So you are already aware of the international culture and feel of Hong Kong. I described (at length) the types of non-Asian foods I ate and how I wanted to never eat the same thing twice. Well, I didn't manage never to eat the same thing twice. But, in fairness, I was asked to do side-by-side comparisons of items I had eaten from one restaurant to another. So, it wasn't really my choice. My choice was to try as many different foods as possible.

I'm not one to try a food just because it's weird. I like to try things that people actually enjoy. So, whenever something was proposed, I asked if the speaker actually liked this or that food item before accepting the invitation. I found myself trying every type (or pretty much every type) of Asian food available.

I had Malaysian food at a restaurant in the Wan Chai district. Of all the restaurants I went to, this one was my favorite. Malaysian food involves a lot of spices and is a mixture of Indian and Chinese. They have a lot of curries. At this Malaysian restaurant, we sampled a traditional drink called Chandor. It's a sweet drink with grass jelly and coconut milk topped with some sort of brownish syrup. Don't ask me for further details. I don't know them. But wikipedia may if you're interested. We also shared two appetizers, two entrees, and one dessert (three people). If I wasn't implementing such a strict do-not-eat-twice rule, I would have gone there again.

I had Vietnamese twice. This was one of the times when I was asked to do a side-by-side comparison of the plain jane beef pho I ordered. Both places were good. But I like the first one better, making the fact that I went to a separate restaurant to order the same thing a little disappointing.

I also had Thai, Japanese (black squid ink ramen), Fresh seafood (as in we chose the crab, scallops, mantis shrimp, and razor clams we wanted from the live tanks), and Hong Kong steet food (fried fish balls, stinky tofu, dessert waffle, and bubble tea).

Then there were the different styles of Chinese and Hong Kong-Chinese restaurants where I sampled traditional dishes. I went to two Dim Sum restaurants. Dim Sum style encourages ordering lots of small plate appetizers shared by the table. I love Shanghai dumplings, which I thought were beef - but turned out to be pork. They are little sachets of meatball with broth. I also enjoyed turnip cake, Chinese broccoli, this weird eggy cake ball, red rice sweet soup, and fried octopus.

The list of things I did not enjoy is much shorter. I did not enjoy iced plum green tea or cashew chicken. And, I may not have liked chicken feet. But I wouldn't know. After it was ordered, I chickened out. Frankly, they made me a little sad.

In all this eating and trying and ordering and eating - I only had rice one time. That was at the Thai restaurant, and it came with my garlic eggplant.

For my last dinner in the city, we went to a rather fancy traditional restaurant where I got to try Peking duck. Not really at all what I expected, but delicious.

Now I get to go home and lose the travel weight. :)

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I was really not prepared for the Western feel of Hong Kong. I expected to get lost a few times, not be able to communicate at least once, and perhaps even long for some toast. However, that has not been the case at all. I'm not sure if I should be ashamed that I did next to no research before coming, or just happy at the ease of daily life. I've been told that out in the New Territories it's not as easy to get around and fewer and fewer people speak English the further you go. I'm sure that's true. But around here, the British left a very heavy stamp on the city. This is felt in the language, transportation, and definitely the food.

I've tried to eat at a different place for every meal I have out. When that doesn't work, I at least never order the same thing twice. One of the many convenient coffee shops here is called Cafe O. Their menu is really hard for me to read, because they replace the letter A with the letter O if the word starts with an A. For example, Oll day breakfast and Omazing set menu. I guess it works for them; I actually like them because they are close to my flat and have free wi-fi.

This is their eggplant pizza that I had for dinner one night. It was delicious.

This is the breakfast I ate before heading to the Temple of 10,000 Buddhas last week. The soy latte hit the spot. And no, I didn't put jam on my banana bread.

And this is their chicken and mushroom pasta I had for dinner a separate night. It was gross. I haven't been back since.

For lunch during the week, I've tried to eat as much Asian food as possible, including seafood since they do fish here. But in many cases, I still couldn't get away from the more Western fare.

This is a roasted veggie sandwich with hummus spread. So good!

And this is a restaurant that serves 24-hour-a-day English breakfast. I had eggs florentine with fresh fruit and grilled tomatoes. Beans on toast was an option.

There are a ton of bakeries here as well. With hopefulness and a carb craving, I've tried a few. Unfortunately, the breads and pastries I've tried haven't stood up to the donut shops of the US or the bakeries of France. After the second one, I told myself it probably wasn't worth it to try again. But, I didn't listen to myself and tried "banana cake." It didn't make up for the first two disappointments. In more traditional bakeries they have "moon cake" and "wife cake." These are traditional desserts. The wife cake I've had, and I enjoyed it. It has a light, flaky outter dough portion with powdered sugar, and there's a candied paste on the inside. It would probably be very good with tea; although I had it alone. And, there is a Hong Kong pastry called an egg tart that looks like a tiny lemon custard pie and screams of egg flavor. This particular tart is either trendy or traditional (I'm not sure which one), but definitely a Hong Kong favorite.

And now that I've shown you much (but not all) of the Western food, soon I'll have to delight your senses with the Asian side of cuisine here. Get ready for the Dim Sum!

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Apparently, I am one of the more "adventurous" of visitors to our office here. I put adventurous in quotes, because I don't feel that I'm doing anything truly out of the ordinary. Certainly, nowhere that I have been has come close to out-of-my-comfort-zone. At any rate, I'd wanted to go to the Temple of the 10,000 Buddhas Saturday; so I did.



The public transportation needed to get there is simple and efficient. Public transportation here, overall, is cheap and fast. I arrived at Sha Tin 45 minutes or so after I'd left my flat.



When I got to the temple path entrance, I was met with a steep path abutted with varying gold and painted Buddhas. They each were different from the other - some sitting, standing, leaning, carrying items, smiling, etc. It was creepy in the way that a room full of porcelain dolls makes your hair stand up. But there was not much time to focus on that as I was huffing and puffing at the ascent. I'd thought I could jog up the stairs, but I quickly abandoned this idea when I realized just how far it was up the hill.





This stop in Sha Tin did not disappoint. The multiple temples and shrines at the top were all immaculately kept with really cool detailing in the paintings on the walls and ceiling. This should be a stop for anyone in the area. Enjoy the photos!

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In Hong Kong, I arrange my mornings so that I have plenty of time to wake up, eat breakfast, work out, shower, and channel surf. I have found there are three mostly-English stations. One is the news channel Aljazeera; another is a re-broadcast of American nightly news programs; and the third is a Gaming program.

I haven't figured out the point to the Gaming program. When I flip past in the morning, it is always three hosts dressed in futuristic looking grey and red uniforms talking about games that are being played live, as far as I can tell. The game they comment on is a virtual capture the flag. I suppose it's like Call of Duty, but without the back story, changing maps, diverse weapons, and modern graphics. This capture the flag game consists of a red and a blue team that run around (read, hop around) with plasma blasters trying to steal the other teams flag. I doubt very seriously that this would be an interesting game to play; and I can't really understand why it's on everyday. Maybe it's just filling air space.

But that doesn't beat the local programming. I came across a gem involving food presentation and a beauty pageant. It was poorly dubbed in English, which made it even harder to stop looking at the train wreck. There were 20 beauty contestants all dressed up in glittery bikinis. There was an audience of men, who I can only imagine were going to vote on the winner - although I didn't stick around that long to find out. The portion I watched was some sort of food presentation challenge. The beauty contestants were given a theme and they had to arrange a dish and explain their logic.

The girl I saw had the theme "Chaos and Organization." She said of her dish, and I roughly quote from the poorly dubbed English, "My dish is chicken and crab. These things - tee hee hee - do not go together at all. Uhm. But, I think that the chicken and crab work very well together here, and - like the 20 contestants - bring unity to each other. And, tee hee hee, I hope that the 20 contestants here can be like the chicken and the crab and work together to bring unity even though we are very different."

I watched with mouth agape. Then flipped back to the news.

In other food news, there's a BLT Steak restaurant here. Christopher and I have wanted to try a Gordon Ramsey-owned restaurant, so I won't be trying it. Of course, we have to go together! But it was neat to see it, and the menu looked good from what I saw outside the restaurant.

I'm trying to take photos of what I eat while I'm here, and I'll put those together later for your viewing pleasure.

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I am writing to you from 14 hours in the future. And the future is humid. To get to this legendary place, you must first board a delayed plane, sit in an international-hub airport for 3 hours, board another plane, wait on the tarmac for an hour, then fly for 16 hours to arrive in the future. Once you get here, you'll become illiterate and resort to basic gestures and perhaps a little grunting as a means of communication. You may be disoriented, groggy, and/or dehydrated. And, you'll definitely have big frizzy hair.

I'm talking about Hong Kong of course. The flights themselves were uneventful, which is excellent since I spent 18-19 hours in the air. I haven't been here long, but I like it already. The city feels very alive with a plethora of shops, bars, restaurants, cafes, and convenience stores. I could do without the constant advice on what to eat and stories of how Westerners usually react to traditional Chinese food. But I think everyone gets a kick out of sharing these tips, so I let them.

I woke up to a foggy foggy day, and I knew it was going to be temperate, but I didn't imagine the humidity level. I put a receipt on the kitchen table and woke up to a fully curled piece of paper. Had I bought a brochure, I'm almost certain it wouldn't have been mentioned. And thus it is my duty to warn you. Don't straighten your hair in Hong Kong. It won't matter 5 minutes later.

I'll get back to you soon with stuff that I have actually done. For now, I'll leave you with a couple of photos.

This one is looking down from the 27th floor where I am to the street below.This one is Hong Kong on a foggy morning.

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Lexie circa 2001-2002 was in college and had a CD burner. I remember spending many hours - because that's how long it took - deciding which 15-20 songs I'd mash together on my CDRWs. This was also before Napster's immorality had been decided. So, as I begin the process of cleaning and packing for our upcoming move, I find myself relying on a very old binder of CDs. The ones I listen to more regularly are at work (and anything else comes courtesy of Pandora). So, I picked one out of the barrel entitled "Mix CD 2." I was quite creative, as you can see.

And now, I'll list for your entertainment, the 18 songs that I've been listening to as I am cleaning and packing. Lexie circa 2001-2002 didn't have bad taste. Although she really had no qualms whatsoever with mixing genres. And, I least I know all the words...

1. Jeremy
2. Desperately Wanting
3. Come as you are
4. Jack & Diane
5. You're Gone
6. Son of a Preacher Man
7. Jeremiah was a Bullfrog
8. Trouble Me
9. I'm Outta Love
10. Black Velvet
11. Lean on Me
12. Closer to Fine
13. I Try
14. Dust on the Bottle
15. Safe in the Arms of Love
16. Cumbersome
17. Sister
18. Whiskey in the Jar (Metallica)

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In the past year, Christopher and I have been on 4 business trips collectively. Perhaps for some people that isn't a lot. For us, it is. Especially since 3 of those 4 have been made solo leaving the other person at home. What we've reinforced, that we certainly already knew, is that we don't like being apart.

Not only does being apart suck for all the lovey-dovey reasons you'd expect, but also for the mundane stuff that you don't. For example, I spent ALL WEEKEND cleaning. And with Christopher away that same weekend, I thought it was a perfect timing. Ok, well perhaps the all caps is a slight exaggeration, but I seriously cleaned. A war on dust was declared, and I was the victor. I even borrowed the world's best vacuum from a friend, because wars are not won on hopes alone. I called in backup (by having the maintenance guys replace the air filter at the A/C intake). And I sacrificed my knuckles for cleanliness. When I was finished, the place looked amazing, and I was exhausted. But then, I could only look around and say, "good job self, you're definitely going to breathe better now." But my victory was a little hollow without Christopher there to also marvel at the sparkling counter and dustless baseboards.

It's also very hard to be motivated to cook dinner for one. A couple of nights I did well by making a normal-sized dinner and separating portions out to eat as leftovers on subsequent days. But it's much more fun to make dinner for others.

On the other hand, the fact that being apart sucks is just another reason our marriage is awesome, right? There are probably couples out there who'd like time apart, and fortunately, that's not us.

In other news - the kickboxing groupon I bought is paying off. It was my first groupon purchase, and the fact that it has been successful makes me want to continue to rely on groupon and try out new places. I can't believe my month of kickboxing is almost over already. I have 5 more days to go to classes and burn about 500 calories each time. The women I have met there all seem cool. There are men too, but they don't seem to introduce themselves. For those of you in town, the first class is free. So, if you'd like to go in the next 5 days with me, give me a call. And, I'll be filling you in on the next groupon activity in due time, I'm sure.

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What a busy busy end to 2011. I went to Israel, again. After finally finishing up a couple posts about our trip earlier in the year, I was already on my way to the Holy Land for the second time. It really is amazing that I got to travel to such an amazing city twice in one year. So, in this post, I have a couple new photos for you - as well as updates about normal life and holidays.

I went to Israel for two weeks, rather than the three-week stay the first trip had been. I was able to sight-see and visit additional religious and historic sites where I'd not previously gone.

This time, I was very set on going to the Mount of Olives. The day was absolutely gorgeous. Cool enough that I wore a sweater, but not too cold to make walking around outside unpleasant. The Mount of Olives is amazing, and I'm very glad I went. In my head, I hadn't really come to any conclusion as to why this place was called the Mount of Olives. When I arrived there, it was obvious - duh - the olive trees!

The sky was clear, and it was gorgeous. Did I mention it was gorgeous? I was able to enter the Church of the Ascension as well as Mary's Tomb and the Grotto and Garden of Gethsemene. This is a photo of the front of the Church of the Ascension.

I don't know why, but this is my favorite photo of the whole trip. I think the tall columns just look really cool. And, I have some good pictures. But something about this one makes it my favorite.

And speaking of favorites, the food in Israel didn't disappoint. I went twice to a (tiny!) restaurant called P2. The pizza was made by hand after you ordered it with ingredients bought fresh daily (including fresh pizza sauce and dough) and stoked in a pizza oven. The crust was so paper thin - just barely strong enough to hold the toppings which included fresh mozzarella. Luckily, I stayed away from the falafel and convenience store snacks (think mixed nuts and candies) this time, so my waistline didn't expand as it did on the first trip. Phew!
There wasn't much time between that trip and Christmas. Christopher and I traveled to California to spend an early Christmas at my parents as well as attend a wedding of an old friend. The wedding was lovely and Christmas was great. The only negative aspect of the trip was Christopher got pretty sick. He was basically sick the whole trip, but he managed to enjoy himself anyway.

I had taken my vacation from work for the rest of the week after our return home. Of course, since I was finally home and able to rest, I got sick. I stayed pretty sick for 5 or 6 days, which included the time we spent with Christopher's family to celebrate Christmas. And I finally got well-enough just before the end of the year.

New Year's Eve was a lot of fun. We went to dinner, out to the symphony, to a bar to spend about an hour until midnight, and then finished the night hanging out with friends. That was much more active than our usual New Year's Eve activity of staying in and watching a movie.

Perhaps this post isn't as long as I expected it to be when I started. The end of the year definitely flew by, and this year doesn't seem to be slowing down any. And, if I haven't spoken to you in person recently - Happy New Year!

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