Home Sweet Home

We did it, our big family adventure. Our fantastic, fun, colorful, delicious, exhausting, whirlwind tour adventure of Hong Kong, Macau, China, and Bangkok. 

And for myself, an added emotional adventure outside my neat little box of a world. Am I a changed woman since this awesome trip? Yes and no. I'm still a stickler for time and planning and preparation. I'm still the go-from-point A-to-point B type person. It's just now for every unexpected "leaf" that should fall my way, I know how to walk around it and be ok. :-)

Floating Market in Bangkok

Family picture at the Peak on our last day

All in all a FANTASTIC, glad-not-to-have-missed, worthy-of-truancy-letters life adventure for the whole family. Would not have changed a thing. Well, maybe 2 things:

1.  Not being so late for our modes of transportations and holding up our China tour group (who could not be rid of us soon enough. Pretty sure they hated us by the end of the tour. Can't confirm because was instructed not to make eye contact as we breathlessly boarded the impatient buses and ferries full of glaring people. Luckily they were mostly from HK and not from China. Heard those folks can spit. Literally heard it a few times. In fact, did you know that people there wore face masks not for fear of germs so much as spit? Yikes. The images that thought provokes. Problem is not so bad these days since the fining of public spitting since the Olympic games some years back.)

2.  Not buying out the entire floating market in Bangkok of any and all things my Baht-loaded wallet could buy. Hang the price haggling next time. Jim says it's about the principle of it all. One must haggle or be willing to walk away. Well, next time I know better. It's not about the principle to me. It's about the bottom line: I want it, therefore I will have it.  Because I will not wait another 35 years to taste the fruit of my childhood. Alas, in this trip it was an opportunity missed. Never again. I will be back Bangkok!

HK skyline taken from the highest point: The Peak

Good to be home. But already we miss HK and family there.

HK, Days 12/13/14 - Final days in HK

With all the running around we did the last week or so, we decided to stay in HK on our last 3 days. We wanted to make sure we did all the things we wanted to do: re-visit areas we loved, eat at restaurants we especially enjoyed, and visit last minute tourist attractions (Jockey Club and the Peak).


Highlights:
- Wandering leisurely through the streets in the early morning, while munching on baked goods and taking as many pics as I wanted.


-  Visiting the Hong Kong Jockey Club and finally having a beer. Didn't realize how badly I needed that. I showed great restraint in not grabbing the entire pitcher from Nicole's hands. Poor girl. As it was, she and her friend had to listen to my loosened tongue go on and on about my waay out of my box adventures and all the "walking around leaves" I've learned to do. Good thing her friend was from Canada because there was no way a non-English speaker could have understood me. I spoke a mile a minute in an effort to express all my suppressed anxiety of the last few days. Truly, I could have sat there drinking and expounding for hours but Jim and Aunt Mary had already left. Therapy session over. It felt good. Thanks for lending your ears, Nicole and Dave. :-)


- The view from the Peak was amazing and the weather was perfect and I had Thai young coconut gelato (See my blog entry, "I taste a memory..." at my uponfurtherthought.blogspot.com).




Horse racing

Nicole and Mary

Early morning walk through the city.

Fresh fish

Bakery shop hopping

Difficult to jay walk when one didn't know where the cars were coming from. These street reminders helped.

Dinner with Jim's relatives. Can't remember the name of the lovely restaurant, known for their sweet crab below.

Family dinner in HK

Sunset at The Peak

Josh the videographer.

Sunset at the Peak. 

Beautiful view of HK skyline from the Peak.

Goofin' off at the Peak. 

Waiting for tram to go down the Peak.

Misc. city shots

Taste testing beef jerky.

See? Not always crazy crowded.

Those double-decker buses are fun. Especially when you sit up front, top level.

Time Square area.

Brothers at the street markets.

The Lee gals.

Maci and Calleigh.

Maci waiting for her sugarcane juice.

Night life at Causeway Bay.

Our last meal on our last night. Simple rice in claypot with meat and veggies. Just as delicious as our fine dining.