Girls just wanna have fun!

Mary-Ann arrived on March 16th bringing sunshine (at last!) and her sense of humour.  I was rather concerned about meeting her at the airport since there are two exits, and although I had specified exit B, I noticed that her baggage claim was close to exit A.  There I was, frantically running from B to A and back again, when I finally spotted her (at exit B).  We started laughing and hugging right away, and that's the way her visit continued.  Our first big giggle occurred when we arrived at Hong Kong Station, passed through the turnstile, and were on our way to the taxi stand, when I suddenly realized I had left my tote bag with my books on the train!  The staff let me run back to fetch it, leaving Mary-Ann stranded in the station wondering if the train would start again with me on it!  Happily, I found the bag, and got off just in the nick of time before the train started moving again.  Phew!

We spent the first weekend of M-A's visit shopping and eating.  Pearls, jewelry, handbags, local markets, shopping malls.  I think I now know every store in HK!  On Saturday night, we "dined" al fresco in the Temple Street night market.  In the photo on the left, M-A is displaying the fancy "napkins" (toilet paper roll) that are provided on the plastic tables.  The food is great, not so sure about the decor!  The next day we headed off to Stanley Market with hoards of locals, and enjoyed lunch with Joan, Ron, and Eloise (their poodle).

Dark and early the next morning, we shuffled back to the airport to board an 8 a.m. flight to Singapore.  Cathay Pacific has terrific package deals - airfare plus two nights at the swanky Conrad Hotel (including huge buffet breakfasts) = $500CDN per person.   Neither one of us had slept much the night before, but that didn't stop us from heading to Orchard Road to shop.  By 6 p.m. we were bedraggled and done, so off to the next adventure:  hawker food at the Newton Hawker Centre.  This outdoor food court is beautifully landscaped, like the rest of Singapore.  However, it's not nearly as cheap or authentic as the hawker food we ate in Malaysia.

We were well rested the next morning (our synchronized snores had lulled us through the night), and ready to do some touring and exploring.  Dressed in our lightweight dresses, we closed the door to our room and headed toward the elevators.  Oops!  Mary-Ann was still wearing her slippers!

First stop: Little India.  Guidebook in hand, we wandered through the colourful streets, looking at temples, mosques, and small jewelry shops.  While we were bargaining for bangles, I noticed a group of Chinese students and their Indian teacher.  The teacher was giving them a cultural lesson about Indian food and dress.  Our bangle salesman explained that in Singapore, it is mandatory for children to learn the customs of the major ethnic groups in the country.

After a delicious lunch in Little India, we headed back to the hotel to relax, but on the way just happened to walk through yet another mall where we found the most comfortable sandals ever made - fitflops!  They're not especially "pretty" (especially in size 9 1/2), but I can walk for miles in them without any discomfort.  Mary-Ann and I laughed at how they were packaged - they come with their own feet!

Before dinner, we taxied to the Marina Bay Sands hotel/casino.  On my previous trip to Singapore, Jeff and I didn't have time to take in the view from the top of the hotel (shaped like a surfboard), but on this trip, Mary-Ann and I had a grand time taking photos from the viewing deck.  Note the modern theatres on the left and the soccer stadium in the middle of the river - cool, eh?

Two more original buildings:  the world's largest free-standing Louis Vuitton store in the world (retail therapy for the super rich - my idea of retail therapy is a $5 scarf at H&M) and Moshe Safdie's ArtScience Museum, where we saw an excellent Andy Warhol exhibit.  As my friend, Joan, says, Warhol and his friend Truman Capote have withstood the test of time.  They are still revered as important artists in spite of their beat beginnings.  The Warhol exhibit will reach HK later this year, and I will definitely revisit it.
M-A and I dined at IndoChine on the waterfront.  Unfortunately, her delicious dinner arrived twenty minutes after mine.  We were less than impressed with the service, but we did enjoy our table by the river, and the view of the brightly lit restaurants of Clarke Quay across the water.

No trip to Singapore is complete without a visit to Chinatown, so the next morning we took the subway there and wandered through the shops and crowded (tourists!) streets.  I took Mary-Ann to the Buddha's Tooth temple which Jeff and I had visited last year.  My favourite part of the temple is the rooftop garden, which also has a beautiful prayer wheel.

We girls had fun the rest of the week in HK, including an AWA event - an architectural walking tour of the historic buildings in Central.  The tour was led by Jennifer, a self-professed "expert".  I was the co-ordinator of the event, responsible for not losing anyone along the walk!  At one point, I whispered to Jennifer that time was running out (we had a group lunch reservation at noon), so perhaps she could skip the end of the tour visit to the Asia Society.  She glared at me and said "Tell the women to walk faster!".  Chutzpah personified.  The porthole building on the left is Jardine House, Mary-Ann's favourite.

Thank you, Mary-Ann, for coming to visit, and happy special birthday on July 3rd!

Qingdao, China, the birthplace of Tsingtao beer!

Another long weekend away in China.  Our destination this time was Qingdao, a port on the East China Sea, northwest of Shanghai.  No one we know had ever been there!  Cathay Pacific has terrific package deals all over China - nonstop flights and five-star hotels.
Qingdao's history as a German colony was the main reason for our visit.  We were looking forward to seeing a well-preserved colonial city that is also famous for its beaches and waterfront (wrong season!).  In fact, Qingdao was the venue for the sailing races during the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.
In a nutshell, the history of Qingdao goes like this: In 1897, after the Boxer Rebellion, Qingdao was ceded to Germany.  The Germans turned the city into a strategically important port.  They built roads as well as mansions and government buildings in the Bavarian colonial style.  But their lasting contribution is the famous Tsingtao Brewery (China's second largest), which has been in continuous operation since 1903.  When WWI began, the Japanese occupied the city and continued to run the brewery.  After that war, Qingdao became part of the Republic of China, but the Japanese continued to manage the brewery until the end of WWII.

We expected to arrive in a city that has the historical potential to be included in the UNESCO World Heritage list.  Imagine our surprise, when,  driving in from the airport on a blustery Friday afternoon, there was nothing "charming", just another enormous, growing metropolis.  Right before we reached the city limits, some of the traffic fanned onto the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge, the world's longest (42.5 km) bridge over (troubled?) water.  There were actually very few cars on the bridge, but China's motto seems to be "if we build it, they will come".

The same applies to the modern city of Qingdao (view from our hotel room), where there are hundreds of new skyscrapers.  I am sceptical enough at this point to wonder if they are indeed fully, or even partially, occupied.  Most were completed in time for the big show of the 2008 Olympics, but many are still under construction.  The city will have a new Metro next year, too.
We settled into our comfortable room at the Shangri-La (yes, we're finally learning to pamper ourselves), and then donned all of our layers, since the temperature was a brisk 3 degrees!

Our first destination was Qingdao's famous landmark, the Zhan Qiao pier.  The pavilion at the end of the pier is depicted on Tsingtao beer bottles.  The pier and its crowds reminded me of the famous Charles Bridge in Prague as it is lined with hawkers selling souvenirs, beggars, and small-time gamblers.  The cold weather made us hungry - we didn't really need an excuse to be hungry in dumpling-land!  As we crossed the subway passage under the main road, we noticed stalls steaming with fresh dumplings.  20 dumplings cost about $2CDN!  We ate them so quickly, that I completely forgot to take a photo of them.  Worth the trip to Qingdao!!

Fortified by our snack, we wandered through the old German Concession, which has been quite well tended, although some of the buildings appear to need some work.  St. Michael's Catholic Church was under repair (we have never been to a city yet where all of the landmarks are open!), so we could not go in.  It was built by German missionaries in 1934, 20 years after the German governors had departed.  I think I'm standing next to Confucius in the park, but since I still can't read Chinese, I'm not 100% sure.  Speaking of language, we can now hear the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin (and can speak neither), but we noticed that Qingdaoans speak their own dialect.  The words end in "th" rather than "sh" like Mandarin (thank you Wikipedia).

Despite the cold, we were having a grand time, and even the stares of locals could not keep us from enjoying our walk.  Throughout the weekend, we noticed only a handful of Western visitors.  Most of the tourists in Qingdao are mainland Chinese from other parts of the country.

Did you catch the foreshadowing in the paragraph about dumplings?  FOOD was the best part of our trip!!  On our first night in Qingdao, we ate at  the Heavenly Palace Old Mama Restaurant, a modern Sichuan restaurant.  Menus with pictures!  Because we weren't sure what we would be getting, we ordered a lot of food.  Waiters in Asia are too polite to tell you that you've ordered too much or too little, so we just kept adding more dishes to our list.  One of the perks of visiting a place that doesn't cater to Western tourists, is that the food is spiced to the local palate.  Everything was yummy - too bad we couldn't take the leftovers home.

The next morning, Saturday, we bundled up again and visited the remaining colonial landmarks, beginning with the Protestant church.  Despite the cold temperatures, local couples were having their wedding photos taken in front of the church.  (In China and HK, couples have their pictures taken months before the actual wedding at the famous landmarks in their home city.  On the wedding day,  their photos are prominently displayed around the reception hall.)  Jeff and I have seen plain, austere churches before (notably stripped-down cathedrals in Switzerland), but the Qingdao Lutheran church was as bare as it possibly could be.  The exterior was beautiful: mustard yellow with stone trim, and a clock tower with a four-sided clock.  Inside, the church felt as if it hadn't been used in decades.

From the church, we walked up the cobbled streets to the former Governor's Residence.  This elegant mansion is now a museum, complete with period furnishings.  In its day, it had an unobstructed view of the water, but now there are too many buildings and trees blocking the sea.  The joke in many historic places in the U.S. is that "Washington slept here" - in Qingdao, there's a bedroom with a plaque that reads "Bedroom of Chairman Mao Zedong"!

I was surprised to find a beautiful, old Tin Hau (goddess of the sea) temple on the waterfront.  There aren't too many left in China since the "cultural" revolution.  Although all Chinese temples are architecturally very similar,  their decorations usually differ.  Dragons are a popular motif, especially in this "year of the dragon".  The draped pig was something we've never seen before!

Following our sometimes trusty map, Jeff led us to the Naval Museum.  My father would love the vintage aircraft displayed on the shore.  There are also two destroyers that visitors are allowed to explore.  My favourite airplane (Russian) is in the photo.  I'm not quite sure how it ever got off the ground.  It resembled a very fat whale.

By the time we left the Museum, I was getting very cranky.  It had been a long morning of touring, and lunch was way past due.  Luckily, we spotted a tiny shop across the road with steaming baskets of perfect dumplings!  These were even better than the street dumplings we had eaten the day before.  While we ate, we watched the owner masterfully rolling the dumplings - it looked easier than making hamantaschen!

We had set aside that afternoon to visit Qingdao's main attraction - the Tsingtao Brewery.  The guidebooks informed us that for the entry price of $10CDN, we would learn the history of the Brewery, see it in operation, receive a complementary mug, and have unlimited glasses of beer.  Good advertising, but all lies!  The Brewery looks like a Disney set.  Across the road are overpriced tacky restaurants with kegs of beer on the sidewalk.  Speaking of the sidewalk, there are cartoon characters inset along the way, and the garbage cans are shaped liked beer kegs.  We should have turned around at that point and gone back to our lovely hotel, but we are the kind of travellers who have to cover every inch, so into the fortress we went.

Tacky tacky.  History of the brewery, some old equipment, and rooms of non-operating equipment.  Posters of NBA players (Scotty Pippen!) with Chinese cheerleaders.  Walls of beer cans and bottles from all over the world.  And the smallest free glass of beer that they could spare!  Not recommended for future visitors.

Another memorable dinner experience.  We chose a popular Shandong restaurant located in a quiet courtyard off the main restaurant street.  Zijing Shandong Restaurant was billed as a splurge.  Oddly enough it was cheaper than the previous night's meal, and we ordered twice as much (easily enough for six).  When we walked into the cavernous restaurant, the staff looked at us like we were from Mars - most Chinese go out to eat in large groups.  Two little Western tourists were an anomaly.  They didn't quite know what to do with us!  We were seated at a large round table, and the staff hovered nearby to take our order.  When I mimed that we needed a menu, they led us to an adjacent room where all of the raw dishes were wrapped and nicely displayed on tables (photo on the left).  We pointed to five or six different items, returned to our chairs, and waited for the incredible food to arrive.  I felt like a restaurant critic who samples many dishes in order to write a comprehensive review.  What an amazing feast!  My favourite dish was  "fried potatoes sandwich with salad" (photo on the right) - thinly sliced potatoes, deep fried into nests, sandwiching tasty veggies in the middle.  The dumplings were also excellent.

As we were finishing our meal, people began arriving (10 p.m.) to decorate the room for the next day's wedding.  Lots of purple chiffon and purple flower standards.

When we returned to the hotel, we relaxed in the lobby, sipped our wine (me) and tea (Jeff), and listened to the pianist and singer.  After they played my requested song, we retired for the night.  Perfect day!

The next morning, we awoke to a snowy day.  Poor Jeff - he didn't "sign up for winter" when he accepted his expat assignment to HK!  The weather didn't stop us from visiting our last landmark before flying back to HK - the German Prison Museum.  The building originally housed German prisoners, but was later used to incarcerate Chinese prisoners under Japanese rule, and then communist party members under the Kuomintang.  Lots of gruesome photos, torture cells, and propaganda.

As usual, we certainly covered a lot of ground on our quick getaway to Qingdao.

Grounded!

My passport was full.  No space left for any more stamps or visas.  As soon as we returned from Thailand, I headed over to the Canadian Consulate to order a new passport, this time requesting one with 48 pages, rather than the standard 24.  Because we travel so often, and because the processing time is almost three weeks, I had to make sure we would be staying put.  I must say I felt uneasy during the weeks that my beloved passport was not locked in the drawer.  The Consulate staff assured me that if an emergency arose, they would issue a temporary one.  Thankfully, I did not have to avail myself of that service.  Oh, speaking of service, there really isn't much at the Consulate.  Their hours for pick-up are two hours per day (2-4 p.m.) from Monday to Thursday.  Our tax dollars at work!  Jeff assures me that they are doing other tasks when they are not processing passports.
Hence, an entire month in Hong Kong!  Bored?  Never!

Hiking!  I joined three wonderful, adventurous hikes in February.  The first one was on Lantau Island with the AWA ladies.  Although the day was overcast, it did not rain, and the trail was dry.  We hiked up and over several peaks (Lantau Trail 5 and 6), and thanks to the leadership of Annemarie and Charlotte, we didn't get lost at all!  The trails are very well marked, but you really need a map to tell you which direction to follow.  After passing the Ci Xing Monastery, we came across a beautiful sight - Lung Tsai Ng Yuen, the estate of a (deceased) Chinese spice merchant.  The centrepiece of the estate is a traditional lotus pond with a zigzag bridge and covered pavilions.  The estate is two kilometres from the closest paved road, and is only accessible by the hiking trail (not for beginners).  Since Mr. Woo's death, the estate has been empty, but rumour has it that it will be turned into a restaurant or b&b.  The end of the trail brought us to Tai O, the fishing village that used to be a smugglers' haven.  By the time we reached the village, it was rather cold (about 12 degrees), so I couldn't convince any of the women to join me on a motorboat ride to view the pink dolphins (blog Feb. 3,  2010).

My next adventure hike was also on Lantau Island.  This time it was led by Michael Hansen, a Danish fellow who leads hikes and bike rides all over HK.  We covered 16 km from Pui O to Mui Wo.  The weather cooperated - I think it was the only sunny day in the entire month of February!  The climb was not very steep, and we followed the trail along the coast.  A photographer's paradise.  There were several surprises on this hike.  First, a youth hostel set in the park.  Alas, the hostel is closed!  The site looks primed for redevelopment.  The next surprise was the women's prison, which has been closed since 2010.  The third surprise was all of the garbage on the beach in front of the prison.  Apparently, when the prison was occupied, the prisoners were responsible for keeping the beach litter-free.  Michael took lots of photos of the debris, and promised to send them to the government department which looks after our parks.
My third hike of the month was again with the AWA adventure ladies.  It had been raining all week, so we were advised to bring rain gear and walking sticks.  We met at a central subway stop, and travelled quite a distance to Choi Hung, where we were supposed to catch a minibus to Sai Kung, and then a taxi to the Sai Kung Country Park.  Well, when we arrived at Choi Hung, we noticed that the line for the minibus was about 200 deep!  (Minibuses only carry 16 passengers).  Doing the math, we figured that the wait would be over an hour, so we decided to share taxis.  Unfortunately, the taxi line was also long. It seems that there had been an accident on a major road nearby, and all of the taxis and buses were delayed.  By the time we finally arrived at the start of the hike, it was late (after 10 a.m.) and pouring!  We had three choices - turn back, take an easier route, or continue as planned.  Being the heroes and braggarts that we are, we slogged on.  The trail was very slippery and steep, so our pace was not quite as brisk as usual.  Unsurprisingly, we saw absolutely nobody else on the trail until we got lost, and then, out of the mist, came three young hikers who pointed us back to the proper route.  It's very creepy to be walking along in the drizzle and fog with no cellphone reception (occasionally our phones beeped "welcome to China").  By the time we stopped for lunch (peanut butter sandwiches), the rain had just about stopped.  Charlotte told us that there was a surprise at the end of the hike.

Lo and behold, there was a charming stone house with a beautiful English garden!  Aside from the Chinese-style roof and trim, it resembled large homes that one sees in the French countryside.  The house is at least half a kilometre from the main road, and there are feral cows grazing nearby.  We assume the house is owned by British expats, since the cars parked on the main road had UK license plates.

Canadian content!  Our friends, David and Donna, introduced us to a new burger joint, owned by a Chinese-Canadian fellow.  On a rainy evening, we met at the Big Bite diner, which made us all very nostalgic.  There was a large Canadian flag draped over the counter, moose on the walls, and cheap wings every Tuesday.  A lot like Duff's on Bayview Avenue in Toronto.  However, this is Hong Kong, where nothing is exactly like it is at home:  BB diner serves only GERMAN beer!  Where's Moosehead or Molson?

Entertaining!  Joan and Ron both celebrated birthdays at the beginning of the month.  I invited them for dinner along with Susan and Art.  A few weeks earlier, Ron had presented me with a housewarming gift - an electric hand mixer, and I inaugurated it by making the famous family carrot cake (a la cousin Arlene).  Dinner was quite a hit.  My favourite dish was the grilled vegetable torte (Barefoot Contessa), but the rest of the gang really loved the cake.

Chatterbox (English conversation with high school students).  I've mentioned this programme in previous blogs.  Every Thursday, we meet with students at a local high school in Wan Chai.  The aim of the session is to give them a chance to speak English in a relaxed atmosphere.  I love the school and the kids!!  They are in form 5 (grade 10), and have limited opportunity to speak English at home.  It's amazing how much more confidence they have now than in October when we began.  Next year we will be doubling the programme at this school to cover 40 students in form 4, and 40 in form 5.  We do everything from playing silly games (broken telephone, Simon says) to discussing politics and world events.  A few weeks ago, I brought a young Canadian visitor, Georgia, with me to the school.  I'm not sure who enjoyed the hour more!

Speaking of visitors, we had a wonderful evening with Diane, an old family friend, on a chilly night (they were all chilly in January and February).  I've known Diane my whole life, and Jeff's known her (and her husband) since summer camp in the 1960s.  After dinner, we took a walk around Central, and I gave Diane an abbreviated tour of some of the historic sights in that neighbourhood.  A very short, but sweet, visit.

Arlene and John (re)visited us in February.  They were our first guests in our new(ish) flat on Kennedy Road.  Since we had covered all of the most popular tourist spots last year, we showed them the "real" Hong Kong, including Lamma Island, where we had a delicious al fresco lunch (alas, the only nice day of their visit) and an enjoyable walk around the Island.  The HK Arts Festival was on during their visit, so we got tickets to Dr. John (superb!) and Cossi Fan Tutte (not superb).  We also went to an interesting exhibit at the HK Museum of Art called "Fantastic creatures from the British Museum".  After John left (he's become a university student again in his retirement), Arlene and I "hung out" all week, doing the activities that keep me busy - study group, book club, chatterbox, and even a walking tour.  We had a lot of fun at Yue Hwa Department Store (blog Sept. 7, 2011), and a lovely walk through Kowloon Park, where I took Arlene's photo in front of the totem pole donated by Mulroney's government in 1991.  Arlene spent her last day in HK with Joan, since Jeff and I left early that morning for Qingdao, China (next blog!).

(Apologies for some poor-quality pictures - I took them with my IPhone instead of my camera)