HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY FROM HONG KONG!

Hong Kong celebrated its Independence Day last weekend. We celebrated by participating in their Independence Day march.

There are so many freedoms we had back in the US that we took for granted while living there. Having spent the last 6 months in Asia, I have visited several countries with so many restrictions, such as the freedom of speech and freedom to vote, making Independence Day so much more meaningful this year. Thank you to all of our soldiers and veterans who sacrifice their lives each day to ensure we live in a safer world.

After the march, we hosted our family (12 people in total!) for an Italian dinner at our place. And to top off the great day, we were able to catch some of the Independence Day fireworks from our living room window!

Happy 4th of July to all of our friends and family back in the US!

CARNAVAL!

Hong Kong sure does love their carnaval themed parties! M and I have been to 2 black tie carnaval theme balls in the past 2 weekends.

Two weekends ago we volunteered for the Child Development Centre Daddy Daughter Ball at the Aberdeen Yacht Club. The CDC is a wonderful organization that provides intervention programs for special needs children. We were so happy to help out. It was adorable to see all of the dads in tuxes enjoy an evening with their precious daughters.

The beautiful Aberdeen Yacht Club

M testing out one of the games for the Dads

We helped the daughters make masks for the masquerade

No carnaval themed party is complete without brazillian dancers!

This past weekend, we attended the Ivy Ball, organized annually by the Hong Kong alumni associations of all the Ivy League schools. While I did not attend an Ivy school, M did, so he was pretty excited to get into the school spirit.

The theme this year was Carnaval at Copcabana. The dress attire called for black tie or Carnaval at Copcabana. M of course teased me all week long that he was going to dress according to the theme. He even stopped by Pottinger Street to pick up a "Rumba Man" costume, the closest thing he could find to the Brazilian theme. Our friends joked that he really should have gone with feathers and a thong.

I was relieved to see him Saturday night dressed in a tux as handsome as always. However, he did bring his Rumba Man costume with him in case he wanted to change.

In a taxi on our way to the ball

Yes, this did happen

Needless to say, M was quite the entertainment!

One of the annual traditions is to invite the alumni from each of the schools to come on stage and sing their school song. At the end of the evening, everyone votes on the best school song. Here's a youtube video of the Columbia alumni singing their school song back in 2009.

I am not quite sure who won last night, but it was fun to watch all of the enthusiastic alumni sing their school songs.

Columbia alumni singing their school song

M with his fellow Columbia grads

The evening was such a blast. Hope you had a wonderful weekend too.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, DAD!

Happy Father's Day to all of the dads out there! We so wish we could be spending Father's Day with our dads back in the States.

Below are some of my favorite pictures with my very special Dad. I love you Dad!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, M!

April is a BIG birthday month for my family. Within the span of 2 weeks, we celebrate my sister's birthday, my birthday and M's birthday.

Lucky for me, this year my sister was in town to celebrate both of our birthdays!

Here we are singing happy birthday to each other:)

M's birthday concludes the April birthday circuit. Rather than going out to dinner, this year I decided to make him one of his favorite meals - a chicken pot pie! I also chose to make one of my favorite desserts - Ina Garten's coconut cupcake recipe with chocolate ice cream (a win win for both of us!). This was an especially ambitious undertaking since we had completed our first 5 mile run in HK earlier that day. With the humidity levels at nearly 90%, the run definitely depleted us of most of our energy.

But it was a special day and I really wanted to test out my new mixer, a birthday present from M. I am one lucky baker! 

We made a trip to City Super, one of our local grocery stores, in search for the ingredients. To save time, we bought bags of frozen chopped vegetables, some grilled chicken breasts and premade pie crusts for the pot pie... Very Sandra Lee of me. I also took home their entire stock of butter (well sort of). You would be appalled if you knew how many sticks of butter the cupcake recipe called for!

Once home, I started by making the coconut cupcakes. If you have watched as many Ina Garten Barefoot Contesa episodes as I have (and I hope you haven't!), you know to always start by making the dessert first. I actually don't know that I have ever heard her explain why, but there must be a good reason, or at least I can think of a few.

When it comes to cooking, Ina Garten and my Aunt Jenny can do no wrong. My Aunt Jenny believes that vanilla bean paste should always be used to substitute vanilla extract since according to her, the finished product tastes better. When her grocery store in South Dakota stopped carrying vanilla bean paste, she had me looking all over New York for it so I could mail it to her. Well Aunt Jenny, you won't believe what I found in Hong Kong when I was looking for vanilla extract!

I will be making the substitution again in the future. Baked goods really do taste better with vanilla bean paste!

 

 

After about an hour and a half, the cupcakes were baked, frosted and ready to eat.

Next I got started on the chicken pot pie. We chose the pillsbury chicken pot pie recipe, since the recipe looked fairly easy and had good reviews.

And now for the finished product...

It was a wonderful and intimate birthday dinner with delicious, homemade food!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WHITNEY!

To know her is to love her...

Happy birthday to the most amazing sister a girl could ever ask for!

CELEBRATING CHINESE NEW YEAR

It is wonderful to be in Hong Kong during the Chinese New Year holiday. Waking up to sounds of birds chirping and occasional airplane flying above was amazing. Typically we wake up to the sounds of buildings going up around us. Construction work here goes on 24/7 and only stops on public holidays. The quiet city was very welcoming.

After coming back from Phuket, we were able to spend the last public holiday day relaxing in our apartment. That evening we had dinner with family and played mahjong. Mahjong is a great way to practice saying and reading Chinese numbers.

Our delicious meal with family

Last weekend, M and I visited the New Territories with family to continue the Chinese New Year celebrations, which go on for 15 days. Our first stop was to visit Uncle Ho, who was good friends with M's grandparents. He and his wife live in government subsidized housing near the Kwai Hing MTR station. While their apartment is only 350 square feet, they make really good use of the space.

Uncle Ho's dried tangerine peels. Each container features tangerine peels from a different year.

After our visit, Uncle Ho and his wife took us to their local dim sum restaurant. This is where M and I had to wash our own dishes before using them. It was a very unique experience to say the least! There we enjoyed some of our favorite dim sum items like turnip cake, rice noodle rolls and dumplings.

After lunch, we said good-bye to Uncle Ho and his wife and headed with M's aunts and uncles to the Yuen Yuen Institute to say our Chinese New Year blessings. On the way to the Yuen Yuen Institute, we got a kick of all the laundry hanging on the public fences to dry. We especially enjoyed the men's boxers!

The Yuen Yuen Institute is a collection of temples, pavilions, monasteries and prayer halls dedicated to Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist beliefs.

While we enjoyed the stunning temples and gardens, our main purpose of this trip was to give thanks for the past year and pray for good luck in the new year. This involved lots of prayers and incense burning.

We spent time thinking of our family and friends, sending lots of good blessings their way. We sent extra blessings to our family members whose zodiac symbol does not interact well with the Dragon. And we prayed to Tai Shui, the deity governing the Year of the Dragon.

After we finished our blessings, we spent some more time walking the grounds and enjoying the beautiful temples.

On a related note, a baby boom is expected this year in China. Dragon babies are believed to be blessed with luck and strength. I hear it's nearly impossible to reserve a hospital bed for delivery in Hong Kong. Our cousin mentioned knowing someone who has to deliver her baby in Canada due to lack of available hospital beds in Hong Kong.

Happy year of the dragon and many blessings to all the dragon babies out there!