Week 7: 5/15/05

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#FFCC80" TEXT="#080000" background="67cc8b83.jpg"> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Random Things to Make You Giggle"><B>Random Things to Make You Giggle</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id77.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Hong Kong Disneyland"><B>Hong Kong Disneyland</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id35.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Our Parkview Apartment"><B>Our Parkview Apartment</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id26.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 1: 4/3/05"><B>Week 1: 4/3/05</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id29.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 2: 4/10/05"><B>Week 2: 4/10/05</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id30.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 3: 4/17/05"><B>Week 3: 4/17/05</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id32.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 4: 4/24/05 "><B>Week 4: 4/24/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id33.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 5: 5/1/05 "><B>Week 5: 5/1/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id37.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 6: 5/8/05 "><B>Week 6: 5/8/05 </B></A></div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f00000cc00.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Week 7: 5/15/05 </B></div> <div> <A HREF="id41.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 8: 5/22/05 "><B>Week 8: 5/22/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id42.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 9: 5/29/05 "><B>Week 9: 5/29/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id48.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 10: 6/5/05 "><B>Week 10: 6/5/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id51.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 11: 6/12/05 "><B>Week 11: 6/12/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id53.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 12: 6/19/05 "><B>Week 12: 6/19/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id55.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 13: 6/26/05 "><B>Week 13: 6/26/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id57.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 14: 7/3/05 "><B>Week 14: 7/3/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id60.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 15: 7/10/05 "><B>Week 15: 7/10/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id62.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 16: 7/17/05 "><B>Week 16: 7/17/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id64.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 17: 7/24/05 "><B>Week 17: 7/24/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id65.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 18: 7/31/05 "><B>Week 18: 7/31/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id67.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 19: 8/7/05 "><B>Week 19: 8/7/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id70.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 20: 8/14/05 "><B>Week 20: 8/14/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id71.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 21: 8/21/05 "><B>Week 21: 8/21/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id74.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 22: 8/28/05 "><B>Week 22: 8/28/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id76.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 23: 9/4/05 "><B>Week 23: 9/4/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id79.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 24: 9/11/05 "><B>Week 24: 9/11/05 </B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id80.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Week 25: 9/18/05 "><B>Week 25: 9/18/05 </B></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" width="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#BF0000" FACE="Australian Sunrise" ><B>Welcome to Chase family planet!</B></FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Australian Sunrise" > </FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >    |    </FONT> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Welcome to Chase family planet!">home</A></div> <div> <A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Adventures in Asia">Adventures in Asia</A>   ·   <A HREF="id46.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Us">Contact Us</A></div> <bR> <div> Week 7: 5/15/05 </div> <div> <B>Hello my hungry friends!</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> As so many of you were kind enough to ask about our "Fear Factor-like Dining Experiences", I thought I would oblige. Especially since our stomachs are feeling pretty good right now. But the real question: how is <I>your</I> stomach?? You may want to pop in a couple of Tums before continuing on...<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <B>I'm no Julia Child</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> In my family, it was my dad who was (and still is) the master chef. He would spend the afternoon mincing and chopping to create stir fry beyond compare, leaving a kitchen full of dirty pots and pans and knives. We would be full and happy, and you could see that my dad really enjoyed the process of creating a meal. My personal favorite growing up were his tacos, where he made everything from scratch. Every year on our birthdays my brother and I were allowed to have anything we wanted for dinner. For about 15 years we've eaten tacos on December 24th before devouring my birthday cake, and my dad always says "again? Don't you want to go out?". Sadly, I have gained nothing from my dad's culinary expertise, except perhaps a bit of weight. I take after my mother, who used to open a can and declare dinner prepared. I'll never forget my freshman year of college, living on my own in a tiny apartment, going to my cousin Darolyn's house for dinner. She tried to take me under her wing and show me how to make a couple of meals. Only one stuck with me, "Slimy Green Burritos" (my name for them, not hers). Darolyn had to teach me how to grate cheese, something that if you make it out of high school, you should probably know how to do. While we were dating, I discovered Michael's mother raised five children and cooked three meals a day, sometimes different things for each person at each meal. I worried that Mike and I would never make it as a couple. I knew I was in trouble (or rather Mike was in trouble) as I didn't even know how to turn on my gas stove in my first apartment, let alone what to do should I ever get the flame going. Regardless, the flame got going between Michael and I and he married me with the full knowledge that if I couldn't feed him with food prepared by my own two hands, I'd feed him with the food that was delivered by my fingers dialing for take out. And I always had those Slimy Green Burritos to fall back on.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> I know there are people who enjoy cooking. They like to bake or create new recipes from scratch or intrinsically know what will make something go from so-so to wow, and they actually enjoy the challenge. It's taken twelve years to realize that I am not one of them. Not even close. In fact, there are many things that you could say come easy to me, like French braiding hair, sewing, or typing over 60 words per minute. But cooking is just downright <I>hard</I> for me. And, it's not just hard, I actually do not like to do it. I disdain it and try to avoid it as much as possible. Cooking dinner is the worst possible way for me to spend my time. After a long day of doing laundry and paying bills and taking care of the kids, the very last thing I want to sign up to do is jump right on into the kitchen and spend an hour making something that will take the three Chase boys 35 seconds to consume. It's exhausting and personally non-gratifying, as I rarely like the food I cook. For me, the absolute greatest pleasure in life is eating out. I love it, I crave it, I enjoy it more than I should. The ability to sit at a table that I didn't have to clean toys off of, look at a menu and choose from dozens of things I might like, while at the same time my tablemates can choose what they like, and then have someone else cook it, present it to me, refill my drink, then clean up while I happily go on my way is my idea of heaven on earth. Whenever we are struggling for money, I know the quickest way to rectify the situation is to stop eating out. We'd probably own a house, a boat, and an RV if there was some way to turn me into the type of person who liked cooking just a little bit more.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <B>Old Mother Hubbard, Looked in Her Cupboard...</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> The number one most surprising thing about living here is that the grocery stores stock just about everything you would find at a grocery store in the States. No kidding. There were several things we shipped over by boat with our household items that we figured we'd need and surprise, surprise, they are available here. Like Kraft Mac N Cheese, which we shipped a case of, which is available here in Hong Kong in three different varieties. Or even more obscure, I really like this one kind of salad dressing called Brianna's Poppy Seed Dressing. It's not even available at every store in the U.S., but when I find it, I buy every bottle on the shelf. I shipped several bottles of it, only to find that our local market right here on site sells it! And very different from Japan is the fact that "Sugar" is labeled "Sugar", as is salt, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and corn starch. In Japan, everything was written in kanji, undecipherable to me when we first moved there. Our local grocery store had an aisle full of bags of white powdery substances, which was interesting to try and guess what they contained. All the adventure in grocery shopping is gone when they have it labeled in English! The one thing we are panicking about is our dwindling supply of Aunt Jemina pancake syrup. No one stocks it here, and in seven weeks we've used up almost four bottles, with only four more to go before we are out of it. The grocery stores here also carry things you wouldn't normally find back home. Lots of still living things that you can pick out and they will kill them right there for you or allow you to take them home and do the honors yourself. We went to one market this week that had crates of live chickens right next to a rotisserie machine with a couple of not so live chickens slowing turning on it. I guess the food is fresher this way, but appalling to explain to your four year old why there is a huge aquarium at the grocery store, or why there is a pig hanging in the window of a restaurant. I actually raised pigs for 4-H in my teens, which I stupidly named after my boyfriend and had to endure my brother's taunts of "we're eating Josh tonight" for the better part of a year as various parts of "Josh" were brought out of deep freeze and served up on our table. Between this and a summer in the USSR being served parts of animals that I believe were never meant to be consumed, I became a vegetarian for about six years. The longer were here, the more I'm leaning towards returning to that lifestyle...<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <B>Reservations for Chase, Party of Four</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> As far as eating out here, we have some major things to take into consideration. One, we have two small kids so just because we may be feeling adventurous doesn't mean that the kids are. Two, we've been warned time and again by all of our physicians back home that it's not safe to eat many places as food preparation and sanitary standards vary widely from what the U.S. would find acceptable. Heck, even here in Hong Kong we see signs warning people to demand better sanitary conditions for food preparation. Unless you've just joined us, you know that Benjamin has some pretty serious health concerns that we have to be diligent in doing all we can to keep him healthy and well. Bacterial infections are his enemy and it's truly a war we have to fight to keep him from catching one. And considering that as of this writing three out of the four of us have been struck with serious stomach bugs that are too violent to go into detail about, eating and drinking in Hong Kong is seriously more like a surreal episode of Fear Factor (sans skimpy bathing suits) than we care to think about. <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Verdana" ><I>The host: Wow, it's 90 degrees out with 100% humidity here in Hong Kong! Thirsty? Here's a nice big glass of iced tea! Sure it looks harmless, and yes, the tea was made with boiled water so it's surely safe to drink, but what about that melting ice that was made with tap water! If you win this round, your thirst is quenched! But if you lose, it's a one way trip on the porcelain express! Bottoms up!</I></FONT><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> We have yet to find a place that is so incredibly delicious that we want to return again and again. Jumbo was surprisingly awesome, and the Parkview Saturday night barbeque was the best, but we don't have the money to make that even a monthly event (when we got the bill at the end of the month we discovered that for the four of us the BBQ was $130, our second most expensive meal in our <I>lives</I>, loosing out only to the Kobe beef we had in Nikko, Japan on our fifth wedding anniversary). There are a couple of places we go to frequently because they are child friendly, a huge consideration here in not-so-child friendly Hong Kong. There is one place called <I>Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill</I> which is a favorite with all three of the boys since they have a miniature train track suspended above the dining area and they serve big steaks. They have a giant broccoli platter with huge stems of steamed broccoli that the kids greedily devour right along with their kids meals. I like it because they have a decent cheeseburger and give you free refills on Coca-Cola. We go to another place called <I>Fat Angelo's</I> which is Italian. It's decent food in HUGE servings and very cheap. A good thing, because we've gone from being able to get one child's meal for the boys to split to having to purchase two meals and watch them clean their plates and ask for more (w<I>here</I> do they put it??). At Fat Angelo's you can get two kid's meals for the price charged for only one at other places. On site at the Parkview they have several restaurants. We tried the Chinese one, Ming Yuen, this Sunday since it's gotten rave reviews from the other families here and Holly, who ate there one night while she stayed with us. First off, the service was so bad I was shocked. Every other restaurant on site bends over backwards to please you, but this one ignored us from the second we walked in, reservation in hand. When we finally got someone to pay attention to us, Michael ordered us some "Chicken and Ribs". Guess what that means? Come on, guess! You'll have to check out the website for the photo I took, but here it meant tiny pieces of greasy steamed pork ribs and chicken feet. Not kidding, go look at the photo. No, we didn't eat the chicken feet. We just couldn't do it. Not when they looked so much like, well, chicken feet.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> We've been craving Mexican food so much lately. Back in the States, some great Mexican food was always the cure for a bad day. We used to go to one place that made tableside guacamole right there in front of you. Here in Hong Kong we've gone to two Mexican restaurants. The first was when Mike and I went out without the kids, wandering around the SoHo area. We found a hole in the wall place and went in. The food was O.K. The second place we went was with the kids this week. One of Mike's single, male co-workers recommended it. Mike asked him if it seemed child friendly, and he said the downstairs area is pretty much a bar, but upstairs is a dining area. After one particularly bad day for both of us, we decided to go. We showed the taxi driver where it was on a map and he dropped us off across the street from it and raced off. I looked around and discovered we were in the "red light district" of Hong Kong. There were two ladies scantily clad in black leather making out on the steps of a strip club, pausing briefly to beckon passers-by to come in to the club. I was ready to bolt, especially since we couldn't just cross the street to get to the Mexican restaurants as there was a big barrier in the road. We had to walk down to the corner, cross there, and then come back up the street on the other, equally provocative side. Every place was worse than the last, definitely worse than what we saw on our last trip to Las Vegas. Here the photos on the clubs showed fully nude ladies rather than strategically placed feather fans which you see on the Vega cabs. The whole time we were walking up and then down the block we were scanning the area for a taxi. I personally wasn't so hungry any more, and I was questioning a restaurant that would be placed in the middle of this block. Would the waitresses be clothed? Not seeing a single taxi, we finally made it to the restaurant and went in. The whole downstairs area was a bar with tables facing the street for the "entertainment", but upstairs was a nice dark dining area where we settled the kids and were served really great food. I doubt we'll go back, though, especially not with the kids and eagle-eye Nathan who misses nothing. </div> <div> <B>Come Get Lost With Us...</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> On Sunday after our not-so-great experience with the Chinese food at Ming Yuen's, we put Ben down for a nap and Mike and Nathan went swimming. When they returned, we decided to go exploring, no destination in mind, and try as hard as we could to get lost. Mike only has one day off a week, so we have to take advantage of it, you know? We started out on the Parkview Bus, getting off at the first stop where we wandered into some street market shops and found a couple of Hong Kong Police car toys for the boys and some capri pants for me. Then we jumped on the Hong Kong Tram, the electric double decker trolley that runs all over Hong Kong Island. Our intention was to take it from one end of the island to the other, a trip that I hear takes a couple of hours for the bargain price of a quarter for adults and thirteen cents for kids. All the trams have different destinations on them, and we jumped on one labeled "North Point" because we could see that the upper level was pretty empty. We took it all the way to the end of the line, passing a stadium celebrating the International Day of Prayer and another park filled with revelers celebrating the Buddha's 2549th birthday. We got off in a neighborhood devoid of English speakers, and we enjoyed mingling with the locals out for a Sunday afternoon stroll, looking at the goods for sale on the sidewalks. We passed a butcher with easily identifiable animals hanging from hooks (of course we took pictures just for you!) and several fishmongers with the day's catch still alive and breathing and totally delighting both the boys. </div> <div> We saw that we were close to the water, so we made our way up to it to see what we could see. We found a ferry dock, with a choice of two destinations. We shrugged and said "why not?" and jumped on the next ferry, which said it was headed for Hung Hom. Fortunately, Hung Hom is still in Hong Kong! We got off the boat and wandered about an area called Whampoa. But it felt like a totally different country than our ex-pat community (compound?) at the Parkview. We wandered in an out of tall apartment buildings, following people out walking their dogs. We found a small playground and let the boys play for awhile. We struck up a conversation with another family that had a little girl exactly one year older than Benjamin (same birthday). They said they don't see many foreigners there where they live, since it's not on the MTR (Train) route, and they were surprised we took the ferry over not knowing where we were headed. They were excited to practice their English with us. It was fun to talk about the differences between raising children in America and Hong Kong and the similarities in potty training familiar to children in every land. As the sun set and we found ourselves in darkness, it was truly sad to leave this family. Our kids were tired and we were all hungry after avoiding the lunch of chicken feet, so we tried to figure out how to get home. We walked a bit further and found a shopping mall in the shape of a cruise ship, surrounded by a moat with four inches of water in it. As we walked around it, we saw a giant billboard for Outback Steakhouse. With our mouths suddenly watering and our stomachs fiercely growling, we searched for someone who could point us in the direction of one of our favorite restaurants. When we arrived and walked through the door, it was like walking out of a foreign country and back into the States. There were absolutely no Asians in the place, save the servers! We were amazed since we hadn't seen a single other foreigner the whole afternoon! We had a delicious meal, all four of us stuffed our faces until we could hardly walk (Ben's innie belly button popped out he was so full) and then we once again set out to find our way home. We were now far from where the Ferry had dropped us off, and even if we had taken the ferry back to Hong Kong Island, we would still have no idea where we were. We found that once again it was like being in a foreign country, no one could understand us and we certainly couldn't understand them. It felt like Outback Steakhouse was the Twilight Zone, a little glimpse into America, and now we were lost again. We finally found a taxi and asked the driver to take us to the nearest train station, knowing we could make it home from there. We got to the train station and took the train back across to Hong Kong Island, taking pictures of the MTR map that now has the "Disneyland Line" on it. We finally got home, everyone in a great mood, the perfect end to the week.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <B>FAQ's! Send 'Em In!</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> Very soon all your questions about Hong Kong will be answered! So if you've got one you haven't asked, send it in! We've received some great ones and don't forget that the best question gets a prize, something special from Hong Kong (nothing related to food, I promise)! And for those of you Southern Californians who <I>insist</I> on <I>bragging</I> about how <I>wonderful</I> the Disneyland 50th Birthday celebration is, I have to say... I'm jealous!!! Send pictures! Say hi to Mickey for me, wish I were there... And here's a little bragging of our own... June 12th we get to go to the first sneak preview of Hong Kong Disneyland just for Imagineering! The Park is not finished yet, but we get to go through and check out everything that is. I can't wait, since Nathan asks every single day when we can go to Disneyland, and I'll be thrilled to wake up on June 12 and say "Today!".<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <B>Happy traveling!</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <B>Heather, Michael, Nathan, and Benjamin Chase</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <bR> <div> Warning!  Contains Graphic Images!  Not for the faint of stomach!</div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="2" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="771" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 415 ><NOBR><div> <IMG SRC="266cc590.jpg" border=0 width="460" height="345" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> This is Michael's desk at work.  </div> <div> He's got his safety harness on so </div> <div> he doesn't injure himself while </div> <div> typing or using the phone.</div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER><NOBR><div> <IMG SRC="27be0680.jpg" border=0 width="480" height="360" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> The Ship-Shape Wonderful Worlds </div> <div> of Whampoa Shopping Mall </div> <bR> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 433 WIDTH="376"><div> <IMG SRC="284cc590.jpg" border=0 width="460" height="345" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> Ads for the new "Disneyland Line" MTR train are in all the stations.  The train looks just like this (we saw a glimpse of it on our trip to Lantau) but I don't know if any of the windows will actually have a view of Sleeping Beauty or not...</div> </tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="376"><div> <IMG SRC="288cc260.jpg" border=0 width="460" height="294" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <bR> <div> Inside the MTR trains are maps telling you where you are and where you're going.  They recently added the lovely pink Disneyland Resort Line with the Mickey logo.</div> <bR> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 375 ><NOBR><div> <IMG SRC="269902c0.jpg" border=0 width="400" height="300" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> Are these pets or food or pet food?</div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="376"><div> <IMG SRC="271bb510.jpg" border=0 width="443" height="337" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> And you thought the rotisserie chicken at Costco was appealing!  Check these birds out!</div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 431 WIDTH="376"><div> <IMG SRC="273e0680.jpg" border=0 width="480" height="360" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> This was right out in the open on a street corner, not even behind glass.  The boys and I just stood there staring until I noticed the locals were standing there staring... at us.</div> </tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER><NOBR><div> <IMG SRC="275b3680.jpg" border=0 width="435" height="360" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> More of the same butcher shop in North Point.</div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 395 WIDTH="376"><div> <IMG SRC="278c2480.jpg" border=0 width="450" height="328" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> Nathan was excited to see the live chickens, just like at Grandma's house.  Then he wanted to know what was up with the other chickens spinning on the spits.</div> </tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER><NOBR><div> <IMG SRC="26fb2550.jpg" border=0 width="434" height="341" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> Ribs and Chicken.  </div> <div> So who's ready to book their flight to Hong Kong</div> <div> and join us for dinner?  Anyone?  Hello?</div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>