Forks and Napkins..

Hello All,

After being here for three weeks I have come to realize how much a fork and a napkin are appreciated. A few days ago I attended a luncheon where I had the chance to meet with people from the American Consulate. When I arrived at the meeting I sat down at the table and I was so excited because at my place setting there was a fork and a napkin! I didn’t realize how much I missed such common items. I have learned how to use chopsticks (pretty well too…) and I have learned to take my own napkins with me where ever I go (they don’t give you napkins in restaurants)… but it really was comforting to see a fork and napkin at the table. The meeting with the consulate was good too...

Another dinning experience:

The other day I went to Dim Sum with my friend Jess and her roommate Colleen. Colleen is a local student and she ordered for us. (Dim sum is a very traditional Cantonese/ Hong Kong meal served later in the afternoon.) You order a bunch of little dishes and everyone has some of each. Most of the dishes are some kind of dumpling or breaded thing or meatball. We also had some congee which is like a rice based "oatmeal" (or maybe more like grits..) and it had pork pieces in it. It was pretty good. We also had these things that had egg custard in them. They are all about the eggs here (clearly my favorite part of HK!—in case you don’t know- I don’t like eggs…) but I did try everything and even the egg stuff wasn't too bad. I could stomach it. Some of the egg stuff I actually liked! We also ate another traditional HK food---Chicken feet!! Yes, I really did eat chicken feet. I didn't like it, but I ate it. It didn't actually taste bad, I just didn't like it because it is basically like eating chicken skin. If you like chicken skin, you will like chicken feet... (unless you don't like bones....) there are a ton of little bones in the feet and you just have to put it all in your mouth, eat around the bones, and spit the bones out. It is a very complicated matter and not something I will try again and definitely not something I would suggest to a person who isn’t up for an adventure. But, over all the dim sum was pretty good :) Oh, and by the way, you don’t get a fork with dim sum—it is all chopsticks and no napkins!

Well, I'm off to go get ready for my camping adventure.
Check out my pics, I posted new ones :)

xoxo,
Cassie