Hong Kong and Cambodia, March 27 - April 12, 2012.

Photos:

Siem Reap, Day 1

Siem Reap, Day 2

Siem Reap, Day 3

Hike Lantau Peak

3/27/2012 Tuesday.  Henry H gave us a ride to the airport.  Flight UA117 (old CO99) was packed.  There was a problem with the plane, and it took off 45 minutes late.  I worked on slides for EFF meeting during part of the flight.  Flight path deviated quite a bit from “usual” polar route: flight attendant explained it was due to risk of solar flare; thus the flight itself took a bit longer than usual.  Ruth & Stephen arrived at around 6 pm.  They and Tim waited for Anne & me; it was past 8 pm when we walked out of customs.  Had a late snack at Tai Hing at MTR Tai Po.  Stayed at Taipo house.

3/29/2012 Thursday.  Lunch with David L at Mongkok East (Szechuan, Hunan and Shanghai).  Dinner at Taipo house.  Stayed at Taipo house.

3/30/2012 Friday.  Tea with Elaine and Larry in the afternoon.  Afterwards we strolled by City Hall and got tickets for tonight’s concert.  Anne and I then went to Mongkok East MTR to have dinner with Ruth and Stephen.  Afterwards we all went back to City Hall for the concert (see separate blog.)  Stayed at Taipo house.

3/31/2012 Saturday.  David, Anne and I had coffee with Kashi, Franklin to talk about a charity organization we are supporting.  Whitney and Tim went on a hike starting from the Taipo house.  When we all assembled at Tai Po MTR, we discovered most restaurants were fully booked.  So we had a simple dinner at Tai Hing, again.  Stayed at Taipo house.

4/1/2012 Sunday.  Ride on Tim’s boat first to Stanley for lunch.  Then to Tai Tam.  I tried to get some sleep while others were watching TV.  Visited Anne’s mother.  HK Club for dinner with Elaine and Larry.  Stayed at Taipo house.

4/2/2012 Monday.  Packed for the short side trip to Siem Reap, Cambodia.  Taxi pickup at 10:45 am, drive to airport uneventful.  Circuitous routing on Asiana Airlines.  Trip to Seoul in business class pleasant enough, but A320 from Seoul to Siem Reap was packed, and plane was a bit late taking off; we will be 1 hour late getting into Siem Reap  Process through immigration and customs not particularly difficult, although somehow I didn’t fill out the right forms, at least that was their claim.  And I am quite sure an official kept saying the word “tip” to me quietly, which I pretended not to understand.  The hotel bus picked us up.  The city is quite quiet, although there was still the odd passerby during the 15 minute bus ride.  It was past midnight when we checked into the hotel.  Hotel: Borei Angkor Resort.

4/3/2012 Tuesday.  We woke up a bit before 8 am and enjoyed a sumptuous buffet at the hotel Café.  At around 9 am met up with Guide and driver for sightseeing.  Visited Angkor Thom and the temple Bayon, Banteay Kdei, Ta Prohm (famous for Tombraider scenes), Prasat Kravan and other temples.  Some temples date back to the 10^th century.  Lunch at local Cambodian restaurant.  Ended day with visit to Angkor Museum.  Conclusion: this area is full of history dating back from first century, both in regard to ethnicity and religion.  In some sense it is much more complicated than Incan or Mayan history, and a three-day visit is not going to do it much justice.  Dinner at hotel café, also a buffet.  Hotel: Borei Resort.

  View from our hotel room at Borei Angkor Resert, Siem Reap.

  South Gate of Angkor Thom, Gods on one side, Demons on the other.

  Bayon Temple, at the Center of Angkor Thom.

 Nose-to-Nose with One of the Many Buddhas.

  West Wall of Baphoun Temple.  Can you make out the reclining Buddha?

 Ta Prohm, of Tom Raider Fame.

 Another Tree overgrowing the Temple.

Lunch in Siem Reap.

4/4/2012 Wednesday.  After breakfast, met up with guide and driver at 8:30 am.  We first stopped by Banteay Srei, sometimes referred to as “the woman’s temple” as tradition has women being the artisans that worked on the carvings.  We then drove about 30 miles out to Kbal Spean, the term “head of bridge” referring to the large rock at the site.  There we hiked for 1.5 km to reach the “stream of 1000 lingas,” although the guide said there are more, and not every symbol was a linga.  While the construction of the art may be impressive, there isn’t all that much to see, and one can certainly debate if it is worth the long trek out and back.  After lunch at a local restaurant (Kbal Spean), we visited several additional temples.  Dinner at hotel café, but no buffet tonight.  Hotel: Borei Resort.

  Intricate Artwork at Banteay Srei.  Many think women worked on the temple.

  Kbal Spean Path, one of the rough patches we had to navigate.

  On the way to the River of 1000 Lingas.

  Reclining Vishnu and Lingas on Riverbed.

  Outside Borey Sovann Kbal Spean Restaurant (outdoors).

  Palm Products (mostly candy) for sale at roadside.

  Preah Khan Temple.

These long corridors (this in Preah Khan) are quite typical in temple designs.

4/5/2012 Thursday.  Morning trip was to Tonle Sap Lake.  In theory this should be an interesting place to visit, the lake is supposed to flood during the rainy season (doubling in size).  We had a small boat all to ourselves, which isn’t necessarily an advantage as sprays tend to get to us rather easily – there is a reason why the boat driver wore a mask.  The ride “out” to the floating village took about 30 minutes, and we stopped by a “nature center” to have a short look around.  While the channel out to the lake looked clean enough, there was a lot of algae in the lake due to the organic matter deposited by the inhabitants on the boats.  I can’t even begin to imagine how polluted the lake and the fish in it are.  It is amazing how something that looks romantic at a distance can be quite different up close.

 Lotus Pond on way to Tonle Sap Lake.

"Cruise Ships" waiting to pick up passengers for a trip on the Lake.

 A floating house on the Lake.  This one is a church.  Many of the people on the lake are Vietnamese Christians.

 Three kids in tubs in Tonle Sap Lake.  I have seen TV programs depicting this as a bucolic scene.  In reality the lake is polluted, with algae bloom fed by organic effluent from the houseboats.

 Fishing, Tonle Sap style.

 Ammunition in War Museum.  There were only a few visitors, most tourists opt to see the ruins rather than reminders of the war.

 Restaurant outside Angkor Wat.  Food was awful.

 In front of Angkor Wat.

 Apsaras.  There are thousands of them.

 Inside Angkor Wat.

 Steep stairs to get to higher levels.

 Bas-Relief along wall.

Angkor Wat at sunset, as seen from Bakheng Hill.

We stopped by the War Museum before having lunch.  The War Museum is a lightly attended venue, but is nonetheless a stark reminder of how cruel and destructive man can be.  This was a substitute for the Land Mine Museum which we had wanted to visit; but the guide dissuaded us from doing so, claiming the profit making venture benefits the owner.

Afternoon was the highlight of the trip: Angkor Wat.  We toured it for about 2 ½ hours, examining in some detail the bas-reliefs along the wall, and climbing up to the second and third levels.  Given all I had heard about the condition of the place, I was surprised at how “run down” it looked.  This, like other temples, are a restorer’s dream.  Problem is there is so little restoration going on that I am sure the destruction will outpace it.  While many historical sites are now off-limits to the casual tourist (notable examples being Stonehenge and much of Uluru), for all practical purposes one can roam at will around these temples except for dangerous sections and the occasional “do not touch carvings” sign that is by-and-large ignored.

We were too tired – and it was a very hot day – so we decided to take a break and had coffee at Angkor Café.  Afterwards we drove to Bekhang Hill and took a 15 or so minute walk to – what else – another temple.  Our purpose was to watch the sunset.  We started at about 4:30 pm, found a shaded place and sat for about an hour, all the time sweating.  At about 5:45 pm we decided the sunset (which was yet to come) would just be like any other sunset we have seen, and that the clouds would probably dim the light so much that we won’t experience this glow from Angkor Wat (to be honest, we weren’t sure what we should expect, anyway.)  So we started our walk back, had dinner at the hotel, rested for a bit, and went to the airport for the red eye flight to Seoul.  We booked one extra night at the hotel, hoping we would get some rest before getting on the plane, but alas, it wasn’t to be.

It is inevitable to compare Angkor Wat with Machu Picchu.  They were ranked Numbers 2 and 1 by some travel magazine last year, after all.  Objectively Angkor Wat and the surrounding area should be much more impressive: they are older, the number of buildings overwhelms Machu Picchu, the towers at Angkor are much taller.  Yet Angkor didn’t hit me with the same sense of awe as Machu Picchu, I wonder why.

I did learn a few things about the complicated religions of Buddhism and Hinduism.  The simple things are (i) the three gods of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; (ii) the two major schools of Buddhism.  But beyond that things get complicated.  The two religions seem awfully tolerant of one another, most of the temples started Hindu but ended up Buddhist, yet there was very little destruction of the Hindu elements.  The pantheon of gods in Hinduism is simply overwhelming, and many gods seem to take on multiple – and very long – names.  Our guide tells us Cambodia is 95% Buddhist, yet other than the occasional shrine at the street corner, there is little overt practice of religion, at least not in Siem Reap.

Yet another realization is the tension between Cambodians (Khmers) and other ethnic groups.  I don’t want to go into specifics, but – at least from our guide – there appears to be a lot of distrust among them.

Of course there is this horrific incidence with the Khmer Rouge being in power for several years in the 1970s and caused an unimaginable amount of destruction in the country.  Our guide was surprisingly reluctant to talk about it.  We did find out both his father and his uncle were victims of the regime, and that he thinks 3 million people were killed (out of total population of around 10 million.)

4/6/2012 Friday.  Arrival at HKG a little after 1 pm.  Took Bus E41 then taxi back to Taipo.  Dinner at Taipo house: Ling cooked, and we supplemented the meal with Ginseng Chicken Soup purchased at ICN.  Stayed at Taipo House.

4/7/2012 Saturday.  Met up at Queen’s Café (Festival Walk) with Rev. Ken Chan of Evangelical Free Church of China.  Dinner at Golden Bull Vietnamese Restaurant at Ocean Terminal.  Then we went to see a concert at the Hong Kong Cultural Center.  There were eight of us: Wally & Ling, Stephen and Ruth, Tim & Whitney, and Anne and me.  Stayed at Taipo house.

4/8/2012 Sunday.  Took MTR and then taxi to Aberdeen Boat Club.  Then it was a 45- or so minute ride out to Mui Wo.  Taxi to Pak Kung Au where we started our hike up Lantau Peak.  The trip was 4.5 km in length, but entailed an elevation change of more than 600 meters.  The hikers are Wally & Ling, Tim & Whitney, and me.  We all made it, although Ling took an extra hour or so due in part to her bad knee.  We showered and changed on board before heading back to have dinner at ABC.  We decided to go two different ways (bus and bus + MTR) but ended up at Tai Po at around the same time.  Stayed at Taipo House.

 Start of Hike to Lantau Peak.

 Most of the ascent is done on steps like these, just that there are many many of them.

 A more precarious section of the trail.

 Nothing wrong with the camera.  It was very foggy.  Sign says 934 meters elevation.

End of Hike.

4/9/2012 Monday.  Another ride on Tim’s boat.  We first stopped by Stanley to have lunch at Classified: we ordered mostly breakfast items.  They serve reasonably good food for reasonable prices (for that part of town, that is.)  We then went to Po Toi Island.  I ran for a bit but there were too many steps to make the run smooth.  The others went on a rather long hike to explore the different rock formations on the island.  After the ride Anne and I went to visit her mother.  Elaine then picked us up for dinner at Suzhou-Zhejiang Club.  It was after 10 pm that we got home.  Stayed at Taipo House.

4/10/2012 Tuesday.  Dinner at traditional Hakka restaurant “Chuen Cheung” House with Alyson who is in the middle of her exams.  Dessert at Moon Kee.  Stayed at Taipo House.

4/11/2012 Wednesday.  Lunch with George and Manna Leung.  Dinner at China Club with Anne’s siblings.  It was close to midnight when we got back to Taipo, and about 2 am that I went to bed.  Stayed at Taipo House.

4/12/2012 Thursday.  Travel day.  Got up at about 6:30 am to prepare for return flight.  Taxi ride to airport was okay, except driver perhaps told us a bit more about his personal life than we wanted to know.  Check in was extremely easy, but plane was packed.  Lately all non-stop Newark to Hong Kong flights seemed to be at capacity, while flights to Hong Kong from San Francisco and Chicago seemed to have more empty seats, perhaps it is time to reevaluate how best to travel.  I just completed a draft of the EFF slide show, so at least I managed something useful.

Australia. January 17 – 29, 2012.

This is our annual visit to Australia for the Chinese New Year.

1/17 Tuesday.  Henry picked us up and brought us to the airport in good time.  Check in was a breeze, the airport being quite empty.  Security was slow considering how short the lines were.  Ate something at the terminal.  Flight was a bit late taking off, and will be 6:12 hours in duration – relatively long.  The 737-800 is quite empty, though.  Anne and I each have a row to ourselves.  This relatively primitive plane has no audio or video, and there are no outlets in the coach section so I need to watch out how I use the various electrical equipment I have with me.  Hopefully the stopover at LAX gives us a chance to charge up the batteries.

Not much time at LAX at all, between trying to get network access at the Red Carpet Club, grabbing some cheese and crackers, and buying See’s candy for my Australian relatives, we had to rush to get to the plane.  Considering the flight was full, the 13.5 hour flight was (close to bearable).  Ruth and Stephen picked us up.

1/19 Thurday.  Landed at around 7:15 am.  Immigration and customs relatively straightforward.  Ruth showed up just as I was completing the SIM card purchase at Vodafone.  Spent most of the day resting.  Anne and I took the bus to East Gardens to have lunch, and we went out with Ruth & Stephen to a Chinese restaurant in Maroubra for dinner.

1/20 Friday.  Jogged to cemetery to visit father’s grave, took a while to find it.  Lunch at Ding Tai Fung in Star City, then coffee.  Went to Australia Art Gallery to try to get tickets for the Picasso exhibition tomorrow, but they won’t sell them until the day of the event.  Ruth cooked dinner (rack of lamb and a couple of Chinese dishes.)

Anne spent quite a few hours on line for her coursework.

1/21 Saturday.  Jogged on Franklin then ANZAC Parade to Little Bay chapel and back, covering a distance of 5 miles.  Lunch at Peking Dumpling in Chinatown with Ruth & Stephen and Wally & Ling.  Stephen picked up the tab.  Then we drove to Opera House Parking in time to catch a performance of Turandot.  Afterwards Ruth dropped us off at Art Gallery and we bought tickets to see the Picasso Exhibit on loan from the Paris Picasso Museum.  They wouldn’t recognize Anne’s student ID so we had to pay for two full price tickets (A$7 difference).  There is certainly a huge number of Picasso's work, but the ones I am familiar with are missing, including the Guernica.  Despite my best attempts, I can perhaps intellectually understand what Picasso was trying to do but have difficulty mapping that into his actual work.  This exhibit didn’t help even though it is very well organized.

Anne & I took Bus 392 to come back to Matraville, and we ate the huge amount of leftovers from last night as dinner.

1/22 Sunday.  Tim got in this morning.  Morning church service at Praise Church.  Lunch at Westfield Food Court.  We then went to Susanna’s house.  Tim and I walked for about 5 km before dinner.

Trying to get organized for a group photo at Susanna's place.

1/23 Monday.  Today is Chinese New Year.  Anne and I got a ride from Ruth to Chinatown and we caught the free bus to Wendy Wu Tours to see what they had to offer.  Then to Circular Quay to catch a Ferry to Mosman Bay.  Anne and I walked for about 40 minutes and caught the Ferry from Cremone Point back to Circular Quay, and then bus to Matraville.  Time and I walked for about 8 km before we headed out to No. 8 Chinese Restaurant for New Year’s dinner – total of 18 people.

 The kids (Ryan and Peter) are more interested in their toys than the food, or anything else, for that matter.

Ling, Anne, and Ruth in the back.  Wally, I, Stephen and Tim in the front.

1/24 Tuesday.  We will be traveling to a couple of places north of Sydney for the next few days.  Tim went and got a couple of fishing licenses at A$12 each, and we bought a couple of fishing rods from K mart.  Total investment of about A$70, the fish are in trouble.

After lunch at Zilver, Tim drove the three or so hours to Salamander Bay in the Port Stephens area.  I have been here twice before; Anne once; and it is a first for Tim.  The modern apartment is right next to a beach, with a gorgeous view towards Port Nelson, and after settling down, Tim and I grabbed the fishing gear and went fishing at the Natural Preserve nearby.  All we caught was a small flounder.

 View from the Salamander Bay house.

 Modern kitchen with all the appliances.

Group photo on the deck.

Dinner was prepared by Anne and Ruth: salted eggs, Chinese sausage, Pok Choy, steak, lamb, and yams.

1/25 Wednesday.  We again went fishing, but didn’t catch anything.  Instead we got rained on; and the rain lasted most the day, at times quite heavy. 

We had lunch at Hog’s Breath in Port Nelson.  We brought back some fried fish for Anne as she had to attend class.  She ended up spending a lot of time on her classes, good thing the timing worked out reasonably well for her: if one considers a start of midnight a reasonable one.

We bought two dozen oysters at Holbert’s Farm which was a short drive from the apartment.  Tim wolfed down a dozen, I had three, Anne had one, and Stephen ate the rest – Ruth not being a raw oyster eater.  Dinner again at Glamour on The Bay – name given by the owners of the apartment.

1/26 Thursday.  Stopped by sand dunes before heading down to Coal Point at Lake Macquarie for our second stay.  Ruth’s minivan had a tire low on air, easily fixed at a local gas station (with the help of a bunch of young kids.)  346 Skye Point Road is a smaller place.  Anne and I basically have a walk-out basement.  The views are great, though.

You are excused thinking this is somewhere in the middle east.  But it is actually in the Port Stephens area.

 Coal Point house.

 Our basement room.

 View from the basement room.

 Enjoying the view of Lake Macquarie from the living room.

 House pier.

Fishermen will do anything to catch something.  Wilson and Tim.

Today being Australian day, and the area being suburban/rural, there were very few restaurants open.  We ended up eating at an Indian/Kebab place.  We also shopped at Coles for a cooked dinner, joined by Ruth’s children and their families.  Tim joined the young people to fish and returned with about 12 fishes, all on the small side.

I managed to jog for about 4 miles before dinner.  The hilly terrain was quite a challenge since I mostly jog around my house on level ground.  Good thing that it was a cool day in the mid 70s.

We did manage to see fireworks at a distance.  Peter – Susanna’s son – was all excited about them.

1/27 Friday.  Went fishing with Tim at the Reserve.  He caught several; I caught none.  We then drove over to where Ruth’s children are staying, Sealand Road in Fishing Point.  Lunch was sandwiches prepared from bread and cold cuts.  People in Australia have this habit of putting pineapple and sugar beet slices in their sandwiches.  Mine with beet tasted quite good.

Anne again stayed at Skye Point so I brought her a sandwich.  We drove back to Fishing point and some spent the rest of the afternoon fishing.  Tim and Wilson thought they would have better luck going further out into the lake with a dinghy, they didn’t catch anything either, but managed to get awfully sunburned.

Dinner was home-cooked at Coal Point again.  We had fish soup (made from our catch) and chicken.  Weather got quite nasty later in the day, but we got a good day’s activities in before the rains came.

1/28 Saturday.  We left Coal Point at around 10 am in the morning.  We first drove to Hornsby.  After lunch at a small café in Westfield Mall, we visited the house Alfred recently bought, and today was the move-in day.

After we got back to Jennings Street, the immediate excitement was the leech that attached itself to Tim’s ankle.  We estimate it sucked about 5 ml of Tim’s blood.  Indeed the bleeding was difficult to stop, and (Tim claims) the wound itched for quite a while after that.

Dinner at Olivo at Harbourside.  Reasonable prices ($39 for entrée and main) but food was just so-so.  Coffee and cake at Gloria Jeans.  We found out they have fireworks every Saturday, so we stayed around for that.  We are quite sure someone stays on the barge as the fireworks go off, can’t imagine the noise, to say nothing of the danger.  Not great, but adequate.  An appropriate punctuation for our trip.

1/29 Sunday.  After Church service, we had lunch at Westfield East Gardens.  It was then home to pack and shower.  We had to rush a bit as Tim’s flight was at 3:45 pm and we didn’t want to make Ruth drive twice.  Our flight ended up being late by more than an hour (it should arrive about one hour late.)  Since we still have two hours before the Newark flight, we should be okay.  Anne and I are in Seats 24D and G, with two empty seats between us; so we are happy.  The same can’t be said of the SFO-EWR flight, somehow my pre-assigned seat was given away, after multiple enquires I got an Economy Plus middle seat which was preferable to a window seat in the back.  Ellie brought our car to the airport.  It was about 11 pm when we got home.

Houston, TX. December 3 - 8, 2011.

12/3/2011 Saturday. We drove to Ellie's place; she and Kuau took us to the airport. It was a packed flight but otherwise uneventful. We got some (late) lunch at the airport food court: the BBQ dish was huge. Our rental car (Alamo via Hotwire) is a Nissan Cube. We will see bow it works out. The airport area was very quiet but the traffic got quite heavy when we got close to town. Check in at Westin was a bit slow: disappointing for a chain of that reputation. Anne read from a guide book that the Waugh Street Bridge is the home to a large (300,000) bat colony and these animals come out at sunset to feed. We drove there but didn't see anything. We then tried to look for Chinatown but couldn't find it either. We did see a lot of restaurants along Westheimer Road and had dumplings and vegetables at a small restaurant called Dumpling King. We bought some supplies (coffee and snacks) and called it a night.

One good thing about the Westin is its green policy. Most hotels nowadays encourage their guests to use their towels and linen for more than a day to ostensibly save the environment. I have always been suspicious of how much do the cost savings figure into that request. Westin is the first hotel I know of that offers some credit (about $5) to its guests who do so. Good for them!

Hotel (for two nights): Westin Galleria, Houston.

12/4/2011 Sunday. Drove to Galveston which was about 1:30 hours away. Today was cloudy, drizzly, with the occasional rain. Galveston probably is a reasonably busy town during the summer tourist season, but today wasn't tourist season, and given the weather it was quiet. Except for the cruise terminal area. There were 2 ships docked: the Carnival Magic which is Carnival's newest ship with a capacity of 3800 passengers, and a much smaller Royal Caribbean ship. It must be start of boarding time since there was this long line of cars turning into the parking lot. A few blocks away was another event: the festival of lights. The town is obviously trying to revitalize itself; let's hope it succeeds. After lunch at Fish Tales, we drove by Moody Gardens but missed the 1 pm sightseeing trip on the Colonel. Instead we drove west and took the free ferry across to the Bolivar Peninsula. This place reminds me of the drive to Mobile from Pensacola: lot's of colorful houses built on stilts but sparsely occupied. It was about 6 pm when we got back to town. After buying tickets for tonight's Nutcracker performance, we grabbed a sandwich at a nearby cinema cafe, before seeing the performance. On the way back we stopped by Whataburger and got take-out as a late night snack.

 Fish Tales Restaurant.

 It was a stormy day in Galveston, TX.

 This Carnival cruise ship dominates the Galveston skyline.

 On the ferry Dewitt Carter from Galveston to the Bolivar Peninsula.

Nutcracker at the Houston Ballet.

12/5/2011 Monday. Checked out of hotel at 10:30 am. Went back to Waugh Street Bridge to check out if there is a place to park: answer is yes. After lunch at Bamboo, we drove south to another Wildlife Refuge (Brazolia), about 1:15 hours. There was no one at the office but there was a CD we could borrow to guide us along the auto trail. Evidently there has been a severe drought in the area so most of the lakes and ponds have turned into dry land. We did see a few birds, many of which are raptors that we don't recognize. The main attraction, snow geese, was no where to be found.

Several Roseate Spoonbills at the Brazolia Wildlife Refuge.

When we got into the Extended Stay America room, we found out it was a smoking room. Somewhere along the line someone messed out since I have never requested a smoking room before. After a few phone calls we at least got moved to a non-smoking room for tonight.

Anne has a conference call at 8 pm. So it is again fast food (Whataburger) for dinner.

Hotel (for three nights): Extended Stay America Galleria Houston.

Tuesday 12/6/2011.  Anne had to get up early for her 2-hour online class.  After she was done we debated a bit what to do, and decided to visit museums since today would turn out to be quite cold, and breezy to boot.  We ended up going to the Museum of Fine Arts.  MFAH has a huge collection of artifacts (a lot of them gold) from pre-Columbian cultures in Mid- and South Africa.  The displays are a bit confusing for the uninitiated, like me.  We ran into an archeologist and I ended up having a long discussion with him, including if the Biblical story of Cain and Abel was an allegory for farmers and hunter-gatherers.  There is also a substantial collection of paintings.  Although Anne and I enjoy looking at them, we are by no means knowledgeable about the various schools and their representatives.  In that sense MFAH collections would be what I call B-list painters.  They do have token ones from each of the grand masters: Picasso, Monet, Manet, Turner, etc.  It is nonetheless nice to spend some time with these great works of art.  We ended up spending over 4 hours there, including a very reasonably-priced lunch.  And the price of admission is very reasonable, with our AAA and USC-student discount, it cost a total of $8.50 for the two of us.

We then ventured to Chinatown, walked around a bit, and then had an early dinner at Tin Tin Restuarant.

After dropping Anne off at the hotel - she had another conference call tonight - I drove to Jones Hall to attend a Houston Symphony concert.  The concert was great, except I found out the hard way (a $70 parking ticket) that what I thought was free parking was a tow-away restricted zone.  I guess I should count as a blessing that the car wasn't towed.

Houston Symphony, Eschenbach conducting Mahler's Fifth Symphony.

 I got a parking ticket parked next to this sign.  To my surprise my appeal based on confusing signage was successful.  And it was done over the web!

We did have to change our room in the morning.  We opened the window for the day and it didn't smell that bad when we got back.

Wednesday 12/7/2011.  First drove to Armand Bayou Nature Center, hoping there were birds to see.  Turns out it was a park with many walking trails, so we decided to skip it.  We then drove along the coast (Route 146) and had a buffet lunch at a restaurant along the Kemah Boardwalk.  Pretty inexpensive, reasonably good food.  Nowadays with buffet meals I feel guilty for eating too much, and guilty for not eating my money's worth.  Johnson Space Center was next on our list.  We first took a 1 1/2 hour tram ride which brought us to Mission Control for all the Apollo explorations, a building where astronauts train with mock ups of various spacecraft, and Rocket Park where the main attraction is a Saturn V rocket.  It was after 3:30 pm when we were done with the ride, and we had only time to see a couple of short movies clips before the facility closed at 5 pm.  It was a good visit.  Sadly, I couldn't help but think the bold and exciting space exploration days no longer belong to this country, and won't return for a long time.  Somehow the sense of melancholy seemed to permeate what we saw around us.

 Mission Control at Johnson Space Center.

A Saturn V.

We then stopped by the Waught Street Bridge again, getting there at a little before 6 pm.  The noise we heard before was much softer; in any case, bat sighting wasn't to be on this trip.

 It was too cold for the bats to venture out at night, so we had to be content with reading the different signs posted near the Waught Street bridge.

This is a picture of a sign.  We didn't see any bats in the crevices, but heard them chirping away, though.

Dinner at Shanghai Restaurant in Chinatown.  The mixed up our order so we had to cancel a casserole dish - I didn't want to wait for the dish to be recooked.  Instead bought some noodles for a midnight snack.

Since Anne won't be done with her class until 10 am, we moved our flight from 12 noon to 2:30 pm.  We couldn't get any aisle seats, so it would be a bit uncomfortable.

Thursday 12/8/2011.  Anne got done early with her conference call, so we scrabbled to get to the airport.  At 11:45 am or so we were called to the podium to get our tickets for our 12 noon flight.  And they were aisle seats!  The flight back was quite a bit shorter at about 3 hours.  Ellie picked us up.  After dropping our luggage off, we had dinner at Olive Garden in Piscataway, with Kuau joining us.