Surprise, surprise!! I'm home!!!!! Home as in, Grande Prairie! Wooohoooo! I got home last night at about 11:30 pm. Nobody knew I was coming home except for my mom, so it was a surprise for everyone! I walked into the house and ran up the stairs to see my dad. For about a solid minute he just sat there staring at me, looking very shocked. After that he continued to hit his head and shake it, in confusion, figuring out if what he was seeing was real or a dream. It was quite hilarious! After that I had a solid 10 hour sleep, no jet leg for me yet!! Wooohoooo! Today I had to basically hide out in the house, because no one knew I was home, so I had to lay low. At 5 pm I went to the Ceinahs practice to surprise the girls and I got them all lucky fish hangy things, for good luck! After that me and my mom went to original joes. My mom had texted my friend Megan earlier to ask her to get my friends together and meet her at OJs tonight at 530 because she wanted to give them presents I had gotten them. So the ones that were in town came and SURPRISE!!! I was there! It was sooo good to see them again, I thoroughly enjoyed. And I got some good surprises and faces out of it too! haha. It was good times, I really enjoyed. Then after that, I went to Boston Pizza because it was my other friend Jenna's birthday, I showed up and she also basically had a heart attack! I had messaged her this morning to tell her Happy Birthday and sorry I couldn't make it to her birthday, but mwahaha I am evil and I knew I was going to be there! All in all it was a good day and I can't wait to actually go do things tomorrow, not have to sit in the house all day!

Alright, so Saturday and yesterday no castings, free days basically. On Saturday me and Caitlin had a super unsuccessful shopping adventure to an area where there are 4 malls right across from eachother. We were quite unhappy with what we discovered to say the least. Yesterday me and Caitilin went to Tianzifang aka Diagon Alley, where I purchased some christmas gifts and then to Huaihai Road to shop at H&M and Zara. Today we had 2 castings, then the rest of the day off, so me, Caitlin, Anya and Melody went to Qipu Lu, an place where there are "malls", super chinese ones, and everything there is really cheap. Qipu Lu is pronounced (Cheap-ulu). Its basically a building with endless "stores", more like stalls, filled with clothes. It's crazy in there. I didn't really buy anything to exciting, just some long tanktop dress things, a few long sleeve shirts and some tights. Tomorrow is going to be a long a full day though, we have to be ready at 8:40 am, so castings probably start around 9, and we are told there are lots, whoopee. Spending the day in the van isn't usually one of my favourite things to do, but I deal with it. Our shower is officially broken, good thing I took one before it broke. One of my roommates went to shower and somehow it broke, I didn't ask questions, just looked. The hose came out of the tap and the water now comes out of the side of the hose, not the shower head, greeeeat. Oh and last but definitely not least, I discovered someone has been going through my things, AWESOME. I went to take out my camera to upload some pictures onto my computer and facebook, when I opened the case, my camera was upside down. I usually put it screen facing down, lens facing up. But when I opened it BAM there was the screen staring at me, making the lens face down. WTF. Hi whoever went through my closet, how about don't? You could say I'm a little angry. Also, my camera is at the back of the closet, behind jeans and pants and hidden by clothes that are hanging above, so that means (unnamed person) would of had to actually look through my closet, move the clothes that were hanging and everything. Again, WTF. Not cool. I briefly looked through my stuff to make sure nothing was missing, but how the eff word am I going to remember what was and wasn't there? I'm sure by the time I leave I'll figure out things that are missing if they are. And if they are, HEADS WILL ROLL. I asked the girl that I share a room with if she had looked at my camera, she said no. I am going to throw out a crazy idea and say it was the maid, oh wait.. thats not such a crazy idea. Here are some things about the wonderful person of a cleaning lady we have:
1) She used to shower at our apartment, I don't know if she still does, but she used to and wasn't allowed to. I told the agency and they got mad at her, so that's why I'm thinking she doesn't anymore, but who knows, she does what she wants basically.
2) When she showered or showers, she uses our products, shampoo, conditioner, that stuff. Oh and sometimes razors. Sweet.
3) She didn't used to wash the floor, only sweep. Again, told the agency and they told her to wash the floors, so I saw her wash them once, but not sure if she still does it.
4) If you make your bed, she will remake it. Why? I don't know, things have to be done her way or no way I guess.
5) She rearranges our stuff on the desk and such. Again, I don't know why, but maybe she thinks rearranging the bottles of products we have, means she's cleaning?
Soo these all add to why I think it could of possibly been the maid going through my things. I mean, most of the time when she's here we aren't, so she can do whatever she feels. If I find out it was her, I will show my anger like never before. I don't think aka I know none of my roommates would of done it. First, I only share the room with one other girl, so why would the other 3 go in there at all? They wouldn't, so its not them, and I asked the girl I share the room with straight up if it was her and she said no. So the maid is the only option left. Currently many swear words are running through my mind, but clearly I won't post them on here. Thats all for today, have an early morning tomorrow. Goodnight.

Yesterday mom and I had to go back to the fabric market so she could try on one of her jackets and a pair of pants, just to make sure they fit. So we went back to Old Town and went to the Yuyuan Garden first, which we planned on going to last time, but it was closed by the time we found it. So we started our trip there, it was an old style Chinese garden I believe, and it was pretty cool. Lots of chinese styled buildings and rock architecture stuff, also many ponds with fish. After that we went to the fabric market where mom tried on her clothes. I have to go back next week to pick everything up, can't wait to see my blazer! After the market, we went to an area in The Bund that sells cheaper hair products and appliances. I needed to get a flat iron that worked over here, because the voltage on mine isn't high enough, so it heats up really fast and to a very very high temperature. So we went there and I got one, probably around 30 dollars canadian, so hopefully it will work alright! After that we went and found a place to eat, then headed back to the apartment. Last night was moms last night here so I stayed at her hotel with her. I showered there, which was way way way better than showering at the apartment! First off, the temperature stays consistent the whole time, no getting steaming hot then having to turn the tap down, having warm water for awhile then getting steaming hot again. At our apartment apparently there are only two temperatures, extremely hot or freezing cold. Second, it's not super dark in the shower, so you don't feel like your showering with no lights on. Our bathroom has black tiled walls and floors, soo slightly on the dark side.. and last, the shower head was just better and a better shower overall. Her bed was also way better than mine too, I slept the best I have since I have been away from home, which means including Hong Kong. It was great! This morning I had a job for a magazine, it was a makeup before and after and then application thing. After that finished we went to a casting which we didn't even end up doing because there were so many models and our booker didn't want to wait. So we came back to the apartment and have been hanging out since then. Oh can't forget this.. yesterday when mom and I were out, I almost got hit by a man on a motorcycle. GREAT. I was walking one way, and he was coming the way that would be perpendicular to me and I wasn't totally paying attention, but since he was coming towards humans he should of been and he almost hit me! If I wouldn't have noticed at the last second I would of been seriously injured or maybe an occurrence of death? NOT FUN. So obviously quite angry with him, I yelled and swore and did things any other angry person would do. It was ridiculous! The traffic, vehicles, pedal bikes and motorized bikes don't care about pedestrians what so ever! They don't move for you at all.. like who cares if you hit a human right? Also update on the roommates. So it was just me, Amanda and Anya for awhile, Amanda being from Toronto and Anya originally from Russia, but lives in Calgary. A few weeks ago Caitlin arrived, she is with the same agency as me back home, she lives in BC and she is also the same age as me. Then about a week ago another girl arrived, her name is Melody and thats who I now share a room with. So the apartment is back to being full, but everyone gets along pretty well. Mom left today at 6, her time here went by soo fast! Last but not least, my name is no longer Courtney, apparently it is Country or Kittney, one of the two options works. Here, they can't pronounce my name, ever, soo they say Country or Kittney and I just accept it. Well thats about all for now, I'll write again soon!

So I definitely totally forgot about this whole blog thing, just realized I haven't updated in a long time! Things are going alright over here in China, I'm still making friends here which is quite swell. Castings are keeping us busy, sometimes 7 a day and sometimes only 1 or 2. The other night was Halloween, so we all dressed up and went to celebrate. Me and Caitlin, one of my roommates, dressed up as nerds, so clearly we were the coolest ones there.. It was super crowded and busy, but we had fun! This morning I woke up at about 9:36 am, the phone rings at 9:40 am and it was our booker, saying that "oh you have casting at 10:20". Awesome right? Woohoo 40 minutes for us to get ready for a casting, how greeeeeat! So in other words this morning was just super. Also, I've been sick for the past few days, so I felt like a gem this morning, also looked like one too. My nose is slightly plugged, but runs 24/7 if that even makes sense? My glands in my throat are swollen and my voice is slightly boy sounding. I am in good shape clearly! I'm hoping that it'll go away soon. Weird thing here.. every place I've travelled to, a month into being there I have gotten sick. I've been here just over 3 weeks, almost a month and surprise surprise I got sick! Not fun. I talked to Kallie on skype today for many minutes, made me miss everyone so much more! Today was a shopping day after castings, we went back to the place called Tianzifang, the one that looks like Diagon Alley. I bought a purse, not like I need anymore, but atleast now I have a variety.. haha, I also bought a scarf, some earrings, presents for friends and family and I think thats about it. Good shopping trip to say the least. Ooh we also went to this place called Cafe Dan to eat, recommended by Juliet, my first roommate here. She told me to try to matcha udon noodles and matcha latte, so I did both and they were soooo good, definitely be going back there! Last but not least, yesterday me and mom went to Old Town, another part of Shanghai, it was a lot of little shops and bazaars or whatever. At the end of that we went to the fabric market, where Juliet also recommended a tailor there, so we went to see her. I am getting a blazer made and mom is getting 2 jackets and 3 pairs of pants. It's so cool because you basically just design your own stuff and pick out your own material. That's about all for now I think, I'll try to remember to keep this updated more often!

Alright, soo past few days, nothing to interesting has been happening. The usual castings and such. Its been kind of crappy weather outside though. Yesterday we went to People's Square, an area downtown Shanghai and we saw some sights and did touristy things such as that. We went to an art museum there too, it was quite interesting! It was like abstract art and stuff, not just the normal paintings and glass bowls and stuff. The weather wasn't so nice, so we didn't stay out long, but enough time to snap some photos! Today is still no so nice, slightly chilly with a wild wind, not fun. We have been going to bed ridiculously early, which in turn means waking up ridiculously early. Example, bedtime starting at 9:30 pm (I didn't even go to bed that early when I was in school and had to get up at 7!), then waking up starting at 7:30, latest 8:30, maybe 9 if i'm lucky. How fun right? I made some new clothing purchases the other day, quite stylish pieces I would say, haha. 2 coats, 2 long shirt thingers, a belt and just a long sleeve shirt to go under one of the long shirt things. I also bought some new shoes yesterday, just plain black heels, as mine were slowly dying on me. That's all I really have to blog about for now, minus a few tid bits of info about Shanghai life:

1. About half of the population rides a pedal bike, motorized bike or scooter thing. (including old men and women)

2. People park and drive on the sidewalk. Not only the bikes, but cars and vans as well. Whens the last time you thought you'd have to move out of the way for a car when taking a stroll on a sidewalk?

3. Men spit everywhere.. gross.

4. It's colder here than Hong Kong, windy quite often as well. I actually need a jacket sometimes, never thought I'd say that.

5. People are quite rude here, they bump into you on the street and don't apologize or probably don't even notice it happened. But overall just a ruder population of people I gather.

6. Pedestrians have to yield to vehicles/bikers all the time, no such thing as being safe to cross at a crosswalk with the walk light on.

7. Some intersections will have the cross walk on the pavement, but no crossing light, so you have to do so at your own risk.

8. There are golf stores here EVERYWHERE. I see them all the flippin time. They are every 5 or 10 minutes I swear!

9. Minimal english is spoken here, its just super

10. The driving is super crazy. They weave in and out like nobody's business and if the person infront of them is going to slow they will just go into the opposite lane to pass, opposite as in cars are coming towards you. There are also no seatbelts, woopeee. Soo most dangerous driving EVER and no seatbelts, perfect! Oh and they don't break until the very very very last second. Like why start breaking early when you can just slam on the breaks right before you hit the car infront of you?

11. Last but not least, I believe I saw a fake Volkswagen Passat the other day. On the back of vehicles, it usually says what it is on the right side, example "Passat". So we're behind this vehicle and I look and it says "Passta", but looks exactly like a Passat. Ummm I don't think VW would make a mistake such as spelling one of the names of their vehicles wrong. Questionable? I think so!

Today I had the day off, so me and my mom went out and did things. We started the day off at the spa (yaaaay!), we each got a massage and facial, it was really really great, I thoroughly enjoyed, so did my mom as her snoring told it all, haha! But the massage was great, my legs are starting to hurt from having to walk the 5 flights of stairs up to my apartment 2 or more times a day! After the massage we had lunch then went to an area called the French Concession. There was a walking tour that my Lonely Planet Shanghai book suggested so we decided to try that. It took you to or by different sights to see in this area. We started off doing the tour, but then got kind of bored, so we made our own paths. After we had enough of that, we went to Tianzifang, an allied/small roads area where there is lots of little shops and restaurants. There are a lot of arty kind of stores in this area. When I first went there with my roomates, I instantly thought it looked like Diagon Alley from Harry Potter! I felt like I was going to buy my wand for the year and my pet of choice! Anyway, so we walked around there, bought things and then we went to a restaurant called Bohemia for supper. It was quite delicious! We basically had walked for about 4 hours straight with no breaks, either than the few minute taxi ride from where we were in the French Concession to Tianzifang. I bought a backpack, my mom likes to call it "fashionable"..in other words, its not just a volleyball backpack like the rest I have, its leather and some other material and has straps and such, I don't really know how to explain it, but I love it! We also bought some little slipper things, one for each of us, I bought a cool hair clip thing, mom bought this thing that has a ball and then tassle on the bottom to hang in her truck window, there is chinese writing on it that means safety. Hmm what else did we buy? Ooh some cool leather bound notebooks, or like the cover of the notebook is leather, however you describe that. I think thats about all the purchases we made today! Mom is already sleeping, its 10:50 pm here, but she was fast asleep at around 9:30 or just before. Tomorrow I'm not really sure what the day is consisting of, so we kind of just have to make up our days as we go. There is a new model arriving though, she is with the same agency as I am back in Canada, but we have never met, we are the same age though, so should be good!

Okay, I'm super behind on this blog, sorry to anyone who is checking and its not updated! I've been in Shanghai for the past week and a half as you know, my mom arrived here on Monday though! Woohoo! She brought me delightful things, such as clothing items, my backpack, thin addictives, dark chocolate covered blueberries and acai berries! Mmmmmm. As well as a package Megan sent along with her, which included 2 magazines, Miss Congeniality 1 & 2, One Tree Hill season 7 and a BFF necklace! I really enjoyed that! I have had 3 jobs so far, all catalogue, 2 were for the same company, called VOA, it was for fur coats, and the other was for cashmere sweaters. Not what you think though.. the "cashmere sweaters" I thought I would be wearing were nice, fancier cashmere sweaters, man was I wrong! I'm pretty sure I wore 150 of the ugliest sweaters you could imagine. Basically just pretend you invited 150 people to an ugly sweater party, guaranteed 90% or even maybe 100% of those sweaters would of been there. It was kind of funny though. They were so old fashioned and just plain ugly in my opinion, as well as they all ended around my belly button, apparently I have a long torso compared to normal people? hahaha. All 3 of these jobs were out of Shanghai, so I had to travel by bus or train about 1 hour and a half to get there. Today I have a day off, so me and mom are going to start the day at the spa with facials and a massage, yipeeee! After that we are going to an area called The French Concession, where we will do a walking tour we found in my Lonely Planet book for Shanghai. I think it takes you to a lot of the tourist sites/places in the area. After the walking tour we are going to go to this place called Tianzifang. I don't really know how to explain it, but its like little streets, kind of alley type things, and there are a lot of art type stores and restaurants in there, its really cool! The first time I went there it reminded me slightly of Diagon Alley! Thats about all for now, I'll try to keep this updated more often!

So this new store or shop opened just a little bit down the street from our apartment, and apparently in Shanghai to celebrate that they light fireworks.. right there on the sidewalk. So one morning at 11am they lit fireworks and they went off for about 20 minutes. IT WAS SO LOUD. It sounded like all of Shanghai was just shot basically. After they did it in the morning, they proceeded to do it again at night, woohoooo. We watched them from my one roommates balconies, it was so close you could almost touch them! Also quite dangerous as they were like touching the side of the building and the glass windows of the apartments above the shop! People here are crazy I tell you. Also, the driving is wild! They weave in and out and they go in the lane that drives the opposite direction to pass vehicles and stuff, its crazy! Scary at times as well.. I went to a casting yesterday and saw a "Kim Hortons". It looked exactly the same as Tim's back at home but just with a K! The writing and the logo and everything was the same, it was so funny! I have only seen one though, I should of tested it out and seen if it was as good as Tim's, dangit! Ooh last night we went for Turkey dinner too! Me and two of my roommates, the one girl knew a guy that was having a bunch of people over so we went! They are vegetarians so there was no turkey or chicken, but they made salmon, mashed potatoes, pasta, vegetables, devilled eggs, spaghetti and appetizers too! It was sooo good! Best turkey dinner away from home! One last thing to mention before ending this for the day.. there is a hair salon across the street and in the morning and at night the employees go outside and stand infront of the shop and do this dance thing to music. Its actually quite entertaining, funny as well. I think they are trying to attract customers, but I am not really sure!

Shanghai

Hello from Shanghai! I arrived here on Friday, my flight was delayed, which happens to me just about every time I fly anywhere! But I arrived safely and was picked up by a booker and taken back to the apartment. I live with 4 other girls, 2 are from Toronto, 1 is from Portland and the last is from Russia, but lives in Calgary now. The apartment we live in is much much bigger than the one in HK, lots of room to walk around and such! I also made more friends in the first day I was here than my whole 2 months in Hong Kong, haha. The guys from the agency, there are 3 of them, came over on Friday night, as well as one of the model's boyfriends and another guy who is one of the other models really good friends. So basically I made 9 friends in being here less than a day! Woohoooooo. The girls here are really nice, they actually talk to to eachother and don't just stay in their rooms all day, like some I know... So it's good here, bigger than HK, also colder! I can wear pants, a tank top and a cardigan and not sweat like wild! It's kind of nice though, because then you don't show up to castings all sweaty and gross. We take a van to our castings, so we all go together which is good, our drivers name is Jackie. I wasn't able to use the internet for the first few days of being here, China is still communist so it tries to block the flow of communication, so some sites like Facebook, Youtube, Blogger and other sites were blocked and people here aren't allowed to use. But good thing there are smart people in this world and they created VPN's that can break through The Great Firewall of China (thats what the blocked internet communication flow thinger is). So I bought a VPN so that I can use the internet freely! So far it's been good and my mom comes next Monday! Also, since we're missing turkey dinner, me and one of the girls from Toronto, I also share a room with her, are making chicken and mashed potatoes, having our own little Thanksgiving feast! haha. We don't think you can get turkey here, so the closest thing was chicken, which is fine! Should be just lovely. Blog again soon, Happy Thanksgiving!

Okay, so turns out I didn't get the job I was waiting to hear about, lame! I found out around 8pm on Tuesday. This meant that I would be leaving on Thursday, talk about rushed! I was waiting to hear about a plane ticket and didn't, but found out this morning that I won't be leaving until Friday now, so tomorrow. I basically have everything packed and realized I overpacked just a tad.. haha. I went and finalized everything at the agency yesterday so I'm basically good to go whenever I hear about my ticket! Also, Hong Kong has actually been slightly cold the past couple of days, if you can believe it. I mean, the other day I could of been wearing pants, a t-shirt and maybe even a cardigan! I definitely could of been wearing pants and a t-shirt and walked around and not even broken a sweat! I hear its like that most of the time in Shanghai now, and that it actually gets pretty cold in Shanghai in the winter months, but no snow. I was so excited to hear that, because I can actually wear pants now and I'll be able to walk around and not sweat like crazy! Woohooo! So I am off to Shanghai tomorrow, I'll blog when I get there and am all settled!

Alright so I'm like a week behind on this blog thing, sorry about that to anyone who has been checking to see what I'm up to! Last week was busy, I had 4 jobs in 3 days! I have been waiting to hear about a commercial since last Sunday, still haven't heard yet. The clients haven't made a decision. I was supposed to be leaving on Thursday, but we didn't book my ticket and put the leaving on hold for this job. At first I was supposed to know by Tuesday, then it turned to Wednesday, then it turned to Friday and now it is the following Tuesday and I'm still waiting!! In other words, if I don't get this job, I have to book my plane ticket about 24 hours in advance, fun right? Not! My friend Jordan who I met in Toronto earlier this year when we both went there for test shoots came to stay with me this weekend. She is modelling in Shanghai right now and is staying an extra 30 days, so she needed to leave the country (coming to Hong Kong is technically leaving China, even though its part of China). So she came on Sunday and just left this morning. We had a lovely visit, good to see her again! And I'll be with her in Shanghai for a month too! Woohoooo! I will also know another model there, his name is Joe. He lives in Edmonton and is with Hi-Fi Models there, which I work through a bit as well. He will be going to Shanghai on the 6 or 7 I think and is with the same agency I'm with, so I will have 2 friends when I get there! Yaaaaaayyyy! haha. Tonight I am taking Joe and Judy out for dinner, a thank you for everything they have done for me, we are going for Thai food! Yuuummmm! Then Tomorrow I have 2 jobs, one is a makeup show where basically I just sit there and they do makeup on me, showing their product. Then after that I am doing a makeup shoot for Max Factor, I think it is going in a newspaper here. I am also going to pack most of my stuff up today just in case it happens that I need to leave Thursday, so I won't be scrambling tomorrow night to get it all done! Hopefully I find out today though, fingers crossed!

Just some interesting points about the lifestyle here in HK:

1. Its crazy super hot here, all day, everyday. People are used to it though, their bodies are adapted. Im walking around in a tank top and shorts and sweating like I just ran a flippin marathon, but the locals are wearing jeans and a t-shirt, maybe a scarf for an accessory, but guess what? They haven't even broken a sweat! Not even a drip! I guess thats what you get for living in Canada for 18 years huh?

2. Most people can speak english. Younger people obviously speak it better and more fluently, from school. Older people can speak basic english, but you have to talk in one word form. Example: "Bathroom?" or "Cost?" or something like that.

3. Technology crazy. Thats it. Everyone has a cellphone, psp or nintendo ds or some other kind of handheld gaming thing. You go on the mtr, which is like a metro or a train kind of thing and probably 70-80 percent of the people are playing games on their phone or handheld device or texting. Something to do with technology.

4. Regarding number 3. There are computer shops everywhere! They sell anything and everything having to do with computers or phones, they are crazy busy all the time. Its like a building, with a million different stalls in it, each stall a different "store", selling their product. Most stores are selling the same thing though. Its sort of difficult to explain, but hopefully you half get the picture.

5. The lifestyle is late. Stores open late, people are open/up late. Nothing opens until atleast 10 am. Obviously supermarkets are open at like 8, but basically everything else is open sometime after 10. Everyday, weekdays and maybe later on weekends. That also means that stores are open later, like 11 or midnight. This leads to everyone eating late. People here are having supper, full meals at like 9, 10, 11 or maybe even 12 pm! It's crazy! But its normal here, they do it every single night.

6. Even though people eat late and stuff, soo many of them are so so so skinny! How? Eating late everynight and your still the size of a toothpick? What the heck!

7. You walk everywhere. Which may explain number 6. I walk so much more than I did at home, if I don't have to take public transportation I don't. There is everything I need within walking distance, its great!

8. Eating, shopping, eating shopping. I swear thats all people do here. Everywhere you go there are a million restaurants and inbetween those restaurants and places to eat are places to shop! Stores line the streets, restaurants, bakeries etc line the streets. It's quite convenient though. You know wherever you go you have many options of what to eat and can also buy whatever you need in the area.

9. Everyone walks the pace of a turtle. Thats all I really need to say about that one.

10. Every mode of transportation feels the need to honk 80% of the time. I swear the break is attached to the horn or something. There could be a taxi 20 vehicles back and he's honking. Uhh sir could you just wait a second, give the other 20 vehicles time to actually hit their gas to go! And do you really think its going to help them go any faster by you honking? The rest of the people infront of them have to move in order for them to move. Common sense people!

11. Pedestrians don't have the right of way. Always always always have to look both ways before crossing the road or you could be best friends with the pavement. Even when there is a walk light for pedestrians I still look, vehicles tend to run red lights here.. there aren't any cameras.

12. 7/11 is everywhere. You see one, well walk a few feet and there is probably another one waiting ahead.

13. People wear long sleeves, sweaters or sometimes light jackets when the temperature drops below 30.

14. Wild fashion. Some people here put together the weirdest outfits. Things you would never think to put together. You find every kind of crazy printed tight or legging or sock or whatever here. The fashion is much much different then back home. There isn't really a "normal" look. At home its like oh t-shirt and jeans, you don't really find to much of that here. Here "normal" is whatever you want basically. It's actually pretty cool.

15. They like white skin. Lots of face care products with whitening in them.

16. Not many people drive their own vehicles. Most people will walk, take the bus, the mtr or taxi's. The people that do drive, drive very nice vehicles. Mercedes, Ferrari, Mazda, BMW, you name it. Lots of Toyota here too actually, but none of the same models as Canada, all newer and more advanced. Everyone also keeps their vehicles super super clean. I don't think I've seen one dirty (the outside obviously) vehicle since I've been here. Not including construction trucks or those types.

Thats basically all I can think of right now, but if I think of any other things to add in, I'll letcha know.

I have a busy week starting tomorrow, finally! Tomorrow I have 2 jobs, one is a Sony Ericsson presentation thing and then after that I have a print job for City of Dreams, which is a hotel in Macau, which is a few hour boat ride from here. On Wednesday I have a presentation for Coach, where I will basically just stand there and hold perfume, I think thats all anyway. Then today I found out that I booked a print job for HSBC bank! Wooohooooo! That job will be shot on Thursday! I'm so excited! So basically it should be a good week! 

Interesting thing I saw today...

An albino asian! If you can believe it. I was also shocked as you are probably right now. I was just walking along and BAM there he was. Definitely asian, I could tell by his features..mostly the eyes, you could just tell he was asian. But he had super pale skin, like an albino would obviously and his hair was white as flippin Santa Claus's beard! It was so weird!!

I only have one thing to blog about today:

I witnessed an old man wearing a onesie aka a one piece.. It was yellow in colour with a black stripe down the side. Since I saw this, that means he was walking around in this "outfit" in public. My eyes burn and so does the picture of it in my head. AHHHHHH. One question for this man: "Sir, did you perhaps look into the mirror before exiting your house? Also, why would you purchase such a thing and then continue to wear it out in public after purchasing?" I wish I had a picture, dangit.

Alright, so yesterday was the Mid Autumn Festival here in Hong Kong, I guess its a day where there is a full moon and I'm not really sure what else. But there was this big celebration at Victoria Park and there was this like fire dragon thing. I went with Joe and Judy, the fire dragon was basically this dragon, not real obviously, it had a head and a very long body, people carried it but sticks above their heads. The fire part was these smaller sticks that were lit so they were glowing red, hence the fire part. So there was this big like parade type thing the dragon did, then it went back to Victoria Park and danced some more. There were sooo many people here, but the area was also huge! It was decorated with lanterns and lights and everything. I will put pictures at the bottom. It was actually really cool for a bit, but after awhile of standing in a large crowd of sweaty smelly people, not so much fun.. Plus this one guy infront of us was coughing and sneezing and grossly blowing his nose, not so pleasant if you ask me! I am leaving here in 2 weeks, around October 6th, but the date isn't confirmed yet. I will be going to Shanghai! I'm pretty excited to leave as I hear it is busier in Shanghai, and here I am not really doing anything. But I do have 3 more jobs before I leave, one is a presentation for Coach perfume, I basically have to stand there and hold the perfume, the next is a presentation for Sony Ericsson, basically the same thing as the Coach one and the last is a Makeup show or event or something. I think they are just using me as a model to do makeup on and show how their makeup can be used etc. Those should be just a lovely time. Until then I will just be working on my fitness, wandering the streets of Hong Kong, the usual. I'll keep an update on anything interesting that happens in my last two weeks here! Also, some things I witnessed while at the Mid Autumn festival..

1. An asian man, wearing a purple shirt, with the collar popped. Oh and I forgot to mention he had a white very furry cat on his shoulder...

2. A dog with pigtails, glow necklaces around his neck and wearing some blue runners

The things you see at events like this!

So I'm behind on my blogging again I realize, but once again, nothing to interesting has happened! I got my contract from Shanghai, so I signed that and its sent back, now I am just waiting for the info to apply for my visa and my plane ticket!  Yesterday we were going to go to Sai Kung, but that didn't happen, we went to Stanley Market instead because it was the Sunday before the Mid Autumn festival, so we had to go to Andy's parents for supper, I guess they always do that. Anyway, so Stanley market was just this outdoor market thing, lots of tourists there and little trinket things. Me, Judy and Andy went, Joe had to hold down the fort at the store. After the market we went back to the store, picked up Joe and went to Andy's parents. On the way there, I noticed the sky was sort of hazy and red colored, everywhere. Judy told me that the sky turns red when a typhoon is coming, so you know one is coming when the sky turns red! I thought that was kind of cool. There is a typhoon warning right now, signal 1 was earlier today, and I checked my phone, signal 3 was in affect as well. The signal 1 was just a warning that one was approaching, may possibly hit Hong Kong. The Signal 3 was a strong wind signal and heavy thunderstorms. It rained quite a bit today, it started right as I had to leave for my casting, joy! It wasn't to bad when I first left, but right before I got to the place it was pouring and really windy. It is supposed to be like that everyday for the rest of this week apparently. The casting today was another one for property and I'm still waiting to hear back from castings from last week, so hopefully good news to come! That's about all I have for now, I'll write again soon!

Oh goody another day living in HK passes.. let me fill you in on what occurred today! So I had my job for Cathay Pacific airline today, call time was 11 am. So I go to the job, its supposed to be a 6 hour shoot, but I didn't even think we would fill the 6 hours, from what I saw from the casting, it didn't seem like it could take THAT long. Man was I wrong, not only did it take 6 hours, but add 3 to that. Yes 9 hours, 9 hour day, woopeeeee. So I start by arriving at 11. We started makeup at about 11:15 probably. In these pictures you won't be able to tell its actually me, it is only close ups of different body parts, one of my eye, one of my lips, one of my feet and one of my back. I think the ads are promoting vacations or something. So what they did was they had to white out the body part they were shooting, aka make it white, and then the background and everything else was white. With this picture they will apply another one on top thats like a little colorful thing with snowboarders or mountains or suns or whatever the ad is for. So, we started with my eye. My makeup was done, first coat was a very very heavy coverup/concealer deal, probably about a jillion shades lighter than my actual skin color. On top of that we got some white powder situation, and then some baby powder on top of that. I pretty much resembled a ghost of some sort. After this was done, the client apparently said it wasn't the right "texture", so it was all taken off. The heavy coverup was the applied again, then a different white powder, after this was finished, we found out there was a "miscommunication" and the first look was the right one. So once again, the whole thing was taken off and the first one put back on. Mmmmmm my pores are just in heaven! So the eye shot took about 3-4 hours, yay. The eyelashes weren't right, or my face wasn't white enough or something, so it took quite awhile. After that, they applied the color around my eye that the picture would be that they would put around it. The eye was done after that, and she couldn't get the color around my eyes completely off, so guess what! She took all the face makeup off, and then had to reapply it all again because the lip shot was next. Oh should I mention I hadn't eaten since about 9am, and it was now 3:30 or 4pm. So before we did the lips I got to eat, woohoo. We then did the lips, fun times, nothing exciting there. Then next was the back. So, coverup, white powder, baby powder, more baby powder, white powder, and continuous application of these throughout. All of this was applied down my arms, my neck, shoulders, and about 1/3 to 1/2 way down my back. Fuuuuuun right? I had to twist my head to the side and touch my chin to my shoulder, so you could say my neck got just a tad bit sore by the end! After that one was the foot one, so again all of the previous applications onto my feet and legs. I had to put my feet in this one position, where I was turned to the side, my right foot was flat on the ground and the left like pointed downward. I wasn't allowed to put any pressure on my left foot either, because I think it was turning red or like veiny or something. So basically I stood on my right foot for a solid 45 minutes to an hour. After the 6 hour day plus the 3 hours of overtime, we finished! Talk about long day. After all of this I had to do a casting, which was at the same place I did the shoot. My hair looked flippin grey though because there was coverup and baby powder in it and I couldn't get it out! Can't win 'em all though I guess. That was basically my day, what a joy huh! I didn't have time to do the McDonalds casting today, so I have to do that one tomorrow!

Okay so as I said on Saturday, we were supposed to go to "Sai Wan" yesterday for the day and then for seafood for supper. Wrong was I, its called Sai Kung, not Sai Wan. Second, it rained all day, and by all day I mean all day, no breaks, so we didn't go. I have actually never seen so much rain, ever. It poured and poured and poured for a few hours, then it would let up and just lightly rain for a bit, but then it would start to pour again. You would walk around and the water is basically covering your feet in some places, probably fully flooded in others! The funny this is, even though it was pouring like you would never believe, there was still a million people outside! They all had umbrella's of course, but still! Hi people, its raining, its pouring, the old man is snoring and so should you all be! Maybe not snoring, but at home, in the comfort of your dry clothes and under a roof, protected by walls from the rain. Crazy weather and crazy people I tell you! Anyway so yesterday was filled with basically nothing, as it was raining all day, pretty not fun I'd say. I went with Joe and Judy to Andy's parents house for supper again, quite tasty! We watched some of 2012, wow that movie was lame! So fake too, the whole road just splitting apart and like falling in when they are driving away in the limo. After that I came home and slept. Today, not to interesting either, the weather was much better though. I went to the gym, the agency, and then on a wild hunt to find graham crackers..no luck. No where in this place has them I swear! I went to the international grocery stores around where I live and they didn't have them, I went to local places, they didn't have them. Joe told me about this one grocery store that is probably about 20 minutes by train away from my apartment that might have them, so I'll check that out sometime! Tomorrow is going to be busy though, I have a job at 11 until 5, it is for Cathay Pacific airline, should be a lovely time. It is at the same place as my Nikon ad was and my test shoot as well. While I am at the shoot, there is a casting at the same place for I don't remember what, so I have to do that and then at 6, after my job, I have to go to a casting for McDonalds! Not going to lie, but I kind of hope I get the McDonalds one, that would be kind of funny/cool. McDonalds is a big deal pretty much everywhere! So that should be a good day that will tire me out. Before I end this, one thing I forgot to mention about the gym I go to: they like to play disney channel music. By that I mean the High School Musical soundtrack, Justin Beiber, Hannah Montana (yes, Hannah, not the "older/more mature" Miley Cyrus). It's really not that good of music to be played at the gym in my opinion..sorry but I don't get motivated to workout with Justin, Hannah or the HSM cast...

Okay so I do have a few things to blog about today.. first, my day still didn't really consist of anything to exciting, just the gym and then went shopping the rest of the day! My aunty gave me the idea that I should buy a pandora charm in every place that I travel to, I thought this was a great idea, so I have started! Today I went and purchased my charm for Hong Kong, the charms are the same everywhere, because its a chain store, so they kind of have to be, but I bought a panda charm, which basically relates to me being in China, as pandas are a big deal here, I think anyway.. Next on the list of things to talk about.. I realized that here everyone is just PDA central! Seriously, people are making out on the escalator, in the middle of the mall, wherever there is basically a public area, people are doing something. Ummm I don't particularly like to step onto an elevator and the whole ride up, have two people just loving each other, noooo thank you! Save that for your house people, not the escalator! I spotted a Monochichi umbrella today, that was lovely, reminded me of Kallie as monochichi's usually do. Thats about it for today, tomorrow should be a tad more interesting hopefully

Sorry for being behind on blogging! The past few days nothing to exciting still, but more exciting than the past few weeks. I had a job yesterday, it was for 3 Magazine, just some local type magazine here. It was a makeup spread type deal, we did two looks and then different shots for application, how to apply the eyeshadow etc. My days have still been filled with the gym, as per usual, fun hey? Last night I went with Christine, an agent at my agency, and 5 other models to this performance of High School Musical. The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts put it on, it was the premier night! Christine has connections, so she got us tickets through that, we were third row, it was sweet! It was all in english and all of the people were non asians, so it wasn't like some cheesy remake like all of the tv shows here... haha! It was quite entertaining and was actually much better than I expected to be! It was basically the movie, but some parts cut out obviously, it was just a great time. After that we all went out to this mexican restaurant and hung out for a bit, then headed home. Today I went grocery shopping and hit the gym (again). I also found out I booked this job for Cathay Pacific Airlines! It is a print job, just in Hong Kong I believe, but I was still pretty excited about it! The shoot is on the 20th. Tomorrow nothing is going on, so I probably won't blog because I doubt there will even be anything interesting to write about! But Sunday Joe and Judy are taking me to some place, Sai Wan or something like that, I'm not exactly sure of the name. Anyway, they are taking me there for the day I believe and then to some restaurant there for seafood that is apparently really good. So that should be a lovely eventful day! Oh one thing I forgot to mention before, the other night there was a huuuuuuge thunderstorm! It was thundering really really loud and the lightning was crazy! It was also pouring rain quite hard as well. Kind of scary actually, it was just wild, don't think i've ever heard a thunderstorm like that one before! Anyways, thats all for today, I'll probably have some stuff to talk about after Sunday occurs, so check back then!

Okay so I am super behind on the blogging situation here, but the internet browser has been down for a few days now, so I wasn't able to get on! Nothing to interesting has really happened though, so its not to big of a deal. It's still slow here and the topic of possibly moving to my next place at the end of this month has come up. If I don't get busier then I will probably be going to Shanghai for October 1. Hopefully they will have lots of stuff for me to do there! But since the idea that I may move early has come up, I seem to have had castings show up.. I had one today for an airline company, and I have one tomorrow for a property magazine or something. This doesn't exactly count as busy though. Both of my roommates have left, Dasha left on Sunday and Yulia left today. Yesterday (Monday), a new girl moved in, also from Russia, her name is Olga. She seems nice so far, but we haven't really talked to much, I haven't really seen her that much, but she has also only been here for a day. Today after Yulia left a girl from Brazil named Vanessa came and took her place. She is 18, I am not sure how old Olga is. She seems nice as well, but again, I haven't really talked to her that much either! I thought I was going to be a lone ranger in the apartment for awhile, but I guess not! It's good that we are all from different places though, because then no one can always be talking their language all the time and no one else understanding aka everyone is going to have to speak english now! whoopeeeeee! On Sunday I went with Joe and Judy to Andy's parents place for supper. Andy is Judy's sister's husband, so Judy's brother in law. They made a homemade chinese supper, it was quite delicious! The apartment was very small and Joe said that is pretty normal for what people live in here. Everyone was really nice, the parents couldn't speak english though, so it was just a lot of smiles and such. That's about it I think.. my days have basically been filled with the gym, walking around my area, nothing to exciting! I have a few points to throw out there though, ones that I can remember anyway..

1. The outfits the old woman wear to the gym never stop to amaze me. Matching tops and bottoms, extremely flared bottoms may I add.

2. A girl at the gym the other day was wearing leggings and a dress, with her hair down... Ummm hi, we are at the gym, street clothes probably not such a good idea I'm thinking?

3. Quite a few older woman have much confidence at the gym, aka, they wear spandex pants and a sports bra, no shirt. Lets just say they don't particularly have "fit" bodies, and no flat stomach, plus they are older, so that means saggy up top too.. if you know what I mean! Good for them for being confident, but I mean, I don't really enjoy seeing that, no offence..

4. Yesterday at the gym, a girl got onto the treadmill beside me, she was another elephant runner. I swear these people put their feet down so loudly because they are to lazy to run properly, good for you for getting to the gym when your lazy, but COME ON! She also had her hair down, wearing a regular everyday t-shirt, that was quite tight, and she continued to hold her boobs the whole time she ran. Odd right?

5. After Yulia left today, I cleaned the apartment, it felt so good to get it clean! I swept, then I cleaned off the table that had papers and garbage and empty bottles on it forever! I also cleaned the stand the tv is on, which was also filled with papers etc since I got here probably. This place is spotless now, yaaaaaayyy!

I believe that is everything that I can remember for now, I will try to keep updated now, but if nothing to interesting or blog worthy happens, then I'll probably just skip that day.

Alright, I have quite a bit of updating to do..
So I will start with Sunday. Sunday I woke up quite early and went to go meet Judy at an mtr station and we would go to Macau with Andy for the day. On Saturday when we talked about it, I thought she said to go to the Chai Wan station. On the Island Line, which is the mtr line where the station that is by my apartment is located, Chai Wan is on one end, which is the farthest one away from my apartment, and Sheung Wan is on the other end, which is only about 3 or 4 stops from the one by my apartment. So I woke up extra early because it would take me about 25-30 minutes to get to the Chai Wan station. I got up, went to the station and couldn't find Judy, she said she was waiting at the exit for me. So I called her and said I was there but couldn't see her. She said you are at exit B right? and I said yes, I am at exit B. But she thought I said D and so she went there. After about 10 minutes of confusion and not being able to find eachother, she realized I was at the Chai Wan station. Turns out she told me to meet her at the Sheung Wan station. So now I am at the farthest east station and she is at the farthest west station. Great huh? The ferry we were supposed to take was leaving at 9, and we needed to be there at 830 so we could go through customs and such. Well it was about 8:18 and I needed to travel probably 35-40 minutes to meet her at the station. I went to Sheung Wan and met her and Andy, she told me that we would take a different ferry and it left at 930. So we made this ferry and headed over to Macau. It was about an hour ride to get there. Macau is part of China, so you have to go through customs and all that fun stuff. In Macau we walked around, went to this fortress thing and this really old church which only has the front still standing, the building itself is no longer there, but the front wall is still there. It was soooo hot out this day and I thought I was going to die! It was super busy in this area as well, the streets were just packed with people! After the church and fortress we went to the Macau tower, which is like the CN tower or any other kind of tower that you can go up to the top and look at the city. There is a skywalk, which is where you get strapped into a harness type thing and you can walk the circumference of the outside of the tower, it is pretty cool, but I couldn't do it, way to high for me! There was also bungee jumping! We watched one guy do it and I was freaking out just watching him, I could never do that either! After the tower we went to a temple. There was this bowl, some type of metal, maybe bronze or something, and it had a handle on each side. There was also water in this bowl. What you do is you go and dip your hands in the water, then you rub the handles and the water starts to spray upwards. Not everyone can do this though. So I went to try it and no luck! I watched so many people before and after me do it, so I wanted to try again. I went again and lucky me, got the water to spray up, it was so cool! I felt like I was magic or something, haha. After that fun time, it was time to head back to the ferry. It left at 5, and we had to be there for 430 to go through customs and such again. By the end of the day I was not feeling so great, all of the heat and walking, probably not a sufficient amount of fluids or food either. I went and got some groceries then came home. By this point I was not doing well at all. I didn't stay up much longer then I went to bed, where I had probably the worst sleep ever! I couldn't get comfortable and I kept waking up. On Monday, yesterday, I was doing any better, stomach pains, head ache, nauseous feeling and all of that fun stuff. I went and got some medicine, which helped for about 10 minutes then wore off. I drank some aloe vera juice and had some crackers, which did help a little bit, but I was still not feeling so great. Then I got a text from a booker from my agency saying I had a casting, awesome timing huh? Since I haven't really had many castings I thought I should go because who knows, maybe by some crazy chance, I would get this job, even though I was quite ill. So I went to the casting, thought I was going to puke/pass out on my way there, but I eventually made it there. At the casting, the guy asked me a bunch of questions and I tried on 3 outfits and he took some pictures, he also put a star on my comp card! So I am hoping that means it will be good news and hopefully the forcing myself to go to this casting will pay off! I came straight home after and was still feeling really unwell. I went and got some more medicine, talked to my mom for a bit, then went to bed. I had a better sleep this time, but woke up at about 5:30 am, I stayed awake until about 7 and then fell back asleep until 11. The medicine worked quite nicely and I feel much better today, still not 100%, but lots better than the 2 previous days! Me and my mom are thinking it might have been food poisoning, but we are not quite sure. Today I just sat at the apartment and rested pretty much. Watched some movies and all of that fun resting stuff. Tomorrow I have a small magazine job, so hopefully I will be feeling even better than I am today. Either than that, there hasn't really been much going on. Castings are still pretty slow, but hopefully will be picking up in the next month, as girls will hopefully be leaving to go to school!

Lets see, what did I do today... well the day started off by having to go to the agency at 11 am to do a video casting for deodorant to send to Bangkok. I was sooooo tired but I managed. After that, I came home and slept some more before I had to go to another casting pretty far away from the living area. This second casting was for a clothing designer that is here in Hong Kong. I think the casting went pretty good, but who knows, guess we'll find out in a week or so! After that casting I had one more for a makeup show, but when I showed up, the lady asked me when I was in HK until and I said the end of October, turns out the job is in November, so I am not eligible for it, yay good times. So if you read all of that correctly, that means I had THREE castings in ONE DAY. Holy crap right? If I am doing my math correctly here, which I do believe I am, it seems that I had more castings today then I have had in the past week and a half. Hopefully this means that its starting up again and won't be so slow anymore! I would thoroughly enjoy that. So after all of that, I came back home, ate some supper and then hit the gym to work on my fitness. While here, there was unfortunately no entertaining old woman salsa class (sad face), but there did happen to be a very high paced aerobic/boxing/not sure what it was class, also filled with older woman. This was not as fun to watch, but still slightly entertaining and probably about 98% of the people attending the class could not keep up whatsoever. After watching a few minutes of that I finished my Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which I realized, as well as being really really good, it was really really odd. I am kind of shocked that children are allowed to watch it! The one part where they take the boat on the chocolate river, through the tunnel, WEIRD! There are all of these like flashing lights and pictures of insects and Willy Wonka is just going buck wild like he's on drugs or something. If I watched that as a small child, I would be scared and probably have nightmares! What the heck. Anyway, I did enjoy it. One thing though, while in the process of being on the treadmill and watching my movie, there was a girl, probably about my age, maybe a year or two younger, on a treadmill behind me and a few to the right. Now that you know her position, which is totally not relevant at all, I will tell you what she was doing. First off, she was running on this treadmill, normal human activity to be participating in while at the gymnasium. Second, now this is the part that wanted me to rip my eyes out and throw them at her, she was running with the heaviest feet I have ever friggin heard in my friggin life! I swear it was like not one, but TWO huge, large, big elephants running on this treadmill. It was so loud you could probably hear it from outside of the gym walls. FLIP. Talk about annoying/hi you are interrupting me and everyone else here with your loud flippin feet, could you please pretend that you are walking on clouds or you have feathers for feet or something? CAN YOU NOT HEAR YOURSELF RUNNING?! Like what the heck. If that was me I would be just a tad bit embarrassed..OH WAIT I would never run with that loud of a sound! Gosh. Anyway, so I kept looking back at her, trying to give her the "Umm excuse me could you please not run with this loud of a noise"/"HI YOU ARE BEING REALLY FLIPPIN LOUD AND ITS NOT SO GREAT" kind of look, but she never noticed, not once! I looked at her multiple times and so did many other members of the gym! Geesh girl, figure it out! So that was just fun and lovely times, and now I am back at my apartment, typing up my day and about to hit the hay (that rhymed if you didn't notice..). Some things I forgot to mention:

1. I actually talked to my one roommate that always sits in her room with her headphones in! The one that is 16 and stays in the apartment 24/7 unless she has a casting or a job. We both had the same casting so we went together, which means some conversation must occur otherwise that would make for a slightly awkward situation. So we chatted a little, not a whole bunch, but more than we have since I got here. It was quite dandy. I asked her when she was here until, she said "I don't remember...2 months", so I said oh so your staying until october, and she says uhmmm yes. I said what day do you leave? And she said September 13.. Sooo as you can see there is a slight communication error here, I think it is a tad difficult for her to understand english/what is really being said.

2. I met a girl from the Ukraine today, her name is Valerie, she is also with my agency. She was quite nice. We had to go to a casting together, so we chatted quite a bit. She was a nice human, I did really enjoy her! She will be here for awhile I think, I don't think she really has a set time on when she is leaving, so maybe I will see more of her in the future days!

So this week has been pretty much boooooooring! I have done pretty much nothing, whoopeeeee. But yesterday happened to be my 18th birthday, wooohoooo!! So I woke up, ate etc etc, hit the gym to work on my fitness, where I started on the treadmill and while doing that, watched this salsa or dance class take place in the area behind me. It was mostly older ladies taking the class and it was hilarious! Most of them had zero idea of what the heck they were doing, so it was quite entertaining, I was trying not to laugh! After watching about 15 minutes of that, I watched some of the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie on my phone, IT ROCKS! The original is so flippin good! I will watch the rest of it today when I go to the gym later! Oh also should I mention, I witnessed this one older woman wearing a fluorescent pink and green workout outfit... it was extremely flared bell bottomed spandex pants and a sports bra, may I also mention here that she did not have a hot bod, so the sports bra should have been underneath a shirt of some sort... After the gym I went and got a manicure and pedicure, that was quite lovely. Not the same as back home, but it wasn't to bad! I came home for a bit and rested before the big supper event. We went to a Russian restaurant called Balalaika, I think thats how it is spelled. It was pretty cool! Nothing to fancy, but the decorations were cool and stuff. There were also this guy and girl that were dressed up russian like and they sang and made music while everyone ate. They didn't look very enthused, but they kept playing anyway. At supper was me, Joe, Judy, Andy, Yumee, Eric and Lillian I think her name is? I don't remember! So they ordered the food, and we just shared all the dishes, it was quite delish! I did enjoy it. After we ate we went into the freezer! It was a vodka freezer or something where people go in and they drink ice cold vodka and hang out. We just went in there for kicks and to take pictures! We wore large fur coats, it was -20 in there, so pretty much just like winter back home! After all the pictures and that shenanigans, they brought me my cake! Yumee picked it out, they had bought it somewhere else and brought it to the restaurant, it was a chocolate cake, with blueberries too. IT WAS SOOOOOO GOOOOD! I pretty much licked my plate clean! I also received a few gifts, a bracelet from Andy and Yumee and perfume from Lillian. Earlier on this month I was shopping with Judy and she had bought me the Dr. Martens I had wanted as my birthday present from her and Joe! After all of the restaurant events we walked around this area full of tourists and bars and then went to this one lounge thing and had a drink. Wasn't to wild of an 18th birthday, but I had to be up early this morning to go to the agency and do a casting to send to Bangkok. It definitely wasn't the same as being at home, but it was still good and way better than having to spend it by myself, which is what I thought I was going to have to do! Also, before I end this blog here, I have a few things to mention that I witnessed yesterday:

1. A fire truck stopped at a red light and let the pedestrians walk... His lights were flashing and stuff, so I stopped to let him go, but all of the people just continued walking, so I also went. But I thought this was sort of odd?

2. A lady had her dog in a stroller... she was pushing him around like he was a child, oh and there was no child in the stroller, it was just for the dog. Whens the last time you seen a dog in one of those?

So, today started off by waking up and eating, as per usual. Talked to mom for a bit and then had a little chat with Dan. Got ready and then headed over to the Hong Kong Coliseum to watch volleyball! I got there pretty early and took pictures, it was soooo cool! I was so excited, obviously! I took about 500 pictures and 30 videos.. I drained the battery in both my phone and my camera by the time I left the place! The first game was at 1:15, Germany vs. Thailand. It was actually a pretty good game. I thought that Germany would win, but they fell apart by about set 3 and Thailand took it. When Germany started to fall apart, their coach went wild, so that probably didn't help to much. I didn't take to many pictures of that game, I was waiting for the USA vs. China game, that would be the really good one. So that game started at 3:45 I think and thats when the coliseum was packed, no seats empty. China is like 2.5 seconds away, so what do you expect! So first off, the woman sitting next to me was about 70-80 years old, and the whole time she sounded like she was going to cough up a lung, for real. It was a really gross, super phlegmy cough, I didn't enjoy it to much.. Second, the guy on the other side of me was probably in his 50s and he made a sound effect to every little thing that happened. "OOOOHHHH", and "AHHHHH" or some yelling of chinese words, or even just talking chinese words, but he was by himself so I'm not exactly sure who he was saying them to.. Anyway, so I not only got the entertainment of watching this game, but I got some from the humans sitting around me, it was like two shows for the price of one! NOT. The game started, it was wild, US is good, I was enjoying it quite a bit. US won the first 2 sets, 25-20 and 25-10. So the third set was do or die for China. HOLY MAN DID THE CROWD GO WILD. It was unreal, you have no idea. Every point that China would get or pretty much anything they did, pass, set hit, whatever they did, the crowd would make some type of noise, and loud. They would all "OOOH" or gasp or some type of sound effect. It was crazy! I have never heard a crowd cheer like this before, it was cool to be in! So the crowd is just going crazy, and this really helped China out, US fell apart sightly and then China took the set 25-22. The crowd definitely enjoyed that. I just can't even explain the extent to which everyone was into this game, it was amazing. So the fourth set started and the crowd was just full force into this game and were going crazy for every little thing that happened. When the ref made a bad call, the crowd made sure to let him know. The whole coliseum was booing, loudly may I mention, talk about the ref thinking twice next time.. ;) This set was a close one, quite intense I must say. But in the end the US won 25-22. The crowd was nuts! I took many videos, theres no way I'd forget it, but just so everyone else can see! They gave out player awards after, #19 from the US, Destinee Hooker got 3 of the 7 awards, best scorer, best blocker and MVP. She was alright I guess.. JUST KIDDING, she was soooo good! I got quite a few pictures of her, she was set lots, obviously. But yea, she was just real great. I left the place at around 6:30pm by the time all the awards and such were done. After that I got something to eat then got some groceries and came home! It was quite an eventful day, I thoroughly enjoyed it! Oh and another thing I forgot to mention. Each team had their own cheering section of students from different schools cheering for them. Each corner of the coliseum was designated to a different group of students. Each group had costumes and signs and different cheers, it was pretty cool! All in all, this was BEST TIME EVER!

Okay so this week was so so so slow, I had barely any castings, so I did pretty much nothing all week, which means nothing interesting and/or exciting happened. The usual eat, sleep, workout, walk around, etc etc is what my days were filled with. I do however have some interesting points to throw out there:

1. Rubber boots are a huge fashion here, people wear them as normal shoes and there are shoe stores that sell only rubber boots!

2. I almost got ran over by a bike yesterday, I was crossing the road at a crosswalk, when the walking sign was on and this bike came the direction of the vehicles and just flew by, almost taking me out. I put my hand out and almost knocked him over.. if he fell it would of been his fault, he shouldn't have been going against all the walking people!

3. Last night for supper we went to a seafood restaurant. There was a pregnant lady there and she was eating fish and seafood. I thought pregnant people were supposed to eat that?

4. Joe and Andy took me to this big computer fair that comes every year for a week or something. It was flippin huuuuuge! Like large building/hall/event center thing and it was just filled with endless booths that were selling usb keys, tv's, computers, printers, ink, cell phones. Pretty much anything to do with technology was there. Ooh and while we were there, we saw this fake imitation iPhone 4, it looked almost identical to the real thing, it was so weird. They have lots of that here, like imitation technologies. They had ones for iPods as well as iPads, those ones were called "iRobot". Also while we were there, I seen a pair of headphones that were about $500 canadian! What the heck!

5. I discovered that the pop cream soda here is not pink in color. It is the color of ginger ale with a slight green color, but not to much. It is not as dark as ginger ale, a bit lighter. The can it comes in is green and silver, just like a ginger ale one too! It was weird because I tried it and I was expecting a different taste, something like ginger ale, but it tasted exactly the same as cream soda does at home!

6. I am shocked at how people survive in the weather here. It is so flippin hot all the time! I wear shorts and a tank top and I am just dying, but then I see people everywhere wearing jeans or pants and a long sleeve and they don't even seem to be phased by it! It is crazy! You think you would look at them and they would be sweating like on their face and stuff, but nope. Just normal, as if its not hot out at all!

7. What ladies wear to the gym is hilarious. Many of them have these spandex pants, but like bell bottoms to the max. Its tight as normal spandex pants are around the thighs, but then at the knees it flares out lots, like for real bell bottoms. They also get like really bright colored things and matching tops and bottoms as well.

8. That is all for today, tomorrow is the day I go to watch the FIVB World Grand Prix!!!! Yaaaaay!!! :)

Today was another boring day, to bad so sad. My day consisted of:

1. Going to the agency to do a casting for a washing machine commercial to send to Bangkok. I didn't have the props (laundry basket, washing machine, fridge etc) so I had to pretend with air, slightly weird.

2. Purchasing a towel and a face cloth, blue in color to be exact.

3. Going to a re-cast type thing for a camera commercial and print ad.

4. Getting hit multiple times on the street by passing by humans. Not like hit as in punch or slap, hit as in we are walking opposite directions and their shoulder/arm hit mine and almost threw me across the sidewalk.

5. Playing monopoly on my phone.

6. Feeling ill from the thick air outside. I realized that here, the term "fresh air" refers to inside the building, not outside. At home, outside is fresh air, but here outside is thick, humid, bus exhaust, smoker air. Joy joy.

7. Making a salad which I put to much dressing on, so it made the lettuce soggy and the salad as a whole suck.

8. Buying the magazine that has the pages with my first job in it!

9. Seeing many weirdly dressed humans, many weird haircuts.

10. A new addition to the hex ladies.. there are 4 now, there used to only be 3!

11. Wondering how the heck girls here walk in heels 24/7. I walk in mine for a solid 10 and my feet hurt, they walk in theirs all day, and they walk everywhere. Maybe they just can't feel their feet anymore so thats why it doesn't phase them.

12. Feeling sorry for the men that have to wear full suits. I wear shorts and a tank top and sweat profusely, I can't imagine pants, a dress shirt AND a jacket. Geez

13. Refer to number 12, but change business man to police officer, dark pants, belt with weapons attached, thick shirt, hat. Not fun

14. There was another one but now I don't remember, so I'll leave it at that and if I remember soon I'll add it on

Yesterday wasn't that interesting as I was so so tired, didn't have a very good sleep. My day consisted of nothing until about 7:30, then I had to go meet an agent that is here from Tokyo. I got to the place and I wasn't given a room or floor number, so before I just assumed that it was just a one roomed place, like a store or something. But I got there and there was another model waiting there from the same agency that I am with. She had already been there for half an hour and the security guard doing the reception stuff didn't know who we were looking for. So we pretty much didn't know what to do, as it was both of our mother agents (agents from back home) that sent us to meet his agent from Tokyo. Finally the security guard found the guys name and we went up to the room, it was a hotel. We did our casting, didn't take very long and then left. After that I came back to the apartment and did nothing. What an exciting day huh? But I do have some interesting points:

1. I was on the mtr, the train, to go to the place where the agent in Tokyo was, and this lady was holding onto the pole and her nails were soooo long!! Especially her thumb, it was kind of gross.. haha. All of her nails were uneven, probably because they got long, then broke off at random times..

2. At the casting I had to fill out this sheet saying my mother agency, my name, blah blah blah, and it asked me for my "real age"...as opposed to my fake one?

3. I have seen a few more look alikes.. Its really weird seeing these people, because when I spot them, all I can do is stare, first to figure out who it is that it looks like and second because its like "Oh my gosh, its the asian version of (insert whoevers name)"

4. My iPhone is just delightful, I thoroughly enjoy it

5. Castings are going slowly this past week, hopefully it'll pick up soon

6. My one roommate eats McDonalds pretty much everyday and is still really really skinny, WHAT THE HECK?! Also just to throw in there, she doesn't go to the gym, neither of them do I don't think. Ummmm if I ate McDonalds everyday and didn't work out, I would get large quick. Even if I did go to the gym and ate it everyday I'd still probably get large fast! Talk about unfair!

7. Another thing on the food palate for my roommates: chocolate. All the time. Chocolate bar wrappers on the table and in the garbage everyday, maybe more than once in a day. Hi, can I please eat like this and still be as thin as them? Where does it all go?! And no, I don't think they have eating disorders, because neither of them go to the bathroom to puke or anything after they eat, I would be able to hear if they did too.

8. It's really loud here. Any type of motorized vehicle feels they need to honk all the time. If the light turns green, lets honk, even if the person in front is going already. If there is a pedestrian, when the walking light is flashing (so pedestrians are still able to go at this point), lets honk, because thats a great idea. They just lay on their horns too, not just a quick one honk, its a I'm going to literally lay on my horn and never get off. Like relax people!

9. Number 8 brings me to my next point, they seem to be impatient because of this whole get going hurry up on the road thing, but walking, MAN ARE THEY SLOW. These people walk at the slowest pace you have ever seen. It is unbelievable. They are slower than the oldest turtles in the world, walking through peanut butter,  my gosh. It's the worst when your in a rush, but everyone infront of you is walking at -10 km/h. You really have to learn to weave your way through the sea of people!

10. I don't have a 10th one, so I will leave it at that.

Okay so I didn't blog yesterday because I was to tired by the time I got home, so I will do yesterdays and todays as well. So yesterday I met up with Judy, Andy and Yumee to go to the Big Buddha. We took the mtr all the way to the one station, which was on one end of Hong Kong, then we went and lined up for the Crystal Cable car. My goodness there were a lot of people! You know when you go to the airport or something and you line up to go through security and they have those rope things and its like winding rows? Yea well there were 3 long long long ones full of people waiting to go on the cable car. We waited for about an hour before we even got to the desk to buy our tickets! So we eventually got on the cable car and the floor was glass and so were the sides, it was so cool! It was like we were just floating around. You could see everything below you and all that jazz, it was really cool. The ride took about 25 minutes and then we were up at Ngong Ping village, which is just an area with restaurants and souvenir shops before you get to the area with the temple and the buddha. We walked through there, ate Subway and then made our way to the buddha. The day started off not that hot, but of course by the time we get to go climb the 268 stairs it just heated right up! I was dying by the time I got to the top! Imagine, 268 stairs plus 30 some degree weather, plus humidity! Talk about workout and a half! It didn't take that long to get to the top surprisingly. Maybe 15 minutes? But my perception of time is not that good, so maybe longer. We got to the top, walked around and took many pictures. After that we walked down, then went over to the temple. It was just like any other temple you see anywhere else in an asian country, nothing to special. We took a rest there, as we were all really hot and tired. After we finished there, Yumee and Andy went back home and Judy took me to this place called Tai O. It is an older community that used to be a big fishing area, but now the fishing industry has declined in Hong Kong, so there is not much there anymore. Mainly older people live there because there is nothing to do there, so all of the kids move away to work or go to school. In Tai O, everyone used to live in boats and such, as they were fishing all of the time, but now that they don't anymore, they have built their houses in the water, held up by bamboo sticks. They don't like to live on the land, so they built their houses in the water. The houses were first of all the most basic houses ever, nothing fancy at all. Second, they were pretty much all falling apart and very very old. I would not be able to live in them, I would be scared that they would fall apart on me! So we walked through this place, and there were vendors everywhere selling fish, fish skin, fish stomach, everything to do with a fish pretty much. There was even a shark skin hanging there, it was crazy! I will post some pictures below when I am finished writing. After Tai O, we went to Mong Kok to meet Joe for supper. We went to this Japanese noodle place in a mall called Langham place, something like that. In this mall, there was the largest escalator I have ever seen in my life! It was huge! It took you from ground floor to the 5th floor or something like that, it was so crazy! We went all the way to the top, which was the 13th floor and there was this area where you could go and look down at the mall. There was glass there so you couldn't fall over the edge, but I couldn't go up to the glass because I was way way to scared! I had to hold onto the railing by the stairs and just peek over! We walked through the mall a bit and then headed home, we were all so tired! That was pretty much the day yesterday, it was quite filled and lots of fun!
Today, I went for Dim Sum with Joe and Judy, it was quite tasty, I did enjoy it. Then after that they had to go to the Bank of China, it was the headquarters I believe, and take some stuff to the safety deposit vault. I went with them, this place was soooo big! Every piece used to build the bank was brought from China, let me tell you that was a lot of building material! We went down to the vault and I wasn't allowed to go in, but I sat in the chair and looked through the glass, it was pretty cool. It is really high security in this bank so you had to get a visitor pass and everything. After that we went to the HSBC one and that was also cool, very architectural and such. These buildings are quite famous apparently. The HSBC building can be taken apart piece by piece and built up exactly the same somewhere else. There were also these large gates that come down if there is ever a typhoon. After that adventure Joe had to go to work and Judy took me to get a tourist visa for China, they are going to take me into Guangzhou one day to see what China is like, I guess its quite different from here. They actually eat dog, cat and snake there, for real. They eat pretty much anything Joe told me. So we are going to go there and venture around sometime. After the visa, I went home and took a nap, man I was really tired today, I was barely functioning at all. Judy took me a few nights ago to get this chinese herbal tea, it is supposed to help you sleep. It worked really well, so she took me to get some again today, and when I got back I passed right out for about 2 and a half hours, felt good to take a rest. But I am still really tired! All of the not really sleeping sleeps are catching up to me. That pretty much concludes yesterday and today, pictures will follow..

Today I actually half slept in! I woke up at about 8 and then fell back asleep, but woke up every hour until 10 ish. I felt good after I woke up, I wasn't groggy and tired like I usually am. So I got up, really anxious to go purchase my iPhone! I talked with my mom for a bit on skype, then went and had lunch with Joe and Judy, then Judy took me to go get my phone at around 2pm. BEST TIME EVER! I love it! It's flippin sweet! We went to this electronics mall thing and I got a few cases for it and some screen protectors, so it won't get scratched or anything. I have already started downloading apps and all that fun stuff as well! I pretty much played with it all day, I feel like its not actually mine, that I'm just using someone else's or something! But I do thoroughly enjoy it! So after the phone and accessories purchase, then all of the downloading, me and Judy went to a couple of stores by Joe's work to look around. Then we went for supper at this local chinese restaurant, it was quite good. The place wasn't so nice and you would probably never go there by choice if you didn't live there, but the food was good! After supper we walked around the area for a bit and then now I'm home! That pretty much sums up my day, nothing to interesting, either than the fact that my iPhone = love, but thats about it. As usual, I have some interesting points:

1. Walked by the hex ladies today, they were really hard at work, one lady at 3 people at her station and the other 5! Now the one with 5 at hers, whoever they are hating is really in for a ride.. But I wonder if it actually works, I know that sounds weird of me to even think so, but I mean, how weird would it be if it did?!

2. I saw another asian hooker. These girls are seriously not what you expect a hooker to look like. I mean, she was probably mid to late 30s or early 40s, had to be. And she was literally standing on a corner (possibly her corner, but who knows..) and I watched her try to pick up this foreign guy. She got rejected, no surprise there. But it was actually quite entertaining to watch this.

3. Tomorrow is the Big Buddha and crystal cable car day! 268 stairs here we come...

4. After supper we went to this one mall and there was this store with all of these prank toys and such, so there was this one where it was a package of gum, and I expected it to just be a fool "ha ha, the gum is stuck you can't get it out", so I tried, pulled the one piece and BAM, a shock went through my body. Let me tell you that was NOT fun. It seriously went right from the one hand all the way through to the other. I did not enjoy that to much

5. There are sirens here 24/7. They are always going off. What the heck are people doing that there is always a flippin fire?

Well, that's all I have for today, tomorrow should be a little more interesting

Unfortunately today started at an early 6:45 am, not by choice, once again. I wasn't planning on getting up until 8, but lucky me I woke up at 6:45 and couldn't fall back asleep. So I got up, ate breakfast sat around for awhile, then got ready. I ended up being at my job about 20 minutes early, I didn't know exactly how long it would take me to get there so I showed up early. I was practically falling asleep as the lady was doing my makeup! There were two racks full of outfits for me to shoot, hence the 8 hour job. It was a fun shoot, started going good then in the middle I thought it was an epic fail and then by the end I felt like it was going good again, so hopefully the pictures turn out just dandy. After the job I had a casting for a bridal shoot, so I made my way over there. I think it went pretty good, the lady seemed to like me, and she told me that she would call my agency next week, so I am not sure if that means I got the job or if that means they are still making a decision?! Anyway so after that I went back to the apartment then went out for supper with Joe, Andy and Joe's friend. Judy was out with some friends so she met us after. Right now I am DEAD. Like unbelievably tired, but unfortunately this probably still means I won't sleep that great. Maybe wake up really early again tomorrow? I feel like that would be just a joy! Thats about all I have to write for now, as I am 75% asleep, minus a few fun points I shall throw in:

1. Tomorrow I will be the proud owner of a brand new iPhone 4 :D

2. It was really really really hot today, I was outside for approximately 5 minutes and was sweating like I had just ran a marathon. This was at about 7:30pm may I mention, nighttime is supposed to be cooler, not as hot as during the day!

3. The hex ladies were hard at work again today!

4. My feet are just blister central after the shoot today. For real though, I have them on the back of my heels/Achilles, my toes, my instep or whatever its called. Its really not that much fun.

5. Thats all I have for now, I am to tired to think of anything witty or anything else that may have occurred to me today, so if I happen to come upon something that I forgot, I will add it tomorrow!

So today started with an early 8:30 am, as I had a call time for my Nikon job at 11, but the studio is about 45 minutes away. I had to shower and get ready and all that jazz before I went, plus I don't have a blow dryer so I had to get up extra early so my hair would be dry by the time I got there. So I made my way over to the studio, it was the same place where I did my test shoot a few days ago, so me and all the people that work there are pretty much best friends by now! Just kidding, but seriously, everyone just knows me by name now, I don't know all of theirs because there are like 15 of them, and I'm not THAT good with names. So the shoot was 4 hours, I pretty much had to stay in the same position for the whole time, with the occasional slight bit of a turn in the head or just small adjustments like that, but my body stayed the same the whole time. Talk about getting a tad stiff after about the first hour! They had the one pose they wanted, it wasn't just a free do whatever you want shoot, it was a this is what we want, so thats all your going to do. How fun! My hair was to the side, and the hair stylist kept fixing it, so I decided to stop moving my neck so it wouldn't wreck so easily. After 4 hours of not moving your neck, and moving your whole body when you want to turn to look at something, your neck/shoulders start to harden into place pretty much! Lets just say it was a good shoot, we got lots of good shots said the photographer, the clients were pleased, but I left a very sore human! After that I went over to the agency and picked up my job voucher for tomorrows catalogue job and then headed back to the apartment. I hung out there for a bit, then went and roamed the streets of Hong Kong. After that I stopped by Joe's work for a bit, where we discussed the iPhone 4. He was on a waiting list for one and it finally came in, so he went to go pick it up after he was done work. The iPhones are in such demand here that not just anyone off the street can go into a provider and buy one, they will only put people on the waiting list that are already members, like long term contracted people. So if i wanted to get an iPhone, I thought I would have to go through Apple and then wait my 3-4 weeks to get it. But this isn't the case! Judy has a friend that is a higher up person working for Apple, and each customer can get 2 each, so Judy got her friend to set one aside for me!! Which means I don't have to wait 3-4 weeks, I only have to wait 2 days, aka I'm getting it on Saturday!!!! YAY! I am sooooo excited!! Let me just inform you of what this means:

1. I can contact people back home now, for real this time.
2. Anywhere I go in the world, it will work and I can still continue to contact people back home.
3. I can play sweet games on it.
4. The gym will no longer feel like a lifetime to get through, as I can watch movies etc on my phone.
5. I'M SO EXCITED! :D

Anyway, so as you can see I can hardly wait for Saturday to get here! Hopefully it will go by fast as I have a job all day tomorrow (a whopping 8 hour shoot), then we can go pick it up anytime after 11! So Judy said she would meet me at my apartment and we would go! YAAAAYYY!!! Saturday I have nothing planned yet, but then Sunday Judy is going to take me to the Big Buddha, which I think is the largest in the world, but I am not exactly sure. We are going to take the crystal cable car up to the Big Buddha. It is glass all around, the floor the walls, everything! I'll probably crap my pants because I'm afraid of heights, but it will be so cool! Also, to get up to the Big Buddha is 268 steps...talk about getting my exercise on! But it should be a fun day. That is about all the exciting news I have for now!

Alright, so the day started off with me having a very interrupted sleep aka I woke up 30000000 times before I really wanted to get up. So after I for real woke up, I made breakfast and the morning ritual stuff, then talked to my mom on Skype for a bit. After that, I made my way to the agency to pick up the voucher for my Nikon job tomorrow :D On my way back, it started to pour, I had my umbrella but I still got wet! I was going to go walking around and shop and such, but since it was raining pretty hard that changed my plans. I went back to the apartment and chilled for awhile, got my exercise on, got ready and then went over to Joe's work. Judy bought him an iMac for his birthday, I think it was for his birthday anyway, and it came in today, so I went to go check it out! It is soooo nice, so new and just delightful to look at. So I hung out there for a bit, then we ordered in supper and walked around for awhile and now Im home, gotta be up early tomorrow for the big day! A few interesting sightings:

1. Two people stationed at one of the Hex lady's areas, at this point in the hexing process, something was being burned. I wanted to stay and watch but didn't want the bad spirits to follow me or anything bad to be put upon me...

2. I don't think I have ever seen an ugly baby in my entire life, until I came here. MY GOD. No offence, but this child was just so unfortunate looking I can't even describe in words. It was also crying at the time, so the distortion in the face from the crying situation did not help at all. I was chillin on the mtr and was looking around and BAM, I saw her. I just couldn't stop staring, but then the mom saw me looking so I had to try to stop. It was almost like what the grinch looked like when he was a baby, in the movie, but like black and asian mixed or something. It was just weird, thats all i can say.

3. Another accented asian! They are just popping up everywhere these days! Today this one was really really heavily accented english, it was just wild.

4. Many white people, I saw many tourists today, more than I've seen since I've been here. (this point isn't that interesting, but I thought I'd throw it in just for kicks)

This one isn't a sighting, but an occurrence. So I'm just chillin in my apartment after coming home from the agency and the door bell to the apartment rings and no one ever comes here, so I was instantly like OH CRAP IM GONNA DIE. So I go over to the door, look through the peep hole thinger and it was a girl, through the whole she looked harmless, so I opened the door. Im going to assume about 2.5 seconds after I opened the door, my heart was pounding so hard she could hear it. I was freakin out. First of all, she had bags under her eyes, these kind of bags were the ones where you look at the person and they just slightly give you the shivers. Second of all she was russian and I have never seen here before. Ummmm please don't kill me. So she is asking for one of my roomates, who happened not to be home at the moment, she was out at a casting, so she asked if she could come in and wait for her. I didn't want to be rude, so I said yes, but I was like FLIP MY LIFE IS GOING TO END RIGHT NOW. I was seriously afraid. How would you feel if a random russian woman entered your place of living? Anyway, turns out she was another model from Shanghai (she did not appear to be model like at all) and had to come here to get her visa. She isn't able to pick it up until tomorrow, so her agent contacted Yulia and now this girl is staying here over night. But man did it make me nervous for a small amount of time.