Hello!

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! Unlike certain holidays (hint hint), I enjoy Thanksgiving very much, mainly because of the food of course.
The trick is to see where you're invited to and then where the best food would be. And always have a back-up plan in case the turkey burned in the first place. And a good cranberry sauce is a must!
So yes, mine was just great, except I was so jet-lagged I skipped the pumpkin pie and went home.

I had such a good time in H.K!! I have only been there about 5 times and never got to see anything.
We visited the 10,000 Buddha temple, which obviously had 10,000 Buddha statues, all of them representing different things and expressions.
The coolest thing about it was this tradition of holding a cup with these sticks inside, each having a different number on them, and shaking them until only one falls out. While you are shaking these sticks you are supposed to think of something you would want to know about.
The trick is, if more than one stick falls out, that thought is one big mess....which kind of freaked me out a bit because excuse me, I don't shake sticks on a daily basis and how the heck am I supposed to make only one fall out, right?
So there I was on my knees, looking like a complete idiot, for 3 minutes shaking this thing so carefully that I think the sticks were so sick of shaking, that finally one fell out.  Then you take this stick to a fortune teller and he tells you what this number means corresponding to what you were thinking of.
Some of the things he said were very interesting and quite promising.  We also visited the main temple in the city center which was full of people, some who were having their lunch picnic....not my choice of a lunch location but neither is an alive looking duck.

The Stanley area and the market were nice fresh air getaways from the city, which sometimes feels a little over crowded and polluted. Repulse Bay was one big picture opportunity because it's full of these huge, colorful statues right on the bay.

My favorite part of the trip was the Jade Market. If it wasn't for our lunch plans, I could have stayed there for the whole day. I don't know if it was the bargaining satisfaction or the prospect of adding amazing jade and wood jewelry to my collection, I was a kid at a candy store. My two best finds were these half wooden, half silver bangles and a little wooden, hand carves statue that looks like two hands when it's closed and two lady Buddha's when it's open.

If any of you are food lover I highly recommend reserving the Chef's Table at the Peninsula hotel in H.K. It was one of the coolest food experiences I have ever had! Our table was literally in the middle of the kitchen and we got a tour of the whole cooking process. Since Camilla and I are food freaks, we were in heaven. And to top it off there wasn't one thing we didn't like during the meal.

So I was walking toward my new car the other night and I see two guys looking at it like two birds poking at a piece of bread. I came up to the car to see a father and a son who were clearly interested in the car. So I kind of walked by and said 'nice car huh' and opened the door. They proceeded to ask me what I was doing as if I was stealing it. After telling them it was mine the son became tomato red and started apologizing. The father looked at me like how the heck is a 20 year old blonde chick driving this!! Quite amusing!

I have been such an art junky in the last few months! I'm obsessed with California's own, Chris Gwaltney, Ed Moses, and such.

On the music front I have been more on the chilled side recently.....Wilco, David Gray, Angela McCluskey, and Sarah Bareilles, who's Gravity song is beyond amazing.

My dad get's quote of the week again. He has just learned how to text which is a miracle by itself, but then you add his English grammar and it becomes pretty funny, so on Thanksgiving he wrote to me " happy thank given love yu "'.

I'm really late for my dance class so I'll leave you guys for now. Talk to you later!
 

Maria