Holidays in Hong Kong

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!!!

The holidays here haven't been too different from what they are back home, the only major difference is that I got to celebrate mine 12 hours earlier than most of you! Haha! The first Christmas away from home was a little difficult, and much money was spent on phone calls back home. It was hard not spending it with my family, but I had a surrogate family of other expatriate friends to spend it with. My friend Greg threw a little get-together at his apartment in Wong Tai Sin where we spent the evening talking, singing, and nibbling on whatever Western Christmas delights we could get our hands on. I was very impressed that Greg managed to bake cookies in his tiny toaster oven! In a tribute to almost every childhood Christmas experience, I listened to Nat King Cole's renditions of Christmas carols for a week. I even managed to find 4-foot tall trees in Central, but these trees were priced at about 5 times the US price, and it would have taken me an hour to get it back to my apartment. Not worth it, but maybe for next year.

New Years Eve was spent in Mongkok with my former roommate Terence and a group of local friends. Again, we spent the night eating, playing games, and attempting to teach me some more Cantonese, which didn't work out, to the amusement of everyone. For this holiday, as it seems for every holiday here, there were fireworks in Victoria Harbour. This year was different because instead of being shot off from a barge, the IFC Tower became one giant firecracker! (Look for videos one YouTube, its quite spectacular) My favorite part of the evening had to be when they showed the Dick Clark-esque countdown with Chinese celebrities, and the post-fireworks song was not Auld Lange Syne, as we all expect, but instead, "Happy Together" Apparently Hong Kong can see itself loving nobody but me for all it's life ;)

These past few days, all that I've managed to do is sleep in and just generally "veg out". Boy does it feel good! I've 2 more weeks until the semester starts, so I plan on catching up on a lot of sleep and relaxation. I'm also going to do some travelling and hopefully get into some adventures so I have something to write about. My knitting has been getting interested, but I know that few of you, aside from my mother, want to read about that on the internet ;) So far the most exciting thing her is getting locked out of my room, yet again, and getting that point across to security. There is also a cat on campus that likes to follow me around because I pet/feed him, but I can't bring him inside. I would love to, because you can tell that he used to be someone's pet, but the hostel association frowns on pets, which I think is lame. Maybe I could get a fish or something...

So anyway, I wish everyone a safe, happy, and healthy New Year!!! 2008 is going to be a wonderful year, I can feel it!