Authentic Chinese in NZ

We were scheduled to go to the beach again today, but woke up to clouds, rain, and no sun. :( So, we ended up going to a Chinese New Years Festival and market. It was in a huge warehouse, and reminded me of the Women’s Expos or Bridal Fairs—tons of booths set up everywhere, samples, food, free giveaways, drawings, etc. We walked in and I literally felt like I was in China; the only other non-Asians I spotted were Anna, Sheryl, Alexis, and Kodie! It was fun to walk around, try some interesting food samples, drink some fresh coconut milk out of a real coconut, and then eat the most authentic Chinese food I’ve had. I really don’t know exactly what I ate haha. Sheryl bought us a variety of Chinese chicken and vegetable pancakes, beef and noodle soup (with mushrooms that looked more like tentacles to me), white Jell-o-like noodles (the women who gave them to us said they were green bean noodles, but I’m still not sure where the green bean part fits in), and then some delicious sesame chicken. It was quite an experience.

The Lords had their first taste of our cooking tonight—Anna and I made chicken fajitas! I thought they were good, and everyone ate a lot. Later this week we’re making pizzas, and then we want to cook a couple other big “American” dishes for them, not sure exactly what yet, but hopefully we can wow them :)

One more thing: I’m becoming a big fan of Milo. The first I had it, I could barely drink a whole cup. We found out it was probably because Phyllis had made it with water, who knows how many scoops of milo, and no sugar. Sheryl wanted to set us straight, so she made it for us with milk and a bit of sugar, and it was much better. Anna and I are getting pretty good at making it just right now. It was the perfect way to end the day today—drinking a warm cup of milo, listening to the rain pour and pour outside. Lovely.

Sometimes it really felt like we were in China!

Here are some unique instruments we heard--thought my family would like to see them.

Haha. These were just some goofy pants we saw a bunch of guys wearing.

And here is our coconut milk...if you can't tell by our faces, it wasn't our favorite thing we've tried so far. But it was really cool to drink it straight out of a coconut!

They had lots of different little acts here and there, including these funny Chinese men "fighting" each other. You can't see much on this clip because my camera cut it off, but it was so funny to watch them because they seemed to do it all in slow motion.

I finally saw some sheep!! I had heard that there are more sheep than people in New Zealand, but before today I hadn't seen any. Needless to say, it was kind of a big deal to finally see these sheep.