Sis Visit Part 2

Jen here. Here are several photos from Sarah's visit. Enjoy!

The Fremont troll! You can't see it, but the troll is holding a real VW Beetle in his left hand. (Those people are sitting on the troll's right hand!)

The view from the Space Needle is awesome--downtown Seattle, the Puget Sound, the Olympic mountain range, the Cascade mountain range and Bellevue (see the skyscrapers in the distance).

I introduced Sarah to Bubble Tea and a little shop I frequent to speak a little Cantonese to the owners and buy my beloved bubble tea. She got a fruit smoothie with mango jelly (similar to jello) in it...I got honey green tea with bubbles. Yum!

On the weekend, Dan, Sarah, Roy and I took a hike on Mountain Loop Highway--Heather Lake. The last 0.5 mile was snow covered and there was an "aggressive mist" for most of the hike, but it was a blast! As you can see in the photo, we looked like drowned rats, but God's creation is totally worth it. Roy and I had (hiking) sandals on so our feet thanked us as we left the snow area. :)

Roy, Sarah and I went hiking at Mount Rainier. This was in June, which some in Seattle call June-uary, and this year the snow melt is especially slow, so most hiking trails were super snow-covered (one particular area we wanted to go to was covered in 20 feet of snow!). We were able to hike a lower trail and enjoy the green and pines of the Pacific Northwest, and experience a little snow on the ground. Fun!

What a joy it was to have Sarah visit. Thank you!

R66

Jen here. A co-worker recommended we go to a revolving restaurant for the buffet lunch...so, one day we went. It's called R66; R for Revolving (I think) and 66 because it takes 66 minutes to complete a revolution. We were one of the first people there for the lunch buffet and had a lovely little table by the window (yay!).

Our revolution began with Central and then shifted to Happy Valley Racecourse. Happy Valley (Chinese name is Run Horse Place) is an exclusive district. There are but a few buses that go there, or you can ride the slow tram. I know a few people who live there. :) It's known for the horse racing. Who would have thought that with 7 million people and minimal space there would be a massive horse track on HK island? There is...in Happy Valley (see photo).








The meal was delicious--an all-you-can-eat buffet. Salads, noodle soup, fried rice, veggies, broiled fish, roast beef, chilled seafood, etc...more than we could ever try! Dessert was most tempting, as they had all sorts of sweet cakes and pastries, and a chocolate fountain! One of our dessert plates is at left (notice I said one...). As we ate, we got to chat about our hopes and desires for the future, and of course take the occasional photo. It was a fun date! :)







Looking at the photos, you may ask "Is it always smoggy in HK?" No. Though I was beginning to think it was, I now know it isn't always grey yucky yuck outside. For a long while we had a really bad pollution index (or something). It was so bad that they (whoever they are) advised people to reduce their amount of time outside. It was so smoggy. Yuck. I missed the sun and the sky. But I can attest, I have seen lots of blue sky recently and we have had many sunny days (as all my clean and dry laundry confirms). So, Praise the Lord for that! About a week ago, we had a terrible storm, but the day after the sky was so crisp, clean and beautiful! Thank You, Lord! The photo at left is of southern Happy Valley/Wan Chai. The standout building fascinates me. It is just so huge! One of our schools we teach Chess at is near that building. Every time I pass it I wonder how strong it is...and if it would ever fall over. Enjoy!

Mom in Macau

Jen here. On April 12 we took Mom on a trip to Macau. Macau is another Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China...sort of like Hong Kong, except it was colonized by the Portuguese instead of the British. It has a unique feel of old world and new-world-casino-ness. Roy and I went to Macau once in the late summer, and we took a tour (an organized one, with a bus and all). This time around we wanted to plan our time in Macau. We got a map, rode the buses and went where we wanted to go (namely, the old part of town).

Macau is so interesting! It's my first exposure to Portuguese...which is close to spanish. Check out this street sign.

The Catholic influence is everywhere. From the Rua Da Ressurrecao (Street of Resurrection) to tons of churches, or used-to-be chs, such as these remains of a cathedral (who's that sharp man in the red?):

Chs right next to Chinese temples. It was disappointing how similar the Catholic ch buildings were to the Chinese temples. With statues arranged in little coves of the building, fitted with a kneeling place, candles, etc I wondered, what's the difference? Go to the Chinese temple, offer incense and pray to one god, then go to the catholic ch, pray and offer incense to another statue. Yay. (Sarcasm) I don't know what has been taught in Macau; I just see the buildings set up...

The sidewalks in the old-town were so cool. They were mosaic-like with black and white tiles, and had all sorts of designs. Along some sidewalks, there were waves and along most others, you would see all sorts of sea-creature shapes. See, a crab:

Macau was not without the Chinese feel of Hong Kong. Here's a little shop that sells dried fish. In taking a photo of the shop (ok, mainly the fish hanging on the fence), I accidentally snapped a photo of this guy. Is he giving me the stink eye?

Enjoy!

Visitor!

Jen here. We had a visitor in Hong Kong! Roy's mom stayed with us for about 11 days and we had such a great time! I'll detail her stay over multiple posts. Enjoy!

Mom arrived late Friday night (April 9). The next day we headed to Repulse Bay and Stanley Market for a small tourist experience. Stanley Market is a normal touristy market--lots of shops with nicknacks, chopsticks, Hong Kong souvenirs, shoes, clothing, scarves, etc. It is usually crowded, especially on a Saturday. We looked in many of the shops, but nothing jumped out at us. None of us are big spenders.

We stopped off at Repulse Bay Beach on our way home (Mom got to ride her first mini bus to the beach) and took photos, etc. I love seeing even just a little bit of nature. It's so rare to me...last year in Seattle, I saw the gorgeous mountains everyday on my way to work...and frequently watched the sun set on the ocean. Ahh... But this year, I have to put forth more effort to admire God's creation (the nature part). Repulse Bay is a little snapshot of that.

After our beach extravaganza, we crossed the street and visited our much-loved Marketplace at Jasons (a grocery store). The Marketplace is reasonably priced and has more western foods than our local Park N Shop. We showed Mom the different food options (including shelf milk, dried seafood soup packets, etc) and did a little shopping ourselves and then headed home.

It was so nice to have family visit. :)

Tourists

Jen here. Though we may stand out in Hong Kong in more than one way (blonde hair, blue eyes, definitely American in appearance and language), since we moved here we haven't truly been "tourists". We haven't rode the double-decker, open-top Rickshaw Tour bus; we haven't gone to Ocean Park. We haven't wandered around taking pictures of things, until now.

A few weeks ago, we picked up a travel-sized Monopoly game. Upon inspecting it, we realized it was Hong Kong Monopoly! How sweet! Instead of Park Place, there's Repulse Bay. Instead of St. Charles, there's Mong Kok. Wouldn't this be cool to have as a keepsake from HK, we thought. So we bought it, and played it that night.

On the topic of tourists, we realized that we need to get out more in HK. We need to venture beyond HK Island and all that is familiar (which is mostly just HK Island...). And we shall use the Monopoly game as our itinerary! Every Thursday we plan to go to one of the spots featured in the game. Last Thursday we went up to Victoria Peak, which is on HK Island. But this time, we were tourists. We rode "The Peak Tram" to the top. We looked around in classic tourist gift shops. We took tons of photos of the view from the Peak, etc. It was an evening of fun. :)

As Roy is busy, I get the pleasure of choosing where we'll go. Not sure what we'll do this Thursday, but we may go across the harbor to Kowloon...who knows!