students outside of the context of volleyball. I got to know their personalities on a different level. I absolutely fell in love with this bunch of kids. I got to spend time with both the boys and the girls teams because we did a lot of things together as one team.While I am very grateful for my new position and this whole new experience, it was a bit of a tough transition for me in the beginning of the year. I come from eight years of working at inner city schools in two of the largest urban districts in the States. I worked with very tough children. But I felt like I was making a difference - that I was giving them an experience that they otherwise might not have. Here, I work with very privileged children - some of the wealthiest in this city in fact. I struggled because I felt that I had turned my back on my previous beliefs and work - that I was just giving up and abandoning those kids like everyone else does. My new students are also from a very different culture, so it was taking time for me to get used to the new personalities and the situation in general. It was on this trip that I really came to see how wonderful these students are, and something finally clicked with me. Sometimes it is hard to let go of what you know, of what is familiar. I think this trip really helped me see that I am in a great place, doing exactly what I need to be doing, and that these students are awesome in a completely different way (and that goes for my littles too!). I finally feel like I'm starting to build rapport here because I am starting to let go of what used to be. I am not forgetting where I came from; I will always remember and cherish my students of the past, but that is where they are now - my past.
Right around the time of this trip, I also attended a meeting where the owner of our school came and spoke to us. He shared his vision with us: To provide a Western education to the local children of Myanmar so they can go to Western universities and get a top education, and then return to Myanmar to develop the country. I had heard this from others before, but hearing it from him, seeing his passion, and really understanding how he wants to build a better future for his country made me understand that I do fit in here. I didn't just abandon my mission to make a difference in the world; its appearance has just shifted slightly.
Anyway, enough gushing and self-realizations for this story (for now). Back to Hong Kong! There are only two flights per day that are nonstop from Yangon to Hong Kong. One is earlier in the day, and the other is very late night/early morning. We were scheduled to take the latter on a Thursday morning at around 1 a.m. The reason we took this one was for traveling purposes in relation to our game times and days off school, and it was actually the one that allowed us the most amount of time to recover from jet lag and traveling.
The teams and coaches met at the airport around 11 p.m. on Wednesday night. I tried to nap a little before heading to the airport, but I was too worried about oversleeping and missing the flight. Eventually I got up, finished packing, and waited out my time to meet up with the other coaches and head to the airport. We checked in fairly easily because there were not many people in the airport at this time. (I hope I have the same luck when I fly home at Christmastime because my flight is around the same time of night!) We grabbed a cup of tea and a snack before boarding the plane for our three and a half hour flight. I basically did not sleep on the flight, but apparently no one really did. By the time we got to Hong Kong around 6 a.m. local time, we were all really exhausted. Passing through customs is a bit of a blur for me because I was so tired, but Hong Kong does something very interesting with passports. When you enter the country, you do not get a stamp. Instead, they give you this little piece of paper with your name and travel document information on it. That means they will allow you in the country up to three months, and when you leave you must return the small piece of paper. (I was quite thrilled that I did not lose mine!) They ended up letting me keep my paper when I left the country, and I had half a mind to tape it into my passport since I didn't get a stamp from them, but something tells me that may be frowned upon...
After going through passport control and customs, we bought SIM cards and exchanged money, and then boarded our bus that was taking us to the hotel. Another school from Yangon was on the same bus as us because they were on the same flight and staying at the same hotel as we were. We got on the bus, and within minutes everyone passed out. I tried to stay awake so I could get my first glimpses of the new city, but exhaustion got the better of me. At the hotel, we lucked out because most of the rooms were available for early check in. The only room that was not available was one coach rooms, so we piled into the other coach's room and found corners, chairs, and floor spaces to nap while the students did the same in their respective rooms. After a quick two hour nap, we got up and headed to our beloved Starbucks. It's funny the things you miss when you are abroad and do not have access. Starbucks has come to be one of my favorite treats when I am traveling outside of Myanmar. I am more than happy to buy and support local here (in fact, I've always sort of been that way), but now when there is a Starbucks, I simply must have an iced coffee. (I had one everyday on this trip. Don't judge.) On this particular trip, I also got a breakfast sandwich because I was starving and exhausted, so I needed some energy for our day ahead.
Such a great picture! Hahaha! #coachselfie
No stamps here! Just this tiny piece of paper.
I felt so VIP in my exhausted state.
Views from the bus before I passed out cold.
Our hotel lobby was quite lovely.
Hong Kong is very congested and densely populated - despite this picture at 7:00 a.m. - so they have built these elevated crosswalks for pedestrians. This is how we had to cross the street to get to Starbucks. (At that point, I would have done almost anything to get coffee!)
View from the crosswalk.
I have missed breakfast sandwiches! ($36 is HK dollars, which is about $4.64 USD)
They were out of venti cups, so they gave me two grande iced coffees instead. I was not mad about it at all.
After our naps and our Starbucks fix, we decided to do something with the kids. We did not want them to sleep all day so that they could get adjusted to the new time zone, which is only an hour and a half, but still. We gave them several options, and being teenagers, they voted to go to a big shopping area called Harbour City Shopping, similar to a big outdoor mall. The taxi driver compared it to Times Square in New York City, but as a former New Yorker (forever New Yorker at heart!), it doesn't really compare. Then again, nothing does! As we got into taxis and headed into the city, I was amazed by Hong Kong. The city views are stunning. There are cliffs and water and bridges, which is nothing like I expected. Actually, I am not entirely sure what I expected, but it wasn't this. It sort of reminds me of LA, with all the cliffs and the water by the city, but not a desert at all. I hesitate to compare it to anything because it is unlike any city I have ever been to. One of the other coaches was telling me about it before we arrived, and she kept saying what a vertical city Hong Kong is. I dismissed this and kind of snickered to myself, thinking, ha, I lived in New York City. These other people just don't know. Oh, how egotistical and cynical of me. I really do need to learn. Being in Southeast Asia is like nothing else I have experienced, and every place has been striking and awe-inspiring in a different way. As we drove through the city, over bridges and through tunnels that connect the islands, I probably looked like a puppy in a store window with my nose pressed against the glass. It truly is a vertical city! Hong Kong is actually a collection of islands, and there are many cliffs that sort of surround the city. Therefore, the city has a finite amount of space, so they built up instead of out. It reminded me of those futuristic science fiction movies like The Fifth Element, where they drive hovering cars through lanes that are at different levels, weaving in and out of buildings. There are obviously no hover cars here, but if there were, there would be PLENTY of space for many levels of lanes and traffic! It takes a lot to impress me when it comes to urban places, and Hong Kong definitely left an impression on me.
When we got to Harbour City, we split into groups. There were more of those elevated crosswalks and walkways connecting the different stores across the street from one another. After going in and out of a few stores, we decided to go to lunch. I was craving healthy food because I had not eaten well that week, and my body was craving some vegetables. The other coaches were on the same page, so we wandered until we found someplace that we knew would have a salad bar: Ruby Tuesday's. We actually laughed about it, but the only salads we could find elsewhere were Asian-based (for obvious reasons), and we didn't want anything too heavy. So all three of us ordered the salad bar and soup, and we split a bottle of Perrier. You know, sparkling water. The food was exactly what I needed, and I was so happy. Until we got our bill. It was over $120 USD total! That's $40 USD each for soup, salad, and sparkling water. No alcohol. No meat. Holy. Crap. We obviously had no choice and had to pay, and we left the restaurant completely dumbfounded. I am still giggling about this experience, because really, in situations like this, you just have to laugh.
We wandered around the shopping area. I treated myself to a fancy new purse (which is very unlike me to spend money on something like this, but it is one of my favorite purchases in a long time). Afterwards we went food shopping at a local food market to buy snacks and supplies for the tournament. I got really excited about the variety of food available here because it is often difficult to find certain things in Myanmar. Some examples of food I (excitedly) bought are pretzels, organic peanut butter, and granola bars with all natural ingredients. We also bought a bunch of fruit and other healthy snacks to bring to the tournament. We walked around a bit more, and after a couple of hours headed back to the hotel. We were all pretty exhausted from our travels and lack of sleep. We ordered pizza for the team (the kids were so excited about this). We stuffed ourselves and then all crashed early that night. Every single person was exhausted, and I slept like a baby that night. It was absolutely amazing.
This is what taxis look like in Hong Kong. They are mostly red and are metered, whereas you negotiate prices when taking cabs in Yangon (in Bangkok it's hit or miss). Also, you can see in front of the taxi that they have double decker buses and drive on the left side of the road like they do in the UK, since it is a former colony.
Closer view of a double decker bus.
Very different rules for taxis in Hong Kong than we have in Yangon.
The buildings were all very interesting. Lots of different shapes and sizes. (And I love those clouds!)
Such a vertical city! Even the cemetery fascinated me.
Harbour City Shopping. I would say more like Fifth Avenue than Times Square because of all the shopping (and the kind of shopping you can do here). Notice the elevated walkways again, similar to Minneapolis, but for population density rather than climate.
An actual crosswalk at ground level - and look! The Burberry building looks like the one in Chicago! I used to run by it all the time when I lived there.
A little greenery back there! I think there was a park nearby, but I didn't go explore.
So many people, and such tall buildings!
The world's most expensive salad bar, soup, and sparkling water. #andthenthishappened
On Friday morning, I got up to go for a run. One thing that's great about traveling with a PE teacher is that moment when your alarm goes off, and you are battling with that inner voice telling you to just go back to sleep. Instead, you have an actual voice in front of you saying, "Come on. We'll feel better today if we go work out." Done and done. (I wish I had this everyday!) She went to the weight room and I went for a run. I decided to stick nearby the hotel so that I wouldn't get lost. There was a small park across from the street, so I ran up the stairs and across the walkway to the tennis courts and soccer fields. I did figure eights around the courts and fields, and then did outer loops of the entire park until I banked a couple of miles. I was so grateful for the break in humidity. My Midwestern body is still adjusting to the heat and humidity in this part of the world, particularly when I am out running. Hong Kong did get hot and humid, but not like it does in Yangon and Bangkok (at least during this part of the year). I was so excited and thought my run would be easier. It was at first, but I noticed it still wasn't so easy to breathe. That is because Hong Kong has a lot of pollution and is very smoggy. I understand that this is partially because of the vertical nature of the city and being so densely populated, but also because of the rotation of the earth - they get smog and pollution from neighboring China. At any rate, I am grateful for every run that I can do these days. I have been plagued with injury for years but have managed to stay healthy for almost an entire year at this point. This run made me particularly happy as I not only tackled the stairs of the elevated walkway, but also these crazy stairs next to our hotel. I was dying to know where they lead because they seemed to be The Stairs To Nowhere. At the END of my run, I ran up these stairs. And at the top I found... more stairs. Ha! But those were restricted access, so I stopped and took in the views around me. Absolutely beautiful: An urban city nestled into the side of a cliff. This was like my reward for working so hard hustling up those stairs because they were definitely challenging. I ran up the famous stairs from the Rocky movies at the Philadelphia Museum of Art when we had our Salzburg Reunion in Philly in 2009 (love my Salzburg crew!!). We were not at all impressed. Mind you, Rocky had run quite far before that. But still. Those stairs were not that bad. THESE stairs? Were brutal. AND I felt accomplished because I had a good run before I tackled them. #beastmode
The courts where I did loopty-loops.
More views around the courts (see why I decided to stay?)
And on the other side of the courts was an urban jungle. #runhappy
I conquered that elevated walkway again...
...stairs and all!
These were like stairs on steroids. When my brother saw the picture of these stairs when I posted about my run, he said that it gave him nightmares. Hehe. I love my brother! #stefrunstheworld
After our morning workout and breakfast at the hotel, we headed out to an area called Dragon's Back. One of the other coaches is an avid hiker and wanted to try this out. We decided it would be a good idea to take the kids on a hike because it would be similar to their daily routine. They are used to playing matches after spending a day at school, walking up and down hallways and multiple flights of stairs to get to classes. Sitting around a hotel all day would make them feel sluggish and lazy, and going to the nearby amusement park might be too exhausting. The kids fought us on it because they were scared of the word "hike," but this time they didn't really have a choice. And by "didn't really," I mean they didn't have a choice at all. We piled into taxis and went to a location that was about halfway through the trail, which left us about two or three miles to hike, if I remember correctly. The taxi ride had beautiful views as we slowly crept to higher and higher elevations. The meeting location was a bit tricky to find, but we eventually found each other and headed up the stairs to the trail. It offered these fantastic little glimpses of the city. There were also some of the biggest spiders I've ever seen in my life. I would guess they were probably about the size of my fist, and their webs were quite large. I only saw three or four, others saw at least six, and I am pretty sure I missed a lot more than that because I simply did not want to look up. We ended up going a little further than planned because the person leading it missed the turn to exit the trail, so we had to double back on part of the hike. However, we ended at a little beach village, where we found a little shack that sold fresh coconuts. We had to wait awhile for someone to come and hack open the coconuts, but I didn't mind waiting. I was so hot and thirsty from my run and then the hike, and I was thrilled to have a chance to drink from a fresh coconut. One of the other coaches had never had one, and I convinced her to try it. She loved it too! We drank our coconuts dry as we headed to the beach, and the kids happily ate the meat of the coconut after we finished.
Growing up, I was not much of a beach person. This may sound odd considering the fact that I did grow up in Florida, but my hometown is in the center of the state, so I was never much of a beach bum. I burn easily and I am not a strong swimmer. Over the years, however, I have grown to love being at the beach. The sound of the water and the feeling of the sand on my feet is one of the happiest things in the world for me. This beach experience has to be one of my absolute favorites because the kids were adorable. Yangon has water, but it is heavily polluted and generally is not swimmable. These teenagers were running, jumping, and squealing like little kids. They were so full of joy, and it was really fun to watch. They were taking pictures ("I need a new profile!"), splashing, throwing sand... Like I said, just so full of joy. One of my players took a really adorable selfie of the team and coaches. I absolutely love this picture, but I feel weird about posting students on my personal page, so I will save that photo for my own memories. This time at the beach was one of the reasons why I really started falling for these kids.
After a short amount of time, we had to leave the beach to head back to the hotels and change for our volleyball games (you know, the reason we were actually on this trip!). When we were planning this little adventure, we decided we would Uber back because it seemed to be pretty prevalent in the city (we checked the app in several different places to be sure). One coach ordered a car on her phone, which was about 7-8 minutes away. I ordered one on my phone, and it was 20 minutes away! We were about a 25 minute drive from our hotel, and with the wait time we would have been late for our game. We began to worry because we could not fit two teams into one Uber. When it arrived, we sent some of the team in the car while the rest of us got onto this random bus that pulled into the parking lot where we were standing. From what we could gather from the broken English of the driver and passengers, this bus was heading to the MTR, which is the rail transit system in Hong Kong. The problem is, we were not entirely sure which stop on the MTR we were going to. We paid for our tickets and piled on the bus because we figured we should be able to Uber more easily from an MTR stop than from this small beach. While it was stressful at the time because we were unsure of how this was going to turn out, the gamble ended up paying off. We were able to flag down enough taxis to get the rest of the team and coaches back to the hotel in to time to change and head out to our game. Whew!
The drive up to Dragon's Back. The views were stunning, but I was so glad I had some Dramamine!
My thoughts about going up to the trail after my morning of running staris: "Oh good. More stairs."
This way to Dragon's Back!
Hello Hong Kong!
These views didn't suck.
We eventually went down to Big Wave Bay.
The trees were very twisty and interesting here. (I did not get a picture of any of the spiders. They were not particularly something that I wanted to see again.)
Entrance to Big Wave Bay Beach
The beach was nestled into a cliff.
My little iPhone pictures don't do it much justice, but you can sort of see why it's called "Dragon's Back" from this view.
Cue happiness :-)
Drinking a coconut, standing in the water at the beach. Love. #letmetakeaselfie
Really cool tree as we left the beach.
Our random little bus that drove us to our rescue.
The walk to the gym was almost like another hike in and of itself. Hong Kong is quite hilly. (In fact, when I was looking for a half marathon to run in Southeast Asia, I actually passed on the opportunity to come back and run here because I'm scared of those hills! Maybe someday, but yet.) We trekked up the hill and played our first matches. The boys won, but sadly my girls lost. The team was beatable, but this happened throughout our season. We just didn't finish the game. After the games were over, we headed back to the hotel to shower and change. On the way, I stopped with a couple of the other coaches to grab a bite to eat. I had this amazing pear, walnut, and cheese salad with minestrone soup (I know... STILL no Chinese food! My body was still craving super foods pretty much all weekend...). It was absolutely delicious, and I devoured it before I could take a picture. We finished our food and headed to the hotel to change. I was very excited to hear that we were headed downtown to see the Symphony of Lights, which is a light show that I have read about and seen in many pictures. Apparently the team had done it last year, so I was worried they wouldn't want to do it again. There were mixed feelings on it, but overall the consensus was that people wanted to go.
We grabbed some taxis and made it downtown just in time for sunset and the light show. The skyline across the bay is absolutely beautiful (remember, I am a city girl!). While we were waiting for the show to start, a soft serve ice cream truck pulled up. I was so excited. This was one of my favorite things in New York. One of the boys bought me (and the other coaches) ice cream. Like I said, we have really sweet kids! I happily ate my ice cream while I waited to hear the music that the lights are timed with. And then the show started... and it was not exactly what I expected. I think the best description was given by one of my girls: "Last year we were really excited when we came down here. And then this happened." Thus, a hashtag was born. #andthenthishappened
Despite the disappointing quality of the show, I was still happy that we got to see it firsthand. I did my best to take pictures on my dinky little cell phone camera. After awhile, we boarded a ferry and took a ride across the water. The kids were so excited about this part of our advenutre. It was really adorable. When we got to the other side, we explored that part of the city a little bit. Then we headed to a late dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I was still quite full from my soup and salad earlier, but I really couldn't come all the way to Hong Kong and NOT have proper Chinese food. Another coach shared her yummy dumplings with me, and I split this amazing spinach dish with the other coach. The kids and coaches all loved the food. With full bellies and more happy memories, we headed back to the hotel. Saturday promised to be a long day of volleyballing, so we all needed a good night's sleep.
This city girl is in love with this skyline.
Very tall and beautiful clock tower near our spots for the Symphony of Lights.
THE ICE CREAM MAN WHO BROUGHT ME YUMMY SOFT SERVE
More of the beautiful views - complete with a ferris wheel!
You can see the light show starting... It almost looks like the Bat Signal.
This was about as exciting as it got. Granted, I am still happy we saw it!
Ferry token.
Views from the ferry - I squealed with delight to see the Hong Kong Convention Centre, which is probably the building I think of first when I think of Hong Kong. It is similar to the Sydney Opera House, which I have not seen in person (YET!).
Random photo shoot taking place near the ferry terminal.
An Apple Store! They are cool, no matter where you are in the world.
Saturday was going to be a long day, so again I woke up early to work out. Again, traveling with a PE teacher is built-in motivation to keep up healthy habits! She has an app on her iPad that I have since downloaded (and highly recommend!) called Down Dog. It has 30-minute vinyasa yoga sessions. You can choose your level and your intensity as well as the pacing, and you can play the sessions without wifi. You only need the wifi to download the sessions, but they can play without wifi once you have downloaded it. We went down to the workout room but we were not allowed to do yoga in there, so we borrowed towels and worked with the app in the hallway. It was so great to stretch out after all the traveling, the run and stair work, and the hike from the day before. It also gave me the energy I needed to get through my day. We showered and ate breakfast, and then headed back up to the school. The tournament was held at the Canadian International School of Hong Kong (CDNIS). This school is stunning. It is built into the side of a cliff, as many buildings in this part of the city are. The interior is designed like an enormous ski lodge with huge windows overlooking a bay. The gym facilities are absolutely amazing as well.
Both the boys and the girls played one more game of pool play in the morning, and then played later in the day, depending on how pool play went. Our schedule ended up being very spread out because we came in last place in our pool. We were disappointed to lose our games, but excited to win our first playoff game much later that day! I was really proud of how they played in the playoff game; it was the first time that I had seen fire from these girls. It was such a proud moment as a coach to see and hear the intensity finally come from them. Girls in this culture are taught to be very prim and proper, so this was completely out of their element, and I loved it. Our girls were set up to play for 9th or 10th place the next day. There were twelve teams total at the tournament, so this may not sound impressive to some, but considering they did not win a single game or match the previous year, I thought this was a huge improvement. The boys did very well in their pool play and ended up in first place in their pool. They won their first playoff game, which set them up to play for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th place in the tournament the next day. Wow!
In between games, we watched lots of other matches. There was a lot of talent all around the gym, so it was fun to watch others play. It was also fun to cheer on the other school from Myanmar, who ended up taking 2nd place overall in the girls' bracket. I blogged a little between matches as well, and I was completely blown away by the high speed internet. Haha. (More on that later.) That night, we had pizza provided by the tournament (yes, pizza AGAIN... #tripswithteenagers). We set a fairly early bed time and lights out for students because they all had to get up early to play the next day. On Sunday morning, I woke up early again to get in one more run before leaving this city. I don't have many opportunities for hills in Yangon, so after a warm-up jog around the tennis courts and park again, I spent the rest of my workout doing hill repeats. My legs were shaking, and my body was oh so happy to get a tough workout. It's great to feel my body slowly getting stronger.
This hill was definitely my frenemy that morning. #runhappy
I have many pictures from Sunday, but they all have students, and like I said before, I will not be sharing those with the public. I don't mind describing our tournament and their personalities, but I don't want to get into specifics with names and/or faces. They deserve their privacy. Anyway, on Sunday, our girls played very well, but after an amazing rally, they just fell short of a win. They came in 10th place in the tournament. More importantly, they finally clicked as a team and found that fire to play. I am still so proud of them. The boys had a heartbreaking loss in their first round on Sunday, but this ended up being a blessing in disguise. The first place team at the tournament was this ridiculously good team from an all-boys academy in Hong Kong that is apparently a school for boys who want to become professional athletes. They did not have a coach with them at the tournament, and two of the players are on the national team for Hong Kong. "Good" doesn't come close to describing how they played. It was a completely different level of volleyball. If our boys had won the first round of their playoffs, they would have played that machine team. They would have put up a fight, but they would have gotten crushed. I remember watching one match, thinking, "Oh, this team is actually hanging with them! Impressive!" And then I looked at the scoreboard. That team had seven points. And quite frankly, that WAS impressive. Most teams were held to three or four points. No, the actual results for our boys were way better. They put up a huge fight in their final match against a school from China called QSI. They had to win best of three games, and the third game is only played to 15 points. You have to win by two points. They ended up going to a third match, and they won 27-25! It was so exciting to watch, and that victory was way higher of a high than simply being demolished by a semi-professional team. Overall, I was incredibly proud of our players. I am so grateful that I got to travel and be a part of this tournament, and more importantly, that I was a part of this season.
An example of another building that is in the side of the cliff.
The front entrance of CDNIS.
You enter CDNIS on the top floor, and then work your way down because it is built on the side of a cliff. Here, you can see the ski lodge motif that I referenced.
There were gorgeous views all around.
As you come down the stairs, you can see out into the harbor, where there are many yachts docked.
No, I will not post pictures of my students, but I couldn't resist this one. The crazy Volleyball Machine from the boy's academy in Hong Kong. Surprisingly, this particular opponent was able to get four whole points.
This is my creepy stalker picture of number 12. He looks to me like a nerdy gamer, glasses held on my a string and all. But when he jumps, he absolutely crushes the ball. One of his opponents actually ducked out of the way of the ball at one point. I have never seen anything like it at such a young age!
We went to the closing ceremony and collected various trophies and certificates, and headed back to the hotel. Because the following day was a holiday in Hong Kong, we could not go back to our rooms. We had checked out before the tournament. The original plan was to go to Stanley Market, a famous market in Hong Kong. Because of the playoff games and then the awards ceremony that followed, we did not have enough time to go to the market. Those of you who have read my other posts know how I feel about markets, particularly in this part of the world, so you can imagine the disappointment. However, the purpose of this trip was not for my entertainment and tourism; it was for volleyball. And I strongly feel that I will come back to Hong Kong because there is much more to explore in this beautiful, vibrant city. I do not have that feeling that I do with Bangkok, where I have a strong desire to live there. However, Hong Kong has a great vibe and I want to explore more of it someday very soon.
At that point, we allowed the kids to vote on things to do, and again we split up. Two coaches took some kids for a walk at a nearby shopping area, and I took a group to grab more Starbucks. We took our drinks to go and hung out in the lobby with the other coach and about half of the players while the others were out shopping. We were all pretty exhausted, and it was a hot and humid day, so it was actually nice to sit in air conditioning and use fast internet. My internet is super slow in Yangon because it is still a developing country. Technology is constantly changing, but I kind of forget about that when I am here. When I was in Hong Kong, I worked a bit on my previous blog post about my visa renewal run to Bangkok, and when my pictures were uploading, I was literally in shock at how fast it was all happening. How quickly I forget! I can only imagine what it will be like to go home at Christmastime and experience that reverse culture shock. Fast internet and Starbucks will only be the tip of the iceberg, I am sure.
We headed to the airport around 6 p.m. to catch our late flight. Unfortunately, the way the timing of the tournament happened, we could not take the earlier flight home. We had a team dinner at a restaurant in the airport. While the food was pretty mediocre (which is typical for airport cuisine), the company was fantastic. I enjoyed having one more team dinner with these kids and coaches. After we ate, we headed to catch our flight home. One of my favorite memories of this trip was when we boarded our plane home. It was a full flight, and I was sitting with the other coaches. We had gotten tea before getting on the plane, and this airline has these little cup holders that pop out of the back of the seat (rather than having to put down the whole tray table). One of the coaches had finished her tea and put the empty cup away, but she left the cup holder down. She got scolded by a flight attendant about having it down for takeoff. When the flight attendant told her to put up her cup holder, she pushed it up with one finger. I don't know why, but at the time, this was absolutely hysterical to me. I was laughing almost to the point of tears. In fact, when I was on a flight over October Break a couple of weeks ago, I started giggling when the flight attendant walked by because I had flashbacks about that moment. I am sure that it is one of those things that you had to be there in order to appreciate it, but one day when I look back at this blog, I think I will be very happy that I wrote about this memory.
Late on Sunday evening, we landed in Yangon around midnight local time. I went to bed around 1 a.m. The cab driver came back shortly after I had fallen asleep because one of the other coaches left her laptop in the taxi (that's the type of place Yangon is!). Since I was the last stop and the only one living in a house - the others live in apartment buildings - he came to me. I was jolted awake by the guard ringing the doorbell repeatedly, so it was hard to fall back asleep after that. I was completely exhausted and felt very much like a zombie on Monday, but it was totally worth it.
I tend to think of everything as an adventure these days, and with every new adventure I learn something new. In this particular adventure, I learned about a new place that I want to come back and explore again, I learned more about my students and developed a new understanding and a stronger connection, and I learned a lot about myself. I am happy that I will have a lot more time to myself in the coming weeks, but I am also sad that this season is ending because I will miss working with these players. Next year will be a different group and a different experience, but I am grateful for the relationships I have been able to build with students and other coaches. Until next season, Go Eagles!
These little egg custard tarts are one of my favorite things from this country! One of the players brought me a whole box of them at our tournament this weekend. They are from a bakery called So Good. #happycoach
I loved every minute of coaching with and learning from these ladies. Photo op from our team dinner last night at the Sangri La hotel. And just like that, volleyball season is over. #andthenthishappened
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