recent travels

Since I can't post new photos, here are some older ones from recent travels, posted on FaceBook with links here for those poor, unfortunate, non-FB-using souls...

Taiwan: I went to Taipei and the Taroko Gorge with three friends for the long May Day weekend -- we had a blast!

Malaysia: I spent part of our March spring break at a conference in Kota Kinabalu... the other part was spent snorkling, exploring the rain forest, and sitting by the pool. It's a tough life...

easter in tianjin

I'm making good on my promise to post photos of the kiddos. Here's a link to an album I created on Facebook... an album that even stubborn, non-FB users will be able to see. ;)


Happy Easter everyone!

taxi driver welcome

I'm in Tianjin at the moment, enjoying the long weekend with my sister and her family. I will post photos of the kids soon. But first, an account of my welcome back to Tianjin.

...

I landed in the TJ airport close to 1 am, disoriented and groggy after having slept almost the entire 3-hour flight from Shenzhen. I had told Amy that I felt comfortable finding a taxi and getting to their place on my own -- definitely didn't want anyone out that late to meet me -- and so, stumbled over to the airport taxi stand, ignoring the touts I passed on the way. I got in a reputable-looking taxi and did my best not to butcher Amy's address (it'd been 4 years since I'd visited (!!), but I hadn't forgotten how to say Fu Kang Hua Yuanr). I was still very tired, and would have happily napped there in the taxi, or stared mindlessly at the passing scenery... but very soon realized that would not be happening. Like most Chinese taxi drivers I've met, this gentleman was very friendly.

He seemed to consider me for a moment in the rear-view mirror, and soon the usual questions were flowing.

Where was I from? What did I do? Why was I visiting Tianjin?

A short pause.

How old was I this year? Any children?

I was a little confused by this question, because I had just finished telling him that I was here visiting my jie jie and her family. Was he asking about her, or me?

Oh, of course, me.

I said politely that I didn't have any children, and added that I wasn't married yet. This seemed to bother him.

Twenty-eight and still not married? Why not?

Let me just pause here and say that this is possibly my least favorite question to be asked. It's such a loaded question, and I'm never quite sure how to answer it. I get asked this question from time to time at school, by elementary girls, and am often tempted to say very dramatically, "Really? Do you really want to know?" And then go into an hour-long lecture about the many facets of singlehood and the possible reasons why I am still in its ranks, and how, when it comes down to it, I would much rather choose singleness over being married to someone I was less than crazy about.

But, since my Chinese is limited, I opted to tell the driver that I just hadn't met the right guy yet.

Once again he was incredulous. I guess it makes sense, though. I hear that a lot of women in China are spoiled for choice, what with the imbalanced male to female ratio. Unfortunately, I have no such ratio working in my favor. To show me how shocked he was by my situation, he repeated to himself a few times while shaking his head, "28 years old and still not married, no child. 28 years old..."

Maybe he sensed my annoyance, because soon he was trying to lift my spirits. Did I at least have a boyfriend?

No.

Even longer awkward silence.

At this point, I think he must have begun analyzing why someone as old as me would still be unmarried. He said something to me that I couldn't fully understand. "You Westerners don't care much about ___."

I told him that I didn't understand and asked him to explain.

"I think you foreign girls don't care much about fixing your hair, wearing nice clothes, putting on make-up. Is that right?"

...

Ouch.

I took a deep breath and told myself that I wasn't going to take this personally, even though I was probably the basis for this impression of his. Another deep breath, and I told him that no, a lot of Western girls cared a lot about their appearance. "Right now I don't care about my appearance very much, because I'm very tired, and I've been on a plane for three hours."

It must have been obvious that in spite of myself, I'd taken his comment personally. His next words were almost apologetic. "Yes, I'm sure when you go to work, I'm sure you look very pretty... very pretty."

...

So thank you Mr. Taxi Driver. I will work hard on making myself more presentable, and if you know of any eligible bachelors, be sure to send them my way.

day-tripping in macau

My blogging record has been appalling these past few months... anyone who's still actually following this blog or checking from time to time for updates -- please accept my apologies. I've had plenty of blog-worthy material, but little time and even less motivation to get things up. Maybe this post will be the new leaf that is figuratively turned..


I went to Macau yesterday, with friends Mike and Ken. We joined a service project sponsored by Mike's church, and spent a couple hours at an English center holding a free English corner for local adults and teens interested in improving their conversational English. The experience reminded me of my time teaching in Xianyang, where we would hold weekly English corners for our college students. To be honest, English corner wasn't always my favorite part of teaching. If I wasn't prepared with some topics to discuss, I would get stuck answering questions that were all too familiar (i.e. "Do you know how to use chopsticks?" "Do you like Chinese food?" "Which is better, China or America?"). But anyway, I ended up really enjoying the English corner yesterday, and found myself actually feeling quite nostalgic for those days in China (I think the fact that I've started rereading River Town is also a contributing factor). I got to talk to two very nice Chinese ladies -- one was from near Shanghai, and the other was born and raised in Madagascar(!!). We talked about everything from family to work, history to travel. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos from the event, but might be able to add some soon, if friends are kind enough to share theirs. :)

After the English Corner, most of the service group took a ferry back to Hong Kong, but Mike, Ken and I headed to the Venetian -- the world's largest casino -- instead. I'd only ever seen the Venetian from afar, so was curious to go inside and see for myself what all the hype was about. We got there in time to get tickets for a matinee showing of the Cirque du Soleil show, Zaia. It was my first Cirque show, and wow, was it brilliant! But I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, because if I'd been paying attention to the signs, I would have known that it's "the most dazzling spectacle ever staged in Asia." (I suggested that Mike and Ken strike Zaia-esque poses, but apparently, this is the best they could come up with.)


After Zaia, we spent a bit of time checking out the Venetian. You could easily spend a couple days in this place and still not see everything. Thus the map that Mike is studying in the photo below. We made it to the actual casino section, and I had my heart set on playing one of the slot machines... but couldn't for the life of me figure it out! Maybe I should take that as a sign from above that I should never gamble.

After my poor luck with the slot machines, I decided that we couldn't leave until we'd at least found the canal that the Venetian is so famous for. Here are Mike and Ken standing on one of the many canal bridges. I've never been to Venice, but I'm sure it's just like this...
Look, it's a gondola!

And us on another bridge. Check out the amazing blue sky!

Then we headed out to my favorite restaurant -- Fernando's! We had quite a wait, but I think it was worth it. They have the best tomatoes... and garlic prawns... and sangria.

We left Fernando's with a decent amount of time to get back for our ferry. We had tickets for the last ferry to Kowloon, and thankfully didn't put ourselves through the stress of cutting it close. After an uneventful hour's ride (no sea-sickness either way -- hooray!), we were back in HK.

So that concludes this post about my very fun day in Macau. I have some catch-up posts in the works, but am not making any promises about how many of them will actually get written. But stay tuned! :)

yangshuo trip

We had a couple days off for Chinese National Day and Cheung Yeung Festival this past week, which made for a happy 4-day weekend. I took a trip with a few other teachers to Yangshuo, a place in China I'd been wanting to go for years. While there, I also got to meet up with my dear friend Laura from W&M, who was doing a little traveling in China before a big conference in Beijing. It was a wonderful trip for many different reasons, four of which I will outline below. :)



1. Natural beauty. Yangshuo is absolutely gorgeous. You could easily just spend a couple days admiring the unique beauty of the dramatic karst peaks. The area around Yangshuo has inspired Chinese painters for centuries, and it's the kind of etherial beauty that you would easily think was just imagined if you didn't know the place actually existed.



2. Many outdoor activities. I went biking twice, rafting, caving, and kayaking. These activities would have all been fun on their own, but the fact that we could do all of them in just a few days, and all with the spectacular mountains as a backdrop was just mind-blowing to me. I could easily go back and do more of these things. I think I could spend a few days just kayaking. And I originally hoped to go rock-climbing too, but that didn't pan out. Next time.



3. Relaxing. Even if you weren't into doing any of the activities listed above, Yangshuo would still be a great place to go. It's one of those layed-back little back-packing towns that is full of fun little coffee shops and bars. I didn't get a chance to do this, but I think I could've happily spent a whole day in town ordering coffees and reading.



4. I love China. It hit me as we were flying that it'd been about a year since I'd been to China, which is quite a long time considering that it used to be home. The way I see it, I've had a love-hate relationship with China for a while -- almost as long as I can remember -- and in the past year or so, our relationship has been especially rocky. But during this trip, I felt like I really rediscovered my love for the country and its people. I really enjoyed chatting with the locals, getting in some much needed Mandarin practice. I use Mandarin occasionally here in HK, but it's usually English and broken Cantonese when I'm here. Everything from talking to my first taxi driver, to eating familiar dishes and desserts (caramelized apples and bananas -- yum!!) left me feeling so excited to be in China again.

I have some more stories from the trip, and photos too, of course. Will share those soon!

photo links

I've posted a bunch of photos on Facebook, but would like to share them with others who are not [yet] on Facebook. I've noticed that other links I've posted like this have stopped working after a time, so if that happens, please let me know. They should be fine for a while though...

In chronological order:

Around Edinburgh
Scotland day trips
Oxford
Wales (I plan to write a few blog entries about this part of the trip, since it was so special to see where my great-grandmother grew up, and to meet my distant cousins there! But for now, here are some of the photos. Aunt Sandi -- don't worry, I will send out a lot more!)

I plan to add one more album of some of my photos from London, and will add the link here once I do that.

A few days in London

welsh cakes

I'll admit that this is an odd first post to be writing after getting back from my trip. I have lots of stories and photos to share, but for now, I'm blogging about Welsh cakes.

My lovely Welsh relatives offered them to me often while I was in Wales, usually for tea. They're a little bit like scones, or American biscuits, but fried instead of baked. I liked them so much that I vowed that I would learn to make them when I got home. Lucky for me, they're really quite easy to make, and I already had a recipe in my handy Wycliffe International Cookbook.

The Welsh version.
My version.
Here's the Wycliffe recipe I used:

Combine:
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt

Cut in:
1/4 cup shortening (I used butter)

Add:
1/4 cup raisins (I'm not usually a fan, but I like them in these cakes)
2-4 tablespoons milk, enough to hold batter together

I rolled them into about 1 inch balls, and then squished them flat. You should end up with something about 2 inches across and about 1/4-1/2 inch thick. Flour both sides, and then cook in a pan or on a griddle, over low heat. Cook them until they're golden brown on both sides. Sprinkle them with a little sugar, and they're ready to eat!

scotland so far...

Sorry for my silence!  I've been busy seeing things and a bit under the weather.  I caught a cold in Edinburgh -- fancy that!  I think I'm over the worse of it now, though, but even when I did have a hacking cough, I didn't let that stop me from seeing things.  I really want to post photos, but feel a bit overwhelmed by the idea.  Not surprisingly, I've taken a good many.  Scotland is a beautiful, beautiful place.  

I've enjoyed exploring Edinburgh very much -- and spent my first few days here doing just that -- but I have also been able to take some day trips to other places in Scotland.  To save time (since I should really be in bed right now -- leaving early tomorrow for Loch Ness!), I will make use of bullet points.

• Tuesday:  took a short bus-ride to Rosslyn to see the Rosslyn chapel (made famous by the Da Vinci Code).  It was a bit tourist-trappy, but still lovely, and in really pretty spot of countryside.

• Wednesday:  I bought a Historic Scotland Explorer Pass, and used my first of three valid days to go to Edinburgh castle. Very interesting, and in a beautiful spot overlooking the city.

• Thursday: took the train and a bus to St. Andrews.  I used my pass to go to the castle there and the cathedral ruins.  The cathedral used to be the largest in Scotland, and is in a breath-taking spot, right on the water.  Since falling into ruins, it has been used as a cemetery (for some few hundred years...!).  And of course, I saw the golf course, too.

• Friday:  spent the day in Glasgow.  Walked around the city, which has quite a different feel from Edinburgh... more urban and edgy.  I explored the city for most of the day, and then met Jon and some of his friends for the Radiohead concert in the evening (!!).  We had an interesting time getting back to Edinburgh on the train (since there were so many Edinburgh-ers at the concert)-- the initial crowdedness of it reminded me of rush hour in Hong Kong, or worse.  Thankfully, ScotRail spontaneously added another train to help deal with the crowds, so we ended up not so squished for the 50-minute train ride back.

• Saturday:  took the train to Stirling, with the aim of using my pass once more.  Stirling Castle was very grand and had some lovely gardens.  The town itself was very quaint as well.  On the train ride there, I noticed some beautiful ruins at a stop called Linlithgow and realized that that was a Historic Scotland spot as well.  So on my way back to Edinburgh, I "broke journey" (which I was happy to find was perfectly legal) and stopped at the Linlithgow Palace.  It was gorgeous.  Set right on a loch, and though only the skeleton of the original building still stands, you can get a feel for what a sight it must have been in its prime.  

So there you have the bare bones of my stay so far.  I hope to fill in some of the blanks with photos and stories soon.  As I said earlier, I'm going to Loch Ness tomorrow.  Will also see Inverness, too.  It's a bit far from Edinburgh, so I decided to sign up for a day-tour package.  So it looks as though I'll be one of those tourists on the tour buses.  I guess I'm OK with that.  With all of the navigating I've been doing on my own, I'm quite happy to take a break and have a guide take me places and tell me what I'm looking at.  Anyway, more to come soon, hopefully.  And I might get a chance to add a few highlight photos to this post at some point in the next few days.  

Looking ahead, I leave for Oxford on Wednesday morning, will spend a couple days there before going to Wales to visit my distant cousins (more specifically, my late grandfather's cousin, May, and her children and grandchildren).  Should be great!  After a few days in Wales, I'll head back to the London area, spend a couple more days seeing the sights, and then fly home.  

greetings from scotland!

I've made it to Edinburgh! I flew in to London early this morning, dropped my pack off at King's Cross and spent the whole day walking and tubing (?) around London. I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to see in one day, so had a conservative plan of just going to Westminister Abby. Well, I was there when they opened at 9:30, and then left after an hour or so of touring, so had plenty of time to sight-see before my 4:30 train. I went by the houses of parliament and Big Ben, had a picnic lunch on the Thames overlooking the London Eye. Then I went over to London Bridge, and in my wanderings happened upon none other than St. Paul's cathedral. Then I walked all the way back to the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. From there, already being exhausted, I took the tube to Green Park and walked through the park to Buckingham Palace. Then finally it was back to King's Cross to pick up my bag and take the 4.5 hr train ride to Edinburgh.

There's so much more I could say about today, but as you can imagine, at this point I'm barely coherant. It's 11:15 pm here in Scotland, and the sun just went down. Seriously. That's probably part of the reason why I'm able to still be awake right now -- the ridiculous amount of summer daylight. But in HK time it's 6:15 am and I've pulled an all-nighter. Jon has been a very gracious host, and is offering me his room while I'm here. Not sure I should take him up on it the whole time I'm here though... we'll see. I can't wait to see more of this amazing city tomorrow. It's spectacularly beautiful, but still quite quaint for a capital city. Another cool thing is that it seems to be the perfect size to explore on foot! I'll try to post a few photos soon!

a few parting words...

I 'll be leaving in a couple hours for the airport, so am feeling extra giddy at the moment. So what to do with all this nervous energy? Why not BLOG?!

Here are some highlights from today... a day of last-minute errands.

I was out around lunchtime, so decided to enjoy one more cheap meal while I still can. Eat Together comes through again -- $22!
Then I happened to pass by a Hui Lau Shan (a.k.a. The Mango Drink Place), and decided to enjoy one more delicious mango treat before I go. I don't think I'll be eating much mango while I'm in the UK. Haggis and blood pudding -- yes -- but probably not much mango.

While waiting for my drink to be made, I noticed these mango-themed cautionary signs on the wall. How did I miss these before?

And then I got home and back to my packing. It seems a little bit strange to be packing a lot of my winter clothes for a summer holiday, but that's what I've done. The highs and lows that I'll be experiencing, especially in Scotland, are reminiscent of a HK winter. I'm only taking my backpack with me, which should be interesting, as it's as light as I've ever traveled.

Here's one of the little bird buttons that I put on my pack a few years ago. I still like them, which is a good thing, because the backs are completely rusted, making them irremovable (I'm quite sure that's the first time I've used that word...). That's all I have for now. I'll try to update my blog from time to time while traveling. Stay tuned! :)

some updates

Crafting update:
I'm in the middle of making a few new cozies (surprise, surprise!). One of them is a very special Father's Day cozy for my dad. Stay tuned for photos...

School update:
I finished cleaning up my classroom today, and officially checked out for the summer! That being said, I will be returning mid-July for a couple weeks of summer school.

Travel update:
I mentioned that I'll be going to the UK soon. I'll spend a little over 3 weeks there -- visiting friends in Scotland and England, and then meeting some of my distant cousins in Wales! I'm ecstatic!

Templeton update:
The cat-child is doing well, and amazingly enough, seems to be getting furrier!

the yak

I was just doing the last of my unpacking, and was happy to come across one of my favorite souvenirs from India: my matching yak mugs. I got them at a handicraft store in a Tibetan refugee village near Haridwar.

Simultaneous front and back views.

The best part of the mug: the yak emblazoned cover.
A little background: My admiration for the yak developed when I taught at a Tibetan school in China and heard stories about the noble animal from my students. I recommend the movie Himalaya to anyone in doubt of this creature's majesty.

Here's the mug with the toy yak that I bought some time ago in China. (It might look familiar because of this post)

problems and solutions

Problem #1: I accidentally leave the book I'm reading on the plane after disembarking in Delhi (and at a very pivotal part of the story, too!).

Solution: I buy a new copy in India, which turns out to be a great place to buy books. Bookshops have excellent selection, and sell books at a considerable discount off the cover price. This one was about 40% less than what I would have paid in Hong Kong.

Problem #2: The lens cap on my new camera (that, amusingly enough, I'd been worried about losing) is knocked off and follows a trajectory directly into a train squatty potty. It's now somewhere on the tracks between Haridwar and Delhi. *


Solution: Knowing my affection for all things crocheted, Susie jokingly suggests that I crochet a new lens cover. Little does she know that I already have one ready! I'd brought my yarn and hook with me, and had made another coffee cozy, which I now realize can easily double as a lens protector of sorts.

*(Why did I have my camera with me in the train bathroom, you might ask? Excellent question. There were few moments on the trip when I wasn't the stereotypical camera-clad tourist. Even when I was sleeping, my camera was never far away. See, I was determined not to miss anything, and wanted to make sure I was prepared for any and all interesting photo opportunities. Yes, even train bathroom photo opportunities (actually, in my defense, I was thinking about opening the [moving] train door and taking some photos -- something I'd done on our previous train ride -- on my way back from the bathroom). Needless to say, I've learned my lesson, and in future, will be happy to sacrifice one or two obscure photographs for the well-being of my camera)

incredible india

I'm back in HK after a phenomenal week in India! My mom and I stayed with my friend Susie, who's been living in Delhi for about a year and a half. We spent most of our time in Delhi, but also took a trip with Susie and a group of college students (who she was showing around -- part of her job) up north to Haridwar and Mussoorie, and then did a day trip on our own to Agra. I'm quite sure I'll be blogging about India for a while, once I'm unpacked and the laundry is done -- it was really an incredible experience, and I'm already thinking about going back -- but for now I'll just share some photo highlights of our trip. Here are two albums I posted on Facebook (so if you've already seen them there, feel free to forgo a second viewing). Apparently, they can be viewed by anyone, including non-Facebook users, via the links below.


Trip highlights (it was hard to choose which of my 700+ photos should be in this 60-photo album, but I did my best...)


Islamic art (I love the simple yet intricate geometric patterns found in the Islamic decorative arts. I ended up taking a good number of photos of these designs whenever we were at a mosque or a tomb. India was part of the Mughal empire from 1526 to 1828 (when the British came in and took over), so there are many beautiful examples of Islamic architecture and craftsmanship, especially in northern India.)

day four in hanoi

Today was my fourth and final day in Hanoi. I got an evening flight back to HK and am back home now. I hope the title of this post isn't too misleading -- I won't be giving a play-by-play of day four (or day two, or three, for that matter), mainly because it's late and tomorrow is a work day. My apologies to anyone who was hoping for more regular updates from Vietnam... I realize that I probably shouldn't have titled that first post "day one" if I wasn't planning to follow up with subsequent days... :) But, dear disappointed readers, I am envisioning a number of Hanoi-themed posts appearing within the next few days. Though I wasn't very consistent with the blog, I did keep a journal and took lots of photos, so there's lots to share! Stay tuned...

day one in hanoi

I'm in Hanoi for four days, staying with friends Sherman and Becky. This is my first time in Vietnam, and my first time to be out of Hong Kong in close to a year. It's nice to be somewhere new. Granted, I've felt more helpless and generally stupid in the last day than I have in a long time, but I'm enjoying the risks, the learning... everything!

Some of yesterday's memorable moments... in list form (no pictures yet -- I'll have to insert some when I get home):

• making it to the gate in time (I left my house about half an hour later than planned, then waited for the airport bus longer than planned... thankfully HK has one of the most efficient airports in the world... I even had time to pick something up at Starbucks). We had to take a ground-transport bus to our plane (my first time to do this in HK), and I had what we might call a very small panic attack when I suddenly considered the fact that I didn't know even one word of Vietnamese. It's been such a last minute trip -- so much so that I hadn't done any research whatsoever, or even learned how to say "thank you." That's been remedied now, thanks to Sherman and Becky and their Lonely Planet phrase book.

• sitting on the airplane, relieved to have made the flight, and then gradually noticing that the easy-listening jazz being pumped through the plane was a cover of Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit." Interesting.

• making a conscious effort to put on my "I know what I'm doing" face while wandering through the Hanoi airport, looking for a taxi to take me to Sherman and Becky's. It turned out to be a very easy experience, but once again, I was mildly tempted to fall into I'm-in-a-new-country-and-can't-speak-the-language hysterics.

• drawing and coloring a life-sized Princess Dora [the Explorer] for Hannah's fourth birthday party. The kids played "pin the tassel on the princess's hat. :)
  

• wandering around some of the streets in the old part of town and drinking in the cool mix of architecture -- modern, traditional Vietnamese, French colonial, Chinese.

• crossing streets. "Just keep walking and assume that the motorcycle-drivers see you and will go around you." That's what I kept telling myself. I think my time in China was good preparation for this visit...

• trying to figure out the street food, but ultimately deciding to eat at a very non-adventurous restaurant. But it's probably a good thing I did. Not only would I have had no idea what I was ordering (besides being able to see and point to ingredients), but also, Becky informed me that Hanoi's in the middle of a small cholera outbreak at the moment, so I'm glad I stayed on the safe side...

• hiring a motorcycle to take me back to Sherman and Becky's place. What a thrill! It made my afternoon of carrying around the extra helmet very much worth it. So yes, I wasn't completely unsafe -- I wore a helmet. But then I burned my leg on the tailpipe getting off, and have a nice big blister to prove it.
  

Well, I guess I'll get started enjoying day two!