Saturday, May 28, 2011

Recent photos to accompany blog











Thursday, May 26, 2011

Beijing food:), Oysters in Shenzhen, Yunnan bamboo wine, Stephen in Toronto

 i finally spent a week in Hong Kong renewing my China visa, hiking, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning and napping.  Its been a shockingly good week this week in China for food.  Monday in Shenzhen I ate the BEST meal ever eaten in Mainland.  Simple but great dishes in an outdoor oyster restaurant. I wasn't an oyster fan until these garlic flavoured plump ones, AND I didn't feel sick thereafter!  Then in Beijing I had Yunnan meal where they served rice wine from a tall bamboo stick, yummy soup noodles and some egg thing.  On the same night, I went to a going away dinner at Quanjude Tsinghua beijing duck. I was totally full and barely ate a thing.  At lunch, I had a stone hot pot with unagi (i still avoid raw fish in China) downstairs at work. Tonight a Muslim colleague was in town meeting Lenovo so I joined them for lamb (x3 various dishes) at a halal restaurant.  I better stop eating or will get fat and probably food poisoning on the way.  All in all, the food in China has improved in the past decade since coming here!

Stephen is back in Toronto for this week then off to work next week! ;) He enjoyed setting fireworks off with his cousins, meeting his new nephew Joven, spending quality family time, breathing fresh air, eating good food and getting mentally prepared for the crazy HK work hours...miss you!

have a great Wed everybody!  The weather in Beijing has been fabulous and I hear its great in Toronto too!

Monday, May 16, 2011

May - dragon boat, hiking, new nephew and homesickness

Stephen and I are getting homesick... his sister just had a new baby boy Joven and we're excited to meet him.  Also managed to get some hiking done; this time on HK Trail Section #5 and I competed in my second Dragon Boat race of the season at Deepwater Bay beach.  Yesterday we hosted my aunt/uncle's visit from TorontoHowever skipped my team's races in Borocay Philippines and in Lamma since cannot make it often.  Life is becoming a little less 'new' and more 'settled' in HK these days.  But look forward to a trip home in June/July to catch up with the family and new babies... work life is kind of a drag so I'll skip writing about this for now.  Mandarin lessons in full force so that's a bright light...:)  Happy Monday!

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Vietnam: Wifi, coffee, honking, pho

Stephen organized a short but fun trip to Hanoi and Halong Bay (north Vietnam) over Easter weekend.  To our surprise, despite relatively low living standards, high pollution with scooters/cars - most of their cafe's have wifi! Wow! Pleasant.  Additionally unlike their tea obsessed Asian neighbours, coffee is the drink of choice in this former French colony.  Sadly development is clearly sub-par with scooters and pot-hole filled roads. Additionally the drivers HONK every other minute - even if there are no cars around. Needless to say the main streets are very loud.  Pho noodle soup is fabulous, cheap and readily available.  Not much vermicelli (bun) to be found (maybe that's in Ho Chi Minh / south?).  We loved the people and the food. Final observation - their architecture is TALL narrow multi story homes. Anyone know why?