Prelude to transnational encounters: After Dinner

The food was great, although we got way too much. I felt a bit like a dumpling afterwards. There were many dishes that we had never tried before. My teenaged daughter, who previously announced she will not be eating anything other than pizza and chips no matter where she lives, has now decided there are foods that she likes available to her in Hong Kong. A result on that level at least.

When setting out this meal, I carefully cut out the lables from the packages so we would know what we are eating. This was fine in that the lables all had english writing as well as chinese charactors. As I cut, I was thinking, how will I ever know what is what, when I have to rely on charactors alone? I also had to abandon the idea of saying out loud what each item was, as I had no idea how to pronounce the various charactors--there was just no clue to me how something that looked like a little house would sound. Clearly I need to think about that some more...

We are off to Hong Kong later this month for a couple of days. We will get to visit the flats where we are to live and also the school. We got the schedule for my husband and what he is supposed to do. They have booked every minute of the friday with meetings for him, so it looks like he is going to have to start working right away. I am quite excited about going. Not least as it will be considerably warmer there than it is here in Yorkshire at the moment.