Lately...

Wow, no post in a while. It seems like there has been both a ton going on and not much at all--that is, work has been hectic for the last couple of weeks, so I have been tired and not done much interesting that's worth reporting. Let's see; here's what's happened since my last post:

Obama streamed to victory in the elections (yay!!), which I celebrated with my Swiss employer by having a lovely glass of French wine. (To all of my dear, dear Republican friends and family members, I know that, to you, there are multiple things wrong with that sentence)

I explored the less populated side of HK Island--namely Stanley Beach. There is a great street market there where I picked up some fun stuff (yes, Mom, I'm spending myself into poverty here). I can never get over how gorgeous the beaches are here; I could just sit and stare all day.

We moved into the house finally! The renovations are great; everything is very stream-lined and sleek. It's exhausting going up and down the stairs 20 times a day--the house has 4 levels (5 if you consider the rooftop deck). On the side facing Repulse Bay, the walls are entirely windows, so we have a fantastic view of the water. It's great to wake up to. Henry's school is just about a 5 minute walk away, so that's really nice. Alessio fell down one of the sets of stairs yesterday, taking about 10 years off my life. I thought surely he had broken something, but he was absolutely unharmed. It's amazing how indestructible kids are--he stopped crying after 2 minutes, I was shaking for 20. He's just so fearless, and he thinks he's older than he is, so he's always just bum-rushing into things. Anyway, I'll put up pictures of the house when I get a chance.

Chris arrived last night, and I was so excited to see him!! I was practically jumping out of my skin waiting at the airport for him to arrive after his 16 hour flight. As a lovely welcome, we had an early Thanksgiving dinner here at the house. Victoria ordered it from a local restaurant, and they covered all of the bases--a full turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, potatoes, gravy, brussel sprouts (eww). It was really delicious. This morning Chris and I got up early, walked Henry to school, and embarked on our day in HK. We took the bus out to Stanley Beach--the bus ride is terrifying and exhilarating from the front seat on the upper deck of the bus as it flies around the curves on the incredibly narrow streets. It has some great views, which you notice after you stop thinking you're going to die in a bus accident. After that, we took the bus into Central and went to Maxim's at City Hall for Dim Sum. It was delicious!! They bring various types of food around on carts and you choose what you want. It's one of the things that everyone has said I need to do here, and I loved it. After lunch, we walked around Central/Lan Kwai Fong/SoHo for a bit, then hopped on a double-decker tram to Wan Chai where we took the Peak Tram up to the Peak to take in the amazing view of the HK skyline. The weather was amazing today, and really clear (clear for HK that is), so we have some good pictures. We sat at one of the restaurants and had a couple of drinks and appetizers--a perfect way to spend an afternoon. After decending from the Peak, we took the tram back to Central and walked around there a bit more before taking the MTR to Times Square, which is really lively at night and lots of fun. We took the MTR over to Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon for dinner at Chao Inn, where we had a table with a fantastic view of the HK Island skyline. It looks incredibly at night, which made up for the struggles with the waitstaff as none of them spoke a word of English (it's the first time I've encountered someone who doesn't at least know a few words of English; maybe it's because we were on the Kowloon side). Then we popped up a few more floors to a bar called Aqua to take in some more amazing views. We took the Star Ferry back across the bay, and caught the bus home because both of us were way too tired to go have a drink in Lan Kwai Fong as we had planned. It was a fabulous day.

Tomorrow morning, Chris and I leave for Bangkok, where we will spend a day before traveling through Cambodia and into Vietnam. Expect awesome pictures a week from now...

Chinese Drinking Games and the Big Buddha

Who ever thought you'd see those two things lumped together?...Anyone who's spent a good weekend in Hong Kong, that's who. 

So it was Halloween weekend, and as such the city was crazy. I had some inkling that Hong Kong would go all-out for the holiday because when I took Henry to one of the outdoor markets last week to get a costume I had trouble finding anything for a 3 year old boy among all of the "slutty nurse", "skanky pirate", and "really skanky...prostitute with bunny ears?" costumes. I stayed away from Lan Kwai Fong, the biggest party area, assuming it would be too crowded to even be any fun. Instead, I went with Jasmine, a really nice local girl that I've met and hung out with a few times, to a party at a bar in Times Square. A couple of her friends, who are French/Chinese (just the right mix for me, I suppose) reserved a section of a bar and, for a small cover charge, kept the Chinese beer coming all night long. They taught me to play a couple of the dice games that the Chinese people are generally obsessed with. The first was basically a version of poker played with dice, so that wasn't too hard--the person with the worst hand twice in a row had to drink. The second game was a version of bullsh*t, which is too complicated to explain here. The third, 789, is played by taking turns rolling the dice, then doing the corresponding action--7 means you fill the communal glass, 8 means you drink half of that glass, and 9 means you drink the whole glass. All other numbers are inconsequential, unless you get overzealous when rolling the dice and one drops out of the bowl, in which case the offender has to drink whatever is in the communal glass. The unlucky guy sitting next to me was nicknamed "Mr. 9" by the end of the night. He was fun. I talked to a very nice French guy named Franck for part of the night--he's in HK starting up a high-end lingerie company with a friend of his; in 2-5 years, look for the brand PIMP in a store near you. I'm pretty sure he wasn't lying :)

I was worthless all day Saturday. Sunday, I got my act together and went out. Just outside of Lan Kwai Fong, I came across a biker rally--I think it may have been a premier of Ducati's 2009 line. I was just excited to see a Chinese biker gang: 

After that fun, I made my way to the central pier to catch a ferryboat out to Lantau Island--the largest of the many islands surrounding HK. Disneyland is there, which I plan on visiting at some point. I went to see the Po Lin Monastery and the Big Buddha. The Big Buddha is so named because it is the largest outdoor Buddha statue in the world; it is quite impressive. The monastery is pretty amazing too. I find that the Chinese, in general, aren't big on subtlety--everything that is meant to be impressive or luxurious is pretty over the top, often edging into gaudy. It works in the temples though; they are awe-inspiring, covered in gold and flowers and always smelling strongly of the incense lit by the people who come to pray. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I had lunch at the monastery; you can buy a meal ticket for the vegetarian restaurant on the grounds and receive a 4 course meal: soup, fried egg rolls, sauteed bean curd and mushrooms, and sauteed peppers, served with tea and a big pot of sticky rice. Really delicious. I'm getting better at eating with chopsticks too. My technique is fine, it's just that my muscles fatigue about half way through a meal...I'm working on it. Anyway, enough talk; on to the pictures:

First thing I saw on the island--when they have to point out that it's a "Cooked Food Market," it just makes you less confident. They're overselling it. 

These guys looked like fun...

Yes, those are Sunkist oranges, direct from the USA, being offered to the diety. Do you think they get a special discount?

I followed the Wisdom Path from the monastery and found this outdoor exhibition. It's an ancient philosophical passage about finding enlightenment, written in caligraphy on a series of wooden planks set into the mountainside in a figure 8 (a very lucky number in China). I only wish I had some clue what it said...it probably has the meaning of the universe or something, but I don't get to know just because I don't understand ancient Chinese characters...darn.

This was just a cool mountain. It looked like the clouds surrounding it 

were about to swallow it whole.