Hibbets' Happenings

Well, so far, of the 3 major things I have on my agenda for today, I only have 1 checked off. Getting both done may be too optimistic; but I also thought that might be the case from the beginning. Maybe I can get at least some of the other 2 done. David and Jayden are gone now, and Joshua and I are listening to our Carpenters' Christmas CD (one of my favorites). I've sent a note out to my HK students asking about the Christmas party; I found out Friday night the 22nd is probably not good due to a Chinese family festival -- I think that's what I was told. So we may do Sat night the 23rd or Sun night the 24th. Sat night would be harder for me because we have class from 3-7 -- and then follow that with a Christmas party. David would have pressure on him to make sure things were ready, but I know he could handle it. Plus I would be around until class time. Sunday night would be fine with us, and what a neat way to spend Christmas Eve, but I don't know if Christmas Eve is celebrated here -- meaning, if it is, it would be hard to have a Christmas party. I'll have to see what they tell me. I'll take any suggestions for what to serve at the American (well, Louisiana-American at least) Christmas party. You can send any suggestions, because I can get most things here as far as ingredients go. I'm just short on even ideas right now. What is it that you always look forward to munching on at Christmas parties? What are those classic American Christmas party dishes? You can have fun just telling me about your usual Christmas celebration (and what you're looking forward to this year, maybe!). I would enjoy hearing those stories. About mid-morning, our doorbell rang: it was Magdalynn (I don't know how she spells her name), who is the wife of one of Dr. Hu's son's (I mentioned her earlier but I couldn't remember her name). She brought some toys for Jayden: a kitchen set full of dishes and play things and two stuffed animals and a little car-type toy she can push around. Jayden is already enjoying it (read: making a mess for Mom and Dad to clean up). So she's pretty good on toys now, between the books and small things we brought (and by the way Nana, we brought her "Jayden" Christmas doll with us), her ball to chase around and new Nativity set, and now this nice kitchen set! Plus all the real "toys" she plays with -- the telephone, things in the kitchen cabinets, etc. There's plenty to keep her occupied. The only complaint I have about the apartment is that I wish the windows were a little lower so that she could see out easily on her own. She does climb up on the couches to look out two of the windows, so that's good. I haven't made any pictures of her looking out the windows yet, but I want to do that. Okay, the Carpenters quit and I put on "Cars." The DVD player is working out great, Mom -- between CDs and DVDs, it's on almost constantly. It's too quiet without some kind of background noise. Sometimes we turn on the TV, but there usually isn't too much on. And noise coming from the computer is too distracting to me -- I need it to be in the background. But we could put Internet radio or something on if we wanted (maybe when I wasn't working). Magdalynn was very nice. We ended up visiting for a while. She let us borrow a screwdriver so David could tighten up the handles on our saucepans that were loose. After visiting with us, she also brought us a mattress thing to try for Joshua; it's not very wide or soft, so we're still trying to figure out how to use it, but David did have the idea it could make a good bed rail. We've put chairs beside the bed, but we're still having trouble with the kids falling out -- oops! (They're okay, I promise.) She also let me borrow a clothes line and clothes pins ("pegs," she said). I'm not sure where I'd hang the line; I've just been hanging up our clothes in the bathroom. But the clothes pins may be handy. She also told me there is a large clothes line down on the 10th floor I can use for hanging up our sheets -- which was very good information, because I was wondering about how I was going to manage that. I can't believe we've already been here one week! Time is flying so quickly. Then, as Magdalynn was about to leave, she invited us to go to church with her. It turns out she goes to the International Christian Assembly, which is an Assembly of God church, right here in North Point. We originally were going to go to the Baptist church tomorrow; we were going to get up early to be there for Sunday School at 8:30 and the Praise and Worship service at 9:30 -- we need to go early since I teach tomorrow afternoon and we need to get back in time for me to not be too rushed. It will probably take us at least an hour to get there from here, so if we waited to attend the 11:00 service and then make it back home -- I might feel rushed, even if I would technically have enough time. I need at least a few minutes to get my thoughts together before class. Well, Magdalynn's church is within walking distance of the apartment. It is a bit of a walk, but still, it is within walking distance. It's not as far as a walk as we did Thursday from here to Fortress Hill. The church is very close to the North Point MTR station. I told David we may need to take a bus back home since the trip will be uphill. I think he and Jayden might check out our options while they're out today. So I think we have a change of plans: we want to attend both churches while we're here, the Assembly of God church and the Baptist church, but since the A/G church is so much closer AND tomorrow is a teaching day, we think it will work out best to attend that church tomorrow. There are services at 9 and 11; the children only have services at 11, but since ours might would be with us regardless, plus with me teaching and all, I think we're planning on going to the early service. Still, being in North Point at 9 is nothing like our original plan: to be in Kowloon by 8:30! It took us almost an hour to walk to Fortress Hill from here on Thursday, but we did take our time and also had to backtrack because of wheelchair accessibility a few times, plus now we've looked at the map and realized we should have taken a different road which would have been a little bit shorter. I don't think it will take that long to walk to North Point. And we don't even necessarily have to walk; there are two city busses we could take (I think David was seeing it would take us riding two busses -- there isn't one bus route that goes directly there from here). We could even do a combination: walk part of the way and ride part of the way. We'll see what David thinks about it. We're also going to try to ask Magdalynn about it in case there are any walking shortcuts. The map only shows the roads, so that's all we know right now. I'm excited about going to church tomorrow. I really enjoyed our home church last Sunday, but it's not the same as being in church when you have that option. I will let you know how it goes! Here are the websites of both churches: the Baptist church is hkkibc.org (Hong Kong Kowloon International Baptist Church) and the A/G church is icahk.org (International Christian Assembly - Hong Kong). They both are pretty large churches. And yes, both are in English! In fact, the pastor of the Baptist church has ties to Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi (I think I'm remembering that right -- anyway, our "neck of the woods"). I don't know anything about the A/G pastor except I do think I remember reading he is an American. Oh, and Magdalynn told me she's German, not British. But I think it is London where they live when they're not in Hong Kong. She told me she usually shops at the markets in North Point because she cooks primarily Chinese food, which has got me interested in learning from either her or Miranda all I can while I'm here. I would love that! Magdalynn is only here for one more week, so I don't know how much time she would have to try to teach me anything. She probably has her plate full trying to leave town. I may see about mentioning it tomorrow if we see her (I don't know which service she goes to and it's possible we may miss her and not get to tell her we're planning on attending the early service tomorrow). Or Miranda and I are going grocery shopping on Monday morning, and since she's not leaving (and she's Chinese), I will try to ask her then. For lunch we had beans and rice and some "real" corn on the cob which I just steamed on the stovetop -- yum! We have one ear left. We will probably do that again. We discovered fresh corn on the cob this summer; we cooked some on the grill and some in the oven. I don't really have any pans here, so I haven't used the oven much -- but I decided to try to steam them (I used a shallow skillet with a lid) and they turned out fine. I'm thinking stir-fry for supper. We have all the ingredients, plus I bought some rice vermicelli (very thin noodles) yesterday at the Park n Shop -- primarily for Joshua, because I try to limit gluten in his diet, and these noodles have one ingredient: rice flour! (Rather than wheat.) I'd like to try stir-fry with the noodles rather than rice, I think. I should get the chicken out of the freezer. I bought a melon the other day at the Park n Shop which I was curious about; it kind of looked like a mini watermelon, and as it turned out, I think it is a mini-watermelon, or at least is very similar to our watermelon. Half of it is gone already between Jayden and I. David picked up a dragonfruit for me to try when he was at the wellcome store yesterday. I'm curious about it. I'm not even sure where to start on it. Maybe I'll look it up online and have a better idea of what to expect. The only dried beans I've seen here are "red beans" -- very small, especially compared to what we think of as kidney beans, and round; "green beans" -- very small and round, like the red beans -- even smaller than lentils, I think; and yesterday I did see black-eye "beans" -- that was on parknshop.com, not in the store. I don't know if we'll try those or not. It's funny to me what the Park n Shop has and doesn't. For example, it's very hard to find any kind of bread or cracker that fits what we like to buy (but for that matter, it's pretty hard in the States, too) -- as in the States, it's primarily due to the vegetable oils. But then there'll be something that surprises me or makes me laugh -- like Tabasco sauce or organic popcorn kernels. (I just found those yesterday!) Thank you for praying for my voice; I did make it through class last night successfully, although I was pretty hoarse and I was very grateful for my bottle of water. But the Lord provided; my voice is much worse (not much volume) today than yesterday. Maybe by tomorrow afternoon it will be better. Tomorrow is a 4-hour class with 2 chapters to cover. I'll write more later. Aleecia