Repulse Bay, Hong Kong

Photos from Repulse Bay and Stanley Village in Hong Kong, September 2017.

Relief

I feel like I'm living in a different world than I was in a few weeks ago, now that fall temperatures and lower humidity have made their way to my city. Leaving the house is enjoyable once again. However, I've spent the last two weeks with a cold or flu or sinus infection (who can tell the difference), that started with several days of high fever. My illness is on its last legs, and I'm looking forward to getting around town more soon. 

I have a weeklong trip to the tropics starting Sunday though. I can't put away my summer clothes just yet.

Subway people today

Young woman checks her cell phone on her long subway trip.

At first I thought they were ballerinas. But then I realized they just want to look precious.

Self-portrait. That's me in the reflection of her sunglasses.

Holiday buzz

There's a buzz in the air as people travel to their hometowns for Chinese New Year, which falls on Saturday, January 28th this year. School is out for a month. The train and bus stations are packed above and beyond normal capacity.

All through town, you see people rolling their luggage. Everyone is on the move!

People are also stocking up on food and supplies, because even though most stores are only closed for three days, many businesses will be closed for two full weeks during the holidays. Even the ones that are open will be short of supplies like meat and produce, because their suppliers are on vacation. I'm stocking up on bottled water, toilet paper, light bulbs, and groceries. No need to stock up on coffee. Starbucks here is open 365 days a year.

People are also buying gifts, in the form of food items in gift boxes. The food may be cookies, cakes, fruit, nuts, wine, etc. Chinese people give the gifts to family members and to people that they visit during the holidays. The beautiful boxes of gift food are often re-gifted. These gift boxes are not cheap, and people need to buy quite a few. Homemade gifts are not considered appropriate. 

This year, fireworks have been banned in the city limits. No fireworks' stands line the roads as usual. I'm pretty excited that I won't have to bring in everything off of my balconies this year. (I have had flaming bits of paper land on my balcony before, so the risk of fire was real.) But I cannot imagine Chinese New Year without massive pyrotechnics. It seems like the mature thing to do, to ban fireworks. But I'm afraid it won't be quite the same.

Random Summer Summary 2016

HOTNESS

You know it is hot when you have to travel to Thailand to cool off.

The heat index got up to 126 degrees Fahrenheit one day here where I live in the Middle Kingdom. Most evenings the heat index has been at least 100 degrees. Not every summer is this hot. For instance, any summer I am not here, it is not that hot. It wasn't that hot here last summer.

THAILAND

I am not in this picture and I did not wear a swimsuit, so don't be wondering which one of these Russian exhibitionists is me. 

Some day when I am full of energy, I will get the good photos off of my good camera instead of just showing you my phone photos.

Honestly, while in Thailand I saw the beach for about five minutes every day, usually just before the sun set, but I wasn't at the beach much. 

I have been on three trips this summer. I have been to Taiwan, Thailand, and a desert area of China. I did fine on each trip, but when I got home from the trips I had trip recovery issues. Maybe when the weather cools down, I can recover more quickly. My health still drags me down. 

FRIENDLY MUSLIM LADY

One day near the end of Ramadan, on one of my trips, I was out in a public park and the Muslim lady above invited me to her house for dinner. She was very friendly and insisted. I told her I would visit her house, but I wouldn't eat because I'd already eaten dinner. I got there and she started cooking, because she didn't believe I'd really already eaten. I wasn't really planning to eat her food, and she wasn't planning to eat it either because she was still fasting. So finally we just took photos and laughed and talked about things. Here she is at the sink washing the food she planned to cook for me. Her hat is what Muslims wear. Sometimes they wear scarves, but the purple hats are easier to throw on. 

She told me that her husband was staying with their daughter for a few weeks, because he wanted to eat and his daughter would cook for him. So this lady was willing to cook for me but not for her own husband.

UNFRIENDLY MUSLIMS ... OR NOT?

One day, in my own city, I went to eat at a Muslim restaurant. The Uighurs who work there are very conservative, cover up with scarves, and are very unfriendly. You can say hello to them and they won't even acknowledge your existence. People go there to eat because the food is good, not because they want to be acknowledged as human beings. 

So imagine my shock when I went to the restaurant one day and one of the women came over to TALK TO ME. She wanted schooling help for her children and thought I would have information to help. Her husband came over and we exchanged contact information. I texted a Chinese friend to say I was at this restaurant, and that Chinese friend wrote back asking if they were being mean as usual. I wrote back and said "NO, WE ARE FRIENDS NOW!" My Chinese friend thought I was being sarcastic and didn't believe me! Haha.

I've been back several times. The last time I was there, a torrential thunderstorm came up. The sidewalks became rivers. I had to stay at their restaurant a really long time. I thought I could chat with them more, but they were busy running the restaurant. 

COFFEE SHOP IN THE RAIN

When a mild break in the rain came, I ran across the pathway to a coffee shop and hung out until the storm ended. It was one of the most beautifully decorated coffee shops that I've ever been in.

                  

I felt bad that Mimi was home alone during the storm though. Poor dog child.

IN CONCLUSION

Besides going to the doctor for appointments, these are the sad little highlights of my summer so far. Thank God I've been able to do this much!

I've tried to write blog posts more often, but the internet always seems to cut out when I have time to write. Thanks to the Great Firewall of You-Know-Where, I have to use a VPN to write on this blog, and VPN slows down the internet and doesn't work at all sometimes. I do the best I can with what I have.

Please pray for good health for me and my family (my parents in particular). And, as always, please pray that cancer stays away from my body forever, please.

Trip to New York City

When I left Virginia, I did so by train (Amtrak). I rode through Virginia, Washington D.C., Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. I love train travel, and I especially like how the train stations in the U.S. are not crowded at all.

My childhood friend Kim met me in New York City, and she took this photo of me in Times Square on the evening we arrived.

 A diner several blocks away from Times Square

 Fifth Avenue

The evening we arrived, we went to 34th Street to visit Macy's (as made famous by the movie "Miracle on 34th Street). Then we roamed around some.

At the New York Public Library, you could take your photo from a mirror on the ceiling and the backwards words on the tile appear like this in your photo.

There are LOTS more photos of my trip to NYC, but you have to click the "Read more" button below to see them.

Ceiling at the New York Public Library

The New York Public Library

Water fountain at the New York Public Library

Food vendor near our hotel

Food vendor near our hotel

Tim Keller, author and pastor, preaches on Sunday morning in NYC

Kim Doan and I have breakfast at Sarabeth's near Central Park on Sunday morning in NYC.

Lunch at the diner featured on the TV show Seinfeld

Saw the filming of Good Morning America on Monday, October 5, 2015.

Radio City Music Hall

Kim and I stayed in a hotel near Times Square for the first two nights, then we stayed with some friends of hers in Englewood, New Jersey, just 13 miles away for the next three nights. Linda and her husband used to be the directors of MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) but now serve in a local church. Their next door neighbor, Carol (seated) took Kim and I to the bus station every morning.

Kim and I visited the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Above is a piece of an airplane from that ill-fated day.

Above is a bakery and outdoor area near the 9/11 Memorial and near Wall Street.

A park near Battery Park.

Lady Liberty

Kim on a New York City subway -- we always seemed to get seats, something that rarely happens in Asia on their subways!

Me in New York City

Me at Central Park

Central Park

Kim and I took a horse-drawn carriage ride through Central Park. Our driver was from Turkey originally. 

We found several beautiful cathedrals. The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine had interesting signs on their church grounds.

A neighborhood in Manhattan

Subway platform in NYC

A homeless person sits in front of a tile mosaic in the subway area.

Buskers perform to make money in the subway area. This guy was interesting.

Times Square area -- it's not as big as it looks on TV.

This is the hotel where Kim and I stayed the first two nights.

If I had questions, I asked policemen. They were all so very nice. In fact, New York people in general were extremely friendly. I don't know how they ever got a reputation otherwise.

Shaq. I didn't use a zoom lens, I was just standing that close to him.

Weathergirl Ginger Zee of ABC's Good Morning America graciously poses with a fan.

Ginger Zee was just beautiful.

Harlem Globetrotters pose for me near my hotel.

The NYC subway was not clean or impressive, but they did have nice tile signs!

Homes in Manhattan

Street scene in NYC

Rockefeller Plaza

World Trade Tower

At the 9/11 Memorial Museum, I saw a Bible fused into a steel beam from one of the destroyed World Trade Center towers. The Bible is open to the page in Matthew that says "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

Names of the deceased from 9/11 ring the area where the buildings once stood.

Park in lower Manhattan

New York Stock Exchange

Near Battery Park

Staten Island Ferry (free rides)

This is the view of Manhattan from aboard the Staten Island Ferry.

Chinatown looks exactly like China.

For the first time in my life I found authentic tasting Chinese food in America. This is my favorite dish, shredded potatoes with peppers. It has vinegar in it too. It is to die for.

Little Italy didn't have the best Italian food, but we found good Italian food near the Federal Reserve Building.

Grand Central Station was one beautiful building.

Ticket office at Grand Central Station.

Grand Central Station

The news was about Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

This is how Manhattan looks from the New Jersey side, from the window of a moving bus. There is an underground tunnel linking the two.

That's all for now!