Go Freecycle!

Since we don't have anything nice for inviting friends home for a cup of tea, I decided that it would be a good idea to pay attention to Freecycle and see if anyone offers tea sets. Well, a lady did that one night, I wrote back and she immediately replied, she told me we actually have met in a Christian conference that we attended when we first arrived here! She is also a homeschool mom and we exchanged names and contact numbers. She remembers my name and since I am the first one to respond, she gave the set to me.

She told me the set was given to them for their wedding, but they never got around using it. They were still in their original wrapping material when we received it. We also joined the family for an afternoon of tea and scones, and some very nice chats.

Out of curiosity, I googled the name of the pattern (Gloria L553) and the company (Noritake), and guess what I found. The company was started by two Japanese brothers in New York over a hundred years ago, and the pattern was discontinued.

But when I look up those china replacement websites, I found out the set that we received actually costs a little fortune, well, as far as our current standard is concerned:

Sugar Bowl with Lid $34.99 (x2)
Creamer $29.99 (x2)
Plate $17.99 (x2)
Bread and Butter plate $8.99 (x12)
Cup and Saucer set $23.99 (x12)

Well, that comes to about $560 USD!!! (That's $4,340 HKD)

I told Kioni all she can do is touch them a bit, but definitely not drink with them until she can show me she doesn't drop things on the floor anymore. Well, maybe under tight supervision, I can give her a drink of Ribena from the nice cups. This is the nicest thing we have owned so far, other than our Mac computers. We better not break anything, or else, don't know if we could afford to replace them.

Thanks Fiona, for your generosity.