The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

I LOVE Christmas! Today is our school’s Christmas party and December/January birthday celebration rolled into one! It is hectic and chaotic around the kindergarten. My main responsibility today is to jump in to all the class pictures in front of the Christmas tree at school, so I am trying to stay out of the way and am taking the free time to give you the play-by-play of my week!

Last night our boss hosted a Christmas dinner for all the teachers in the company. She rented out a banquet room and the commercial kitchen in the clubhouse at our apartment complex. (Remember our Metro Harbour View complex houses around ten thousand residents!) Maggie, her husband Sash, and her precious domestic helper from Indonesia, Thia, bought and prepared an enormous traditional Western Christmas dinner for us-- turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, veggies, rice with shrimp and calamari, beef, ox tail soup, and this amazing spinach and salmon in flaky pastry. Tiramisu and creme brulee for dessert and smoked salmon appetizers. I do realize I always blog about the food...)

Anyways, the facilities are top notch. The kitchen has four ovens, a luxury I haven't seen in four plus months. So I brought cookie mix and eggs and butter to bake Christmas treats for the staff at school. Thia was in the kitchen working the whole time, so when I dipped in there to bake, she helped me out. I guess if you have ever tried my cooking, you know I didn't inherit my mom's genes in that regard... I didn't know the Celsius conversion from Fahrenheit, and failed to notice a stick of butter at home is probably equal to three here. Needless to say, I burned the cookies, which were really just pools of butter anyways. Thia looked in the oven and we burst out laughing-- even with the language barrier, she knew I messed up something so simple.

The teachers did a Secret Santa gift exchange and I got some fab new bedroom slippers with a lion's head on them. Perfect for this cold spell which has come over the city. There is no heating system here or insulated walls because of the subtropical climate, but we recently bought space heaters to try and warm up the cold mornings. Maggie presented us with gift baskets of all kinds of Christmas goodies-- perfume, aromatherapy oil and burner, wine and candles. Afterwards friends came over to our flat for a bit so we could all hang out with Toby, Liza's New Zealander boyfriend who is in town this week.

This morning my voice is shot from singing "Deck the Halls" all week. I am so hoarse but had to call Laura Lee and wish her a happy birthday! She is visiting our friend Molly (who is interning with Jodi Arnold!) in New York City, and within three hours of landing, she tells me she met Chace Crawford while visiting the set of Gossip Girl, filming right near Molly's apartment. How cool. Then she tells me she has also seen Jude Law, Hugh Grant, Anderson Cooper, Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos.... I am a teensy bit jealous! Did I mention the diamond earrings and cashmere the audience at "Live with Regis and Kelly" was given? What a cool birthday week! Happy happy birthday to my mom today as well (she's turning 38, I think), and happy anniversary to Steve and Nancy!

Got to school this morning with time to spare-- feeling great because it's a dress down day-- so I treated myself to Starbucks hot tea for my throat and could not resist the new hazelnut and chocolate muffin in the display case. Try it and order it warmed up-- it got my day off to a great start! Everyone here is in a festive mood and happy spirits! I am receiving Christmas gifts from teachers and cards from the kids! It is very weird to not be decorating my tree at home, or selling Lilly ornaments, or sneaking Grandmommy's cheese pennies, but the day after tomorrow, Tripp and I start our journey home for the holidays! Thanks to his aunt and uncle Doug and Betsy, we are hoping to depart on Sunday via United!! Can hardly wait!

Before we leave, we have a very important stop to make! You are going to be green with envy when I tell you this: A parent at Tripp's school for Christmas gave him their employee pass to their company overstock warehouse literally one MTR station away from my work. What do they stock? Ralph Lauren and the North Face product. The real deal. Wholesale. Not open to the public. AHH! I will report back more details later. I am racing out of work today to see if there is anything you or I can't live without! Wish me luck!

Thai Flushes and Hot Pots

Just another day at the office! Today instead of bringing my lunch, I had a traditional hot pot meal. I have seen these restaurants around the city with round tables and a pot of boiling food in the center. Liza has been twice to one of these dinners and says you pick out all kinds of different meats and cook them at the table. It is a social event as well as a meal and generally happens in the winter. Since we were at school, the teachers tossed bean sprouts, cilantro, lettuce and greens, carrots, corn on the cob, sausage, fish balls, and all kinds of strange meat filled dumplings to the boiling pot we plugged into an outlet in the classroom where we eat lunch. They know I tend to not go for the meat, so they were piling my bowl with the veggies. Can you imagine trying to eat chunks of corn on the cob with chopsticks?! I guess you could roughly compare it to having a Low Country Boil food around a table, the way you would have fondue. The local teachers L-O-V-E hot pot, and it was a lot of fun joining in with their enthusiasm.


An experience I had today you might find interesting was my encounter with a “Thai flush”. I went to the restroom (which here is referred to only as “toilet” or “water closet”) and found nothing happened when I pushed the flush lever. Turns out the large bucket and exposed water spigot in the stall are there for such occasions as this. Just fill it up and pour it in!


On the subject of toilets—Tripp and I headed to do Christmas shopping in the mainland this past weekend (if you think Harbison after Thanksgiving is crowded… just wait till I get you to Shenzhen with the Christmas frenzy added onto the already chaotic atmosphere!) and there were no public toilets. At least not the kind you are used to. We headed to the old reliable golden arches of McDonald’s to use theirs, and the look on his face after he came out of the restroom could only mean one thing—squatties! These ceramic holes in the floor still gross me out—yet another luxury at home I took for granted!

Floating Sunday Brunch

Sunday I joined the ranks of Queen Elizabeth II, John Wayne, and Tom Cruise, by dining where they all have visited-- Jumbo Kingdom in Aberdeen Harbour! Tracy and Becca's birthdays were last week, so we had a celebratory champagne brunch on the top deck of the floating restaurant. We had a huge table outside overlooking the little sampan ferry boats that bring you across the water to the restaurant. The weather was perfect-- I had to run back upstairs and change to a lighter dress and grab my sunglasses! You never would know it's mid-December here!

The food was served American buffet style, all you can eat. I will venture to guess I got my money's worth. After "No-Frills" generic brand oatmeal and noodles being my weekday staples, the amazing array of Western food was mindboggling. I am talking sushi, salad bar, veggies, any kind of fish or meat you can imagine, an entire dessert bar (including a crepe station and gourmet ice cream)!

photos from Chi Lin Nunnery

Chi Lin Nunnery

Dec. 8th -
In Hong Kong, there is always something new to discover. And so... Located at the midpoint of our daily MTR commute , lies Diamond Hill station. After school on a random day, we decided to meet and grab dinner, as well as make some new discoveries. Sara Beth heard that there was a nunnery and public park located at Diamond Hill that could serve a nice retreat from hustle of the city.
We had no idea that what we would find would be an 80 year old nunnery sitting on some of the most beautiful land in Hong Kong. The Chi Lin Nunnery was founded by Wai Um, in 1934, and is located very close to Diamond Hill MTR station in the Wong tai Sin district of Kowloon. For us this means that this urban oasis is only 20 minutes from the house.
What really got me was that the landscape was absolutely immaculate, and the traditional architecture was beautifully contrasted by the surrounding skyscrapers. Also, Since the early 1900's, no major design changes have occurred on the grounds of the nunnery. Therefore, as the surrounding city grows, this place stands as a testament to the way things must have been.
anyway, above this post there ought to be a few photos.

Hey now... whats a blog without a few photos. Heres a couple of SB mix'n it up with our distant relatives.

Monkey Mountain

Ok well, ive been beyond lazy here lately and have not been good about the blog. So let me make up some lost ground. Last weekend we headed off for Monkey Mountain. This area is located in Shatin, about 30 minutes from our house. The mountain’s real name is Kam Shan, but its new found stardom lead to a name change. It’s a beautiful zoo, where we were able to view all sorts of monkeys, and a variety of species. NOT. Let me assure you that Monkey Mountain, is as wild as it gets. The place is completely ridiculous. Its a more secluded, lesser developed area, that is great for the occasional hike. This is what draws the monkeys to the area. . . tourists. The trail itself follows the edge of the Kowloon Reservoir, which alone can draw a nice size crowd. As you can expect, a great way to pass time is to feed these cute little creatures. As time passed, over feeding has lead to a boom in population, and now there are literally monkeys, swinging all over the place.

It has been scientifically confirmed, that Hong Kong has NO native species of monkey. Where did they all come from…. Escaped pets, which have over multiplied and now dominate this area of Hong Kong. You are asked by large red lettered posters NOT to feed the animals. I got the impression that someone told all the tourists that the monkeys were starving, bc everyone brought loads fruit to feed them. The posters don't seem to help though, as cars just park in-front of them, and whole families joined in providing a feast to the one-time Pets.

The irony in the place is that those signs which the families have so kindly blocked, clearly state that monkey feeding has resulted in numerous severe monkey attacks. Thankfully, the tourists we watched were prepared for this and armed themselves with sticks to beat off the ‘too-close-for-comfort’ monkey.

In the end, we managed to escape, though we did utilize some tree branches of our own at one point. 30 minutes later I was back in the middle of downtown HK. I mean seriously come on…. Wild monkeys 30 minutes from my house… you cant even make this stuff up, and sadly; it doesn’t even surprise me anymore.

Until next time…

haircut

Hey friends!

Just FYI-- you might not recognize me when I jump off our flight coming home Christmas! Last Wednesday I impulsively jumped on a bus that took me to one of the most populated areas in the world and walked into a local salon. I pointed to a picture of a haircut in a magazine and the guy went to town. Three hours later I was walking out with an extremely different look than the one I picked out! My hair is super short in the back and longer in the front. Everyone knows I love to throw my hair back; there is no chance of anything resembling a ponytail these days. (Today I was running late and you have never seen such a hilarious case of bedhead!) I was at the salon past 10:30pm and by that point, I was their only customer. Every stylist hung around and all came by to touch my hair. My neighbor Phyllis recommended the place, and she laughed and said I was likely the first Westerner to come in to the place. They couldn't believe how dry my hair was compared to the Chinese hair, and one guy kept touching it and saying "so many hairs! so many hairs!" Oh yeah-- I also pointed to a color in a book and dyed my entire head an extremely yellow gold color! HAH!