Exams weeks

Blech.

I am now taking the unprecedented step of combining several past and future days into one post. Of course I'm planning on writing a nice conclusion-y type ending to this blog, possibly one that I'll write while surrounded by free time on the plane ride home. Until then, unless something truly fantastic happens (like yesterday when I discovered the Circle K convenience store sells blueberry vanilla swirl ice cream for 3HKD) I won't be writing anymore. This fills me with sadness, of course, but my life has fallen into a horribly predictable pattern involving library desks, notebooks, mechanical pencils, suspicious cheese crackers, and chocolate soy milk...all in all, a boring read.

I can't believe it's only Monday.

TMT Plaza feast

(note the parachuting Santa)

No more classes! However, this fact has yet to sink in, probably because it means the semester is near to ending and my mind is consciously, subconsciously and unconsciously rejecting any thoughts related to leaving.

Anyway, we met for dinner at 7 and waited outside in the shivering cold for half an hour for everyone to arrive. A few raindrops splashed our faces until we told them to go away; if they'd disobeyed I guess we could've been far more miserable. Actually, if I'd brought any sort of coat to Hong Kong the weather wouldn't bother me in the least. I mean, some people are still wearing shorts.

Even though we had a reservation (and on a Friday that's really the only option for any restaurant except that Taiwanese place--empty as usual) we still needed to wait a good while. At least we were indoors, which if not heated, at least felt lukewarm and lacked a breeze.


The restauarant chairs were soft and cushiony (like velvet) and the tea was hot. There were two kinds, and one teapot of hot water to dilute the tea after it's steeped for too long. The appetizers were the mix of beans, tofu and some kind of fruit (apples?) shown above.


Always leave the ordering to a local! They'll choose the right stuff, like fish, the egg whites as delicious as crabs, dumplings, spicy tofu, the meat that gets wrapped in the tortilla, a chicken that I forgot about even though it was sitting right next to me, and spaghetti-like noodles. VERY long spaghetti-like noodles. So long that we decided to cut them, even if it meant bad luck and a reduced life span.

A carrot flower!

The forgotten chicken, an unforgotten dumpling, and the dishes made in Japan.

A most delicious fish. It tasted like sweet 'n' sour chicken. Yum-yum!

I thought the fish could use a little accessorizing.
Doesn't s/he look stunning?

Woah...a mastiff. Glad they aren't allowed outside the mall.
Wait--who in Hong Kong owns an apartment large enough for a dog this size?

I hoped a title would have materialized by now...but no.

Yesterday (Thursday) I finally drank my bottled milk! It tasted particularly delicious because a) it wasn't soy milk b) it wasn't reduced-fat and c) it came in a glass bottle. The bottle requested that I Please Rinse And Return Emptied. Ummm...No way. I guess I should rinse it though...



Also: here are some of the ten-dollar coins that I thought I'd already photographed until I heard otherwise. I like them the best, although the two dollar coins with wavy edges come close. And the ten cent coins are cool because Queen Elizabeth II gets older and then transforms into a bauhinia flower.


I forgot to write earlier that the best part of Wednesday's movie was the detailed references to Hong Kong! "The Kowloon side, not the Hong Kong Island side..." Everyone perked up; we know where Kowloon is! "...the Peninsula..." We know what the Peninsula looks like! (and so do you! I took a photo of the fountain outside it while trying to cross the road to the art museum) "...to some island" "Lantau Island" "To see some Buddha statue at some monastery." We know! We know! A-mazing.

Yesterday's movie was The Holiday, which I'd seen in theaters a couple of years ago (remember, Grandma?) A friend and I waited nearly an hour for everyone to show up, but it was okay because there's a couch in the lobby next to a bookcaseful of books (we couldn't wait in the common room because people were playing Monopoly). For the past few months I've been reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland a couple of pages at a time--but yesterday I made it all the way from the caucus race to croquet with the Queen of Hearts!

Earlier in the day I mostly studied, with a break for fish ball soup. This time I correctly mixed the chili sauce with the sweet (not soy) sauce. And: I ate outside! That's right! I didn't even need my cardigan! Also: it hasn't rained in weeks and weeks! Alright, okay, enough exclamation points.

Wait--I forgot to mention the carolers! The Christian choir stood outside the hostel and sang Christmas songs in English and Cantonese. I always love hearing familiar songs in other languages. And I love hearing Christmas carols. And I love random surprises. So: awesome all around.

Lopped-off limb no more!

I looked out the window and really wished I could photograph these clouds. So I turned on my camera..."lens error."And tried again..."lens error." And again. And just when I'd decided I could no longer justify not studying--! Unbelievable! Utterly astounding! And assorted synonyms.

Economics of the Family finished early, so instead of rushing of to my next class I got to sit by the canteen for a few minutes. At a nearby table people were handing out free apples, a flyer on dealing with exam stress ("start your revision at an early time and don't study hurriedly," etc.) and a red rectanglular piece of paper with an optimistic message. Mine says, "Pass the examinations with Flying Colours" but really I wanted one with Chinese characters. Although it was thoughtful to hand me something I could read.

Tonight's Christmas movie felt more Christmas-y, but I don't know the title because I came at least 15 minutes late [I needed to finish an MSN discussion about a group project. I used to wonder why MSN messenger is so popular here until I realized (duh) why would anyone use AIM (American Online)? I detest question marks after parantheses, but it seems I had no choice]. Oh--found it--The Family Stone. Yeah, so still not filled with Christmas cheer, but getting closer.

And now, I sleep.

Gremlins

Hmmm, yesterday. Mostly filled with classes, and the oral portion of my Mandarin exam. I found my missing Chinese workbook that morning, it'd fallen between my desk and bed. I thought maybe I'd find other cool forgotten treasures, but--assorted clumps of dust have yet to make that list.

Wow. I truly have a horrible memory. I'm sorry. Oh! Okay, I remember a bit more now. After the exam I waited for my friends to finish (we talked to the professor one at a time) and then we went to dinner. I tried barbeque pork with vermicelli noodles in soup because I wondered how they would manage putting barbeque pork in soup (how would the sauce stay on? wouldn't it just be normal pork in soup?) and also "vermicelli" is extraordinarily fun to say. However, I would not recommend it. The soup was basically water with noodles, and they placed the pork on a separate plate.

Then we went to the Park N Shop, and I actually remembered to bring the canvas bag I'd bought three weeks ago to save the environment. I have now remembered twice. On the way there I ate some leftover sweet potatoes a friend handed me. Only I don't think they're actually sweet potatoes, despite being sweet tasting and potato-shaped. The skin is purplish and the inside is bright yellow. Yum! Also, it felt so nice to hold a ziploc bag of steaming hot potatoes. Now that it's gotten chillier (especially at night) there are few ways to keep warm. Holding sweet potatoes is one way. Hot showers are another. And the third heat source I've found are the hand dryers in the restrooms; the one near the front entrance is the best because the dryer doesn't turn off until you've moved your hands.

Were you aware that Gremlins is a Christmas movie? It's true; there's a Christmas tree, carolers, a broken snowman head, and everything! Yeah...but not exactly what I imagined after hearing "we're watching a Christmas movie in the common room."

And now I'll share some videos I didn't have the patience to attach the day I wrote about Monkey Mountain. I think I forgot not to rotate a couple of them, but even sideways monkeys should fill your heart with joy. The wobbling pole is from a monkey that had just slid down it firefighter style. And just when the grooming monkeys start to get boring, one of them eats a bug! Enjoy!

Spring Deer

On Sunday we were supposed to meet the teacher at 12 in the Tsim Sha Tsui station; it turns out the orange line is not faster than the red line, so we arrived 15 minutes late (Duìbùqǐ, wǒmen lái wǎn le). The restaurant was on the second floor (or was it the first floor?) of a building whose entranceway consisted of a poorly recreated Stanley Market. I wouldn't have compared it to Stanley Market at all, except that's what the banner hanging from the ceiling said.

Oh, and the name of the restaurant is Spring Deer, hence the title of this post.


The appetizers. I should have eaten the head of the fish first, to leave a better memory. It didn't taste bad, but the crunchy-squishy texture of the head made me squirm. The teacher told us these fish are only served on Sunday, and we were lucky enough to receive the last dish.

The class was divided between two tables, seven at each. The teacher's daughter sat at my table and did an excellent job of preventing a suffocating silence from settling in. She's actually studied in the U.S. from high school through college, so her English was flawless and she was really curious to hear about our experiences at Lingnan and the hostel life. But you're probably more curious to see the most delicious food in Hong Kong:


Counter-clockwise from ice: shrimp, chicken, duck. We dipped the roast duck in the duck sauce, and placed it in one of those tortilla things you see on the right. Then a slice of cucumber and a slice of I forget what the vegetable was (not anything unusual, either) and it gets wrapped up and eaten like a burrito.


The duck is in the middle; clockwise from duck sauce: not-crabs, very slippery noodles, shrimp, scallion pancakes, the tortilla things, the spicy beef filling for those bread pockets in front of them, meat filling to wrap in the lettuce leaves (behind the spicy beef), spring rolls, cucumbers and forgotten vegetable (leeks?). The stuff as delicious as crabs was [drum roll]...egg whites! It didn't taste at all like eggs, and it was warm and yummy and couldn't have been the least bit healthy. The slippery noodles really were slippery. I tried serving them to a friend and dropped them on the tablecloth a billion times. What made them so tricky was that they were too firm to properly squeeze between chopsticks. Actually, I can't think of any utensil that would have held them.

I ate too many of these. But hardly anyone else was! No way I could leave these battered and fried bananas (dripping with sugar and crispy and warm) behind. No way.

The last photos *sob*

Camera = broken.

"Lens Error."

Bummer. Well, beyond bummer. It's like someone lopped off a limb. Okay, not that bad. And at least it happened after Monkey Mountain and Spring Deer. Plus, what actually remained to take photos of? Economics notes?

Anywhere, so here's my day:

I went to the Park N Shop and found these oranges. And because I'd never seen oranges wrapped in plastic before and because each one only cost 2HKD and because oranges contain important vitamins (but mostly because it was wrapped in plastic) I bought one.


And here's the note my Angel wrote and taped to chocolate-crispy-hazelnut candies of deliciousness by the company that makes Kinder-eggs. I always thought they were German, but they're actually made in Italy by Ferrero. And the wrapper is written in Korean and Chinese. Oh, and English too. Very international.


Hah--and speaking of international, this afternoon I went to the OMIP's Farewell Reception for Incoming Exchange Students. We saw a slideshow of photos, listened to some people talk about their experiences and memories, listened to the choir sing a semi-Christmas song (the tune reminded me a bit of a carol, but I forget which one) and took group photos. This one is of the Mainland exchange students (obviously not all of them, but all the ones that came for light refreshments); my friends are among the blobs not wearing suits.