6 Random Things

I was tagged by my friend Dave Lowe
you know how this goes...

The rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Here's 6 random things about me...

1. I crack my knuckles.
And I do it a lot. It wasn't always this way. When I got to high school, I was only able to crack my left hand. With college came the right hand. And now in addition to my knuckles, I sometimes crack my neck.

2. I lit my accounting notes on fire after the final, at the door.
My balance sheet didn't balance. I gave up all hope on that business minor.

3. I can't burp.
Most of you know this. That's why I generally don't drink beer. I do enjoy a cold one during sporting events, but after 2 I'm so full that it's not fun any more. But now I kinda can burp, but it's something that should be left to the privacy of my home. I have to take my tongue scraper and push down on my tongue, and manually burp myself.

4. I like boys in uniform. (duh)
I also like boys who wear ties and boys with glasses.

5. If there is avocado or goat cheese on the menu, no doubt that's what I'll order.

6. My first concert was The Bangles in '88.
I was 8 years old. My dad took me and we rocked out in the pit. I insisted that I needed to wear a jean jacket to this event, but after scouring the Valley Indoor Swap Meet, I found nothing appropriate.

I'm going to be a lame-o and only tag one person cause she's relatively new to the blog scene. Mama Rod, you're up!

Silvermine Bay Music Festival

Who says there's no live music in Hong Kong?

Well, the music scene remains to be super weak, but thanks for trying.


Sunday I went with Powers and his mom to this music festival on Lantau. It was a really nice day for beaching.


Just keep away from the shark prevention net. The net is dangerous!


The music was pretty bad, and there were no more or less people on the beach than normal but that's not the point. It was a very nice leisurely day.

Powers and I got some flotation devices...



Some beers...



And some goggles so we would fit in with the rest of the Hongkies.



A few of our friends caught up with us and played an intense round of scrabble.






It says, This way to Hong Kong Olympic trail. I don't even know what that is.


And this one says destructive fishing is prohibited.

Summer is great, and though I'm a sweaty hot mess, I really don't want it to go away.

More Olympic Madness: Blame Canada

Friday night I went with Alexis and Tara (a Canadian!) back to Sha Tin to check out some jumping. This was a lot more visually exciting than dressage.





I am very, very very sad to report my new and wonderful camera, the Canon G9 or my baby "G" has perished. He needed to be replaced anyway because I discovered a bunk pixel on the LCD, but I could have waited til I was state-side. And in even more distressing news, I had just lent my dSLR to Aaron. So, I am left with no camera for the first time in 20 years!

Thank God for Best Buy's extended warrantees, but it'll still be a pain for me to get it out there and get it back. In the meantime, that leaves me with my cameraphone.


We had some juicy pleasure at the Olympics, just cause we could.

The hightlight was watching the first rider for Team Hong Kong come out. Everyone was on their feet, yelling and screaming, which is very unnatural to the Hongkie. His performance was perfect and at the end he threw off his helmet and waved to everyone. It was glorious. Alexis got it on video and if I can get my hands on it I'll share with the class.

It was not the finals so I did not witness a medal ceremony, but that's officially added to my to-do list. But last night on the tele, I did catch Team USA win the gold.



I still give props to Canada for coming in second with a horse named Special Ed. No joke.


As they say in Hongkie, BYE BYE.

Weekending with the McCarthys

It was an epic weekend and the only way to top it off was with a day of bruch and beach with the McCarthy's. They have a house (!) on Launtau Island which is where the airport and big buddha are. It's nice to have a "weekend home" away from the city, next to the beach... and it's an actual home with lots of space.

So, to get there from Central, Sebastien and I took the ferry.


It's our tradition to play Uno on the ferry.



And upon arrival in Mui Wo on Lantau, we needed to pick up some OJ for the mimosas but found a few other things.


Have you ever heard of such a thing? No we didn't need this.


It says, "My Juicy Pleasure"! Yeah, we needed this!


Then we took the bus.


Kind of harsh, eh?


And finally we arrived at Amy and Aaron's, or as we call them, the A-Team. Or just the Canadians. Amy was whipping up a delicious brunch, consisting of Mexican Migas, Canadian bacon (which was the real deal and soo scrumptious), fruit and cappuccinos made from the new baby espresso machine.





Wonderfulmentness!

While waiting for the sun to surface we digested and Aaron gave us a little slide show presentation. He's got a great eye for photography and I lent him my 20D. The sun finally came out and we hit the beach.

They live across the street from one of my favorite places, "cow beach" and on the stroll over, Amy almost walks into this...


No, not guy with beer in hand. Take a closer look at the giant spider creature!

But at the beach we were still not safe from creepy creatures.


Check out these old dudes in speedos, and one of them didn't have anything on at all!! It was pretty horrifying.


And of course the water buffalo. The boys are surfing behind him.

Amy and I swam for a while, then lounged as I got caught up on my celeb gossip mags. I'm kinda disappointed in y'all for not keeping me up to date. Why didn't anyone tell me about SJP and Matthew Broderick! And why is Madonna so creepy looking?!

As the sun went down we headed back, showered, sat on the deck and gabbed over wine and beers. It felt pretty normal. I dig it.

Sadly we did not go to my favorite restaurant at the beach for dinner, but that's ok cause I tried some place new and it was pretty darn good.


We look pretty content, eh?

I've never liked Sunday nights but it's getting pretty bad. I get anxious about the week (but I really have no reason to), I sleep poorly and have terrible nightmares. Dear Weekend, why you gotta be so wonderful...?

Beijing Olympics! (in Hong Kong)

I am very VERY privileged, and was given the opportunity to go to the games. Since China could not guarantee proper conditions for the horses, the equestrian events were brought to Hong Kong.

After waking up way too early from the opening ceremony celebration, I took care of a strange allergic reaction that faded quickly (I blame the family from Missouri) had a nice lunch, bought some rain boots, and forced in a nap. Then it was time to head out to the games in Sha Tin with Alexis.


She was kind enough to pick me up a beer at Club 7-1-1 (7-Eleven) and I chugged it before getting on the MTR.


And of course had to take a pic with the countdown clock since I didn't get the chance the night before.


Yes we dared to wear our awesome tees to the Olympics, but we made sure to hide the profanity with our purses upon entrance. Later that night I heard on the news a few people were kicked out for wearing Free Tibet shirts.


We did not get deported!

I'm not sure we would have been so bold if we actually were in China. It's going to be tested this week though because a few of my pals with shirts are going. I hope they take lots o pics.




Dressage is not the most visually spectacular event, and if you don't know anything about it, it's boring as all hell. But fortunately for us nerdy girls I have one year of equestrian under my belt and Alexis has six, so we could appreciate the skill since these are things we've never been able to do.


But still pretty badass. My first Olympics!



I'm going back tomorrow for some jumping. And that should be really cool! I'm so stoked. Until next time...

8.8.08: Olympic Opening Ceremonies

I failed miserably in my attempt to get caught up blogging by now. So, I'm just going to stick with current events and try to get caught up with June and July before the summer's over!

So, I had this great idea. I have a lot of them, but most of them I don't dare speak of in public. I took a chance and sent an email to some of my American friends out here. I wanted to make a shirt for "Team America." Yes that's right, as in reference to the movie. This is what I came up with:





That's right. I went there. Turns out others were willing to go there with me. So I had this shirt made and suggested we have an opening ceremonies party since we needed a venue to show off our awesome tees. Donni reserved us a spot at Bulldogs Bar and Grill, and it was definitely a top 10 moment of my life.





It was a special night for two reasons: 1) It was especially meaningful to be an American abroad, celebrating the American spirit with good friends away from home. 2) The Olympics is HERE. Well, not exactly here, kinda sorta but not really. It's a really cool thing to feel American pride when you're surrounded by Chinese/Hongkongese, and while still trying to compete with the Aussies, Brits, and Canadians!


Needless to say, the shirts were a huge success.


Earlier that day, this dude chased us down at the MTR and begged us for a shirt. He was my first sale and one of the few outsiders who were privileged enough to score a shirt. He somehow found us at the bar.


The show was amazing and we were screaming, "FUCK YEAH" the entire time. Four of us lost our voices.


It was a little tiring waiting for Team USA to come out, but 100% worth it because when they did, the bar played AMERICA FUCK YEAH for us. Yeah, I had it on my ipod... producer habits are hard to break. A top 10 moment for sure!

Four hours later, we were ready to hit the streets of Lan Kwai Fong. It was magic, and I bumped into a bunch of people I haven't seen in forever!


Including Natalie


Aussie Monica


Jaeger

And the Aussie Pilot crew. The night was especially triumphant because Sebastien's first nephew finally decided to make an appearance. We think he was just holding out for the birthday 8.8.08. Amazing!