Chinese restaurants

In the U.S., "authentic" Chinese restaurants often serve Szechuan food, Chop Suey and Pizza, and of course, the one and only "fortune cookies."

In Scotland, we see "Chinese" restaurants serving Chinese Take Away and "Fish and Chips". (In the photo above, I guess they permanently run out of fish.)

Now, with the hints above, guess where the following "Chinese" restaurants are located:

Chinese food + tortilla

Chinese food + sushi

Chinese food + paella

Chinese food + creme brulee

So how is your world cuisine knowledge? See answer below.

Answer: (mexico, japan, spain, france)

香港揮春 與眾不同

How many weeks?

676 weeks. That's how many weekends we have with Kioni before she turns 18 and heads off to college. Well, in fact, less than that, I have to minus the weekends when she will be out with her friends, going to camps, etc. So what are we going to do with the 676 weekends? I would like to have lots of memory-making activities. Just like what my parents did with us, beaches, hiking, dinner at grandma's, playing with cousins, special restaurant treats. Wrecking my brain how to do so in the rainy Aberdeen weather, limited budget and absence of families.

Beware of the Doghouse

This is seriously funny. Click on the title to view the video. Don't miss it!

Gloomy

Aberdeen winter is gloomy. The above picture was taken at 9:20am on December 30, 2008. That was not a rainy day even, at noon, the sky was actually bright! So you can imagine when it is a rainy day, the whole day will be like the picture above, and worse, because it will be raining. This certainly does not help when you are mourning the loss of a friend, (see the entry below).

We cannot hang laundry outside, the laundry will just stay wet and cold after hanging out for a whole day. We don't use the dryer, though there is one in the garage because cost of electricity is high. So we use the radiators that we have turned on in the house. Don't worry, these are the kinds that have hot water running through them to heat the house, no worries of fire. So on laundry day, we will have clothes all over, back of chairs, over shelves, on the arms of the sofas, anywhere that would provide hanging ability. The real challenge comes when I have to wash bedsheets, ah..... The bed we sleep in is queen size, there really is not much room anywhere in the house that would allow us to hang a queen size sheet. So I fold the sheets up then hang them, they take a whole lot longer to dry, but they do eventually. God made us to be creative.

I always have things to complain about, don't I? It was the heat in Cebu, now it is the gloominess.
Honestly, I would much rather be cold then hot. I can wear 5 layers here in Aberdeen, but I couldn't take off my skin even if I wanted to in Cebu!

Back home

Many of us said goodbye to our friend from seminary today, the first day of 2009. He has gone into glory with the Lord whom he had served faithfully. The aggressive leukemia has turned his body into ruins, within just a few days of being hospitalized, he is gone.

No words can describe the shock a lot of us experienced. Though we know he is now in heaven and would not want to come back, I grieve for his wife (she was his classmate in seminary), and his children who are now without a father. I grieve because death is an ugly thing, it is not suppose to be there. We are made to live on, that was the intention when God created Adam and Eve.

In a mysterious way, God has decided that our friend's struggle on earth is over, time for him to go back to Him. Though for a lot of us on earth, the time seems short. However, I believe if we know what kind of glory he is in right now, we will feel comforted. It doesn't take away the pain we feel for not having him on earth, in fact, when we stare at death, it is so unnatural, so ridiculous that we can't even explain it.

Goodbye, Kwok Wah, next time we see you, we will all rejoice the fact that we are with the Lord. We cannot imagine just yet how life is like without you being here.

國華，下次再見的時候，我們會在天家，你會跟我說：「你來了，真好！」
我們在神學院的時候叫你做「譚大牧」，因為你一早已經顯出了牧者的心腸。你經常都是笑容滿面的，你對同學、師弟、師妹們的真誠關心，是我們很容易感受到的。
還記得我們修希伯來文的時候，我們幾個人因為希望互相鼓勵，決定「比賽」誰在測驗中得最低分的就要請吃飯嗎？我經常都是最低分的那個，但是因為你的牧者心腸，你代替我請吃飯，真係唔話得。
離開香港十年後我回去香港，竟然在尖沙咀碰見你和寶珍手拖手行街。你微笑說：「同老婆拍拖。」恩愛之情表露無遺。
我們不知道為甚麼神決定這是你返天家的時候了。在我們的角度，似是還有許多沒做完的事，沒說完的話。許多問題不知道會不會有答案。
你打了一場美好的仗，我們懷念你。國華，天家見。