adrian in hong kong (and macau)

Click above for more pix.

it was wonderful and over too soon.

hou noih mouh gin

is Cantonese for "Long time no see".
After about six weeks of assorted visits and holidays, I have a huge backlog of pictures, so here we go.

Christmas in Hong Kong
(click the picture for a huge strip of photos)

My parents came, saw, and conquered (with a few naps in between). About five days in HK, then five in Shanghai, then another week or so in HK...
SAR time included:
- many trips on the Star Ferry

- an incomprehensible 10 hours or so in the Luohu Commercial Center in Shenzhen with my mother, tirelessly crossing off the Christmas list for the rest of the family (and a reflexology foot massage at the end)

- the frenzied Christmas crowds and decorations at HK's many shopping malls

- high tea at the Peninsula (where my Dad stayed some 40 years ago, when Victoria Harbor was directly opposite [now there's
another 50 feet or so of reclaimed land between the hotel and the waterfront])

- a dog show at the futuristic HK Convention Center

- hoardes of worshippers and some type of Girl Guides (like the Girl Scouts) award ceremony at the Wong Tai Sin temple in northern Kowloon

- goldfish and bird markets of Mongkok

- ribbon shopping in the textile mecca of Sham Shui Po

- lunch with my Cantonese teacher

- afternoon coffee on Christmas Eve at the People's Bookstore, then visiting the Man Mo Temple (prominently featured in the World of Suzie Wong, as my parents remembered)

- Christmas eve dinner on the Peak at Cafe Deco, complete with fireworks and classy jazz band

- Xmas morning with Alonzo, a friend stopping by from Taipei

- Christmas dinner at a curiously deserted Jimmy's Kitchen in Central

- tired nights on the KCR back home (mom and dad are troopers they are)

- freaky Cantonese opera dioramas at the Shatin Heritage Museum

- and then some

Pre-Christmas in Shanghai
(click the picture for a huge strip of photos)


We stayed at the deco and decaying Peace Hotel on the Bund, which occasional had no hot water, but plenty of character (and late at night is eerily reminiscent of the Overlook).
Adventures included:
- antique shopping on Dongtai Lu (my mother, an antiques dealer and seasoned flea market veteran, was right in her element)

- breakfast cappuccinos and croissants at the upscale shopping district Xin Tian Di (an entire neighborhood of old Shanghai stone houses renovated into a Grove-like complex)

- Yuyuan Gardens and Nanxiang Steamed Bun restaurant

- traipsing around the 50 Moganshanlu artist's village near Suzhou Creek (saw the new show by Zhong Biao at Art Scene China, he may be my favorite Mainland "new oil painting movement" painter)

- fabulous (but overpriced) fakes at Xiangyang Market

- the psychedelic Bund Sightseeing Tunnel (like Disneyland, only more ghetto-- what the hell are those puppets dancing around in the middle section?)

- the equally psychedelic but super chic Grand Hyatt Shanghai (the "highest hotel in the world", also home to the highest bar in the world, Cloud 9, not to mention the highest mini-bar in the world, highest coat-check in the world, and a host of other unnecessary superlatives). We drank cocktails in the main atrium and reveled in the vertigo of its 33-story expanse.

- saw the Oriental Pearl Tower, somewhat up-close and personal (but were distracted by little children screaming "lao wai" [whitey] and several vendors trying to sell us tiny glass replicas of it, until they ran off at the squealing-tires approach of a police car)

- went out for drinks and a taste of the Shanghai expat life with some friends of friends who are there studying Chinese and working for an architect and IBM respectively. At the architect's party in the basement of a bar called YY's, with minimal German techno playing, silent Italian movies being projected on the wall and beautiful young people from every conceivable country (Poland, Korea, Turkey), I got a glimpse of why Shanghai has so much hipster hype at the moment.

- one day broke apart from the parentals to explore on my own, and saw Taikang Lu art district (enh galleries, slightly better shops, and an absolute treasure of an American-style cafe called Kommune-- eggs, bacon, hash browns, tomatoes, beans, plus a big cup of coffee all for 48 RMB?)

- also stumbled across some folks preparing for a dragon dance in a back-alley. A perfect slice of China (I mean of the "Big Bird Goes to China" variety that I still am somehow looking for after all these years).

- the endless endless gray/white sky and smoke and smog... I didn't see a blue sky for five days, and had a semi-permanent headache from all the diesel fumes. Shanghai may be the Tokyo of tomorrow, but it is also the early 19th-century Manchester or Pittsburgh of today.

- the futuristic Pudong airport, with its feng-shui-sacriligious pointy white poles aimed straight down at your head

All in all, it was a great trip. I miss my family more than I ever thought possible.