Housewife Tip of the Day

I don't know about you, but I hate that smell towels can get. You know, that stinky musty smell they get from staying damp and not getting thrown into the dryer right away. It is so humid here it is hard for me to stay on top of the situation.

Once your towels have that smell, plain & simple washing will not solve the problem. I have thrown out towels that could not be saved. I have now found the solution!

Set the water temperature to hot and use the pre-soak feature. Add in 2 cups of white vinegar. (I only had cider vinegar in the house and it worked fine! My towels are a dark color, don't know if I would try cider vinegar with white towels). When pre-soak is done, add in your normal amount of detergent and 1 cup of baking soda. Wash as usual and voila!!! Fresh smelling towels!!


See these towels I spied crumbled on the floor? They are prime candidates for "the smell"

Gill's hen night

On Saturday I was the hostess for a rooftop party. We were celebrating Gill and her impending marriage. This called for Jell-o shots and feather boas!





The night started off with mani's and pedi's to get our nails looking good. I had a great team of techs come in from Spa Beaute Par Zai.

They took great care of us and even gave us all gift certificates to test the spa out on another day. What excellent business savvy the owner Nigar has! We all agreed they had our business from now on,

After some pampering it was time to get to the serious drinking! We all had name tags on with our "porn star" name. Anyone caught using any name other than that was made to do a jello shot. Good thing I had made a triple batch! Some of the names were Ruby, Foxy, Bambi, Desire, Lovefox, and Kandy.



Next up, the requisite games. I had the groom answer some questions about himself and Gill AKA Foxy. She was then to answer the same questions, the goal being to get the same answers. She got a few surprising ones wrong like what they did on the first date and Paul's ex-girlfriends name. To make it more interesting Gill had to have a Jello-shot if she was wrong, and if she was right one of the other guests had to have one. Then a quiz on how well we knew Gill and a points game for what you had in your purse.





Time was getting away from us, so we packed up the party decor, dumped it in my apartment and caught taxi's to LKF.




I had created some Bride Dares to be completed. With all of our help she
completed most of them. Some examples are:
Convince a bartender to let you pour a drink
Take your picture with a guy with a mullet
Order a Prairie Fire and drink it
Collect a business card from an out of
towner.



Gill sitting on the bar at The Keg.









The rest of the girls were dropping like flies at this point. every time you turned around someone had snuck off the go home. The night ended at about 2:30 with Gill, Rachel, Natalie and I smoking the sheesha at Kasbah,







Foxy

Some of you may have noticed I had a technical problem recently. I was trying something new and totally messed up the blog! Oops! It's fixed now, thankfully.

Here's pic of Lexi chilln' next to a book Suds is trying to read. tee hee just kidding

sushi breakthrough

Finally! I have found some decent sushi here in Hong Kong. I am always on the lookout for sushi and I recently found a prospect. I took Suds there for dinner on Friday night.

There is a kaiten bar, which is key when testing new restaurants, because it is nice to see before you buy. The prices aren't bad, certainly not as ridiculous as Hi Dozo, a flashy sushi place in Soho. You can check out Koi's menu HERE


The only downfall with this place is the tuna. I still have not found the yummy tuna sashimi that I love in Vancouver.

The quest continues....

everthing old is new again

As reported first on Hilary's blog, the big cell phone is having a comeback.





We spotted these bad boys on sale recently. They are new models copied after the old school originals.

Vancouver visit

So basically I am a total slacker. Here are some pics from my visit home nearly a month ago.

Can you see Suds in there?
Yah.
Me neither.
But he is.
This is leaving Hong Kong, as you can tell by the smog.



I'm with the pilot. So much better than being with the DJ!





Here are "the girls" after the Salt Lik. Notice the theme of black jacket + colored scarf.




Shannon's special surprise...homemade Turtle sundaes. We have devolved to now being too lazy to even walk to Dairy Queen for our ice cream. Sad.

The Fair

A few weeks ago we spent a couple'a hours at the fair. It was a good deal; they gave you 30 tokens for the games with your ride pass.





It's amazing they found the open space right in the heart of downtown!







Our free tokens didn't amount to much.
Here Suds is hugging what we wanted and the bear is holding what I actually won, a purple giraffe creature.

SFO

Last week, I 'operated' to San Fransisco, the second time since my very first flight with the company over a year ago.



Went out with the flight crew for dinner at the Stinking Rose and then a few drinks at a local Irish pub.



Next day, I went to Fishermans wharf and rented a bicycle. Rode along the wharf and the beach areas up and over the Golden Gate bridge. It was a nice spring day, clear and 18 degrees.

2nd day at work

For my second day at work Suds helped me to create these fabulous balloons. My lesson for the K1's is to teach colors. "Hello Red Balloon" There is a little book to go along with the cutouts.

H&M Grand Opening

No this is not just a typical street scene in Hong Kong.

Today was the grand opening of H&M in Hong Kong. This is my favorite store of all time so I have been incredibly excited. I showed up 30 minutes prior to the store opening, but I was not early enough! There were hundreds of people lined up in the street. I guess I am not their only fan....



I am getting closer.....





Here it is!!!







I am finally in! I got in at about 11:30 and didn't leave until 2PM!
(there was a DJ spinning, you can just make him out if you zoom)
I snatched up every piece I looked twice at. I have had experience shopping like this with Shannon and Tiffany at Sugarlime parties. I grabbed and grabbed and then headed to the change rooms. No line, what luck! Then I was back out for the second round.

I thought there was only one floor of ladies and headed up to the next floor to see if the fitting room lines were any better. Hallelujah!!! A second floor of ladies wear!!! By the time I could no longer carry all the clothes the lines were out of control. I spent 20 minutes waiting. But it was worth it! I bought 8 tops and 1 purse.



Hong Kong is the first place to have the new M by Madonna line. We get it 2 weeks before everyone else. There is a purse in her line I wanted but I was not quick enough. It is already sold out. Damn.


Here's what the store looks like when its not crawling with crazed shoppers.
















The purse that got away.

It is such a cute little clutch and I have this fab pair of black heels with silver stripes that would go so well with it....

My first day at work

Today was my first day teaching English in Hong Kong.


I was out of the apartment at 7:30am heading to the MTR. I had big plans to snap a pic of myself on the train during the hectic morning commute but I forgot I was a chicken! The best I could do was to take a picture in the tunnel switching trains!
















This is the MTR map. Click to enlarge so you can see where I went. I started at Sheung Wan the beginning of the blue line I headed to North Point and transfered thru the orange tunnel to the purple line heading to Tsuen Kwan O.



From the MTR station it is a quick 10 minute walk to the school. The commute is just under an hour, including walking time. This area is all high rise apartments. There are a lot of people living here! I believe some apartments are income assisted.



Looking at the station map there are 10 schools within walking distance.

It was a cold and overcast day which was unfortunate because I was in short sleeves and no sweater. It seemed everyone was looking at me funny all day, first because of no sweater, then because I was the only white person for miles in this neighborhood, then the dead silence when during lunch I whip out my Tupperware filled with salad and a big bottle of water while all the other teachers are eating the provided rice and Chinese food. You would have thought salad was illegal!

Here people are doing Tai Chi under the apartment supports.





More buildings! Getting close to school now!












Here is the front doors to CCC HK Chi To Church Kei Pok Kindergarten.


I think that is the name...it sure looks crazy!




There are 7 different classrooms as well as several play/assembly rooms.






The girls bathroom. Look at those mini toilets!
Thankfully at the far end there is a regular sized one, with a door!

Rooftop Dinner

Before I left for Vancouver Suds and I had dinner up on our rooftop. On the menu was glazed salmon, couscous and sesame snow peas.
It was so yummy and it even managed to stay warm on the 6 flight walk up to the top!
If you enlarge the pic you should be able to see the mini sheesha pipe we picked up in Johannesburg. We discovered the reason why our bigger one (in storage in Vancouver) never worked...faulty coals! Now we are hooked up with fully functional coals and a selection of tobacco!

No one ever uses the roof so I am considering throwing a dinner party up there...we will see.