Day 6

Friday, April 3, 2009

Last night I had to wake up for the practical part of my Educational Psychology test. I set the alarm on my phone for 10am, that's when the class starts, because my phone was still on US time since I don't get reception in Hong Kong. So at 10am I woke up to my alarm and jumped online. I had an email from my professor and from Lindsey, one of my friends in the class saying that they had had technical difficulty and couldn't get online till about 10:20am their time and at that time I wasn't online. I looked at the time on my computer and saw that it said 11am and realized that my phone had switched time zones in California and so I had set it for an hour late. In my professor's email she had given me her cell number to call when I got online to I called it and she answered in the middle of class and got me all set up to video chat. It was a crazy ordeal but I was able to "be there" for the practical part of the exam and it all worked out. It was quite fun because Lindsey had earphones in and so I could comment or make jokes that only she could hear and then I would hear her chuckle. She had to type me messages though because she didn't want to talk during class. I love technology!

So then Lindsey took the computer into Raquel's office, one of my other professors, so I could say hi. Raquel lived in Asia for like 8 years and so it has been fun to chat with her about this trip. The connection kept interrupting though so we didn't talk for long. After that I went back to sleep.

My mom wanted Jason and I to come to seminary because it was a scripture mastery day and she wanted us to participate in the scripture chase. 6am came way too soon since I had been up most of the night video conferencing my class. But I got up like the good daughter that I am and went. At 6:10 only Jason, Jacob, and I were there with my mom and I said if no one comes, I am going back to bed. About a minute later another student came in and seminary began. The scripture masteries were from the New Testament and I didn't remember any of them. So I sat there and ate hot home made bread that my mom had made and waited for seminary to end. Jason then went to school with Jacob and I stayed home to get some more sleep and to work on some homework. 

At about noon I finally got up for the day. My mom and I decided to go to lunch and called my dad to see if her wanted to come with us. We went to another Italian restaurant called Al Dente. I know, I know, still eating non-Chinese food, but don't worry, the meal that we ate for dinner more than made up for it.

After lunch I went home and worked on some more homework and relaxed until it was time to leave for dinner. It was at a nice place so I had to get dressed up. Good thing we didn't do much walking because the only nice shoes I had were heals. We went to the Chinese Culinary Institute. This is a place for students to come to learn to be in the restaurant and hotel business. So when we walked in we were welcomed in an echo of about 5 people. It was a really nice place!

The meal was incredible. We had 13 courses! They brought out the appetizers and we all took some and then they brought out the main disses one after another. They would give us a new plate with each coarse. I wish I had taken some pictures of the food but I didn't. 

We had entertainment from 2 Chinese girls who played Chinese music on their really cool instruments.

We went to celebrate the birthday of someone my parents were friends with and there were quite a few people that came. 

Jacob had mutual that night so it was just mom, dad, Jason, and I. But we had a lot of fun. The meal lasted for about 2 1/2 hours. We needed that long to eat everything. It was really fun and I ate real Chinese food for the first time this trip. It only took me 6 days!

We didn't get home until after 9pm. So we put on a movie but I didn't last very long before I took off for bed.