Christmas in Hong Kong

Merry Christmas from Hong Kong!

First of all, I apologize for taking so long between posts. I think it has been over a month since my last post. Again, I'm sorry. But November and December were very busy for me over here! My mom, Auntie Neenie, and Grandma Joan came to visit me over Thanksgiving. We had a great 'girls trip' and I was sad to see them go. But I quickly got over missing my family because my dad arrived just one day after they left! He visited me for a week also and we had some great father-daughter bonding time :)

I had family here for here for 19 days straight I think. Exhausting! And as soon as I was getting back into my normal routine it was Christmas! My Christmas festivities started about a week before Christmas with a holiday work 'party' where myself, interns Mandy and Eszter, volunteer Andy, and my boss Matthias went from bar to bar in Wan Chai and drank and danced (aka Christmas Pub Crawl). We had lots of fun!

On Christmas eve day I spent the day shopping with a friend from Hong Kong, Linda. You think shopping on Christmas eve day in the states is bad? Causeway Bay rivaled the Miracle of Birth barn at the MN State Fair on a weekend when a birth is happening. yeah, that bad. Christmas Eve I went out to a Thai place for dinner with Linda and her boyfriend, Jon. We had some amazing green and red curry. Nontraditional food but at least we kept with the Christmas color theme.
I spent Christmas morning skying and chatting with family and friends online. It was nice to be able to see and talk to everyone even though I was so far away from home. In the afternoon I headed over to my friend Eszter and her fiance's house. Two other interns, Mandy and Sandra, and one of the dolphin trainers, Ken, joined us. The six of us enjoyed an amazing 3 course Hungarian meal cooked by Eszter, played Wii, ate Christmas cookies, talked, and laughed into the night. I feel blessed to have found such great friends here.

Eszter was kind enough to invite me to spend the night so I didn't have to travel the two hours back to my place so late at night. The next morning we slept in and enjoyed a late breakfast. It was a beautiful day and we decided to take a hike since Eszter's place is very close to some amazing hiking trails. We got a bit of a late start but were convinced we knew where we were headed. After seeing an amazing waterfall at the beginning of the trail, we headed out.

Well after about 15min we ended up back were we started, then came to a dead end after trying a different way. We decided it was time to find a new trail. Finally we got on a nice trail with some beautiful views.

We ended up hiking about a total of 12km over about 5-6hrs (detours included). It was an amazing day. I didn't even feel like I was in Hong Kong anymore. It was so peaceful and quite and the air was fresh and clean. I am used to a busy, crowded, noisy place so it was nice to have some tranquility and time in nature.

We also got luck with the weather because it was raining the day before. The whole time we were hiking it was in the 60s or 70s. I could hardly believe it was the day after Chirstmas!

After our hike we had longs hots showers and some hot soup left over from Christmas dinner. We ere wiped out so we just curled up and watched a movie for the rest of the night. I spent the night at Eszter's again since Monday was a holiday and we didn't have to go into work.

Monday morning we decided to check out the farm across the street from Eszter's apartment complex. The day before we had noticed a large sign with starwberries on it next to entrance (no English on it of course) and lots of people out in the field. We were wondering if it was a 'pick your own' kind of farm. So we headed over there in the late morning with our tupperware containers in hand. We followed the signs (which lucky had arrows) to the front desk (aka old table with change box, basket of scissors, and empty strawberry baskets). Of course no one was at the 'desk', but there was a man out in the field with a large hat so we flagged him down. Of course he didn't speak English. But he held up his fingers and indicated 4 and 1. 4 and 1 what? We asked $4 (holding up money) for 1 basket (pointing to the empty collection baskets)? No, he shook his head. $4 for 1 lb (he pushed on the scale on his table until the needle pointed to one pound). Well that was a great deal we were saying to each other! Normally a small strawberry container in the grocery store here is about $50 (Hong Kong Dollars). And he only wanted $4 Hong Kong dollars for a pound. We were psyched! We pointed to our tupperwear asking if we could just collect the strawberries in these and he nodded yes.
We were so excited. The field was huge, the air smelled sweet like strawberries, and the sun was shinning. We enjoyed ourselves walking up and down the rows, talking, picking strawberries (aka cutting them with kids safety scissors), and enjoying the weather.

The strawberries on these vines were so perfect and red, unlike any in the store, that I decided to go back and fill up other box in addition to the one I brought since they were so cheap. Once we had out boxes over flowing we went back to the register to pay. Eszter went to pay first and she had about 3 pounds total when she put her two boxes on the scale. She prepared to pay $12 when the farmer held up one finger. 1? One what? He pointed to her money. We were so confused. Then he pulled out his cell phone and typed in 100. $100 we asked him, we thought it was 4 per pound, as we held up 4 fingers. He got out his cell phone again and typed in 40. Great, he wanted $40 per pound, not $4.
We were a little pissed off that he didn't just type 40 in his phone before to show us instead of holding up 4 fingers. But we had so much fun picking them and being out side (and they looked so delicious) that Eszter paid her $100 and I ended up getting only one box for $60.
We got home and dug in. They were delicious, but for that price I don't think we will be going back anytime soon. We speculate he may have been charging us more than normal since we looked like tourists (aka 'skin tax' as we like to call it)

After our strawberry adventure I traveled the 2 hours back to home. I finally got a much needed hair cut and spend the night unpacking and getting ready to go back to work.

I can't believe my time here has gone by so fast. I come home in about 3 weeks. Wow. I am so excited to see all my family and friends back home but am going to miss all the friends that I have made here that have been like family.

I promise I will write more often :)
Love, Kels