Name that Fruit!

We (especially Brad) are enjoying all the varieties of tropical fruit here in Hong Kong. Over the last few days, we've taken a few pictures of a couple varieties of fruit that were unavailable in Cairo (there are loads more exotic fruits here, but we've only taken these pictures so far - perhaps I'll have to start a whole food blog to explore this topic more thoroughly). One - the red one with white speckled inside - is a favorite of both of us. The orange one, however, (which you should all be able to identify) is favored only by me (Brad). Emily insists that it smells like "vomit" and refuses to sit at the same table as me when I eat it (which I do once a day). So, as you may have gathered from the name of this post, I'm going to ask you to post a comment giving the name of BOTH varieties of fruit. Can't wait to hear your responses!

Off to "Kitchen Street"

We had an adventure yesterday to kitchen street with a returning teacher and a few new teachers.

• I had to put a picture of my new purse that my mother in law made me (which came in very handy when we went grocery shopping).
  
• A picture of our "octopus card", how we pay for public transportation, shopping at the drug store and 7-11
  
• A picture inside the MTR, subway/metro. It is amazing and air conditioned!
• The internet is too slow right now for a picture from kitchen street...on Sunday we will have internet! YAY
  

tiny land

I have decided to call our apartment tiny land as everything is really SMALL...especially the tiny kitchen. Our shipment is now not going to arrive until September 1st so it will look kind of spartan until then. I

keep reminding myself that we have only been here a couple days and it will look better after a few trips to Ikea. I (Emily) can't really take shopping in large doses, so we make short trips. Hopefully in the new few days we will have internet at home, I am now on the 6th floor of the school, sitting at some random desk in the hall way.

So far fun or interesting things about Hong Kong:

1. We get torrential downpours that shut down the city (like snow days in other places). Our tour of the island was cut short because of a "black cloud warning", we all had to rush home.

2. HUMIDITY: not as bad as Bangkok but always makes for an interesting hair day. I think I may abandon straight hair in a couple days.

3. Living on campus feels a little like you are living in a college dorm (the good parts about living on a college dorm floor). We have been eating together, hanging out together, laundry at the end of the floor, sharing things....we actually like it.

4. The food has been amazing (and cheap)! We need to start caring around a transliterated menu with a few standard items on it so we can order without members of the school.

5. The staff and school ARE AMAZING. We feel very blessed to be part of the teaching staff.

6. Beautiful lush greenary

7. Airconditioned public transportation that is VERY organzied and getting to use our octopus card in a lot of places and for basically all public transportation (load money on a machine and you can use it to ride the metro and even buy toothpaste at the drug store).

The one thing I miss is dairy......a little hard to find but the school has an awesome cheese hook up so that will be nice.

Here are a few more pictures of our day today

We are in Hong Kong!

This is our first post from Hong Kong, and it'll be a bit short as we don't have proper internet set up in our apartment (I'm writing this using a weak unsecure wireless connection from one of our neighbors). We've been pretty jet-lagged over the last few days, but overall have really enjoyed our experiences both in Hong Kong and at our new school. The administrators and faculty are great, and people have been extremely helpful as we settle in. There are several other new couples here at the school, and a few single people as well. We're living in an apartment owned by the school on the top floor of the school building, so it's a bit like college - with all of our neighbors being our co-workers. It's actually a pretty cool sense of community so soon after our move.

It's after 9 in the morning now, and we're about to head out for a city tour of Hong Kong with all the new staff. Hopefully we'll be able to upload a few pictures of our trip after we get back!

What we will miss...

This is our last day in Bend, we are off in the morning to Portland to finish packing up our stuff at Julie and Tyler's house, then we are off to Hong Kong bright and early on Saturday morning. It has been so fun hanging out with our family here in Bend and even more fun hanging out with our twin nephews. Thanks Rob and Stacy for opening your house to us and sharing your sweet kiddos with us too.

What we will miss about Dan and Ben when we are away....
1. Their cute "hi" whenever we enter a room.
2. How they try and do the "bang" trick with our pup Rudy
3. How they say "Cheerios" (cheecheeoos)
4. How dirty they get when they go outside!
5. Their sweet kisses and hugs
6. The cute way they say "pees" and sign "Please"
7. Their dancing in the living room to music

We love you boys see you next summer! Good thing there is skype video.

Our short summer in pictures

our sweet nephew Dan (above)

the other cutie Ben

Ruthie and me in the Redwoods

fun with the Yoder family

The Oregon coast

hanging out in Washington

hanging out with Isaiah (and his fun mommy Kalina)

We had a very short summer so here are some highlights in picture format (sorry I should have put this at the beginning of the post not at the end). The next post will be from Hong Kong!