My wonderful city is ready for Christmas. From the Flower market to the finest malls, there is Christmas magic in the air. Here are my photos for you. Enjoy!
{at the Flower market}
{IFC mall}
{in Prince’s Building Heather&March shop window display}
{Tiffany & Co. window}
{Christmas carols at the Festival Walk mall in Kowloon Tong}
{Festival Walk mall always has the tallest Christmas tree}
My absolute favorite holiday display however, is in the Landmark shopping mall in Central – a Christmas village in the snow covered mountains with a mechanical train riding through it. It is the work of American interior designer Preston Bailey.
Here is what he’s said about it: “For the last few years, I’ve been designing a holiday installation of my own for The Landmark, an impressive business and shopping complex in Hong Kong. I think this year’s designs turned out pretty well. I wanted them to be festive and fun for shoppers, and I think we accomplished that.” You can read more about Preston Bailey’s work on his blog.
Or in this case to be exact I should say hand knitted Christmas.
Every year before Christmas there are so many wonderful holiday decoration ideas shared around blogland. And every time I’m thinking I’ll make ‘THIS ONE’ for next Christmas. But the plans change fast and often and there seems always not enough time.
This year I actually have tried some of the ideas. I simply could not miss this one – worked in the round and stranded – all my favorite kind of knitting. And it is a nice little present to give away.
Down to business right away.
My first knitted Christmas ball.
It was not sitting on the Styrofoam ball as snugly as I would like it to be. But again it was the first one and I was trying to gauge. And this is no big deal since I’ve used wool that can be felted, and voilà – perfect shape.
After this one, I used different yarn and needles, so the next Christmas balls come out in just the right size.
There are five of them made so far. Some of these are gifts and some are to stay.
I plan to knit some more.
I like them so much, it’s going to be hard to stop me now. I also have some ideas on how to modify them with metallic yarn that I still have to go buy.
{FREE Christmas ball pattern can be found here.}
No, it is not about eating it for the first time. After ten years in Hong Kong there has been plenty of different kinds of Moon cakes eaten, fancy and traditional but they all came from a shop. This time it is different … I’ve learned how to MAKE my own.
Thank you to Candy, a Chinese lady from my morning dancing class, for offering us a cooking lesson on making Moon cakes. Six of us spent a few hours making total of one hundred cakes, joking that we could open a Moon cake factory. We had so much fun!
{ready to go into the oven}
They came out beautiful and oh, so tasty!
{ready for tea time}
To learn more about the Moon cakes go here.
The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on September 13th this year and it is one of the four most important Chinese festivals.
We went to the Russian Orthodox church prettied up for Easter.
… and we still have some of the traditional Ukrainian Easter bread -paski baked by my cousin. They are as tasty as they’re pretty.
Can it be any better?
The morning after – macaroons from Le Gouter Bernardaud – International Woman’s Day treat from my son.
My heart has melted.
