Buddha's B-Day and Mother's Day

Today, Monday, May 12th, we celebrate Buddha's Birthday in Hong Kong and by celebrate, I mean, we all get the day off work and get to be fat and happy. Actually, this holiday is a real low key one where monestaries supposedly bath their buddha statues.

Yesterday was Mother's Day and we celebrated that by getting 3 more babies. Kitties of course. These 3 are scaredy cats and are sick so need daily pills, eyedrops and ear cleanings. We only have them for 10 days until they are healthy and ready to be adopted. Hopefully, after 10 days they'll warm up to us and enjoy being held and loved.

Random HK Pictures
I carry my digital camera with me in my purse wherever I go and I often take pictures of things for the blog. Here's a few random Hong Kongisms I've captured over the past month or so.

Fav Restaurant
This is one of Mark's favorite local restaurants located by our apartment. It's called the Tiny Green Kitchen and that's exactly what it is. Good Cantonese food like spicy chicken, salt and pepper tofu and a great mixed mushroom stirfry.

Stinky Fruit Season
It's almost summer and that means it's Durian season. Durian is that stinky fruit that looks like a spiky football. It's all over and there always seems to be old people sitting on park benches nibbling on it. Durian is repulsive. It smells like a mixture of vomit and stinky feet and tastes like mushy stinky feet. I really can't understand the allure.

Street Bargains
Here's one of the many little sidewalk sales guys you can find anywhere. This guy was selling watch parts and I had him replace the battery in my watch and give me a new watch band for the bargain price of $3 and 5 minutes work. So convenient.

Icy Drink Danger
2 weeks ago, I went to Guangzhou, China with some co-workers and we stopped for "tea time". This is Zoe with the giant mango frosty drinks she and I ordered. I took the picture because we caused quite a stir by ordering them. Apparently, all the other Chinese girls believe that you shouldn't drink iced drinks after you've gone through puberty. Seriously!!!! Bad for reproductive organs. I have since noticed this phenomenon when we go out for lunch at work. Very odd. Zoe doesn't live by that rule, but then she also is the girl who lives alone with her 5 year old Rottweiler mix dog so she's a maverick. Most other girls live with their families until they are married (and sometimes afterwards too) and as I've mentioned before, many many Chinese are afraid of dogs so the fact Zoe has a large "mongrel" is unique.

China Grocery Shopping
While in Guangzhou, we also all went to a local grocery store because the girls wanted to buy cheap noodles. Honestly, the savings was about 30 cents so not huge, but still, we all walked out with several shopping carts full of instant noodles. I took this picture to show the typical tiny shopping carts you'll find in China and Hong Kong. People really don't bulk shop so why would you need a large cart?

Olympic Countdown
Also new this week was the addition of this new "Olympic Countdown" machine by the elevators in my office building. Now there's no way to forget the Olympics are coming.

Mark gets a haircut
Last but not least, Mark got his haircut this weekend! Here's the before picture, but I don't have an after because he hates the new cut. He wanted it trimmed but still long and the barber cut more than he wanted. I think it still looks great and it's still long by most men's standards. Bailey likes it too.