The Dried Foods Market part 3

There was so much to see in this market that there is obviously no way to show u everything.

I loved playing with all the dehydrated shtuff!!! mmmh I wonder what this one tastes like.

wow! I saw a ton of dehydrated animals. The poultry was the most amazing because ancient travelers could eat duck soup any time the decided to boil these dried up ducks in a pot. If you click on the picture, you can see a lot of detail....including the duck bill
In the picture below, you can see that they even dried up lizards and sea horses.

Congratulations USA!!!
"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek".

- Barack Obama

What are you willing to do to change yourself, your home life, your school, your community? No more blaming others or making poor excuses for the state of our country. Get Involved....Here is how

The Dried Food Market part 2

The purpose of our trip to the Dried Food Market, was to help us understand HK's traditional history. Today, we were to keep to our theme of OLD AND NEW and try to find inspiration for our next international collaborative project here. We also visited new areas of HK that I will share with you in future posts.

This is a very, very extravagantly expensive box of Bird's Nest. Bird's Nest is not really the nest of a bird but close. This delicacy is composed of the dried spittle that birds use to build their nest and other obvious proteins. A bird can only produce a few announces of spit in its entire life time so it takes a lot of birds and a ton of spit to come up with this amount of Bird's Nest.
This is considered to be very restorative and a cure for a variety of ailments.

Playing with my new Indonesian friend in the market. Indonesia has the world's largest population of Muslims.

The Dried Foods Market part 1

Today we went on an organized tour of the city of Hong Kong. We were first taken to the Hong Kong dried foods market which represents a part of Hong Kong Ancient history. In the olden days people in Hong Kong used many forms of dehydration to preserve their food.

One of the many reasons I love Asian food is because of the dietary variety. Asians not only take advantage of the obvious regional produce and resources but also tend to find nutritional value in just about anything from the sea, the earth and the sky.

Historically, this has been a clue about how people from different geographical regions of the world have dealt with hunger and famine. Hong Kong has seen its fair share of wars, regional conflicts and terrible dictatorships. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong, people in Hong Kong died by the hundreds of thousands because of hunger and poor food distribution. Thus, they found food where most wouldn't and came up with innovative ways of storing, transporting and distributing a ridiculously huge variety of food.

Be the first one in your class to make a short (2 min) presentation about the Chinese Cultural Revolution and earn 8 extra credit point toward your next test!! Simply email me your intentions before you begin your research to claim you spot. Good Luck!

In the two pictures above, you see a jar of pickled jelly fish and a barrel of of smoked sardines.

For 80 Hong Kong Dollars (HKD), you can walk away with one pound of these tiny guppies. These are a delicacy where I come from (Spain) as well. In Spain we call them chanquetes. They are ridiculously good and when deep fried, they taste like really tasty french fries with a slight fish after taste. Here in HK, these are used as fish broth or soup base.

Here is a picture of a variety of sea creatures that most of us would simply pass up in our search for food. There are a couple of different sea sponges and two varieties of the famous sea cucumber. These 3-5 inch long varieties of sea cucumbers grow to about a foot and a half when rehydrated. Although they do not taste like much, they do provide very high levels of protein and folic acids that are fat free and cholesterol free. They are very ugly...down right rude looking...

Dream Team
Here is my new team (part of it anyway). World Innovative Teachers G6 Team!!
(from left to right) Jae Yang Park (S. Korea), Nanie (Brunei), Me (USA..duh!) Yin Kuan (Singapore), George (Greece), Unknow Tour Guide (Hong Kong). Missing from the shot, Mathew Ong (Singapore), Bum Joo Park (S. Korea)

These teachers are all winners of Microsoft's Innovative Teacher of the Year competition in their respective countries. Some of them won out over as many as 60,000 entries!! Their projects are all ridiculously innovative and mind blowing. The stuff they do in their classrooms makes me shake like a crack whore.These guys are the dream team of International tech teachers and I get to be the poser among them...puhahaha.

I am so humbled by their accomplishments that I feel like a helpless babbling stroke victim when it is my turn to verbally contribute to team discussions!!!
We will be working together during this next year to produce a top of the line project for next year's Microsoft gig in South Africa. Man, the ideas are flowing like Tsunami waves and our project is about to ROCK!!!

ET NO MORE....
The weirdest and most amazing thing happen to me today. It was the opening of the convention today and I got a chance to meet teachers from all over the world that are here for the International Innovative Teacher award.
After registration, we all got our little Microsoft goody bag with cool Microsoft goody bag shtuff! I was really excited 'cause teachers love free shtuff.
After the welcome address, we were all put in random teams based on a color system on our name tags. There were teachers from all over the globe and we had to walk around the conference room looking for our team members (that match our name tag...well..tag). I had problems finding anyone from my team 'cause I was too busy being in awe and gawking at everything like the farm peasant I am.

Finally, one of my team members from Singapore found me...and guided me around 'less I hurt myself. She is an elementary school teacher in a model 'school of the future' in Singapore. I immediately asked my brain..."school of the future? SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE??? Yeah...What the ying yang is THAT?"
She must have read the puzzlement on my face 'cause she kindly (and speaking really slowly) told me the kinds of things that go on in a "School of the Future". Geeeeeezzzz, my knees started shaking as she spoke and I had to quickly find a chair before I made a bigger fool of myself. Wow! (more details to come)

The event MC then spoke of the homework that he was going to give us. The homework is due next year in South Africa!!!! Each team was given a challenge and technology tools that could be used to enhance student learning across international lines. Each team has to construct a project (long distance mind you) within the next year that pushes global barriers, overcomes technology obstacles, and is able to be piloted by every one of our students simultaneously (regardless of age, language, geographic location, income and race). Oh...God is soooo good!

Today, they are taking each team on a separate field trip around Hong Kong so that we can find inspiration and begin to brain storm about our project. I am so excited, I keep wetting myself!!!

These teachers are like...my people. We speak the same educational technologista language, we finish each others sentences, they study ed tech trends, twitter, use LMSs, pour over ed. projections, use virtual communities to play with our students...Oh sweet St. Pete....they even snort when they laugh. I am an Alien NO MORE. Could it be that I am not crazy?....I have found my pack!!!!!

Read more >> Options >>

Hong Kong History Clip

by Sara Clark 1st hr. World History

Hong Kong has had human activity for hundreds of years. It dates back over five millennia. There was also early influences from Chinese stone-age cultures. The East India Company made the first trips to China, and trade developed soon after that. Hong Kong was ceded to Britain after the First Opium War under the treaty of Nanking. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries Hong Kong developed warehouses for the U.K. trade with southern China.

After World War II, communists took over China. Thousands of people fled from China to Hong Kong. This helped Hong Kong become such an economic success and tourism center. In 1997, China resumed the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong, ending the years of British rule.

谢谢您=Thank you Sara for your entry...you have earned 10 Cantonese points toward your UNIT #3 test...HOT DOG!!!