Big Buddha Waves Goodbye

Our last full day in Hong Kong was pretty good. We started out by meeting my grandmother’s cousin, Rebecca, for dim sum. I love dim sum and Hong Kong is certainly the place for some quality dim sum. For those of you who are not aware of what dim sum is, it is a sort of brunch or tea with small orders of really good stuff.

After dim sum, we went to see the Big Buddha on the mountainside. We took the subway or as called in Hong Kong, MTR. I will be perfectly honest, this was the cleanest subway system I’ve ever been on…very different from the subways of Rome. We got off the MTR and hopped a cable car up the mountainside. Too bad it was so cloudy the view would have been wonderful.

We made it to the top of the mountain and there was a little shopping center to walk through before you arrive at the monastery and stairway leading to Big Buddha. It was kind of funny to me that you could make a quick stop for a snack at 7-11 or Starbucks for a warm beverage as you begin your “journey of enlightenment” but I’ll be honest, it was a cold day and I needed a little liquid motivation in the form of hot tea at Starbucks to get me up the stairs to see Big Buddha.

When we came down from the mountain, my mother, grandmother and I went to Mong kok to see the open market. Rebecca said that this is the market that Hong Kong natives go to because it is less expensive and not as tourist centered. Good news, Bruce Lee is officially my homeboy!

Night views of Hong Kong…

We finally made it home…a day late. You see it all started in Hong Kong when we were on the plane and the pilot came on the loud speaker to inform us of damage to the cargo door. It was going to be at least 30 minutes to get the diagnostic report from the mechanic…30 minutes later we hear that they are waiting for a part; it should take 30 minutes before it even arrives. So at the end of that 30 minutes, all of the sudden, we’re all “good to go” and moving down the runway. We arrived in San Francisco 11 hours later and as it turns out, there was a delay getting the luggage off the plane because they welded the cargo door shut in Hong Kong in order for us to make it to San Francisco (at least that is my story, maybe they really did get the part, but it seems a little sketchy). The delay in getting our luggage and getting through customs meant we missed our connecting flight to PDX.

My sister and I decided we must have In and Out while in Cali, so we took a $27 taxi ride to In and Out to get an “All American” dinner for the fam. Some might say that it was ridiculous to pay so much for the transportation to a burger establishment, but the taste of that burger is priceless. We finally made it back today around 12:45 this afternoon, bringing Jeanette’s trip to China to an end. Thanks for reading!

Bruce Lee is my homeboy

We started out our morning by taking the tunnel over to Hong Kong Island. First stop was a trip to Victoria Peak to see the view of Hong Kong from up above. It was still pretty in spite of the scattered showers. Fortunately they had a coffee shop overlooking the spectacular view, good for rainy days.

We went to Stanley to do a little open market shopping. It was a little too cold to catch some rays on the beach. I saw a nice Bruce Lee is my homeboy t-shirt, but they didn’t have my size! Maybe I’ll come across something a little smaller tomorrow.

We stopped in the Aberdeen area and could have gone to see the fisherman’s house boats and lifestyle but I was a little carsick from all the winding roads up and down the mountain from Victoria Peak, so I passed. We did, however, go out to the end of the pier where there were cool dragons... Sarah's always wanted to be a dragon, here was her chance.

We went back to Kowloon and did a little more shopping. While Eli got a new tattoo, Sarah and I made a stop to the shop down the road called “In and Out” and I should have known I’d like a shop that reminds me of my favorite hamburger establishment. Lets just say I bought a lot of clothes. I'm beginning to wonder if everything will fit in my suitcase.

By the way, for lunch, we caved, we went with the cheap American burgers of McDonald's. I could have been fine with another Asian cuisine meal, but everyone else wanted burgers. While there, we saw that the dessert menu didn't have apple pie, oh now, it was sweet red bean pie. Yum!

Lost Cookies

So we got up ridiculously early in the morning to hop a plane to Hong Kong. Angie, we flew Dragon Air on a 737. I think I can chalk it up to the worst turbulence experience I’ve had, although my flight to Virginia last spring was also pretty bad. But this one had a lot of rollercoaster up and down and some of that side to side stuff too. A girl across the aisle lost her breakfast. Two other people next to Sarah and Eli spewed too. I’d say it was a pretty unfortunate ride for some. As Eli said, “And that’s why planes have seatbelts.”

Turbulence in the air meant thunderstorms for our first afternoon in Hong Kong. We took hotel umbrellers and walked around the Tsim Sha Tsui area, where our hotel is located. Tsim Sha Tsui is on the tip of the Kowloon Peninsula. We had some dinner and took a stroll along Victoria Harbor. This evening was too foggy for good photos, but here is one anyway.

Hong Kong was a British territory based on a treaty made with China after the Opium Wars. Great Britain released governing authority of Hong Kong in 1997 according to their treaties. However, the government of Hong Kong, China and Great Britain all agreed that the conditions of living would remain the same for another 50 years. That means they all still drive on the left side of the road here, they use Hong Kong dollars not Chinese Yuan. Also, you need to come into Hong Kong like you would another country with passport and entry forms in hand.

Confucius Say Good Weather Follow Good People

Confucius say good weather follow good people. Today it rained…a lot. I don’t know where we went wrong, did we become bad people? Ha ha ha. We took a bus ride to Suzhou to see the famous Grand Canal. It is the second largest building project in China. During the warring states period these canals were built, 2000 kilometers worth of canal digging. The canals in the Suzhou area are known of as the Venice of the orient. We took the large Chinese gondola that seats 15. It was really pretty, even in the rain.

As soon as we got off the boat to see the Water Gate, it started pouring we walked in the rain through a temple garden and then back to the bus. It was so beautiful I had to take photos in the rain even though I had to ring out my pant legs in the end.


Next, we went to the most famous silk embroidery institute. Suzhou is the most famous part of the Yangtze Delta for silk embroidery.

Afterwards, we went to a private garden called the Master of Nets Garden. It was originally a private property 900 years ago and it didn’t stay in the family for very long because the son was a playboy who squandered the family money and the smart sister, who read many books, got married and moved away.


Mr. Wong, our tour guide, told us a Chinese saying about sons and daughters relating to the nearness of children. He said that daughters are like underwear, close to you; sons are like a jacket, more distant and far away from the body. So the big lesson today that Sarah and I learned: we are a couple a pair of underwear. Hee hee.

Motorcycle Monk

Today we went to the most famous Buddhist temple called Jade Buddha Temple. It isn’t a very old temple, but it houses a national treasure, a gigantor jade carved Buddha. It was very busy in the temple because tomorrow is a festival to remember your ancestors so many people were in the temple praying and burning incense for them.

This group of monks were in the middle of a funeral ceremony, we only walked by, didn’t watch because it is “bad luck” and it was probably bad luck for me to take the photo too, but it was a risk I was willing to take.

Monks have to get around town too. Va-room!

Next we went to the Children’s Palace, a place for students to take creative classes, kind of like the JWR Center. There are 50 of these Children’s Palaces for children who can’t afford to have private lessons. The arts school is donation based and many of the teachers work as volunteers allowing it to cost very little (equivalent to $20-30 US).
The kids took classes like dance and art:

English:

Calligraphy (artistic form of writing Chinese characters):

Traditional Chinese musical instruments (also standard instruments like piano, drums, and violin):

Next we were off to the silk carpet company. They gave us a nice demonstration and told us about the varying qualities of carpet. Most women don’t weave the carpets in a factory, but in their own homes because then they can work anytime they want to and then get paid for their finished product; it is more cost effective this way instead of having a factory. I’m holding up a $4000 mini-rug, yeah, you read that right $4000 US. It is museum tapestry quality and it took five years to produce that small rug! That rug was definitely not “made for walkin’” (on). Ha ha.

We went to a silk factory too. It was cool; they showed us the process from cocoon to silk quilt.

Lots of cocoons

Pulling the silk threads (one cocoon unwinds into 100 meters of super fine silk thread which can be used in all kinds of very nice silk products.

Double cocoons can only be used for the filling in things like quilts and jackets, etc. They soak it, take out the pupa and stretch the cocoon several times as you can see the process below…they let us have a shot at stretching the silk to quilt size and we certainly weren’t naturals. FYI, that stuff is tough!

We finished our afternoon with a visit to the Shanghai Art Museum. It was pretty cool. Most exhibits didn’t allow photography, but furniture was fair game. I include these pieces because as we were walking through, my grandma said she had chairs like this one growing up in China and she had a bed like this one but “not that nice decoration.” All the brothers and sister shared a bed like that and there was no mattress, in the summertime they slept on straw and in the winter time they put down a little quilt for more warmth. My grandma has lived a very interesting life. I’ll have to share more at a later date.