This trip serves multiple purposes: We plan to visit HC’s
staff in a city north of Beijing to conduct a series of discussions on how to
raise a child (and I don’t plan to say too much about that); we plan to visit
Anne’s aunt in Singapore; and I will spend a week with Ruth, who is visiting
from Australia, in Hong Kong.
October 17, Thursday.
CS picked us up as a Wheelsfellowship ride. We brought along quite a few gifts for
various people, so we had to check in luggage.
UA117 was packed, so it is good starting next year they will get some
competition from Cathay Pacific. While
we didn’t get much sleep, it was by-an-large an okay flight.
October 18, Friday.
We got in on time (around 7 pm) and took our time getting a phone card
for Anne, and ate dinner at Jade Restaurant at the airport. Since the Tai Po House is still occupied by
Vicky and thus not available, we were staying at Tim’s apartment in Causeway
Bay. We got to his house at around 10
pm.
October 19, Saturday.
In the morning we met up with Eric Wang, Anne’s cousin (Uncle Kenny’s
son) at Bonfire Coffee House. We had a
good chat of about 2 hours. We had
dinner with Alyson at the Chinese Restaurant in Cubus.
October 20, Sunday.
We took a morning flight to Beijing.
The flight was packed and we lost our pre-assigned seats. The agent (or rather her supervisor) was kind
enough to give us two seats in the first coach row, which had considerable leg
room. We were met by Mr. X who then
drove us to city Y to spend the night.
City Y is about 2 hours away from City Z where we will conduct our
workshop. However, City Z has security
measures that our stay there may cause problems for our hosts, so it would mean
long drives for Mr. X the next couple of days.
The highway from Beijing to City Y was clogged with heavily-laden
trucks, so it was nerve-wrecking at times.
City Y is by the Great Wall and probably does reasonable
tourist business. However, our hotel,
which is quite grand, had only a few guests.
The dining room wasn’t open, so we drove into town for a simple dinner
of dumplings – we ate a lot of them, though.
Hotel (2 nights): A Convention Center Hotel in City Y,
about an hour from Beijing.
October 21, Monday.
We left at 6:30 am to get to City Z where we conducted workshops from 9
am to about 6 pm. Lunch was hosted by
the local organization. Dinner was at a
“Home Cooked Food” Restaurant next to Mr. X’s apartment, after which we drove
back to City Y for the night. Traffic
was okay both ways.
Hotel courtyard as seen from our room. There were few tourists this time of the year, we felt we had the entire place to ourselves.
We led the workshop in this meeting location.
Dinner with a coworker, our hosts (not pictured) and their two children.
October 22, Tuesday.
Our hosts had pity on us, so we got to leave half an hour later
today. The workshop was half-day, and I
hosted a lunch for the attendees. The
bill came to around $70 for 16 people, and we had a lot of food. Mr. L and Mr. X were going to drive us to our
hotel in Beijing, the Metropark Lido.
Mr. L is a very deliberate driver, doubly so when it was raining as it
did during our trip, so at times we were crawling along at half the speed
limit. The Beijing traffic control was
such that no outside cars were allowed on or inside the “Fifth Ring” after 5
pm, so we had to be dropped off at the airport instead. And then we got lost … All said and done, it
was quite a while before Anne and I checked into the Metropark Lido Hotel –
after enduring the grumpy attitude of the taxi driver who was complaining the
ride was too short for the long wait he endured at the airport. All this reminded me of why I stopped going
to China for a while (contributing reasons, not the major ones.)
Hotel: Metropark Lido, Beijing. Used to be Holiday Inn Lido. I still remember having a celebratory steak
dinner with my colleague Brian there after a good meeting in Beijing.
October 23, Wednesday.
A travel day. We first took CA111
from Beijing to Hong Kong. This flight
used a 777, so we had use of a jetway on both ends. There were only a few passengers in premium
economy, but the regular economy section we used was full. Since Anne and I had the two window/aisle
seats, it was an okay flight. (The 777
had a 2-5-2 configuration.) We had a few
hours in Hong Kong, so we spent a couple of hours in Tsing Yi Island checking
out various places, including Rambler Garden Hotel – turns out it wasn’t all
that exciting. We got back to the
airport and exchanged our Beijing suitcase with the Singapore one; Perry
brought that along. We got upgraded to
business on UA895. This is an old United
plane and has 8 across seating in business, with half the seats facing
backwards. Anne and I were not together,
and I had a center seat which really felt cramped. After dinner I moved back to Economy Plus
which was perhaps 10% full and enjoyed the spaciousness and privacy of three
seats.
It was after midnight when we got into Changi Airport,
and after 1 am when we checked into our hotel.
Hotel (3 nights): Furama Riverfront, Singapore.
October 24, Thursday.
We woke up rather late today. We
first strolled to Chinatown, buying a SIM card along the way, and had KFC and
some local wrap for “brunch.” Anne got
in touch with Auntie Bonnie and we took a taxi out to where she lives. It is a huge house built on a huge plot of
land; nowadays it’s only she and a maid that live there. Her son “Ah Bin” was there to meet us
also. After chatting for a bit and
getting a tour of the house she has been in for over 50 years, we went to the
Island Country Club for lunch. The few
dishes we ordered were quite interesting.
Anne and I then went to the Garden by the Bay area and
visited some of the sights: skywalk, cloud forest, and flower dome. The first two are quite interesting, the
third one just so-so. They are all
artificial, but the designs are all quite interesting. We also stopped by the hawker’s market on
Tiong Bahru Road for dinner. It was not
quite 8 pm when we got there, and more than half of the shops were closed
already. It was a short walk back to the
hotel from there.
Auntie Bonnie's Garden at her house.
The rambutans will be ripe soon.
Admiring the stained glass panes in her house.
Auntie Bonnie's house.
With Auntie Bonnie and her son Ah Bin at Island Country Club.
Two dishes at the Club, and they look exactly like ...
... what the menu shows.
Impressive looking Marina Sands Hotel, the structure on the top is the Sky Garden.
Supertree Grove, Gardens by the Bay. Notice the walkway among the structures.
On the walkway.
Singapore Flyer across the river. It opened in 2008 and is taller than London Eye which opened in 2000.
Inside Cloud Forest.
Somehow a vast man-made structure in the background is congruent with an equally artificial rain forest.
Flower Dome is basically a huge greenhouse.
The different shapes of the Baobab trees reflect the difficult environments these trees grow in.
October 25, Friday.
We went to the Singapore River to catch a water taxi to cruise down the
river. Calling it a river is doing the
word much injustice since the waterway is at best a short canal across part of
the island; it does have a source, and evidently played an important role in
the country’s history. Singapore
Symphony Orchestra has a concert for the evening, so we stopped by the box
office to purchase a couple of tickets.
This was followed by lunch at Marina Square. We then strolled over to the Marina Bay Sands
Hotel and Convention Center for a short stroll.
These are impressive buildings.
The hotel consists of three towers atop which sit a Sky Garden for those
not afraid of heights. We next wanted to
visit the ArtScience Museum. To the best
of our knowledge, it had three special exhibitions: one on the fifty most
famous National Geographic Photographs, one on mummies on loan from the British
Museum, and one on a couple with last name Eames. We decided to save the considerable
admissions charge ($25 to see two) since (i) we can see the photographs on the
web, most probably; the most famous one being the Afghan girl; (ii) we have
been to the British Museum multiple times; and (iii) we don’t know whom the
Eames are, and nothing in the lobby made us want to see it. In hindsight, we should have purchased
admission for one exhibit so we can check out the inside of this building. The outside certainly looks very interesting.
Since we were quite sleep-deprived, and have a concert
and a short night this evening, we decided to head back to the hotel to catch a
bit of sleep. We went back to Marina
Square for dinner at a Chinese Restaurant, and then attended the concert (which
I will describe separately.) The Esplanade
Theatres comprise of a concert hall and a theatre in shapes of half ovals. The “scales” on the surface evoke the scales
of a puffer fish, the skin of durian, or small sails a la the Sydney Opera
House. After the concert we stopped by
the hawker area next to the concert hall but it was still very congested, so we
grab a quick snack at the Toast Box before catching a taxi back to the
hotel. It was about 11:30 pm when we got
to bed, and we had to wake up early.
Tiong Bahru Market is within walking distance to our hotel. Unfortunately most of the stores were closed when we showed up at around 8 pm.
Anne joing a discussion among some revered scholars (no idea who they are.) At least that's what I thought, until a search of the web showed that these are merchants negotiating. This is Singapore the practical city, after all.
Watching little kids jump into the Singapore River.
I don't know if these plants are parsitic or symbiotic. I don't even know if they are natural or grafted on by humans. That's also Singapore.
The Singapore Lion used to be THE attraction in the city. Now you have to look for it.
The unusal ArtScience Building. In the middle is a floating football field (soccer pitch.)
Esplanade Theatres on the Bay.
National Geographic is having an exhibition at the ArtScience Building.
Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands. Passports are required for entrance into the Casino - which offers free soft drinks and coffee - and there are separate lines for locals and foreigners.
We couldn't find seats at the busy night market next to the concert hall.
October 26, Saturday.
Early meant 3:30 am wake-up and 4:30 am taxi for a 6:30 am flight. We could have gotten up half an hour later
since the taxi ride was just about 20 minutes and immigration was
straightforward. Security at the gate
was a bit slow but we had use of the express line. UA896 on a Saturday seems a lot more popular
as we didn’t get upgraded, and the economy plus section is quite full (Anne and
I do have vacant seats next to us.)
Some observations on Singapore after this trip. The weather was very cooperative, not that
hot, and while it rained on and off on Thursday we managed to stay dry. The air is much cleaner than Hong Kong and
China, although I understand every now and then the air quality is affected by
forest fires in neighboring countries.
Traffic jams do exist, although not as bad as Hong Kong or New
York. The pace is generally a bit slower. The business district skyline is impressive,
as are some of the other buildings I described earlier. However, the city doesn’t seem to have the
vibrancy of a Hong Kong or New York.
While the streets are clean (chewing gum is still prohibited), there are
a surprising number of people who smoke.
That is surprising for a city well-known for government intervention in
people’s ordinary lives. While one may
joke about that, it is also clear that the livelihood of the people has been
dramatically improved over the last few decades. What I can’t say is if that is a good
tradeoff. Our taxi driver last night was
the only one who opened up to us. He did
say a lot of that structure is a façade generated by good PR, in reality you
can still violate some laws and grease the skids to get things done. I am not sure I will take his advice. The other unrelated yet amazing fact is: we
didn’t see any houseflies in Singapore, even in the hawker markets. Gnats seem to be around, though.
We took a taxi to Tai Po, left our luggage there, and
headed back to town to meet up with Elaine.
After waiting in vain for a vacant taxi or a minibus with empty seats,
we decided to walk to the MTR station, stopping by Fairwood for a quick lunch.
We chatted with Elaine for quite a while at the Hong Kong
Club, and then went to Repulse Bay to have a BBQ dinner with Anna and
Kenneth. By the time we got back to Tai
Po (via taxi, bus, MTR, and minibus) it was close to 11 pm. Ruth and Stephen had gotten in earlier that
evening.
We will be staying at the Tai Po house while in Hong
Kong.
October 27, Sunday.
Yum Cha at MTR Chiu Chow Restaurant.
We again had to walk to the MTR station to catch transportation to the
Aberdeen Boat Club, dropping Anne off at the Country Club along the way. Rode on Tim’s boat to Lamma Island, lunch
followed by a 1-hour walk on the island.
We also ran into Anna and Kenneth at the restaurant. Dinner was take-out food bought at various
Tai Po stores.
October 28, Monday.
Stephen, Ruth and I all accompanied Anne to the airport for her 10:25 am
flight back to Newark. Afterwards we
hanged out in the area before we got back to Tai Po in the afternoon. I tried to get some translation work done but
discovered the wrong file was sent to me, so the afternoon ended up being
unproductive. Dinner at a Shanghai
Restaurant in Tai Po Plaza.
October 29, Tuesday.
I stopped by CGST to pick up Wally’s diploma, then went to visit Mr. and
Mrs. Leung in Kowloon Tong. I lasted
visited Mr. Leung right after he had spinal surgery; he is better now, but
still feels some numbness and pain – perhaps to be expected for someone who
just turned 80, too bad nonetheless. We
then went to Kowloon Plaza for lunch.
During lunch we talked about concerts and stuff, and they showed some interest
in go to the one on Ring without Words conducted by Maazel. Ruth, Stephen and I then went to the Cultural
Center to pick up the tickets: full price at HK$480, half price for everyone
over 60 (which is 4 out of 5 in our group.)
Prices are certainly good, we’ll see about the performance.
October 30, Wednesday.
We went to Tuen Mun to check out the new mall. I was told the new travel restrictions in
place (no free trips, only limited amount of milk powder can be brought back to
China, limited luggage allowed on MTR, perhaps others) have cut down on number
of shoppers from mainland China. The new
mall at Tuen Mun simply reinforced that.
I can never understand policy that stifles commerce, but many in Hong
Kong clamor for the peace and quiet of not having to fight with mainland
shoppers for seats on the train, for instance.
Merchants, on the other hand, are swatting flies (Cantonese term for not
having much business.)
I also decided to book a short Singapore trip for the
three of us: Thursday through Saturday.
Yes, you read it right: I was in Singapore just last week.
October 31, Thursday.
Ruth and Stephen are flying on the 3:15 pm CX flight, so then left
around noon. I left a little before them
to meet up with Howard and Ruby. The
last time I saw them was before I got married (mostly likely around 1974), and
they have lived in New Jersey for 15 years!
Howard was my high school and Cornell classmate (there are three of us)
and Ruby went to Cornell also – we were in the orchestra together. They are in Hong Kong visiting Howard’s
mother. Howard is retired now, Ruby is a
chaired professor at Princeton. They
actually just got to Hong Kong from Singapore (Ruby is from Singapore
originally.) The dim sum place (Tim Ho
Wan) got famous for being awarded a one-star status by Michelin. Tim tells me they now have many branches and
are not that special anymore. That would
explain why we would get seats readily, the price was right though (we had a
lot for about US$35, Howard paid.)
I got back to Tai Po, and decided to go on the elliptical
for 30 minutes. By the time I showered I
realized it was going to be a bit tight for my 9:35 pm UA flight to
Singapore. So I called Mr. Tsang who
arranged for a taxi in about 15 minutes.
The way to the airport was straightforward. I again got upgraded, and this time stayed in
the business class seat even though it was again in the middle. By the time I checked into the hotel, it was
around 2 am.
Hotel (2 nights): Park Regis, Singapore.
November 1, Friday.
Woke up at 9:30 am or so. Met up
with Stephen and Ruth and went to Chinatown.
I didn’t want to seat anything from the hawkers, so it was McDonalds
again. I played tour guide for the day
and we visited the casino, went to the top of the Marina Bay Sands hotel,
walked around the supertree grove, and visited Cloud Forest and Flower
Dome. We planned to have a sandwich at
the Ku De Ta lounge on the roof of the Sands Hotel – you are let in for free
instead of the $20 admission – but decided not to stay because of the loud
music. Did catch a glimpse of Singapore
from the high vantage point, though.
Foreigners have to show their passports to get into the casino, and to
our surprise there is a smoking floor.
They offer water, soft drinks, and coffee for free to everyone. We also decided to try the Sentosa trip but
gave up when we found out the cable car costs $28 roundtrip. We had dinner at Xi Men Ding in VivoCity
before we headed back to the hotel. I
went to the waterfront for a short walk, and was surprised at the crowds.
November 2, Saturday.
Had to wake up at 3:15 am again to catch the 5:45 am UA flight back to
Hong Kong. The same flight yesterday was
delayed by more than 9 hours because of crew availability. Ours had a small maintenance problem and was
about 45 minutes late. Which will still
get us into Hong Kong before 10 am. I
stayed at the airport for a while to talk to Anne on the phone. My decision to take public transportation
back to Tai Po was a bad one, as I managed to miss all three train connections
by 9, 6 and 6 minutes – totaling over 21 minutes. The journey took about 1:45 hours. I managed to sleep a little bit in the
afternoon before Ruth and Stephen come back.
We met up with the Leungs at 5:30 pm at the Kowloon Tong Club to have a
quick “western café” type dinner.
All five of us attended a Hong Kong Philharmonic concert,
conducted by Lorin Maazel.
November 3, Sunday.
Stephen decided to rest up from his trip to Singapore, so only Ruth and
I went to meet Tim and Alyson on Tim’s boat. We stopped over to have Café de Coral
breakfast at Admiralty. Despite the
typhoon signal of 1, Tim decided to take the boat to Po Toi Island. We walked for about 40 minutes on moderately
difficult terrain, and spent some time taking pictures. After the hike, we rewarded ourselves with
afternoon tea at the Parkview Club. By
that time we were quite famished: it was close to 3:30 pm before we got our
food served. This wasn’t your regular
high tea where scones, finger sandwiches and pastries were served; instead we
got some savories, some sweets, and some crackers with spreads served. It was good, and inexpensive for tea. The bill came to about HK$500.
It was a windy day on Po Toi Island. With Alyson and Ruth.
An interesting rock formation on Po Toi. With Ruth.
My son asked me to check out if there were Chinese
speaking toys for Emmie, so I first went to Sogo and then Toys R Us in Tsim Sha
Tsui to see if I could find any. I had
looked for them unsuccessfully at Shatin Toys R Us earlier in the week. No luck either this time. Actually the Toys R Us person said they
didn’t carry Chinese-speaking toys with an attitude bothering on pride. For some reason that bothered me.
Dinner with Ruth, Tim and Alyson at Kaya Korean on
Russell Street in Causeway Bay. The food
was okay, the servings were small. I was
shocked that the bill came to HK$1700.
For four BBQ meat dishes and a noodle soup, basically. Something that would cost less than half in a
decent Korean Restaurant in New Jersey.
And the service wasn’t that good.
We brought some takeout from Tai Hing back for Stephen. It was after 9 pm when he had dinner.
November 4, Monday.
Mr. Tsang came by at 8:30 am to pick up.
I also wonder at his ability to dispatch taxis, drive, and carry on a
conversation with me at the same time.
There was a few traffic jams enroute, so the trip took close to an
hour. There are a few scattered empty
seats on UA896 for Chicago, but I am not next to one of them. We are about 12 hours into the 14-hour flight
as I type this, and I have managed to doze off a few minutes here and there.
There is a new procedure (new as far as I am concerned)
where passport control is now done by machines.
Most of the machines were showing green lights by only about half of
them were used (there were about 3 people pointing people to the 10 or so
available ones.) That was bad enough; worse
was that the passenger had to then take the confirmation from the machine to an
immigration officer, which means another line.
I imagine they are not doing that on purpose, but the wisdom of which is
really puzzling. Good thing is I got to
the line relatively early, and then opened up several more human desks soon
after I got through the machine; so the whole process took about 20
minutes. The flight from Chicago to
Newark was also packed, and the “lap” sitting behind me kept kicking the seat
back. Anne picked me up at the airport.
