Annual Dinner

Hello and happy day to you! It is starting to get very warm here in Hong Kong and I hope you all are beginning to thaw. We are now back to day light savings time in the USA, so the time change is back to 12 hours from eastern standard time.

In our neck of the woods, last Friday we celebrated the company Annual Dinner. This is quite a big deal! They had a very nice party for all Hong Kong employees, and families & kids were invited as well. The theme was "Oldies" and there were prizes and raffles given out.

Here is a cute picture of me (I'm the big whitey with the afro puffs - hey, the 70's IS oldies to me?!?!) and some fellow Honkee costumed friends.
Our friend Brian was the MC complete with his full sequined disco attire. They played one game where Tony had to go up on the stage and over head phones, listen to a famous Cantonese song and then sing what he heard to the group so they could guess. It was one of the funniest things! They made our President do it as well, I have it on video, at the end he asks to pay to get off the stage! And of course there were the raffles and prizes. When we walked in, everyone got to take a red pocket with either $100 or $500 Hong Kong inside (surprise) and then drop your name into a barrel which they used later to draw from. They gave away cash up to $5000 HKD (about $600 US!), gift certificates, Ipods, Nintendos, everything! But alas, even though about 50% of the people won prizes, I did not win anything. I got a $15 Starbucks gift certificate though for guessing a baby picture correctly. Woo hoo! I can buy like 2 coffees now!

Tony won a gift certificate for two to dinner at the Excelsior Hotel buffet. You may recall, the Excelsior was where we lived for a month when we first moved here, not DYING to go back to eat there again, but, hopefully he will ask me to join him ; ) Here is a cute picture of him and our female admin, Carl. She wanted to sit with us because we are fun. But they are not fun, neither of them wore a silly costume! Good thing I captured this silly face instead.
So, having not won a raffle prize, I thought I was a shoe in for the costume contest! However, to my dismay, afro puffs and all, they had a unspoken rule that only local people could win, so my hair was sprayed and teased for NOTHING! I told HR that I was filing a complaint....not really, I am glad they took me out because it was really no contest at all : )

And of course, what is an ANNUAL DINNER without the Dinner? Here is a pic of one of our ten courses...think Babe. Yes, you guessed it, whole roasted sucking pig. He looks like a burn victim!

I had to give Tony the skin parts, but the rest of it was pretty good. Oink oink.

So all in all the annual dinner was a lot of fun. Everyone got really into the prizes and Rockwell gave away a ton of stuff. It was very nice, too bad we will miss it next year. Till next time, I LOVE YOU & MISS YOU!

See Food, Seafood!

Hello everyone! Welcome back to some more adventures in China. I went to the southern region, Guangzhou, this week. After checking into my hotel under the company name of "Rocker well", I met up with Jim, my counterpart from the US who is doing a short term assignment in Shanghai. A self proclaimed 'meat & potatoes' guy, I had to share some of the photos that he took at a sea food restaurant we went to one night this week. Fish moving around in a tank is enough to make him squirm, just wait till he feasted his eyes on our soon to be sustenance swimming around!

Now, to set the scene, this restaurant is huge and located on the river in Guangzhou. There are a hundred of fish tanks with different things in them and after you get sat at your table, you get up and walk over to the tanks and point to what you want to order and how you want it prepared. Doesn't get much fresher than that!

The front page of the menu alone was enough to send Jim into gross out mode. Probably shouldn't have taken him to the see food seafood restaurant : )

Wonder where they get the alligator from listed on the menu? Right here of course, head and all. Notice the fish heads on ice in the background... Yum!

I wish there was something in the background that could give you a perspective as to how big this fish actually was...enough to feed the entire state of Wyoming. Glad he swam over for a smile, glub glub.

Calamari anyone? A very large squid, ripe for the picking, using your hands of course.

So what did we wind up choosing? Well, my favorite thing was a bamboo basket (which you don't eat silly goose!) which held shrimp, garlic, green peppers, and black tea, all of which was fried together - you don't eat the tea either by the way! It was very sweet and savory all at once. And we got my fav scallops with garlic and vermicelli, which our very cute sales engineer loves also.

And Jim, he got pork and fried rice. I think he did try a shrimp though! Even I was grossed out by the other things they had there....jars of snakes! All coiled up soaking a a red liquid. Vomit! And then in a separate jar, just the snake heads.

Oh well, just another week in China. Happy eating!

Go Terri, its your birthday - The Sollazo's visit!

Hello loyal readers! It is I, back again with another blog. This time, it was Tony's parents, Ron & Terri Sollazo (aka Dad & Mom) who were the visitors. They battled the trip from Chicago to Hong Kong arriving on Friday, February 22nd. I had just gotten back from my two week journey on Thursday night and had a quick turn around before getting ready for our next batch of visitors. They did well on the flight, neither of them sleeping much at all, and surprisingly, they were up for some Thai food after their arrival. We went out to Chedi in Soho and ordered a delicious bunch of dishes including pineapple seafood rice, stir fried beef with mango, and plenty of beers. Since they had a long day (& night) of travel, we went home and got a good night sleep to prepare for our next adventures.

On Saturday morning we woke up early and headed to the Kowloon side. Ron wanted to have a custom suit made while he was here, so we went to a guy named Peter who has been outfitting all sorts of coworkers with great tailor made clothes. He selected a shark skin grey material and they went to work with the measurements. Peter said that if we could come back after 3, he would have the first draft and first fitting ready to try on again, so we bummed around TST for the afternoon. We had dim sum lunch, which as it turned out was the very first time the Sollazos had ever eaten with chopsticks. After some quick lessons from Tony, they made ti through the meal. By the end of the week, they were old pros, even able to use the steel skinny kinds at the Korean restaurants! After lunch we walked up into Kowloon park to look at the rose garden which was in full bloom. After heading back to check on the suit which amazingly was almost finished in just a few hours, we headed back to our house for some rest before dinner. We made reservations for some good old Italian food, knowing that we had a long week of Chinese ahead of us when we crossed the border in a few days. We had a great meal and great wine. Dad was so exhausted he took a slight nap at the dinner table, only for a few minutes ; )

The next morning it was time for some shopping! We had brunch at the Brunch Club, a very cute little eatery on Peel street. Ron & Terri had huge omelettes and Tony and I had crepes (mine was filled with goats' cheese and tomatoes, yummy!) We headed up to the Peak from there, but did not hike it since Terris leg has been bothering her and it is very hard for her to walk especially up stairs, so we took the tram up to the top. Unfortunately, it was not a very nice day, windy, sprinkly rains and very nasty up there, but at least they got to see the view of the Hong Kong island side. We then took a taxi down to Stanley market where Terri went to work on her souvenir shopping! She got some great stuff, hopefully if you are a lucky winner, you will be the recipient of her generous purchases...they are great! We had a seafood lunch at the Boathouse in Stanley and then shopped some more before heading back home. We took a rest and then got packed up for our trip to China as we were leaving early the next morning.

Our flight to Beijing was on time and we were luckily able to check-in to our rooms and drop off our stuff before heading to the Forbidden City. Many of the buildings were under renovation as they are preparing for the Olympics coming up here very soon. The weather was a lot warmer than when we were there over the Christmas vacation with my family. After the Forbidden city, we left the boys and Terri and I went to the Pearl Market. I had been contemplating some purchases for a while so I knew what I wanted, plus my mom called in an extra order of some things she needed (even though she already bought 1,000,000 necklaces last time : ) Terri did very well for both herself and others and we had a good time shopping around all the little Chinese lady vendors. That evening, it was time for Peking Duck! we went back to the duck king restaurant where we had taken my folks as it is the best in town and they did a quacking good job on the birds!

The next morning, it was Terri's birthday and we were off to the Great Wall and the Ming Dynasty Tombs. First stop were the tombs, a new site for Tony and I. This is the burial ground of some 13 rulers from the Ming Dynasty and their emperor wives. The whole site is designed with Feng Shui principals, and over 27 meters underground. All in all, if you are ever in Beijing, I'd suggest skipping the tombs and doing the Summer palace and Great Wall in one day instead. The section of the wall we went to this time was different than with my parents. The JuYong section has two sides, one which goes down lots of steps over the highway and the other which goes up the mountain, but the steps are soooo steep, basically like taking three at a time! Either way, it was too much for Terri's leg so they took some pics from the bottom and Tony and I headed up the steep slope. We were sweating by the time we reached the top but I still had enough energy to do a silly dance which we captured on video for the future grand kids to see.

Since it was Terri's birthday, we had our old friend Mr. Gu (aka Mr. Wu) make us reservations at the seafood restaurant where we went for Christmas. First we opened presents and had some birthday drinks at the bar in our hotel where the cute bartenders sang and played 'Happy Birthday' for Terri, giving her a free drink of special Chinese liquor. After a few cocktails, we headed to the restaurant. Tony went 'shopping' and picked out our feast...We had scallops (with the vermicelli, garlic and scallions), grilled prawns, squid with snow pea pods, lobster, fresh steamed fish, fried rice, and sauteed baby bok choy for our veggies. As we were finishing our dinner, Mr. Gu and his wife show up, complete with a bottle of champagne, birthday cake, candles and a crown for Terri. Who is the cutest, I mean, really?!?! We love Mr. Gu! Anyways, it was a very special birthday indeed. Not many people get to see the Great Wall and Mr. Gu on their birthdays : )

Early the next morning we flew into Xian. We checked in and ate lunch at our hotel before heading into the city wall. We climbed to the top and were happy to find a bunch of displays left over from Chinese New Year just a few weeks earlier. Lots of Rats! Our main reason for stopping in Xian again was for Ron & Terri to see the terracotta soldiers. We got a private tour from our hotel to the warriors and our guide was a lot more up on the knowledge this time around. It was great to see the look on their faces and as Terri said, she got goose bumps walking into the big hanger of Pit 1. Very cute.

We then went to the silk factory where Ron & Terri got a set of silk bedding, a new jacket for Terri, and some new ties for Ron to match his suit which was waiting for him back in Hong Kong. We headed to the airport where we encountered quite a scene...a Chinese baby wearing 'split pants'. What are 'split pants' you ask? Split pants are as literal as the name sounds, basically crotchless pants for the un-toilet trained baby, which allows them to relieve themselves anywhere and everywhere. Even on the airport floor as the tell tale yellow puddle indicated. This baby was a boy, as I could see his pointy uncircumcised pecker peeking out like a (very) miniature third leg. I could not believe my eyes. I had to Google this to see if it was real...Known in Chinese "kaidangku" (literally "open-crotch pants") are very real, especially nowadays in the poorer community. OK, fine, you can't afford diapers, but what about good old fashioned cloth ones?!? I was so grossed out, and then to my dismay, who do we see later on at our gate boarding our flight back home...? The crotchless wonder. So, that means he was allowed to make on the plane. Gagging. Not recovered, traumatized for life. Thank god I didn't sit anywhere near the family, I really would have puked. Come on people, is diaper rash really that big of a problem?!?! I don't know, I don't remember having it recently : )

We had quite the journey returning from Xian as our original flight to Hong Kong was cancelled so we opted to fly to the nearest city in China, Shenzhen. We then had to take several buses before finally arriving back home two hours after we landed. We were starved at this point so I ordered up some pizzas and beer and we chilled out having survived another adventure in China.

It was great to spend a couple days back in Hong Kong before they left. We had Korean food on Friday night which they had never eaten before but, truly loved as one of their favorite meals all week. Saturday we went to spend the day in Macau and met up with other Rockwell friends at the Venetian for drinks and then dinner at our favorite Portuguese restaurant. It was a great visit and we wish they were still here with us!

Fortunately or not, I am headed back again this week, and Tony is off to India. Well, I guess I can't complain, I got the better deal there! I miss South East ASIA!

Till next time, I LOVE YOU & MISS YOU!