Time to backtrack and make some updates!
I'm really sorry this is so late...
Ann and I teach at a high school in our city (XinXing), and our friends, Brandon and Caroline (married, May ’07 WLC grads), teach at the middle school equivalent of our school. The four of us travelled to Hong Kong by bus (about 5 hours) for the Chinese National Day holiday in early October. Rob and Mark are our bosses who live in HK but visit us and our fellow teachers elsewhere in China at least monthly. Ann and I & Brandon and Caroline stayed at their homes, respectively, so we got to meet their wonderful wives too. :) We are very grateful to them for allowing us to stay with them.
One of our first orders of business was to eat Western food! It’s a nice change of pace after eating rice nearly every day with random cooked veggies or tofu or other unidentifiable things! In China, they believe that the best meat is closest to the bone…so they serve it with chunks of bone and fat that you have to eat around. Mmm! As you might imagine, then, McDonald’s is a treat. They served dipped ice cream cones there, as you can see from a photo with Brandon and Caroline.
During our time there, we navigated the city by underground subway. It was convenient and quite easy. We did some shopping that involved bartering. The outdoor vendors wanted us to buy anything we even glanced at, so they kept trying to negotiate even if we weren’t interested. Ann and I bought knock-off purses that look like Gucci and Burberry. It wasn’t long before they were falling apart. :) Ann’s pink Gucci purse is all frayed, and the zipper on mine broke almost immediately. One handle has since broken and the other is about to give way. Well, what do you expect for paying less than $4 US money?? They were really cute while they lasted!
I will try to link my two Hong Kong photo albums - you don't need a Snapfish account to view them:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=21008&l=82726&id=501254814
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=21112&l=60a91&id=501254814
Regarding these photos from the trip:
-As you can see, I have a gone a bit crazy taking pictures of amusing signs. Some of my favorites involve “no spitting.”
-We visited the HK zoo/botanical gardens one day. The most prevalent animal was the lemur (although different types), which seem similar to monkeys.
-The panda TV picture is from the panda channel on Hong Kong TV, devoted entirely to nonstop footage of pandas doing…whatever.
-Ann and I visited Ocean Park, which seems to double as a theme park a la Six Flags and a home for aquatic wildlife, but then they throw in some pandas too. Two new pandas arrived in summer of ’07 as a gift from China to HK to celebrate 10 years of union between the countries. We took the cable car lift from one side of the park to the other, and had a gorgeous view of the bay.
-Rob took us to Victoria’s Peak the night before we left. We got there by ferry and then a trolley to the top, where Ann took the incredible photos of Hong Kong at night.
Rob and his wife, Judy, made us a wonderful dinner with kabobs and real ice cream! It was great. We were also blessed with the opportunity to have a “service” with Mr. and Mrs. Karl Gurgel, and vicar Adam Gawel provided the message. We had that “Supper” with readings and singing too.
My birthday is in mid-October, and I was very excited to have a cake! It came in a huge box with a handle for carrying it. The cake was beautiful, covered with all kinds of interesting fruits. My favorite part was the white chocolate figurine on top. It was very obviously supposed to be Snow White, but she wore a hot pink dress and had yellow-blond hair. :)
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