Happy Halloween from our Little Pumkpin...

Dudley Says...

 BOO to you!

Hope your 31st is filled with lots of treats...and a few tricks!

xx,

Lauren, Michael, and the Little Pumpkin

Oktoberfest in Hong Kong

We headed over to TST on Friday night to celebrate the last weekend of Oktoberfest. It has been going on all month, and I have been salivating over the thought of a soft pretzel. 

 (How amazing is the HK skyline?!?)

 (I promise these 10 pretzels were for the whole group). 

 There was lots of German beer, pretzels, sausages, singing, and dancing.

Asians' love Conga Lines...

 Did you celebrate Oktoberfest this year?

It was a fantastic Friday night! 

xx,

Lauren

A Typhoon-less weekend

We dodged a bullet with Megi! Our SUPER TYPHOON took a turn towards Taiwan and left us with the most beautiful weekend...clear skies, a slight breeze, and warm days. It couldn't have been any better. I guess all the hype was for nothing. 

Today, we celebrated Maddy and Justin's engagement at Top Deck, a floating restaurant. 

We took a small boat to get to this massive structure. 

 There are actually 4 restaurants housed in here. 

 We're trying to find a friend who owns one of these boats. As of now, no such luck :) 

 Brunch was delicious and we loved hanging out with these kids. 

Maddy and Justin, we're so excited for you! The wedding date has been set for October 1, 2011 in Minnesota. 

 By the time we left, the smog was back. So much for the clear skies. 

The rest of our weekend was restful and quiet. MP has been hitting the books hard. 

He's taking the GMAT on Tuesday. Start sending your good vibes his way! 

Hope your weekends were filled with pumpkin spice lattes and cool temps. Ahh....

xx,

Lauren

Storm's a comin'

We're bracing for SUPER TYPHOON Megi.

It's heading our way, and we're up to a Typhoon 3 warning. (When an 8 comes, everything closes down). Most of us are bummed that it's hitting over the weekend and we won't get out of work :) It looks like it won't be a direct hit on Hong Kong, thank goodness. 

Way to ruin all of our weekend plans, Megi. 

Will keep you updated on the status.

xx,

Lauren

Random Weekend Events

We had a 70s themed birthday party on Friday night. 

These handsome men are part of MP's Mandarin group. They meet once a week for lessons, and then MP comes home and tries to speak to me in a language I don't understand. 

Some amazing outfits were worn...

A Saturday grocery run resulted in my first pumpkin spotting of the season. I was pretty excited (so was MP). There aren't pumpkin's on every corner here in Kong, so this was kinda a big deal.  

We met some new-comers to HK on Saturday night and realized two of them had gotten engaged that day. 

 A celebratory drink was in order. 

A big congrats to Stacie and Wheeler!

We ended the night catching up at the Globe with some of our favorites.

Hope your weekends were perfect.

xx,

Lauren

Rough Days...

Some days, being outside is the best medicine. 

It was a perfect day for a late afternoon hike.

The Peak is the best place to go to escape the polluted Hong Kong air. 

To the Peak I went...

(Sorry for the grainy cell phone photos.)

xx,

Lauren

Baby Snuggles

On Sunday we met the newest Hong Kong resident. 

Austin John Andrews was born on September 17. 

Rachel and Austin are doing great. 

All his new aunties LOVE him.

We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Baby Strange! He/She will be here soon!

xx,

Lauren

Our Weekend Away

No one wanted to play my little guessing game. You guys are tough, huh? Don't make me have to start giving away prizes :)

We were off to Seoul, Korea for the holiday!

Seoul is a huge city...very spread out, and traffic is just as bad as in most Asian cities we've been to. It seems that the roads were a second thought after constructing the city. The subway was a treasure on our last day, as we were looking for any excuse to not hop in a taxi. 

Friday may have been my favorite day. We spent the morning touring Gyeongbokgung  (say that 3 times fast...) and the Gyeongbok Palace. It is a vast palace filled with dozens of courtyards and pagoda rooftops. 

 

Construction began in 1620 and served as the king's official residence. 

 

 I loved just walking the grounds. They were beautiful. 

After the Palace, we stopped by the National Folk Museum of Korea. We learned how Korean commoners and nobles lived during traditional times. Our favorite part was an open-air exhibition, called "a street to the past", in which the lifestyles of the 60s-70s were displayed. 

We stopped at a few local galleries and took in the Korean art. 

After we were well educated in terms of art, we made our way towards Samcheong-Dong. This was my favorite area. It was full of little galleries, cafes, and small boutiques. 

 

We really enjoyed this area, called Bukchon, which was filled with restored Hanok houses. They are fast disappearing in Seoul, as "out with the old, in with the new" seems to be a common way of life here in Asia. 

 After touring the Bukchon, we stopped for a delicious lunch of Korean BBQ. 

And then started to make our way up towards to the Seoul Tower. 

 

 Can you spot Michael carrying a murse???

We saw the 'wall of locks', where lovers go and write messages to each other, and then seal it with a lock. 

(Still carrying his murse)....

We ended the day with watching the sun set over Seoul. 

Day One Complete.

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It's Day 2 in Korea, and we're off to visit the DMZ zone. If you're like me, and need a bit of a refresher as to what the DMZ zone actually is, go here. 

We were able to walk through the 3rd tunnel, which was pretty incredible. The tunnel was discovered in 1978. It's about 1700 yards long, 2 meters in width and height, and 150 feet below ground. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but imagine a tunnel, and you pretty much get the gist. 4 tunnels have now been discovered, and the 3rd one is the largest thus far...We can certainly guess that North Korea was planning a pretty severe plot to invade the South at that time. 

We went as close to the border as we could get and had to stand behind a yellow line just to take pictures. The energy was intense.

 We were spent after this and called it an early night. 

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It's our final day in Seoul, and we started in Myeongdong, which seemed to be quite the shopping mecca. Each mall we walked through was filled with the most high-end brands. You name it, they had it. The stores were flooded with people and they were buying!

 We came across a festival and stopped for a few photos. 

 And continued wandering the streets. 

We came across a parade towards the end of the day, and this seemed like the perfect way to end our time in Seoul. It was back to the hotel for a coffee, and we were off. 

 We had a great weekend, and were welcomed home by this guy. 

Doesn't get much better.

xx,

Lauren