Sunday, December 11, 2005

overlooking the bay at sunset

Just returned from a lovely impromptu date at one of HK's tasty organic food restaurants called "Life Cafe".

Just a ferry ride away, there is this great neighbourhood called Soho where there are a multitude of eateries and pubs and bars, where the streets are quite steep and some still cobblestoned, where fresh fruit, veggie and fish markets are everywhere.

Today's gorgeous weather provided the ideal temperature for strolling around these streets.

This morning we played a game of doubles tennis with a couple who also lives in DB. An absolutely stunning morning, sun shining with a slight wind. It was fun all-around, plus i only hit the ball over the fence three times, a definite improvement!

On Tuesday, Dec. 6th, Matt and I celebrated our one year anniversary of meeting! I cannot express how unreal the whole year has been, full of discovery and love. I'm excited to see what will happen in the coming year.

To mark the occasion, we went to see Cirque du Soleil at the Cyberport, the Canadian-based group with an international cast who's claim to fame is to provide pure entertainment under a real circus chapiteau.

Though different from your traditional circus, each show has a theme and story where various acts of acrobatics, breath-taking stunts and silly improv skits with chosen audience members, are put on to a live accompanying band. Truly sensational.

Before the show, we went to eat at a Xinjiang restaurant. A self-proclaimed "Xinjiang FUSION dining experience" we had naan bread, banmian and zuofan, staple dishes in Uyghur cuisine, with of course all the mutton we could get. I realize one should never expect to have a replica of authentic dishes of the area, or you will be sorely disappointed.

All the waiters were Canto-Chinese although they insisted the cook was from Xinjiang. I think the thing with eating a hot steaming bowl of banmian wih sumptuous sauce and freshly-killed mutton seasoned with Xinjiang spices in Urumqi is not just the act of eating the dish, but of doing so amongst a throng of other men and women who are sitting at slightly filthy tables elbow to elbow, feet resting upon a layer of dirty napkins and disposable chopsticks, with sounds of Uyghur men shouting out at passerbys to come and buy their meat and of people wiping their snot with the rough toilet paper roll.

All in all, it made me feel nostalgic for Xinjiang. Especially the mountains!

On the job hunting front, i've put out at least a dozen applications, have done several interviews already and a few more lined up this coming week. I'm giving myself till the end of Dec to fully commit to something in hopes that THE perfect contract will come through, with a good loation, salary, benefits, colleagues, the works.

Tomorrow i another interview at 10:30. Since i'm going into town, i'm also going to try and find a shop where they can repair my erhu (the Chinese traditional 2-stringed instrument). During the move from Urumqi, the two strings unravelled and i'm not confident in how to string it back properly.

Hopefully it will be relatively hassle-free and i won't walk out of the repair shop with something totally unrecognizable, like what happened to my poor violin.

Christmas is coming up but it hardly feels like it. We've bought a few decorations in hopes of making our place a bit more festive.

Our hole in the ceiling was finally fixed yesterday, we've got our Uyghur mats and pillows set up in our living area, we've hung some pictures and paintings on the walls (getting more framed right now, mainly wedding gifts), i've already baked some banana bread and made some hummus - this definitely feels a lot more like home :)

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