Throwback Thursday

Remember when… I threw the most awesome Christmas party ever?

In December 2005 I co-hosted the party with Hazel, Tania, and Laura. We made tons of food and each made one big batch of a specialty drink (mulled cider, eggnog, etc.). Then people brought beer, wine, and liquor. We provided mixers and drink recipes. So many people came and it was so fun! The best part was it was formal attire and most people cooperated. 🙂

me, colin, and tessa

araceli, me, and shannon

me, breanna, and adrienne

chris and daniel

Thirsty Thursday

Drink:
Raspberry Beer Cocktail!

Gossip:
I am on my trip! I’ve visited Hong Kong and Vientiane and now I’m in Luang Prabang. It’s been pretty awesome but I’m a little lonely so I’m excited to meet up with Daniel in Vietnam on Sunday! On my trip I have been reading World War Z so when I heard about the Miami zombie weirdness, it definitely freaked me out a little! One more random note: I hate this new fake mustache trend. It is not cute, people. I know two girls who recently had mustache-themed 30th birthday parties. Yuck!

The Book Chat

This week we are talking about our favorite female book characters.

1. Sookie from the Sookie Stackhouse series
2. Minny from The Help
3. Alice from American Wife
4. May from One Thousand White Women 
5. Mariam from A Thousand Splendid Suns

3 on Thursday

Three foods you eat that others might think are strange/weird.

This is funny because just the other day I posted about my culinary experiments. I don’t eat weird food. What people might think is strange is food I don’t eat…

1. Lettuce on sandwiches, burgers, or tacos. Yuck! Lettuce belongs only in a salad.

2. Raw onions belong only in Mexican food.

3. I don’t like eggs. Gross! Or coffee.

Oh, How Pinteresting!

1. Mississippi Sin Dip

2. My next mani/pedi color

3. Definitely doing this simple animal jar craft soon!

4. Lemonade Cake

5. I have to see the movie Magic Mike

WWW Wednesday

What are you currently reading?
World War Z by Max Brooks. Really good!

What did you recently finish reading?
The Snowman by Jo Nesbo. 5 stars! You can check out my review here.

What do you think you’ll read next?
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.

Hong Kong Day 2: Peak Tram & Parks

Unfortunately on my last day in Hong Kong it was rainy. But I had to go to the Peak before I left! I bought the Skypass which includes round-trip tram tickets and the Sky Terrace 428 for HK$65. Well, going to the Sky Terrace 428 was pointless. This is what I saw:

So I’m bummed I didn’t get to see any amazing views. The Peak Tram was still awesome though!! Really steep!

Oh yeah, on the way to the Peak I got scammed by a fake Buddhist monk. He gave me presents and had me sign in a little book that asked for donations. I gave him HK$100 but he wanted HK$200 (US$26)!! Greedy con artist. By that point I was figuring out I had been duped. I said no and walked away.

After the Peak, I went to the Hong Kong Zoological & Botanical Gardens, since they were nearby and free. Saw lots of cool animals! My new favorite bird is the scarlet ibis.

Then I went to Hong Kong Park, as it was also nearby and free. Not too exciting but there was a cool walk-in aviary.

Last I visited the Central–Mid-Levels escalators, the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world. What a disappointment. It’s not an escalator, but a series of moving sidewalks! Oh well.

As predicted, I have so many Hong Kong dollars left! I spent less than HK$50 on transportation that day and around HK$200 on food. I also bought an umbrella (HK$30) and People magazine (HK$36, almost the same price as America!).

Check Inn Hong Kong

I stayed at this hostel for my two nights in Hong Kong. I usually don’t like to stay in hostels by myself (I’m not very social) but hotels were too expensive.

I don’t have any complaints about Check Inn. It was rather tiny but apparently that’s the norm in Hong Kong. Everything was relatively clean. I stayed in the six-bed dorm and there was a (very small) bathroom inside the room which was nice. They provide small lockers where you can keep your valuables and an electronic key card to access the building, hostel, and your room. Towel rental costs HK$20 but it’s a nice big towel! There are computers and sofas in the common area (no kitchen). Also the free wifi was fast! The location is great, near a subway station but it’s best to take the tram if you’re just going around Hong Kong Island (as it’s so cheap at HK$2.30 a ride!). The staff was very helpful. They waited up for me until I arrived at 2am and then they let me keep my locker and bags in the dorm room until I left at 6pm on my check out day.

Check out Check Inn if you’re ever in Hong Kong!

Culinary Experiments

One of my new short-term goals is to eat five things I’ve never tried before. I have always been a picky eater and hesitant to try new things. But I’ve become a little more open-minded recently. I’ve discovered a few foods I thought I didn’t like that I actually do (cucumbers, raw onions) but mostly I find they are just tolerable (eggplant, carrots, peppers) or downright disgusting (coffee, celery, seaweed, tteokbokki).

Here are the things I’ve tried since I made this resolution:

(1) Soju
It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It was like vodka but not nearly as strong. I still don’t like liquor but I’m glad I managed to finally drink soju on my last night in Korea as promised.

(2) Grapefruit
Yum! I will definitely eat this more often. Next I need to try grapefruit juice and see if that is as delicious.

(3) Buffalo
It was delicious. Apparently since we had it in Vietnam it was not American bison (what I think of as buffalo) but rather a water buffalo.

(4) Frog legs
I also tried these in Vietnam. They were much meatier than I thought they would be. And like they say… Taste like chicken!

(5) Fresh cream, yogurt, and cheese
Tried all these in Mongolia. Didn’t care for any! Mostly tasted like nothing…

(6) Alligator fritters
Tried these on a cruise!

Travel Tuesday

What’s the funniest thing that even happened to you while traveling? This can either be an actually funny story, or something that was terrible at the time but is funny when you look back now.

The first thing that comes to mind is when we visited Kutna Hora while living in Prague. When we were waiting to catch the train home two trains came at the same time and we didn’t know which one to get on. We got on the wrong one and missed the right one. Luckily we got off the wrong one so we sat and waited for the next train. A train pulled up about half an hour before the next train to Prague was scheduled. We sat there for half an hour, and then watched that train pull away. It was our train! We missed the train TWICE! Idiots.