Holiday Pics

Here are some pictures I took while celebrating Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.

For Thanksgiving I actually celebrated by eating "three" meals. The first thanksgiving meal was on Nov 22nd and is pictured below. Then I ate on the 26th at a restaurant called Mark Lau's. It was a new western restaurant opened by Mark who used to work for Wolfgang Pucks on Hollywood & Highland in CA. He gave everyone who reserved a completely free meal! My third meal (all you can eat) was at another new western restaurant called Gina's Place. Unfortunately only Mark Lau's had turkey and my table mates took it all before I could have any. But I did have great chicken.

Here's our English Service hall turned into a banquet hall. We got some praise going on.


Some table decorations


A pot luck with much food.


A sample of our desserts


For Christmas I celebrated three times. On X-Mas Eve I took a break from grading and went with a student to eat X-mas food at Gina's Place. Afterward, right before midnight me and some other teachers began watching "It's a Wonderful Life." Then on X-Mas day I had brunch and then in the evening I went to a X-Mas potluck where we had a white elephant gift exchange and played some games. I only bring drinks to all these potlucks. Sadly, I had to work in between these gatherings on Christmas day. Though I didn't really mind much at all.

Here's one of the performers playing at Gina's Place on Christmas Eve. I think he's pretty good.


Here's me and some fellow teachers in the midst of the gift exchange.


My O team leader Mike and some gifts no one wanted to steal from him. I got a box of powdered drink packets.


Mike's wife Lili and their two sons Johnny and David. Johnny on the left picked out the gifts.

On New Years Eve I had dinner downtown with some friends. I ate fajitas at Gina's Place. After eating we bought some fireworks. When we got back we had a quiet evening of movie watching and board games before midnight.

This is what one of the fireworks stands looks like. It's huge and there will be tons of these stands around during Chinese New Year (Jan 26-Feb 1).


Here's me holding a fireworks launcher and some sparklers. You definitely can't buy these in California.


Here are the cool fireworks coming out of the casing I was holding. These things shoot up about 3 stories high and then burst. Really cool.


Here it is with all the fireworks gone. You can buys things like this that are 3-4 times taller and 3-4 times wider. I hope to pick one up in February if they're still selling them.

After shooting off the fireworks and holding the sparklers out in the freezing cold with members from the German department, I hung out with the Russian speaking students. I sampled some of their Uzbekistan food and watched part of "The Return of the King" dubbed in Korean.