Just Kidding

Jen here. So remember my previous post..."Fall is here"? Just kidding. We are having summer-like days again. Today was warm...and I almost turned the a/c on, but I decided to take a cold shower instead. Maybe by middle of November? Praise Jesus for the glimpse of fall.

Do you see that unripe, orange tomato to the right? That's dessert. Mmm... and it's not a tomato, it is a Persimmon. Cherrie brought some to share with us at Care Group. When she first brought them in and told us they were for dessert, we were thinking "tomatoes for dessert?" but I remembered seeing them in the store. Some sort of strange fruit.

At Care Group we eat dinner and chat, then watch a sermon from the Luke series at Mars Hill Church. Cherrie isn't used to an hour-long sermon, so we take a little break about half-way through to eat dessert. This dessert was interesting--another new food. First, don't eat the skin; it is very chewy (I ate a little...). Just eat the flesh. It reminded Roy of a plum, and the texture reminded me of an over-ripe peach. It tasted all right at first, but then I had enough. I need to learn to say a firm no, even to sweet little Cherrie. I don't plan to eat them again for a while...

We have Care Group tonight again. We plan to go out to eat and just hang out, getting to know one another more. It'll be Roy, me, Cherrie and one new woman. Pray that we would form great community, rooted in Jesus.

Dragon Fruit

Dragon Fruit. One of the many strange fruits I have seen here. I'm pretty sure I have seen it before moving to HK, but I have never known what it is called. Apparently it is the fruit of a kind of cactus. Some say it tastes like a cross between a kiwi and a pear (both are fruits I don't like yet...). It looks so cool, though; how could you not try it?

Today I was grocery shopping at our local Park N Shop and I saw a few women rummaging through a pile of packaged dragon fruit. Each package held three fruit and was marked down to $4. Sweet! That is about 60 US cents. I figured I would take this as an opportunity to try a new fruit (just for the record, I did try a piece or two a few weeks ago in a restaurant...but I want to cut into one for myself!). In typical Asian fashion, the women were surrounding the fruit, so I waited for an opening (not what I should do if I really want to get some fruit). I reached in and grabbed one package and mimicked the other Asian women, turning the package over and examining the fruit (what was I looking for?). Then a Park N Shop worker rolled up a cart piled high with more on-sale dragon fruit. As she marked them and added them to the original pile, a cute little old asian lady smiled at me and pointed at a few dragon fruit on the cart, and said something to me in Cantonese. I think she was pointing out the good ones to me, but really I don't know. The Park N Shop worker saw me waiting and handed me a package of fruit, then another...maybe she saw the confused look on my face...so I chose the best of the two and bought it.

On the home front, Roy went to a Men's event at IECC. We had some delicious lasagna (MMM!!)...then I cut up one of the dragon fruit (as pictured above). I tried maybe 3 pieces and eww...it was not appetizing. There was little flavor or sweetness, tons of seeds, and the texture was the worst part...kind of like a kiwi. So, the Jen votes "No" on eating dragon fruit by itself. Maybe I can find another way to eat it? Any ideas?