Hong Kong Christmas

This is the new St. Regis Hotel under construction across the street from our building.  It is a Starwood hotel which is owned by Marriott.  The reddish colored building in the background is our office/church building.  You might see Gary looking out the window from our office on the 9th floor.  The picture below is the state of construction as of today.

We saw this Pizza Hut advertisement in the Subway.  I was particularly interested in the pork knuckles (bottom right).  All the restaurants have lavish diner offers for Christmas eve and Christmas day but the cost starts at $500HK per person (about $65US)

This is in front of a bank building by our office.

This is the largest fake tree we have ever seen.  And you have to feel it to know is's fake.  This picture and a few that follow are in a super nice mall by the International Finance Center which is the tall building you will see below.

Looking from Central back toward Wan Chai where our office is right by the building with the orange colored lights.  On the right side of that building (called Central Plaza) is the measly 50 story Marriott Renaissance Hotel.

The International Finance Center where the mall is.  This area of Hong Kong is called Central.  The tall building in the distance is in Kowloon where we live and is the tallest building in Hong Kong and the 9th tallest building in the world.  In the evening there are light displays all up and down the building.

The Hong Kong ferris wheel in Central.  In the middle it says "Happy Holidays" but you can't read it because it is too bright.

Some more Christmas lights on the buildings in Central.

The International Commerce Center building mentioned above.  It houses the highest hotel in the world on floors 102-118.  It is a Marriott Ritz Carlton hotel and very expensive.  Those little shrimpy buildings to the right are 70 story residential towers.

Not a clear picture but this is the same building as above with Hong Kong written in lights all down the side.  I don't know how they do this but it's pretty cool.

We took the ferry from Central (free to us old folks) to TST on our side of the harbor and walked home along the promenade which is a very pleasant walk on a cool evening.  It was about 70 degrees outside.

Some more buildings along our walk.  We often take this walk which is 1.1 miles.  Sometimes we'll walk there to get an ice cream cone and then walk back.  That way we don't feel guilty for eating ice cream.

Looking back at Central from our walk.

Part of the evening light show every night but hard to see.

More lights along the way.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

You probably noticed the absence of any reference to the true Christmas in all the lights and decorations.  Of course, we always want to remember the true meaning of Christmas.  This is the manger scene in the entrance to our office building. Click on the link below to see some really good videos about Christmas: Short Christmas videos

Christmas time

Before we get to Christmas, here's a little of our last Saturday late Thanksgiving celebration.  We got together with the couples from the Area Office and had a great American Thanksgiving dinner complete with turkey and the trimmings.

How about this a great relish dish?  It looks like Mr. Turkey himself!

This looks like a pretty nice horn of plenty, too; wouldn't you agree?  (Yes, it's all real.)

Now on to CHRISTMAS! Here's a big Christmas tree in the lobby of our building. We're really enjoying it as we don't have a tree at our apartment.

This is Sunny, one of the guards at our office building.  It looks like maybe he didn't want his photo taken.

This manger scene is right by the front door of the office building--it is nearly life size.

This scene and a few of the following ones are taken from the internet and show the many Christmas scenes here in Hong Kong.  Some of the lights have been on for a few days and we believe the rest come on today--December 1.

This is very close to where we live.

The Christmas decorations are hung from the tops of these 40-50 story buildings.

Here are some of the sisters from our "Friday family" branch enjoying the "little tree" on the 6th floor of the office building near the chapel.

This is Sunny again and this time he isn't covering his face.  His name is fitting because he has a very sunny disposition.

We hope you will enjoy this website because every day before Christmas they will be showing a new video:#LIGHTtheWORLD  #lighttheworld    https://www.mormon.org/?cid=HP_FR_25-11-2016_dMIS_fmorg_xLIDyL1-A_

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

THANKSGIVING?

Isn't this a sweet photo?  And since their parents posted this on Facebook, I don't think they will mind if we also post it.  Yes, we know all grandparents think their grandchildren are pretty special and we do, too!  We are thankful for our family and our wonderful grandchildren!  We were able to talk with some of our family who were able to get together at our oldest son's home on their Thanksgiving so we enjoyed that, too!

Isn't this display of fish a pretty picture?  This is at the Aeon Store which is a Japanese based company that has stores in Hong Kong.  They have a lot of sushi and other delicious items.  We actually went there looking for a curling iron as Carol's blew up.  They only have items with the three prong plugs that only work with the voltage here but it will be fine while we are here.

Here are some of the dear sisters who made our "Thanksgiving meal".  It was our family home evening night with the sisters who meet on Thursday and it was also their graduation from the the business self-reliance class so we enjoyed this very much.  They are very creative and all of the dishes were very artistic.

 Here's some of the "Thursday Family" with Elder and Sister Kendell.

Well, all of a sudden this post that I was editing turned into words and the pictures do not show up in the edit and only in the preview where I can't edit, so maybe we'll just make it short today and you can imagine what I was going to say about the photos that didn't get . We'll post again soon, dear friends and family. Have a good Holiday season!