Christmas Past

Man! I am so sick of my own blog. I can't even bear to finish the trip into China. Probably due in some part to how sick we were when we came back.

So I am desperate to put up something else to look at.

Here are some Christmas flashbacks of years gone by...


Christmas in Hong Kong 2005








Brady's Creepy Santa 2004












This must have been the funniest Christmas Party EVER!
Way to go, Whit!






























Xmas dinner at Whitney's. Can you believe she gave up this apartment?






Suds and I find the perfect Christmas tree in 2002.

This tree farm was owned by an old German guy. It was his idea for us to hold hands :)

Yangshuo, China

This sign was our welcome into China. Notice how in Chinese it is only 2 characters long.










The town of Yangshuo where we spent 3 nights at the Magnolia Hotel. It is a small town frequented by backpackers, and so full of restaurants, cheap beer and lots of English.











The scenery is amazing, with mountain peaks jutting up out of no where!







































The town is quite small. You can walk anywhere you want to go.









Our first full day we signed up for a Chinese Cooking Lesson. It was a highlight of the trip!

Our instructor for the day Amy picked us up at our hotel. We met up with another couple taking the class and took a tour thru the local market.

Inside we all sorts of fruits and veggies, like this stall selling chilies.








Also for sale were animals, both alive and dead. Chicken, ducks and geese can be purchased alive and taken home so you can cook them as fresh as possible. Pigs and cows were available in various pieces. Dogs (similar to Dingo's) were also available. We saw cages so full of starving dogs they could not move, skinned dogs gutted and hung on hooks and a cage with live dogs inside while laying atop were dead dogs. Even worse was how they are killed. The Chinese believe that adrenaline makes dog meat taste better so the dogs are tortured before they are killed. The bunnies had it best, nibbling on veggie scraps and spending their last few minutes doing what they do best...reproducing!


The facilities weren't 5 star but for a $12 lesson, what do you expect? We each had a hotplate, wok, cleaver and our ingredients.








We started by preparing our ingredients. Amy took one look at Suds chopping up the chicken and said, "You don't cook." and took over the chopping from him. The funny thing is, its his job to chop the chicken when we cook together :)


















For lunch we ate what we cooked!
On the menu:
Braised eggplant
Chicken with Cashew Nuts
Steamed Chinese Greens
Beer Cooked Fish (local specialty)
Steamed Tofu and Mushrooms stuffed with Pork
The eggplant and chicken were the best. The Beer Fish was our least favorite, but might be saved with a milder fish if made again.


Chinese taxis lined up ready to go.


























China has a serious water problem, I think. These people are "fishing" wading around in the quickly disappearing water scooping up some sort of mud fish to eat.









We walked to a park in town and climbed the peak for the view.

Yangshuo, China Part 2

Yangshuo, China Part 3

We went to see a light show on a lake. It is choreographed by the same guy who is in charge of the Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies. None of the pics worked but the show was good.
It starts off without lighting and then next thing we knew, all around was fire! All around the lake and in the lake were people holding lit torches. There is a cast of 500 and they've put on a show every night since 2004. Not too sure what it was all about since it was in mandarin, but the whole thing was visually spectacular, especially since it is staged on the water. In this pic the people on the rafts lift and drop massive lengths of red cloth to simulate waves.



















We woke up early and took a river cruise down the Li.

































These are fishing cormorants. Local fisherman raise these from chicks. When they are old enough, they take them out fishing on their bamboo raft. They tie a string around the birds neck so they can't swallow. The birds dive down, gobble a fish, come up and the fisherman takes the fish out of the birds throat. The bird gets a cut at the end of the day.





The picture on the 20 Yuan bill!










Next up was bicycling thru the countryside. We hired Lily to take us around for the afternoon.

Suds and I are off to Guilin and Yangshuo in China.
Just a quick little getaway while we both have a few days off.
Want more info?
Click HERE

Floor Renovations, the final instalment

The floors are finally finished!

And Suds brought back the table from Crate and Barrel that Dad, Judy and Hilary bought us for our house warming. We still don't have any chairs, though....







Lots of room still for break dancing :)











Still lots to do as you can see. Next we have to get the walls fixed so we can install the baseboards. We have ordered curtains for the bedroom. And we really need some closets and drawers to put our clothes!

Floor Reno Part 2

We are now on Day 8 of our THREE day floor reno. I knew to double however many days was quoted to us, but we are no where near complete yet.

Here is Lexi hiding on top of the shower. With the workers here she is confined to the bathroom. She doesn't mind though. She just sleeps all day in the sink.






Day 5 (Day two of actual work) had the workers laying plastic down and toping with plywood sheets. They then began to install the bamboo flooring.





These workers by the way speak no English at all.
When they came in they changed from street clothes to a pair of board shorts and flip flops! It makes me sick to watch them installing the floor with a nail gun while holding the board in place with his foot.




By 6pm they headed home. All rooms had plywood down. The living room was complete except for under the TV.


Day 6 and the workers don't show up at 10 as planned . Suds leaves for work at noon and I am stuck waiting around till 2PM. By then I had finally confirmed that nothing was going to be accomplished that day. For some reason the warehouse could not ship the entire amount of floorboards at once and now the 2nd shipment has been delayed.

Day 7 and I am waiting at the apartment AGAIN. Boards are to arrive at 10:30 then 11, then 12, then 12:10, then before 1. Finally they are here! But wait. The box is different. I slice open the box and THE BOARDS ARE A DIFFERENT COLOR!!!!

I call up Raymond who is in charge of this mess. I freak out on him. I tell him to get his but to my apartment after he asks me if I can "use the boards anyway"?
Upon inspection, he admits they are a totally different color. He calls the warehouse in China. He now does not know if our original selection, the one that is 50% installed, is available at all! I tear a strip off this man and now on a roll, also demand that the baseboards be removed so we can have the walls fixed and replaced at a later date. The workers installed them over top of the chunked out plaster. All is agreed upon. He assures me that more flooring will arrive at my apartment tomorrow. It will either be the correct color or it will be our new Plan B. If we must go to Plan B all will be replaced at no charge, like duh!












Day 8 I get a call from Raymond. The boards will not be delivered today. Maybe tomorrow, he will call me later.

Hong Kong cops are different than Canadian cops.
At a rooftop party these two walked up 7 flights of stairs to tell us to shut 'er down. Then they posed with guests for pictures, even letting them try on their hat!
Still didn't stop some yahoo's from taking advantage of the language barrier to make donut jokes.....







Is this a cruise ship crashed amid a residential area?
Nah. Its a shopping mall designed like a ship.









Is smog and pollution a problem in Hong Kong?
What do you think?








But then there are days like this one. Glorious and blue and clear!

floor renovations

let the renovations begin!!









The apartment was stripped down to concrete on Thursday.
Everything is covered in dust and the place smells like old dirt. Yum.

The bedroom. Notice how when they removed the baseboards half the plaster and NEW paint chipped off? Great.





The floors won't be re-installed until Monday (earliest!) so until then we are sleeping in the living room. The pull out couch is really coming in handy:)

Gotta love the "unique" light fixtures the place came with.





So far we've replaced one fixture, the one that's on in this pic.










Don't you hang your clothes in the shower?










The office, with another great light. If you pull on it it extends down.