I have been looking forward to writing another update for you! I have been sick for the better part of this week, so I'm finally getting to it now. I still feel a little under the weather - cold, headache, sinus congestion and sinus pressure - but I'm getting better. Unfortunately, being sick has caused me to miss quite a few things, including a cooking party with some friends making an American Thanksgiving dinner, church service yesterday, and a lecture this evening at Hong Kong University given by pianist Evengy Kissin. SADNESS! I am really bummed out having to stay home, but I have needed the rest. Hopefully Kissin will come to Hong Kong again soon!
Our apartment feels more like home now. We have an oven and our boxes finally came! After five weeks, it feels nice to have my school books and more clothes! I apologize that you've had to see me in the same couple shirts in all of my past pictures! We were told to pack for a week, but it turns out, we should have packed for five weeks since our boxes were sent by boat! Oh well, we made it! At least we have them now.
Our new oven!
Our boxes: safe and sound after sailing here from the U.S.
Clothes, books, extra bags for carrying things, and even Christmas presents from Mom and Dad!
All of the boxes are unpacked and put away now. It feels great!
Since I last wrote, John Paul and I have done an awful lot of things, but I'll try and give you the highlights! (And JP is planning on writing a post soon with some of the neat experiences that he's had without me while working. He has some great pictures, too, so be on the lookout for that!)
Speaking of John Paul, here is a picture of him after flying his first trip as Captain John Paul Clough!
His uniform includes a tie, but apparently he had already removed it.
John Paul and I went to hear Mary Wu play a concert with violinist James Cuddeford. The concert was wonderful! Since we were out on Hong Kong Island, we decided to have dinner there. We found a little local place which only had a Chinese menu. The waiter spoke some English, so we had him explain things to us and ended up with some really delicious food! Here's a picture:
We drank tea with our meal, of course! It's funny because sometimes one of us will ask for cold water, and often the answer will be "No. Hot only." Also, if you want to order some other drink, often you do this at the end of the meal. You drink the tea, and then have lemon tea, milk tea, soy milk, or some other drink once you have finished your meal. We're getting used to it! (Although we do keep some water in our bags and take them with us just about everywhere! My family gave us each a platypus hydration pack as an early Christmas present and we are SO thankful! We use them all the time!)
"Monkey Mountain" - Sum, Jesse, Elijah and Evangeline took us to see the monkeys after church last Sunday. Monkeys - loose - ALL over the place! It was like being in a huge monkey zoo, except that the monkeys weren't in cages! Sum said that local people don't get excited about them. Seeing a monkey for a local is like someone in Alabama seeing a squirrel. She laughed at us as we took pictures and got all excited about seeing them! Sum took pictures of us taking pictures of the monkeys!
Don't feed the monkeys! There are signs in the park, yet some people still feed them. They can be aggressive and attack people. People who take plastic grocery bags into the park with them often get attacked because the monkeys recognize the bags as being grocery bags and think that the bags contain food. Here are just a few of the many pictures John Paul and I took of the monkeys:
Don't feed the monkeys!
People feeding the monkeys in front of the "don't feed the monkeys" sign
I was a little nervous...
Standing in front of a reservoir in the park.
Last week, we finally got our visas! To activate our visas, we needed to leave Hong Kong and come back in. We decided to go up to Went to ShenZhen in mainland China and have dinner. We had an absolutely delicious dinner:
Pumpkin dumplings, Sweet and Sour Pork, and Pork BBQ (Chinese style)
I enjoyed getting a mani/pedi and doing some shopping (and JP got a shoulder, neck, head and foot massage too!) but after constantly being asked for money and "look at this/buy this (fake) iphone/watch/bag" ect. and being followed around all over, it was so nice to be HOME back to Hong Kong! As we went through customs returning to Hong Kong, we were greeted so warmly! The security officer had been to Mobile, Alabama as well as Charleston, South Carolina. He was very friendly and made us feel like we were returning home.
I wanted to take John Paul to a restaurant that I had eaten at with Erica. I found the restaurant, but nobody at the restaurant spoke English, and the menu was in Chinese. I called Erica and told her what I wanted and put her on the phone with the owner. We ordered french toast and fish and chips! A Brittish Chinese restaurant! :)
We were trying to get the store in the background, but the light outside was too bright. It is just a little hole in the wall and you walk towards the back and find tables to eat at.
Yes, the same top again. My boxes hadn't come yet!
French toast with butter and sweetened condensed milk. The dark drink is half coffee, half milk (very popular).
Here are a few random pictures:
I'll show you some pictures from the "Avenue of Stars" in Tsim Sha Tsui. You'll recognize 2 of the stars!
Us with Kin standing by the harbor near the Avenue of Stars
Swedish meatballs and potatoes at Ikea in honor of my little Swedish brother, Ben! :)
Come and see us, Ben, and we'll take you there!
The Tom Lee music store. You see chains all over. They have just about everything music related.
A delicious restaruant Kin showed us. (We have so many food pictures! HA!)
Christmas display at the 1881 Heritage Mall.
Another Christmas display at another mall. (There are literally hundreds of malls in Hong Kong).
Boy, for only living here for a little over three weeks, we are sure busy! I keep trying to post updates for you, but by the time I get home at night, I am so exhausted that I pretty much just fall into bed.
John Paul came home from his trip to Hawaii and the trip to Alaska was cancelled so we were able to enjoy his days off with him here! He brought back some big jugs of Mrs. Butterworth's syrup, a potato masher, and vitamins. Would you believe as soon as he brought back the potato masher I found one just like it at Ikea for about the same price? Oh well!
After JP returned from his trip, we had our first visitor to our apartment! Andrew Young, a pilot also with Airmed and a friend of ours got the 'quick' tour of our apartment before heading to the hotel for some much needed rest. He had been flying all night, so that mixed with jet lag was making him very sleepy! John Paul and I talked his ear off telling him all about what it's like here. Maybe he and his wife Emily and their kids will come to Hong Kong too...that would be fun! :)
Here's a picture of Andrew taking a picture of me taking a picture of him.
And one of him with JP:
Because John Paul's double-entry visa for China ran out, he had to go to the China visa office and apply for another visa. That took two days - one to do all the paperwork, wait in line and drop it off, and another one to pay and pick it up. After we picked up his visa, we went over to the American Embassy to have more pages put in his passport. Since every flight out of Hong Kong is an International flight, he goes through passport pages very quickly.
While we were waiting for the passport pages to be put into his passport, we did a little sight-seeing! We took a tram up the side of a mountain - almost straight up - to see "the Peak." The Peak overlooks Hong Kong and is a beautiful view of the city. We went on a sunny, clear day, so we had a perfect view! Up at the top, there are tons of gift stores, a mall, restaurants and fast-food places. We saw McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks, Subway and Pizza Hut! Here's a video of John Paul showing you the view:
Here are some more pictures from the Peak:
We had lunch at a restaurant called "Spaghetti 360." I had alfredo with crab and mushrooms and JP had Japanese curry. The food was very good and the view was amazing!
Instead of taking the tram back down the mountain, we decided to take the bus. We sat in the very front of the double-decker bus. I was SO nervous! We were on tiny little roads riding on the "wrong" side of the road with hardly any shoulder and sometimes no shoulder! Whew! Here are some pictures from the bus:
We decided to stick around until 8pm for the Symphony of Lights show. Since we had a few hours to kill, we took the ferry over to Tsim Sha Tsui and looked around. Guess what we found? Yup. CHRISTMAS displays! Everywhere! I guess since they don't have Thanksgiving, there's no reason to wait! I'm seeing Christmas displays everywhere now! We even have lights in our apartment lobby as of yesterday!
Here are some pictures of the Christmas display outside of a mall in TST:
We finished the evening with the "Symphony of Lights." Several buildings downtown have lasers, spotlights or colored lights that "dance" to music. John Paul took a few movie clips of the display:
Here are a few still pictures of it:
On Sunday we went to church in Tuen Mun. It took us over an hour an a half to get there by rail but around 45 minutes to get home by ferry. We met some new friends at that church - in fact 4 of them had gone to school at Bob Jones University! The church is primarily in Cantonese, but they have a few English-speaking families who go there so much of the service is translated into English. This past Sunday, one of the guys from the U.S. was preaching, so the sermon was in English and translated into Cantonese.
In case you don't think we could have fit anything else into our schedule, John Paul and I also crammed in some shopping this week for our apartment (printer, laundry basket, garbage can, etc), going to a concert and going out for dinner. Mary Wu, the pianist I mentioned in another post, performed tonight with a violinist. They were wonderful! I'm looking forward to hearing Mary play again in a few weeks.
It will be more difficult catching you on skype now that your time changed. Sadly, we didn't change times with daylight savings, so we are now 13 hours ahead of eastern time zone and 14 hours ahead of central time zone. Hopefully I can still catch some of you early-risers or night-owls!
