The Bake Sale & The (Almost) Free Trip to Hong Kong

The Bake Sale & The (Almost) Free Trip To Hong Kong

It was an eventful weekend, this past weekend. On Friday, Emily & I went out for dinner & a movie (date night!). We went and saw “I Am Legend” and it was quite good. The premise was fairly straight forward and it had some good scenes. The ending was a bit of a let down, but it was a good see.

Afterwards, we were waiting for the bus and a few high school boys came and talked to us for about 15 minutes or so. They were hilarious and sweet and you could tell they just wanted someone to pay good attention to them. Sometimes, the random conversations can get a little frustrating but this one was definitely one of the “that’s why I’m in Korea” moments.

Saturday was a bake sale put on by one of the foreigners here. He’s got fingers in a lot of things (an import food store, a speakeasy, an orphanage, a school and his own family) and he organized the bake sale to facilitate the transmission of Christmas baking as well as funds for the orphanage. Emily & I made a few dozen cookies and brought them. I think the biggest customers of the bake sale were the contributors. We bought chocolate coconut sponge cake, butter tarts, brittle, cranberry macadamia nut cookies, smartie cheesecake squares and lemon squares. Oh, and cream cheese icing. Amazing cream cheese icing.

In between dropping off the cookies and buying the food (they needed time to set up), we went to a dog café with our friend Stu. You walk into this place and the first thing that greets you is about six dogs of various breeds. You go to one of these places and pay $4 as an entrance fee (includes a free hot or cold beverage) and play with the dogs and cats there. They’re all incredibly tame and it really scratches the dog itch, if you know what I mean. As soon as Stu sat down, a dog jumped up beside him and one on his lap and they both instantly went to sleep. Emily sat with a little Pomeranian, a poodle and some sort of spaniel. I sat with a horse dog (I don’t know the breed, but that’s what it looked like). It’s relaxing in a dog sort of a way.

After the dog café, I got a call from one of the education office people (if my boss was my parent, this guy would be my uncle) and he wanted to know if I wanted to go to Hong Kong with some students for a study trip. My first instinct was “Free trip to Hong Kong – absolutely!” Unfortunately, I have another obligation at the same time so I had to decline. Not every day a free trip jumps in your lap like some tame dog.

Saturday evening, Emily & I had respective parties: a guys party and a girls party. Emily, Vanessa, Meena, Katie and Dawn made gingerbread houses at Vanessa’s house and Justin, Bobby, Dave, Hang-ju, Tae-won, Jae-gong, Leck and I played N64 and cards for the evening. Heaps of fun!