Lantau Island

We took a nice little Saturday trip to Lantau Island. The Parker family - some friends we met through Jessica's school (Mrs. Parker is the Music teacher, and Sabrina is in Jessica's class) - kindly hosted us for a day exploring where they live! They have a nice house in a residential neighborhood which was near a beach and other fun activities. The airport is on Lantau Island, but it also is home to a more "country" feel of Hong Kong.

Lantau Island is not far by ferry. We just hopped in a taxi and headed to the Central Piers - This is Jessica and Christina in front of the Ferry. The ferry ride took about 25 minutes.
One of the big highlights of Lantau is that you can see the Pink Dolphins - they swim around off the coast near some rocky cliffs. We took a boat ride to see them but unfortunately they were not out.

Here's the little boat we rode on to look for the dolphins.

It has been quite a foggy day until the evening came around - then we saw some nice scenery as the late afternoon sun came out.

One of the very interesting parts of Lantau is in "Tai O," a small fishing village where people have lived on stilt houses for ages. They just build them out into the water!


The photo above really amazes me - you can see straight through the stilts.

Pretty girls.

Now after a fun day of sight-seeing, you need a good sea-food meal! Try some of the tasty Hong Kong delicacies featured below! Mmmmmmm. Actually, I think they are used more for medicinal purposes than food, but I'm not really sure.

Looks like Jessie and Sabrina have their eyes on the dried puffer fish.
Spiny blow fish might be nice for a change...

OK this is just THE ugliest thing ever. Of course if you prefer sea horse, the bottom right hand corner is the ticket.

Anyhow, a really fun day overall in Lantau with our friends!

Only in Hong Kong

Before we leave HK, I'm sure I'll have enough Hong Kong funnies to fill an encyclopedia!

We see this fun stuff every day...I just finally decided to take a few pictures. These are two fun things I ran across today. If you try to take Hong Kong seriously, you'll be lost. After a while, you realize this town has an AMAZING sense of humor!



YUMMY!


Spicy undies got you down? Just try something a little bit more "blah." :-)

Snack time - Jimmy's desk

Hi Robin - this blog is devoted especially to fond memories of you and your snack drawer.



Please meet Jimmy Lee. He's the snack king of the HKG office, your counterpart on the other side of the world. He is as kind and as good a "light conversationalist" as you are! We've taken over his entire desk rather than just a drawer.

But in HKG we do things a little different from the way we did things in the US. You see, there is a lot of traveling going on around here, and it is a bit of an un-written office "policy" to bring some goodies in with you when you either return from a trip, or come to visit us from another far-away land. Here - let's take a look!




First, here's a lovely little yummy from Taiwan. It is quite creative! It is pumpkin seeds soaked in green tea then glued together with some sort of sweet syrup, then cut into a bar shape. Here's the close-up. Yes, it is a bit different from what we often see in your cube, but it is actually very nice!





Now whenever you see this label, "Bangawan Solo," you'll want to take a try. This is a lovely little bakery in Singapore. They have some butter cookies that are divinely wonderful! Pictured here on the right are some little coconut cookie bites. On the left are some little treats that go like hotcakes (you know, not literally, because I don't think hotcakes would really "go,"). They look like a little baked spring roll. The filling is dried shrimp. Has quite a fishy smell - like I said, they are VERY popular for a salty snack, but I don't care much for them. But yes, I've tried them. I'll take the coconut cookie bites any day!





Recently one of our colleagues took a trip to BKK, and these little fishy skins came back. All you have to do is open the plastic container to get a nice smell of what they might taste like. (Haven't tried them.)
Nice closeup of another variety of fishy chips from BKK! (Haven't tried). They just come in a plastic bag like when you buy bulk banana chips at the Whole Foods market with a scoop! (If you get too close, your eyes might water. )

Now on to some little tasty treats from Beijing. Green Bean Jelly Block (nope), Goat Liver Jelly Block (what, are you kidding me??? No seriously, I thought it was a joke. You know, there are about a billion different dialects in China so I thought it must be a issue of translation. Therefore, I sought four independent translations, and they all came up with the same thing - - goat liver jelly. Ah well, nothing to waste.), Taro Vegetable Cake and Sesame Cake (probably completely harmless, but since they came in the same bag as the Goat Liver Jelly Block, I haven't tried them).


And now can you possibly guess who has decided to take it upon themselves to manage the chocolate tin? Yep, you're right!!!

All the best, Love, EJ