White Christmas

I may be a day late and a dollar short, but MERRY CHRISTMAS!
How lovely it is to be home for a white Christmas in the Virginia countryside!

Oh Holy Night

After three connecting flights on two airlines and one night in the shadiest Shanghainese hotel EVER, I have arrived. And it is great to be back! It is 4 am here in Virginia. I already attempted to rewrite the words to "The Twelve Days of Christmas" to describe my journey for you, but jet lag seems to have the best of me.

Nonetheless, this poem seems more fitting for tonight:

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tinny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Leavin' on a jet plane

Welp, today is finally here, and it's time to go home. All packed and ready to go. The route today goes HK>>Shanghai>>New York>>Home. It will be a long few days on China Eastern airlines. My US telephone number will kick into gear Tuesday afternoon.

See you on the flip side of the globe.

Feliz Navidad!

Fa la la la la

Fa la la la la,
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. It may be a warm 70 degrees here in Hong Kong, but I am super excited to be home in Virginia one week from today!  When are you planning to get home for Christmas/the holidays?

Here are pictures of my dream Christmas house (that leave to your imagination the friends and family inside):

Woo!
-LizARD

Rudolph in Richmond

Hope this brings a few laughs to your day. 

http://perezhilton.com/2010-12-07-rudolph-the-red-noise-reindeer-balloon-delates-in-holiday-parade

Temple Street Night Market

This weekend I ventured over to the Kowloon side of Hong Kong to attend Rob's softball game.When the game was over, (and Rob's team had won!), we picked up some oat sodas at the nearest 7-Eleven and strolled down the road to explore Kowloon. We stumbled upon an outdoor night market, which turned out to be a great source of fun on Saturday night. We found inexpensive spicy crab restaurants, souvenir shops, Chinese calligraphy booths, tee-shirt stands, sunglass huts, and all sorts of knick-knack heavy pagodas. While sifting through the goods, Rob and I casually drank beer and talked to some of the locals. Our attempts at haggling prices down were not as successful as at other markets, but none of the items we purchased were more than a few US dollars, anyway. Since visiting the market, I have learned that this was the Temple Street Night Market on Kowloon. It opens at 4 p.m. and closes at Midnight. I highly recommend visiting the market if you are in the mood to go off the beaten track for a just-fun, no-frills Saturday night.

Robert and friends, just before the game begins

Gearing up for the road...

Approaching the night market

Temple Street Night Market! Notice the outdoor restaurants to the right. Very few Westerners in this picture.  

Gloves for tinies. Not sure if it ever gets cold enough here for these.

scanning the goods

Tam, the sweetest man at the night market. He does GREAT calligraphy work. I mean, I think he does...I can't read Chinese.

After talking to him, Tam asked me to take a picture with him. Here we are!
Note the basketball painting (yes, painting) in the background. Maybe I'll commission some Carolina bball art.

We wanted to dine at this cool-looking seafood restaurant until he saw this on the menu. Fish of the Dog Style, Goose Leg, and pan-fried air bladder. No, m goi sai! We left after taking this picture.

Rob, on our way home from the night market. Christmas decorations over the highway cross-walk.

Happy Friday--Real Estate!

Happy Friday. Hope you've had a solid week. Things in HK have been dandy and very busy. I've begun looking at new apartments to rent in the new year, and I can tell it may be a long process. So far the search has been fun and has made me realize that I LOVE real estate, even when the real estate is a 13 X 18 ft. box called an apartment. I love touring apartments and homes and seeing how people live. That said, I've included a few pictures of various apartments in Hong Kong--both the good and the u-g-l-y. Here goes nothin':

...This is a typical Hong Kong kitchen (without the expat package). Notice the bite-size fridge and visible air vent.
 

I thought this arched doorway was charming. While the walls and floors were nice, the kitchen needed work.

Traditional windows on old buildings in HK.

Large and IN CHARGE

Cultural dissonance: before viewing this apartment, the agent warned me that it was not as nice as the others. When we walked in I said, NO NO, this is much nicer than the others! I like this! He later told me that this apartment is in the "Colonial Chinese" style, which he thinks is not as "nice" as "Western styles." I think this is much nicer than the "Western styles" we saw. Funny that we Westerners think the inverse.

Apt. 3: this place was awesome, but way too much of a bachelor pad for me. I can only imagine how much two guys would love this place. It was the nicest apartment and a total steal for the square footage. See next picture below

Another shot of the sweetest apartment ever. If you only knew how huge this is for Hong Kong....it even comes with that leather couch and gigantic tv...bar and barstools in background included, too. What you see here is 50% larger than my current apartment.

This apartment had two furnished bedrooms (ex mattress). It was so awesome, I was wishing I were a  guy while viewing the apartment.

Storage extraordinaire, an endangered commodity in this neck of the woods! Might I add, this apartment is just off the escalators!

All of the excitement caused by looking at apartments left me exhausted. I went home and found this little guy there to greet me:

Pretty picture

Fun times in the humidor...

This past weekend my friend A and her husband J decided to take me and the bf out for a night on the town to celebrate employment. It was very nice of them, and we had a blast. A few margaritas and sangrias deep, we thought it would be a good idea to go see J's cigar locker...yes, you heard me correctly, cigar locker. He was talked into being a member/holder of a locker one night when he was having a great time puffing cigars  in the humidor at a swanky hotel restaurant. Needless to say, the cigar room is a great place to entertain friends.

The humidor culture at this hotel felt to be part of a scene untouched by recession. To enter the room, one walks through the fancy restaurant and knocks on the unmarked door. An attendant greets you and guides you through a humidor and into a cozy, little lounge with plush leather seating, elegant Asian businessmen and their Herve Leger clad companions. Rather than speaking softly to the attendant in the next room to order your drink, you pick up the old-fashioned rotary phone and ring the bar directly. A few moments later, your drinks arrive through a trap-door within the wall. We had fun putting on voices and ordering drinks.

After the men enjoyed their Cubans and scotch, we all decided to take the high brow down a few notches and end the night with a jello shot from an outdoor street bar.

A few pics below:

When matches just won't do: Use a tiny blow-torch to get your cigar going.

Ordering drinks

Rabbit Rabbit

While I intended to say "rabbit rabbit" upon awaking this morning, I think I actually said nothing. I can hardly believe it's December! It is 70 degrees outside, and I feel like I arrived in Hong Kong a month ago. In all honesty, today's date should not be that surprising; Hong Kong office buildings and malls decked the halls and began playing carols weeks ago. Despite the tropical weather and concrete jungle, the malls are helping usher us into the holidays....

I always welcome the Christmas season, complete with festive decorations, talk of plans with friends and family...and most importantly discussions about presents what Christmas is really about.

I think it's time to go to Church.

Hope you have a great Wednesday, Dec. 1.

P.S. Speaking of rabbits, 2011 will be the Chinese Year of the Rabbit! Because of this, when I was out and about today, Rob purchased this little critter for me:

Bugsy, sitting on top of my phone, is supposed to bring good luck in the new year!

Surprise!

After keeping quiet for awhile, I am now pleased to announce that I have accepted a position in Hong Kong. It has been a fun and, at times, scary journey, but I have finally reached my goal. I look forward to diving in and gaining more experience in the Asian marketplace. Thanks to you all for your support along the way!

Pre-acceptance photo. Proud to be a little dorky here!

Found this nice surprise when I returned from accepting the job offer.
<3

Gobble Gobble

I may be in Hong Kong, but Thanksgiving is definitely on my mind today. I hope all of you are planning to gobble up turkey, green beans, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Perhaps you're a fan of pecan pie...I know the Chinese are. Most of the Chinese that I have heard say "pecan pie" pronounce it with an American Southern accent, "PEE-can pie." I was slightly taken aback the first time I heard it--it's pretty funny.

I'll be missing out on the traditional sights, sounds and family time that Thanksgiving usually bestows, so I decided to warm up the blogospere with some photos that conjure up feelings of the hearth and home.

Thank you Martha Stewart for outdoing us all. Here is a dreamscape thanksgiving table setting that reminds me of an idealistic, traditional Thanksgiving in the Virginia countryside. All the table needs is....FAMILY.
(photo from habituallychic.com)

 (photo by my friend Leyla)

Dad, doing magic tricks for the triplets. (photo courtesy of Aunt Lisa)

Because it's Friday...

...and Friday rocks Part Deux, I have another post.

Holidays:

So many of you have been wonderful friends, asking what my upcoming holiday plans are. To answer your questions, I have decided to camp out here in Hong Kong for Thanksgiving. It should be fun (and dicey) considering there is a case of bird flu within the city limits. Fortunately the one case was contracted in mainland China (not here), and it is NOT spread by human-to-human contact. Please do not worry. While I may be eating US Grade A Cold Cuts on Thanksgiving, I am healthy as a hen.

As for an actual Thanksgiving dinner, that does exist here in Hong Kong. Imported American turkeys are available at the local supermarket. Provided you have an apartment with a luxurious oven or an extra large deep fryer (as my dad suggested), you can buy one of these bad boys and cook it right up. If you're wondering if it is expensive to buy an imported turkey, it is actually insanely inexpensive. I am not sure why a huge bird only costs $18 HKD (that's $2.32 US), but that's how much a large, fresh, imported bird costs...and it even comes plucked--in case you have heard horror stories.

This is the first year of my life that I have not spent Thanksgiving at my family's farm, so Rob and I feel very fortunate to have been invited to a friend's home for an early Thanksgiving celebration Saturday night. The wife of our friend is fixing a traditional Thanksgiving dinner from scratch, which is amazing. I hope that I will be able to roll up my sleeves and help a little, even if it's just for dish duty.  I am very thankful for the dinner we will have tomorrow night.

Rob and I have already started joking about what we may find ourselves eating on actual Thanksgiving (given that ovens are not de rigueur in Southeast Asia, and we lack one). Tune in for that at a later date.

As for Christmas, I have booked a flight and will be coming home for Christmas on Dec. 21. Mark your calendars!!!

Have a great weekend. Be safe!

XO,

Lizard

Because it's Friday...

...and Friday rocks, you may get two blog posts today. Leaping Lizard is feeling lucky and has some cool news for you. No, not a job...yet...but exciting news, nonetheless. I was reading one of my favorite interior design blogs called Elements of Style. I was scrolling through the most recent post, admiring the screened-in porch and porcelain elephant. Then, smack in the middle of my screen appeared the name Lindsay Cowles, which was followed by several images of her paintings. Lindsay is from Richmond and became a great friend and mentor to me in New York. She headed West to L.A. and has since begun painting. Her mixed-media paintings are abstract and amazing. Not surprisingly, they have been getting a lot of hype. I was incredibly pleased to see that leading interior designers with blogs are now advocates of her work. Here is the article.

Atlantic, Lindsay Cowles

*Pictures from the Weekend

____________

Upon returning from the gym, I found Carnival characters lining my street. The clowns at the left were more friendly than I am used to, and I felt awkward. Rob captured the moment.

Thanks to my lovely grandparents, I've always Loved stilts (they were a favorite toy of mine growing up). This guy had a great pair of stilts.

Another type of legs-- real ones--demonstrated here by the scantily clad carnival ladies. 

Out with Sarah and Rob on Friday night, on our way to the softball BBQ

Rob's softball team, The Bulldogs, is named after this pub on Lan Kwai Fong

Even though this is not for me, I had to share it with you. Here, a seemingly sane woman puts her feet into a bath of skin-eating fish at Wonderfish "spa." To each her own, but I will pass on this spa treatment. Thank goodness I have ticklishness to blame. 

Imagine waking up after a big night and finding a real, live transformer outside your apartment. 

Wall of Fame at Under Bridge Spicy Crab

Centerpiece of Wall of Fame at Under Bridge Spicy Crab.

Rob was sweating while trying to eat spicy crab

Fete Accompli! The Remains of our Level 3 Spicy Crab

Big Time

Hi friends,

Sorry I haven't written much recently, I did not have much to say last week. My friend from NYC/Australia was in town this weekend, though, so I have a lot to report (but just a little bit of time today). Here is a quick recap of some of the things I did this weekend:

*will post photos later

Friday:

• Picked up Sarah at W Hotel Hong Kong. Woot, my first friend to visit in HK!
• Went to Rob's softball team's BBQ at coach's apt (this was fun)
• Went out after and fortuitously ran into some people I've been talking to on the job front (Hong Kong is a small but big city, and I find that I run into people ALL THE TIME here, despite the fact that I am half-way around the world and feel like I don't know many people. 'tis weird.)

Saturday:

• Took Sarah  to a tailor, where she had some beautiful silk suits made
• ''         ''       ''  The Peak, where we had a great lunch at my favorite Chinese chain restaurant Tsui Wah. I hear this is pronounced "chwee wah." I do my best to speak correctly. I was attempting to use the little Chinese I do know at Tsui Wah, and the waiters laughed at me and spoke back in English even though their English can be pretty bad! I reverted back to only speaking in English. This is kind of funny because while at Tsui Wah I asked the waiter if Sarah and I could "please order," as in "I would like to order our lunch." The waiter thought the word "order" meant "water" and brought several glasses of water to our table. After I held out the menu and vigorously pointed, he understood that we wanted to order. That is just one example of the language barrier you can find here
• Sarah and I attempted to go to Wonderfish, the spa that offers fish pedicures. I was a chicken and didn't go through with the beauty treatment, which involves sticking your feet into a tub of skin-eating baby fish. GROSS! (the fish must do a "wonderfish" job, as it is a popular place for tourists at The Peak.)

• We took the tram back down to the CENTRAL district and had shoulder and head massages at a more traditional spa
• Explored the Carnival that was taking place on my Street before Sarah headed back to her fitting at the tailor
• Rob and I met Sarah at the Penninsula Hotel to have a martini at Rooftop bar Felix. Tres chic! Watched nightly Hong Kong light show from window of bar
• Took MTR (subway) to WanChai, which is the red light district, where the restaurant Underbridge Spicy Crab is located. Had a HUGE, authentic dinner at Spicy Crab. I have a high tolerance for spicy food, but this rocked my socks off. We expected to dive into the spicy crab dish when it arrived at the table, but we picked at it like birds for the first 30 minutes because it was almost too hot to eat. I will return to Spicy Crab, but next time I will make a point to order the least spicy version of the namesake dish
• Worked off dinner by grooving and dancing at club Dragon-i. Fun place. Good people watching.
• Called it a night at the W Hotel. Sarah was very sweet and said that I could stay at her hotel one night. Because I have never stayed in a hotel in Hong Kong and because the W Hotel is supposed to be awesome, I readily accepted the offer. It is one of the coolest hotels I've ever seen. I could go on and on about the amenities.

Sunday

• Went to the Jade Market to check out the beautiful jade and pearl jewelry. This was a lot of fun.
• Ate a steamed pork bun for lunch at an authentic Chinese bakery. 
• Got lost and then got found wandering around Kowloon.
• Decided to go back to HK Island and get my bearings. I was tired. Sarah took the Ferry back to her hotel on Kowloon.
• Went to my friend JS' apartment and baked brownies for Rob...no easy task in Hong Kong, as most apartments (including mine) do not have ovens. 
• Watched Law and Order and crashed.

This weekend was busy and fun. It was GREAT to see Sarah and show her around. The activities involved copious amounts of good food, which provided stamina for trekking around on foot. It was SO great to have Sarah here. I hope more of you will come visit!

I would like to talk more, but I need to get back to studying. Have a great Monday, and I'll talk to you soon!

xx.