although i havent finished blogging about China,

MERRY CHRISTMAS FRIENDS!

im currently in hong kong right now and its grand. hong kong is beautiful, developed, clean, very densly populated, and poppin.  Theres so much food everywhere and just a lot of consumerism.  The buildings on hong kong island light up every night at 8 pm and man, hong kong is just full of life. It's a little odd spending my christmas in hong kong rather than at home. I miss my bed (my back hurts all the time. i'm old!), the trails, warmth, and not looking like a freaking hobo. however, im with clara and its nice just walking the streets, exploring a new city, and spending some time with family. 

We arrived in hong kong on december 23 and had the pac rim christmas eve party the next night at the YMCA. it was the nicest YMCA i've ever been to... anyways we had great food and exchanged gifts.  It was actually like a dance. People were taking pictures, everyone looked nice (finally) and it was just really grand. i cant believe that the semester has gone by so quickly. We watched a video that the media group made and it showed clips from every country and it was just an adventure. so nostalgic. its insane how much we've done over such a short period of time. its also wierd how we have a break for 2 weeks. i've been really excited but as today is christmas day and i have just separated from the people i've been living my life with, i'm feeling a little lost. i bet that'll pass though.

BECAUSEE i'm going back to the motherland for winter break and its gonna be great. Despite the fact that its like 10 degrees farenheit right now and i have no clothing for that, i'm so pumped to eat food that doesnt make my stomach hurt, be with people who wont assume im chinese, be with great friends and family, and i'm going to get a freaking massage. i'mma TREAT MYSELF. winter break 2011-2012= TREAT YOSELF TO __________.  i've been itching to spend the dough and interestingly my prioties have changed drastically. now if i have to spend more than 5 dollars for a meal, thats too pricey. yet im so down to buy clothing that is overpriced. and get massages. but hey you only live once, make it count.

anyways I just wanted to say merry christmas and happy holidays.  i hope you guys have a restful and righteous break! Live it up.

Its the end of a really intense and unforgettable year and the beginning of a hopefully even more memorable year. It just keeps on getting better!

Love

C

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

So Grace Heerman (great girl) and i decided to get dinner one time down at student street. we just kept walking and saw this hot pot restuarant we were guessing was the one that our friends had previously been to and raved on and on about. so we took a chance on it. well both of us not knowing how to speak chinese proved to make this an interesting adventure. the restaurant man was like motioning us inside to pick things out but our curiosity overcame us and we looked at every person's hot pot and what they had ordered. imagine 2 foreigners blatantly staring at your food... awkward. what make it even more absurd was that i looked like a tardo. let me illustrate. it was cold so i had my Hwanan Women's college sweater on with y red puffy jacket over it. I wore leggings and my flowy printed malaysia pants over them. and i wore my wool rei socks with chacos. HAHA I KNOW. connie the effing hobo. yep. well so we decided what we wanted but didnt know how to communicate it to the man. so me using my boisterous voice announced to the whole restaurant "CAN ANYONE SPEAK ENGLISH?!" and of course the only response was blank stares. it was probs becasue grace is 5'11... hah just kidding. but still. hilarious. sounds like we're failing but let me assure you, we won. so we ended up pointing to different people's tables at the side dishes that they had and having those people fill out our order for us. then we found some students whos poke english and they helped us out. done and done. to make it even better, the broth was chicken. so we actually won and had a chicken dinner (kinda).

who needs to be able to speak chinese when you can just look ridic, point to food, and be friendly. i mean, it never hurts to ask strangers if you're lost in translation.