Saturday, November 29, 2008

Thanksgiving in China

So as you are all aware Thanksgiving was last thursday. As you might expect, here in hong kong they didn't bat an eyelash. Other than a brief segment on tv about George Bush Pardoning a turkey there was nothing.

Except at my house. I decided that i was going to have thanksgiving this year anyways to share some of american culture with my family. This is after i was walking through taste (a grocery store that imports alot of western food) and saw forzen turkeys. So I set to work. I collected recipes from my father, and last tuesday i went to taste and bought all the fixings.

Seeing as how i don't have 3 days off for thanksgiving, i decided to hold mine on Saturday as opposed to the traditional last Thrusday in November. I started cooking on friday night. I made the cranberry sauce(easy), Pumkin Pie, and the crutons and most of the mix for the stuffing. That took a long while seeing as how my 4 year old brother wanted to see how EVERYTHING was done. Luckly he had to go to bed so i finished before midnight.

With all the preperations done Saturday was here.
I woke up, walked down to the one bread shop near buy that sells baguettes and bought 4 for our feast (i wasn't about to let it be served with rice). I cooked the stuffing in a casarole, and then turned my attentions to turkey. Origionally frozen it had been thawing for 4 days in my host families refrigerator. even so i decided to err on the side of caution and i soaked it in cold water for 1/2 an hour. My host brothers where facinated at this gigantic chicken. However eventually i was able to get it away from them and into the oven.

While the turkey cooked i made Salade, and Mashed potatos. Everything was coming together beautifully. My exchange student friends from Europe and South America all were interested in what this thanksgiving thing was all about so i invited them over. Dinner was to be served at 6:00. The turkey came out (perfectly done) at 5:30 I made gravey and EVERYTHING was ready and on the table at 6:00 sharp. Everything was there, except for my friends who showed up 30 minutes later. They did call me ahead of time but for those thirty minutes i was quite annoyed. But it all worked out. with 7 guests and 7 of us we finished everything except for some turkey and a slice or two of pumkin pie.

The night was a sucess! 2 days of cooking but it was all worth it!

here are some pictures of the food i made.


My host brother looking at the turkey in the sink

























So this is what i did yesterday. Hope you are all well
Patrick

Monday, November 24, 2008

Thanksgiving.

All of you will take off this week for the lovely festivities of Thanksgiving.

oh how i would love to do the same. However it is not to be.

I have this week and next week before EXAMINATIONS start. then chirstmas holidays.

However i refuse to let thanksgiving pass unmarked so i have planed to cook a full feast for my family, in our tiny kitchen, this saturday!

I hope it will go well. though i'm really not sure. It should be fun in general.
Sunday is the Gala Dinner for AFS. Then back to school and insanity.

Today was very interesting. the first half was boring. But at lunch I met a girl from the school next to mine. She used to go to my school an knew the exchange students who had gone to my school before me. that was interesting.

Then after lunch i had Tripple english were my teacher decided to show us a movie.

Little Ms. Sunshine!
I love that movie and i'd forgotten how good it is. all the other students liked it too.

However i dont' think tomorrow will be quite as fun as today. but one can hope.

life roll's on. nothing HUGE in the way of developments here.

I spent the weekend hanging out with the exchange students. It was David's birthday so we all went ice skating.

hope your all well

Patrick

Friday, November 14, 2008

Hey everyone

Life here's pretty chaotic.

I just submitted my applictation to reed college, to the detriment of my mential health and my families. I'm glad to have it done none the less.

This weekend has alot going on. I'm doing Cooking for fun on saturday (a voulenteer program where supposedly we teach children to cook for fun though i've seen neither anywhere near the program) Saturday night i'm meeting my host father's friends.

Sunday is my host brother's birthday. we are going to cinderella the musical theater version. and i'm cooking pizza again.

This week Cantonese lessons started again. I'm excited to get back to learning at least a little of the language. I honestly doubt that i'll be anywhere near fluent by the time i leave... In fact i'd be supprised if i could understand more than 3 sentences. but hopefully i'll be better when i leave than now.

thursday saw me going to the AFS office to meet up with some other kids. AFS Hong Kong is turning 25 this year and there is a big party. Of course they wanted us exchange students to do something and so i'm part of a group that's supposed to sing at the "gala dinner".

More chaos will insue i'm sure.
I'm busy running around. I need to buy a different uniform for winter. I'm not sure why they have a maditory day for you to change uniform's but alright...

I realized the other day that my classes have finials.. that are suppoesed to be mega tough. They are the second and third weeks of december and each finial is 3 hours long. so now i have to study,(sigh), becasue they don't actually bother to teach you in school you have to teach your self or (as all my classmates do) go to turtorial (a tutor class)

If your ever in Hong Kong you will find some English newspapers. The two i see on any regular basis are the South China Morning Post, and the Standard. The SCMP costs money, the standard is free. I subscribe through my school to the SCMP daily, that was a waist of money... that paper is trash...

Get the Standerd it's handed out at 7:30 am daily across hong kong. be there when they are handing them out because they dissapear quick.

one of the thing's i love about the standard is a colum that comes out daily called Dissident's Diary. It's usually quite funny.

here's the link

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_sec.asp?we_cat=5&d_str=20081114

I hope you are all doing well

please email me with your comments and updates
Patrick

Friday, November 7, 2008

Why Reed?

Wow... it's been a little while

Many thing's have happened... the last update i gave you was before halloween.

mostly I've been hanging out with friends... it really is a great thing to do...
On halloween we wandered around as usual. on Saturday the day after we had a haloween party.

so in the morning i went down stairs and bought a bottle of EXTRA hard Gel. and proceeded to make my hair into a mohawk... it took about an hour including all the failed attempts. but in the end i think it came out pretty well.

Then i went to something called "Cooking for fun" it's a voulenteer program with AFS where we go and teach little azn kids how to cook "for fun" wellllll... it was neither cooking or fun...

well there was some fun to be had making fun of it. I came up with a theroy. I think it's not really a free program for children. I'm thinking it's a pay for program (kind of like a political fund raiser) where where cook to rais money so OTHER PEOPLE can have fun.... but the other kid's thought this unlikely...

we then proceeded to the other side of hong kong where the Halloween Party was. Eveyone loved my hair and my new Cowboy boots (thank's mom!). The party was great.

Sunday we hiked Over Hong Kong Island. it took about three hours and was a lot of fun.. but by the end i was dead tired...

this week's been good... I've been working hard on my applications to college... the first one of which, to Reed, is due next weekend. I was anxious about the elections on tuesday and i couldn't pay attention at all on wensday morning (when the results where coming in) i go the final word at about noon when i went out to eat lunch!

That really brightened up my day... I cought Obama's acceptance speach in the lunch room where they have a tv that's always playing something.

Friday was the school pick nic we went to a park that looked out over Clearwater Bay. My classmates had designed a t-shirt for us and it somehow ended up bright pink.. but it was fun. We tryed to go see james bond last night but they where sold out. so we went to the one mexican food place in all of hong kong instead... that was good.


here are a few pictures. if you want to see the rest of my pictures they are up on my myspace... www.myspace.com/pandora_the_third

I was walking around Mong Kok with some friends when we happend across this is a Jewlery store window... now you've all seen strange and stupid jewlery before... but this was in an up scale jewelery store... it's made of real gold... and i'm not sure why it exists




The pink class photo





And last but not least... my friend Guille from Arguentina gave an interview to someone or other over the phone. they asked if he had any pictures he said no. they asked if he had facebook so he gave them the link. about a week later this poster shows up in like 7 different schools around Hong Kong... it's quite funny and the best bit is... Guille didn't know anything about it untill we told him....