Reunion Dinner

Alberto playing in the ice

Chinese New Year Eve ... and we're having a hailstorm. Temperatures dropped drastically. Now it's 2 degrees officially but it's actually zero degrees when the winds whip up. And the hail and graupel ... unbelievably powerful lashes of it. They strike the skin and hurt. And the grass are turning white with ice. The hail and graupel melt on the streets and pavements but on grass and soil, they remain covering the area. Our Indonesian student was excited and played around the ice. It is his first winter.

Reunion Dinner

We had our Reunion Dinner at Mandarin restaurant - we meaning the asian religious in Jerusalem. Nine of us in all. They are priests and sisters and one lay person coming from China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Korea and Taiwan. We had to walk through the hailstorm to get to the restaurant. I was soaking wet, hands hurting from the hailstones, and suffered an asthma attack.

Ah Ling did a great dinner for us: dumplings, chicken soup, noodles ... things that were not on the menu. Everyone enjoyed it. Each racial group sang a song in its own language. It was a fun evening. Until we had to go home. The hailstorm was even heavier. The wind lashed the hail like stones were being thrown at us. We couldn't walk fast enough to get home, turn on the heaters and go right into bed.

Thus the Year of the Monkey ended.