We Kowtow in Lantau (Days 10 and 11)

On Tuesday, July 8, fully intending to get caught up on our hotel-sink laundry effort, I signed the kids up for a two-hour Chinese Art class in the Kids At Art studio in our hotel. (That effort would be thwarted as I spent most of that time trying to contact Wells Fargo in an effort to allow us withdraw even more funds even more frequently.) However, with a promise to return with full payment, I left the kids to enjoy the full focus of the attentive staff. 

I asked the teachers to use Mandarin as much as possible as they guided Xander, Vaughn and Quinn through new techniques with ink and paint. The kids created several paintings each with the intent of presenting their favorites to Betsy for her upcoming birthday.

That afternoon I continued to shirk my laundry duties, opting instead to sit and write by the pool as the kids frolicked in the cool water. When Betsy joined us after work, I commented on how very friendly the pool service staff was as they brought us our sandwiches, lemonade and beer. When we got the bill for HK$1,457 (US$188), we realized why. Holy hot pot, there went our dinner plans!

Pictured: $57 worth of beverages

Still the pool was the most beautiful one we’ve seen so far; overlooking the harbor and with a waterfall at one end. Plus we were treated like kings so we decided it was worth it and retired to the hotel room for the evening and curled up with some ramen and Chinese television.

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July 9 was busy and memorable Wednesday as we left the hotel early for a day-long tour of Lantau Island before departing for Shanghai that night.

Lantau Island is twice the size of Hong Kong Island and the largest among the approximately 256 outlying islands within the territory. The tour began with a 40-minute ferry ride from Hong Kong to Lantau through the busy harbor filled with cargo ships heading off to or returning from long voyages. Luckily for us on a day where temperatures climbed over 100 degrees, we hopped from the air-conditioned boat to an air-conditioned bus that offered salvation after each broiling tour stop on the island. A sign posted at the front of the bus offered this sobering advice:

I've always been suspicious of my right thumb and now I'm on high alert.

Many of the 120,000 inhabitants of Lantau have jobs in Hong Kong (2 million total) and must make the daily ferry trip to work. They ride their bicycles from home and leave them parked together on the dock. 

But not a bike lock in sight.

Our guide says there is very little crime on Lantau because most people can trace their family lineage back for centuries and very few people migrate to the island so basically no one can get away with anything. There are, however, several prisons (apparently for criminals from elsewhere) including a juvenile detention center that offered a nice incentive for good behavior for the day.

The first stop on the tour was a refreshing visit to the pristine Cheung Sha beach. We were pleased to see a barrier ringing the shore after hearing about the six fatal shark attacks around the island over the last 15 years and happily waded into to the warm surf.

The bus then took us to the unique Tai O fishing village, a former haven for smugglers and pirates that is now a popular tourist destination. We enjoyed a short boat ride that gave us a close-up look at some the remarkable, yet dilapidated, pang uks; fisherman's homes that are built on stilts to better endure flooding. 

Fishing long provided the primary means of income in the village but overfishing has forced the inhabitants to rely on tourist spending. We passed stall after stall of very ripe, sun-dried, salted  examples of meager fish, shrimp and mollusks that neither we nor anyone else on our tour dared to bring back on the bus.

There's something fishy going on around here.

We visited a temple where we had our first experience burning incense as a symbolic offering. In Chinese Taoist and Buddhist temples, worshippers light and burn incense which they wave our raise above the head as they bow to the statues or plaques of a deity or ancestor. One makes says a prayer of hope or thanks and then places the stick or sticks in a receptacle in front of the idol.

Next, our bus climbed the winding road up the mountain to the Ngong Ping plateau for a visit to the majestic Tain Tian Buddha Statue and the nearby Po Lin Monastery, where we were served a delicious vegetarian meal.

The monastery was built in 1907 and plans for the Big Buddha were made over sixty years ago with the project finally coming to fruition in 1990. The 202 separate pieces of bronze were gradually shipped to the island and then trucked up the hill before they were assembled in 1993 to form the 112-foot, 250-ton statue. The serene and dignified Buddha rests on a bed of lotus flowers with his left hand in his lap, signifying the giving of the moral treasures known as dhana, and his right hand is raised, representing the removal of affliction.

The structure beneath houses three separate exhibition halls of worship and six smaller bronze statues surround the Buddha praising and making the various symbolic offerings required to enter into nirvana. 

Our tour of Lantau ended with a ride aboard the Ngong Ping Skyrail, a 25-minute cable car that offered stunning views as we descended from Hgong Ping plateau to Tung Chung New Town near the airport, from which we would depart a few hours later. 

We shared our ride with a South African/Australian expat and her daughters, aged 10 and 8, who gained our admiration as they described their earlier four-hour ascent by foot to the Big Buddha in the day's intense heat and humidity.

Our flight that evening from Hong Kong to Shanghai took just over two hours, transporting five sleepy travelers to the third stop on our journey for new round of adventures, cuisine, friends and hilarious mis-translations.

Harboring Contentment (Days 8 and 9)

An early in-room breakfast in Guilin followed by an intense round of re-packing occupied the morning hours of Sunday, July 6. A short 1½-hour flight took us to a dramatically different landscape. We found a city of densely-packed skyscrapers, fancy cars and a bustling harbor as we switched currency from Chinese yuan to Hong Kong dollars. 

Several years ago, Quinn wondered where Mommy was during one of her overseas business trips. She searched her memory for potential destinations and asked, “Is Mommy in Beep Beep?” It took us a moment to realize she heard “Honk Honk” whenever we mentioned Hong Kong and just had things a bit mixed up. Ever since, we have called the city Beep Beep in her honor.

Sisters say the darndest things.

Waiting for us in the lobby of the Renaissance Harbor View Hotel was a very special reunion with our good friend, Wen Ching, a classmate of Betsy’s from the Purdue Statistics department. We hadn’t seen her in seven years but we picked up right where we left off and had a nice afternoon together. She was especially excited to see the kids again as she was one of the first to visit Xander in the hospital and held Quinn as a baby the last time we were together. 

We ventured out into the blistering heat of the afternoon for a city stroll toward the tram that takes visitors to Victoria’s Peak for a reportedly spectacular view of the city. Unfortunately, we saw only a long line that drove us into a nearby air-conditioned mall and the comfort of a Starbucks for some refreshments. The kids were dragging from our non-stop sightseeing schedule, the rush of the plane flight and the dreaded - perhaps inevitable - onslaught of Mao’s Revenge. Yes, you can brush your teeth with bottled water, keep your mouth closed in the shower, avoid raw fruits and vegetables and walk around with a bottle of Purell but it it’s going to catch up with you eventually. Fortunately, two days and one overworked hotel restroom later, our box of Pedialyte packets were gone and everyone’s appetite was back.

ANYWAY, Wen Ching had just enough time before heading to the airport to join us as we met some friends for dim sum across the harbor in Kowloon. Evelyn and Ricky Chow and their boys, Kevin and Joman, were kind and informative hosts on two memorable nights in the city. 

Evelyn is the sister of Yin Wang, a second-grade teacher at Xin Xing Academy and our family friend. Betsy had visited Evelyn on a previous trip and both families were excited to meet each other. 

After we enjoyed a delicious array of snacks that touched our hearts and said an all-too-sudden farewell to Wen Ching, the Chows helped us find a taxi that took us back from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island via the tunnel underneath Victoria Harbor. Since the kids were exhausted, we called it a night but made plans to see the Chows again the next evening.

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On Monday the 7th, as Betsy headed off for a day at the office, I gave the kids some extra time to rest before we explored the amenities of our hotel where, on the sunny 11th-floor concourse, we found a playground, tennis courts, a mini driving range and a pair of beautiful pools. We also wandered around an extensive art gallery located between the hotel lobby and the subway stop underneath that includes an intriguing Kids At Art studio that holds classes for young artists. Inspired, Vaughn drew the harbor's edge as seen from our hotel window.

You can see how construction continues to expand the city through reclamation of land from the sea. This has been going on for centuries with major projects having been conducted since the mid-19th century. Buildings that once enjoyed waterfront views are now several blocks inland. It was amazing to see (and difficult to ignore the incessant sounds of) new construction all up and down the shoreline. Boats dredge up sand and silt from far offshore and pump it into cordoned-off zones, then dump trucks and bulldozers add rocks, soil and clay before deep cement mixing makes the ground firm enough on which to build. It is reported that up to 25% of Hong Kong Island is reclaimed land; both HK Disneyland and HK International Airport were built entirely on areas that were once water. 

That night, we decided to try the ferry to cross the ever-shrinking channel to Kowloon for dinner and enjoyed the leisurely sunset ride. 

We met the Chows at a Thai restaurant for another marvelous meal with many new dishes introduced to us by Ricky. We are fortunate to have opportunities throughout our trip to dine with locals who can introduce us to the most interesting restaurants and dishes to sample. Not only might we have settled for closer, "safer" places to eat but there's no way we'd have been able to get as deep into the mysterious menus as we've gotten thanks to friends like these. 

I only stopped stuffing my face long enough to keep the camera still for a moment.

We were glad that the kids had the energy for a pleasant postprandial stroll along the waterfront in the relative cool of the evening. The bright lights of Hong Kong reflected beautifully off the harbor and gave us the opportunity to take some great photos.

Also to appear in several other families' Kodak/iPhone moments. Here Betsy gets the star treatment.

We said our goodbyes to the Chow family and confirmed our plans to host Kevin and Joman at our home in Edina, Minnesota later this summer. We can only hope that we show them as good a time as Ricky and Evelyn showed us during our first two evenings in Hong Kong. 

We’re Packing Our Bags Again!

This weekend , we begin a month-long journey through China and Japan that will include two world capitals, eight separate flights, as much dim sum as possible, the Great Wall, rice paddies, the Forbidden City, street food, Japanese baseball and maybe our second international Disney visit. 

WHERE?

• 5 nights in Beijing
• 3 nights in Guilin
• 3 nights in Hong Kong
• 11 nights in Shanghai
• 7 nights in Tokyo 

WHO?

We are a family of five from Edina, Minnesota. Brett is a stay-at-home father and writer, Betsy is a mother and businesswoman, Xander (10) is a fifth grader, Vaughn (9) is a fourth grader and Quinn (7) is a second-grader. All three kids have attended Xin Xing Academy, a Mandarin Chinese immersion program, at Eisenhower Elementary School in Hopkins, MN since preschool. 

WHY?

Betsy travels internationally several weeks a year as Director of Market Intelligence for St. Jude Medical. Her work has taken her to exciting locales such as Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Melbourne, and Sydney; the kids and I accompanied her to Brussels, Paris and London two years ago (see previous blog entries) and now we’re ready to join her in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo for our second Family-Trip-of-a-Lifetime.

We’ve been researching, packing and preparing for this trip for some time and will feature all the highs and lows with lots of photos and videos on this interactive blog throughout the trip. We’ll be checking the comments frequently for your questions and suggestions and make them a part of our explorations.

Share in the adventures and misadventures of family travel in a foreign land: 

• Find out what it’s like for American kids who can speak and read Mandarin to visit China and speak the language in real-world opportunities.

• Learn along with us about the history and people of the places we explore. We are excited for two visits to “host families;” one coordinated by Xander’s fourth grade teacher, Lixia Shi, and another by Xin Xing second grade teacher, Yin Wang.

• I will attempt to incorporate my new Google Glass (sponsored by Armaverse Armatures) into our travels. If I can marry it to my iPhone and hack a couple of travel apps in time, the Glass could immensely augment our experience - or I could be arrested by the Chinese authorities for espionage. 

• It’s a blog with suspense!...Will They Survive? After submitting a phonebook-thick stack of paperwork to our local Chinese consulate and securing our visas, we spent a morning as pincushions at our local Travel Clinic in an effort to ward off typhus, hepatitis A and B, avian flu, tetanus, and more! We also hope to avoid getting bitten by mosquitos and contracting malaria or dengue fever. We’re prepared for the crowds and shoving in elevators and lines; we have our respirator masks for the pollution; we’ve packed toilet paper to carry with us at all times and I’ve got my sneer ready to repel the tourist scammers. 
  
  

  Paper holders and toilet bowls not included.

• We will, however, eat as many delicacies and unusual foods as we can safely sample and share the results. 

We'll just save the fugu for the last night.