The main purpose of this trip was to attend the wedding
and reception ceremonies of our nephew Larry.
Ellie and Kuau would also come along for the event, so we will have a
“mini family vacation together.” A couple
we know from church now spend a lot of time in Taitung, Taiwan. Ed is teaching at the local university. So we also plan to take a side trip to visit
this part of Taiwan which we had never seen before.
Sunday May 26. To
save about $300 per ticket, our routing from Newark to Hong Kong is via Seattle
and Tokyo/Narita. The usually non-stop
we take leaves at 3:15 pm and gets in a bit after 7 pm the following day. We left our house at 6:30 am and didn’t get
in until about 9 pm on Monday. The
flights individually were uneventful, in fact the SEA-NRT flight had a
relatively light load, but the wear and tear added up. Ellie did the non-stop, and Kuau flew in from
Kunming, arriving at 10:40 pm. We all
waited at the airport and went to the Hyatt Regency in Shatin in the same cab,
getting in close to midnight.
Monday May 27. We
will be staying at the Shatin Hyatt for 5 nights. Given its distance from town, the rate at
this location is very reasonable. As it
turned out, we spent a lot of time in town, which meant a lot of subway and
(later) bus rides.
Tuesday May 28. Breakfast at hotel café. A bit steep at around HK$250 per person, but
we were all still a bit exhausted after the long trip. And there was a lot of food. Lunch
at Acqua Armani with Elaine. The four of
us had dinner at Restaurant 18 at the hotel.
It supposedly poached the chef from THE Peking Duck place in Beijing,
but none of us thought the Peking duck we ordered while okay was particularly
noteworthy. The other dishes were
flavorful but a bit on the salty side.
Wednesday May 29.
Today is the day. We had to get
to the Country Club at around 10:30 am for the rather informal tea ceremony
whereby the bride and groom introduced themselves to the older
generations. After a rather short
ceremony, we had a nice Chinese lunch.
We wanted to visit Ocean Park which was next door, but didn’t because it
was a very hot day and we didn’t think we would get much return on the HK$280
per person entrance fee. So we went to
see Anne’s mother instead. There was an
accident so traffic was crawling along for a while.
Anne’s Uncle (Richard) passed away recently, in
conformance with Chinese tradition (or superstition) his immediate family
didn’t attend the wedding. Elaine and
Larry hosted a family get together that evening at the Hong Kong Club. While the buffet was standard Hong Kong Club
dishes, I really enjoyed it.
Thursday May 30. We
first went to Shatin Plaza and had breakfast at Tsueh Wah; this would give
Ellie and Kuau some idea how local Hong Kong folks live. Anne’s Aunt from Singapore (Bonnie) wanted to
visit her parents grave, and Eric son of Uncle Kenny had scouted out the
cemetery to make sure we could find it.
So many of us went to this Aberdeen cemetery. In the group were Anna, Eric, Uncle Kenny,
Uncle Willie, Auntie Bonnie, Anne and I.
There was some discussion about the family’s history, which I found
interesting. Also, you come to realize
that most people are forgotten in two or three generations. My daughter didn’t want to visit, and neither
did Anna’s son Eric. Afterwards Anna
treated us to lunch at the café in the Aberdeen Marina Club. We went back to Shatin to rest for a short
while, and then headed back to Aberdeen to join Tim and Alyson at their
boat. Anna, Kenneth, and their son (the
other) Eric also joined us. Dinner at
Rainbow on Lamma Island.
Friday May 31.
Kuau wanted to try some “genuine” Chinese dim-sum breakfast, so we went
to Lin Heung in Central. This is a
restaurant that has maintained the same practices for the last (at least) fifty
years: you rinse your settings in the hot water they provide, you go after the
carts to get dishes you like, and you share tables with other customers if the
place is too crowded. It also has kept
prices very reasonable, and we at to our heart’s content for the equivalent of
US$35 (for four.) We again went back to
Shatin to rest before heading back out to Central China Club for dinner with
Anna and Kenneth. We had to leave a bit
after 9 pm since Anne had a business call to make later that evening.
This rubber duck has been traveling around the world and was at Ocean Terminal during our visit.
Saturday June 1.
Most of the day was spent in getting from Shatin to Taitung. The four of us rode out to the airport
together (Ellie’s and Kuau’s flight was 30 min after ours.) Since we changed our CX ticket, we had to
check in manually, which was a slow process.
We just managed to get to the gate, say goodbye to Ellie and Kuau, and
then had to board the HKG-TPE flight.
The flight was at best 1/3 full, and they flew a 777. Getting from TPE to TSA was relatively
straightforward on the 1840 bus. We did
have quite a bit of spare time at TSA and grabbed a quick Noodles lunch
there. The Uni Air flight from TSA to
TTT also had a light load.
When we got to the B&B Inn, Ed and Hantee were already there waiting for us. We went across the inn to have a seafood dinner. It was good to catch up.
Outside B&B in Taitung.
Accommodation.
B&B Inn (“Bicycle Station”) in Taitung, two nights.
Sunday June 2.
Breakfast at restaurant next door where the most basic stuff was
served. All day tour of the coast by
private taxi. The coast is quite rugged,
with many strange rock formations that are named “wild willows,” “stone fan,”
and “three angels.” There is also a
stream that flows uphill, which reminds me of Moncton’s Magnetic Hill. We also visited a river bed where the
boulders supposedly contain some beautiful translucent rocks (we didn’t see any
cross-section); a series of caves that may have people living inside during the
paleolithic period (about 15,000 years ago) – we only climbed up high enough to
see two of them, and they are now Buddhist altars; and a mountain teeming with
monkeys. Along the way we saw many
churches and quite a few well-kept cemeteries.
Our guide told us that many minorities are Christians and bright colors
and crosses are characteristics of their graves. Since it was a Sunday, we missed the fish
auction at the Cheng Kung harbor. We did
pay to see the private aquarium in town: while not memorable definitely worth
the US$5 or so for admission. This also
gave us a nice break from the mid-day heat.
Lunch was at a local restaurant which at about US$45 (for three people)
turned out to be relatively expensive.
It is clear the government takes good care of these
national/regional parks. Their restrooms
are kept in good and clean condition. Other
than for parking, they didn’t charge any fees at all the places we visited
today.
Our driver dropped us off at the University. Hantee and Ed showed us around and we had a
nice dinner afterwards.
View of Taitung coastline.
Taitung coastline.
Monday June 3.
Anne got herself breakfast from the 7-11 next door to the Inn, and I was
quite happy with the one offered as part of the stay at the café next doors.
Our driver picked us up for a half-day mountain tour. Overall it wasn’t as interesting as the
coastal tour. We visited quite a few
places: (i) a ranch that had only a few animals roaming the fields; (ii) a
temple to “Mother Earth” that was located in a really nice location with great
views of the mountains and the valleys; (iii) a museum to commemorate the
Little League team at a minorities school that made great news when they
defeated Japan in 1958; (iv) the location of the hot air balloon festival;
although we didn’t see any; (v) a water park.
We had to pay admissions to (i) and (v). Perhaps this is not tourist
season, but everything was quiet.
Our flight to Taipei/Songshan was delayed by about 45
minutes, so when we got our luggage Pauline Su had been waiting for us for
about an hour. Pauline was a graduate
student in food science (I think) when we were at Cornell, she then got a
degree in child development and taught university in Taiwan for 30 some years
until her recent retirement. This is the
first time we met since she left Ithaca in 1977. We talked about 90 minutes at Starbucks
before we needed to catch our bus to TPE airport for our flight home.
In contrast to the HKG-TPE flight, this KA483 flight was
packed, and we were in the last row. It
was a rather easy 1:15 hour flight.
Luggage did take a little longer than expected (second time this has
happened), so it was close to midnight we checked into the Airport Regal.
Hotel: Regal Airport.
Tuesday June 4. We
had to get ready for the day after about 6 hours of sleep. Since we wanted to enjoy another local
breakfast, we ended up being the last to board UA78 to Tokyo. We got upgraded to first class, which was
nice. We will also get upgraded for the
SEA-EWR flight.
For UA876 (NRT-SEA), however, Anne and I had window and
aisle seats with someone else in the middle.
Just as the flight was about to take off, the flight attendant reseated
the person between us, so now we have an empty seat between us. Very considerate on the flight attendant’s
part. This is a relatively short flight
at a little over eight hours, and we are more than half way there as I type
this.
Our arrival at SEA was ahead of schedule, and the
immigration and customs processes didn’t take long, so we ran (walked fast) to
the gate for the 10:40 am flight to Newark.
We gave up our upgrades and got an aisle and middle seat in the Economy
Plus section, which got us back home by 8 pm after getting something to eat at
Wegman’s.
