Larry and Judy come for a visit

Snacks the night they arrived. We ended up going out for a drink and didn't get to bed till 4am!!






Up at the Peak. Not too smoggy, not too clear....






Dinner up on the rooftop

















Judy dipping her feet in Stanley Beach





Stanley Market

Housewife Tip of the Day

Summer is almost here (well in Hong Kong at least) and that means trips to the beach!
Here is a tip I have recently learned, the hard way.

If you like to collect pretty seashells from the beach for souvenirs, make sure that no creature is still calling them home. Otherwise when you open your luggage/picnic basket/backpack you will wonder what that god awful rotten ocean stink is.

Congratulations Gill and Paul!!

FREE ICE CREAM

For you chocolate lovers out there, I have found a special treat for you.
Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Therapy ice cream is divine! It is dark and rich and will fulfill all your chocolate cravings.

April 17th Ben & Jerry's is having Free Cone Day and we all know free ice cream has no calories so go ahead! Indulge!

Traffic cop Part 2

For those of you who enjoyed our video of the Tsing Tao Man AKA Recycler of the Year 2007, here is another one! We did not film this one, but it is the same guy. This one is famous on youtube. We were this close to our 15 minutes.....

This is the school I teach at on Wednesdays.
I was put in charge of a poster for the hallway. I chose the theme of Spring (how original)












The kids in this pic are the N1 class, age 2, so cute! I don't do much teaching with them, mostly just singing with lots of actions.

This is our friend the recycler! Looks to us like he has had too many Tsing Tao's this morning! (the local beer)
He's doing a good job conducting traffic.

Easter 2007

Sunday night I cooked an Easter dinner at Sarah's house. It was nice and small with just me, Sarah and Gill there.
( no I am not talking in the third person, there are 2 Sarah's here!)






All three of our husbands are away. The boys missed out big time!



On the menu:
Roast beef
double batch of Yorkshires
balsamic gravy
horseradish mashed potatoes
ginger carrots
spinach salad with goat cheese
flourless chocolate espresso cake wtih raspberry sauce!



I was worried about the roast. With no men in the house how would it get sliced up to eat??
Thankfully Sarah took care of that!



Happy Easter!!

Picks and Pans

***** The Departed - this movie is a must see! Great acting and involved storyline. The ending will leave you speechless! There is violence and gore, but the movie as a whole is so good it makes it worth while.

****1/2 Blood Diamond - loved Leo Dicaprio in this one, especially the South African accent! It has a great theme and story although I did find the ending kinda cheesy. We saw this one in Johannesburg and it was funny to hear how the "locals" reacted to the accent and slang.

***1/2 Catch a Fire - another movie based in South Africa, this one during the time of Apartied. Tim Robbins didn't master the accent like Leo, but there was enough if it there. In this movie you watch how the effect of corruption can completely change a persons life and beliefs. Based on a true story, you get to see the real guy in the credits.

*** Children of Men - A story with a theme that reminds me of The Handmaid's Tale. Set in 2027 Britain. For some reason women are no longer able to have children. The youngest person on the planet is 18 years old and the world is a violent awful place. What I liked about it was the believable depiction of the future; no moving sidewalks and robot slaves. But the movie seemed to just be one chapter in a much longer story. As Suds said when it was over, "That movie went no where" Starring Clive Owen with Michale Caine and Juliane Moore.

****1/2 300 - "This is Sparta!" This movie exceeded my expectations (although they were low). Suds wanted to see this one and I agreed after reading a review that said every scene was a work of art. I figured it was more than just your standard blood and guts film. I was right! Basically there are 300 Spartans fighting against like a gazillion Persians. The movie is based in some fact which makes it even more interesting. Considering it is a war movie there wasn't a lot of gore. I highly recommend this one for girls to see with their guys as payback for the chick flicks we drag them to. The Spartans are extremely fit men with powerful muscles and abs like you wouldn't believe! The whole movie is eye candy cause the Spartans only wear little loin cloths! Yum!

*** Saving Fish From Drowning (book) Amy Tan - This book was disappointing. I've read and loved two of her other books, The Kitchen Gods Wife and The Joy Luck Club but this book does not even come close. It is so sad when a trusted author lets you down. There were all these characters and I really didn't care about any of them. What I loved about her other books were the little details she threw in, like the sound of chopsticks and what they ate. Those things seemed to be missing in this book.

***** My Sister's Keeper (book) Jodi Picoult The best book I have read in a long time! definitely in my Top Ten of All Time! It is a tear jerker. I read it while in South Africa and finished it on camping safari . It was nap time before we went out for afternoon safari. Suds was sleeping, but I just had to finish this book. Suds wakes up and sees me bawling my eyes out reading the last page. He is completely confused as I choke out, "This book was SO good!" Girls are so weird.

Do you have any book or movies you would like to share? Post them in the comments section.

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....