Month: January 2003

Finally saw Austin Powers Goldmember last night. Woo hoo! Today we spent the morning driving around the center of Dutchess County looking for a house. A bit discouraging. We aren’t sure what we are looking for exactly. Then we stopped off a Gymboree for a preview class, which Vince liked OK. Then in the afternoon I saw a doctor for my ears. Said there was no ear wax in the ears, but my infection hasn’t cleared up yet, so I got another course of antibiotics, this time for 10 days.

Kind of a grumpy day today. We got up on the wrong side of the bed… Anyways, we are looking for a house to buy, so we spent some time in a realtor’s office sifting through listings. Turns out a lot of our coworkers have bought houses already. Sigh. We spent two hours in Bob’s office with Vince and had a great time.

Today we went into Poughkeepsie and found a little neighborhood that we might like to live in. Also met Mia Farrow today. She was waiting for Seamus at the house. She held Vincie for a while. Then we took a walk on campus.

Tokyo for 2 days. Mainly saw Yuki and my mother’s graduate school friend Hajimi. We saw the river on a cruise, gardens, Ginza shopping, the imperial palace gardens. Flew fome, Vince was pretty good… Today we did a quick driving tour and Jeremy looked at cars. We are all a bit tired and sick.

So on Wed, we went to breakfast with big brother at a big dim sum place and then we forged out on our own into town. We were meeting up with Jeremy’s pal, Matt at the Central Station of the MTR. The subway is so elegantly arranged and clearly labled we had no trouble navagating the city. We took the tram up to the peak and saw the whole city below bathed in fog. Then we took a short walk around the peak and had lunch at a little cafe. Then we went to the Star Ferry and took it across to Kawloon and saw the bird and flower market. Then we ate a snack and off to find big brother’s office. We made it there at 5 pm and saw his office full of toys and samples. Then we headed to a restaurant at 6 pm and waiting until loads and loads of people spilled in for dinner. Dinner started at half past eight. It was an extremely elegant dinner. That night we all fell asleep soundly. The next day, we went out with big brother’s eldest son and he was a lot of fun. We saw the tallest building in Hong Kong and then to the IM Pei building, the Bank of China. Saw the convention center. Then saw the Hong Kong park and aviary. High end shopping center where Vince fell blissfully asleep during lunch. Then up the escalators that wound through town. Then back to the marina for a nap and back to a seafood restaurant for dinner. Got up really early to make it to the Hong Kong airport, actually ran to catch our plane. Vince fell asleep for most of the flight. Thank goodness! Now we are in Tokyo! Had dinner with friends of Bob and Katherine’s at the best tempura place in Tokyo.

So last night as I was falling asleep, I was getting a sharp pain in my ear, so Linda, the housekeeper at the AMBASSADOR took me to the doctor at 10:30 at night, we eventually ended up at the hospital where I got a prescription of antibiotics. Turns out I have an ear infection. I’ll have to get my ears cleaned out when I get back home. Today we flew to Hong Kong where we are staying with “Big Brother”. We are staying at a marina of some sort. We have spent the afternoon sleeping recovering from the exhaustion of packing and saying goodbye to everyone.

Packed today and said farewell to the realtors, Helen, Debbie, Mr. Hong and Linda. Hmmmm… I will miss everybody. At the end of dinner, Helen reached out to touch Jeremy’s beard, she was so curious to find out if it was smooth or rough, it was a funny way to end the evening.

Helen and Ms. Liu cook on grills at ankle height. I think BBQ was inspired by the American habit; they all kept saying how American this was. But it was modified for Taiwan. Squatting at the grill, sweet BBQ sauce was used for the marinade.

So the whole point of the barbeque was to make this huge mound of earth with a little cave in the middle and start a fire in it with sweet potatoes also in the center. Then the structure was suppose to collapse and the potatoes were to roast. It kind of worked and kind of didn’t really work.