Just DeWitt

9gag:

Sweet dreams!

Today was the day we go home to San Diego. Tim and Grandma were ready. I was not. We packed up our things and Tim and I went to the train station to check our baggage because we wouldn’t have room in the car. We took a taxi back to the apartment and Rob and Seirei drove us all to the airport. In the car, a song called “Dream a Little Dream” came on and I teared up. We checked in Grandma’s baggage and got Starbucks while we waited to board the plane. We said goodbye and that we’d see each other plus Maya, Seirei’s unborn child, in December and I sobbed embarrassingly.

On the plane, Tim sat a row behind me and I ended up sharing a row with two law students from Loyola. One girl had family in HK and the other was her friend and went to UCLA for undergrad. They were nice. I slept a lot more on the plane coming back then going there. When we landed, we found Grandma. Taking Grandma in a wheelchair is like Disneyland. We got to cut all the lines. My mom and Gigi picked us up, and, just like Rob, took us to dinner as soon as we got to San Diego.

The most obvious things I learned are: When you are in another country, the two most important things to learn are the currency exchange rate and how public transportation works. I also learned that all the DeWitts are obsessed with food in one way or another, and it is a very small world after all. :)

Today was the day I was supposed to go home. My flight was scheduled to leave at 12:55pm and I got up at 8am. Rob called the apartment from work at 9:30am to let me know that my flight was confirmed for Saturday and I could fly home with Tim and Grandma if I wanted to stay another day. Of course I did! I emailed Rafael and decided to spend the day with him. We met up at the ferry landing and took the ferry over to Macau, another special administrative region (SAR) of China. HK and Macau are both SARs of China, and Macau is like the Las Vegas of Asia. 

We met Rafael’s friend, Simon, when we got to Macau. Simon is from China and had been to Macau several times. He was our personal tour guide. Macau was originally colonized by Portugal, so Simon took us to see the Old Macau and admire the Portuguese architecture and Catholic churches. We got to try some tropical fruits from roadside stands. Durian is spiky yellow fruit as big as a watermelon. Its smell is so strong that it has been banned from certain hotels and public transportations. Its flesh was mushy and I didn’t like it but Simon called it “ice cream” and he and Rafael loved it. Lychee is a little better known in the States. It can be pronounced lee-chee or lye-chee. Lychee remind me of rambutan, a fruit we tried at dinner at Shamu’s house. Both fruits have a reddish husk and a white fruit with a seed. Rambutan is hairy, but lychee is not. They tasted the same to me, like grapes but sweeter. I had Rafael try mangosteen, which Rob called “a cross between a banana and a grape.” I thought, since you have to peel it like a pomegranate, that it should be a banana, grape, pomegranate hybrid, but Rafael said it was nothing like a pomegranate at all. Lastly, we got some egg tarts, a traditional pastry in HK. It was like a mini custard pie and so good! Rafael said in Portugal it’s called pasteis de nata. 

Next we went to the Hackett Macau Tower, popular for viewing the city. There were lots of people bungee jumping and sky walking. You can pay to be strapped into a harness and walk along a walkway on the outside of the tower. The viewing floor is glass and you can look down and see the street or the ocean, depending on what side you’re on. 

We stopped for lunch at a place that Simon said served Portugese/Asian food. We had clams, Portuguese style chicken, curry chicken, and pigeon. The pigeons were small and not worth the trouble, but the rest of the food was delicious. After lunch Simon took us to New Macau, the side with the casinos. We didn’t gamble, but Simon and Rafael wanted to go shopping, so we looked at fancy watches for what seemed like forever in the Venetian, a copy of the hotel in Las Vegas. There was a waterway with gondolas right in the mall where people could take a ride under bridges. One of the gondoliers was singing off-key. Rafael and I walked around the mall and then went and saw a dancing water dragon show that was amazing! We thanked Simon and said goodbye and took the ferry back to HK. 

By the time we got back, everyone was at dinner, so Rafael took me to a British restaurant and we had fish and chips, probably my first fried thing in HK because Rob is so health conscious. It was so good! We walked around Causeway Bay until it was time to go home. 

Today Tim was still sick so I set out by myself on a hike. I was planning on going to Tai Long Wan, a beach in Sai Kung. I took the train for about 40 minutes and then a minibus for another 40 minutes. I was supposed to take a second minibus from Sai Kung to the trail head, but the second minibus came at 12:00 or 3:30 and I was there at 12:30. This was the first public transportation in HK I encountered that had such a spread out schedule. Every other bus or train came every 2 minutes and the ferry comes every 30 minutes. I didn’t want to wait that long at the Sai Kung Pier for the bus, so I took the bus and train back to the apartment. 

For dinner, Rob and Seirei took us all to Linguini Fini again. Tim and Grandma were feeling better and they felt like spaghetti. After dinner, Rob and Seirei took me up to Sevva on the Prince’s Building for a few drinks and to see the view. Rafael met us up there later. It was so fancy! Everyone up there was wearing dress shirts. In the building next to us, we could see people still working in their offices at 9:00 at night!

Today Tim and I went back to Chop Street to pick up the chops he had left to get engraved. He dropped another one off to get engraved and we walked around and looked at stuff for an hour while we waited for it. When we went to pick it up, the chop guy showed Tim how he engraved them and gave Tim one for free that said “Lucky.” After that, Tim said he wasn’t feeling well so we took a taxi home. Tim was in bed the rest of the day. 

I didn’t feel like sitting in the apartment, so I took a jog up where Rob showed us he runs. Bowen Road Fitness Trail gets used by two kinds of people: rich people and their maids. The rich people run and the maids are either walking the dogs or the children. I found a waterfall at Bowen Road Garden Park. At the end of my jog was Lover’s Stone Garden. Young girls go there to light incense and pray for good husbands or strong sons. 

When Rob and Seirei got home we left Tim at the apartment and went and got noodles at the Peak. The plastic chopsticks were so slippery that the waiter saw me struggling and brought me a fork! But I persevered. I was not going to be the one person in there not using chopsticks. We waited in a cafe while Rob made a phone call and I saw Pepsi for the first time in Hong Kong in the deli.

After dinner, I took a taxi over to Grappa’s Cellar for swing dancing. The swing dancers were so nice! I noticed, however, that HK swingers don’t apologize if they run into you, but the dance floor was so small and there were so many people that I could see why. Everyone was constantly bumping into everyone else. The shim sham was a little different. Can you find me in this video? Towards the end, the teachers taught us a choreographed piece of the Big Apple to honor Frankie Manning, inventor of lindy hop. I’m wearing a grey shirt in this video. 

Today Tim and I went to see Noah’s Ark. We took a ferry out to Ma Wan. The outside of the “life size” replica of Noah’s Ark was cool. We took pictures. But the inside was not what we expected. We expected it to look like an ark inside. It was mostly little kid educational stuff about everything from classical music and art to the human body. We made “Taiwan Love Cake” which turned out to be two washcloths rolled up and stuffed in a cupcake liner and we watched a 5 minute video about an asteroid destroying the earth. The rest of the ark looked like a resort. There were banquet halls and the top floor was a hotel-type layout where people could book a room. The whole experience was not really worth the HK$22 ferry and HK$130 admission (about $20). Outside the Ark Park, there was a nice-ish beach (Ma Wan Tung Wan Beach) with a bunch of small cafes. The beach was nice and it was a nice day, so we laid down and took a nap. The water had trash in it, so we didn’t go in. We got some milk tea and Tim bought a garlic bun and took the ferry back. He wanted to buy more presents so we shopped a little by Central station. He got a pretty good deal on Chop Street. We took the longest outdoor covered escalator home. For dinner, we ordered in Mexican food. It was ok, but didn’t really taste much like Mexican food. 

Today I had a terrible time getting Tim out of bed. That boy sleeps so much, but he is a growing teenager. We talked about going to the Noah’s Ark replica theme park on Ma Wan, but Tim got up too late, so went to Causeway Bay for more shopping. I didn’t need to buy anything so I gave Tim free rein. After two blocks, he decided he didn’t like deciding where to go. He preferred to follow because, “leading is a big responsibility!” I’m glad he appreciates me now. :) The Times Square in Causeway Bay is an 8 story shopping mall. They didn’t really have what Tim was looking for; they mostly had stores we have in the U.S. At 4pm we had a Chinese Tea Appreciation class in Hong Kong Park at the Lok Cha Tea Shop. We got to try several different teas and see how each is brewed diffently. The teacher was from California! Timmy liked the green tea so much he bought some and came home and brewed some for Grandma and Seirei. For dinner, everyone ordered in from Life Cafe, but I had plans to meet up with someone I had met from Holland. Rafael and I went to the Peak and ate crab. We took the tram back down the mountain and walked around SoHo before I went home. 

Today Grandma felt good enough to go out with us. We all went to Stanley, a popular tourist spot with beaches and shopping. Grandma, Rob, and Seirei sat in a cafe and watched adorable children play while Timmy and I checked out the market. We learned how to haggle with the local vendors. Aftward, Rob took us to the Jumbo Floating Restaurant, which is exactly what it sounds like. We took a ferry out to the restaurant which I think had maybe 3 floors and a nice view of the city. We were surprised it didn’t move at all. We got to try Peking duck, which was delicious. When we got home, we watched Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and I cried 5 times.

Today we woke up late and Grandma wasn’t feeling well. Rob, Seirei, Tim, and I went to the HK International Art Fair. It was huge. We only had time to see a little of it. We all loved all the modern, postmodern and pop art. We could have easily spent the whole weekend there.
When we got home, Grandma was coughing a lot, so Rob took her to the doctor. They gave her antibiotics and a cough suppressant. Rob picked up pizza on the way home. The crust was so thin!
After dinner, Rob and Seirei took me out dancing. We first went to Cafe Grey to see the view of HK at night. It was beautiful and it was a spectacular view, but we got seated next to a foggy window so I couldn’t take a good picture. Next we went to a salsa club where we met a couple of Rob’s friends. They were French and did not salsa. I tried to teach them, but Estebon’s English wasn’t so good and it was loud in there. I danced with Seirei and then she asked a guy to dance with me. He was very good and I had a lot of fun.
We went to another dance club that the French guys knew about and it was very crowded. There were a couple girls with lit cigarettes on the dance floor and they were waving them around. We were afraid they would burn a hole in Rob’s shirt or light someone’s hair on fire!
Ron took us on a quick tour of the clubs that people my age go to, but we didn’t go in. It was nice to hear music I recognized. The next club was checking IDs and Seirei didn’t have hers so she went home. I met a guy there from Santa Monica.
Last, Rob took me to Azure, which seemed to be a Western tourist hot spot. I made some friends and I danced with an Asian girl, but I didn’t get any of their names because it was too loud. When the club closed and the music turned off, I heard someone behind me say, “That is SO fetch!” I turned around and said, “Stop trying to make fetch happen. It’s not going to happen.” And that’s how I met the New Yorkers.

Today was a chill day for Timmy, but I had HK to conquer. I started with a tai chi class at 8 am in front of the HK Museum of Art. I walked to the ferry from the apartment, took the ferry over to TST and walked to the Museum. Tai chi is a very slow martial art. At the end of the class, the instructor and his daughter did a demonstration of how you can use tai chi to defend yourself. Their choreographed display looked like a dance. It was beautiful. 

On the way to my feng shui class in Mong Kok, I stopped at a bakery to find wife cake. I also got a doughnut type pastry filled with a cheesy cream that had blueberry sauce on top. It was delicious. It was pouring rain by this time and I hadn’t brought an umbrella because last week it would sprinkle but it wasn’t really real rain. This was serious rain. By the time I got to the class, I was soaked through. The instructor let me into the washroom and I rung my shirt and socks out in the sink. The instructor said that there are codes for rain in HK: amber, red, and black. Black is almost typhoon status. Amber means kindergarteners don’t have to go to school. This rain was amber. It wasn’t heavy enough to cancel the class but apparently it was heavy enough to keep the 10 other people who were signed up from coming. The teacher gave me a 10 minutes spiel on feng shui and some handouts and sent me on my way. 

I hadn’t had coffee yet so I searched for a Starbucks. My Starbucks card worked in HK! Here, if you’re not going to leave the coffee shop, they will give you an actual mug. My feet hurt from walking, so I sat and sipped and used their 20 free minutes of wifi. 

When I got home, I worked on my art journal. That night Tim and I went with Rob and Seirei to their friend’s house. Shamu and Kaya are very nice. They ordered a French chef to come to their house and cook us dinner. There was so much food! It was good and filling. The risotto needed salt, but we didn’t want to inSALT the chef by asking for it, Rob said. Shamu can control his stereo with his iPhone so everyone with iPhones took turns putting on music from their phones, which was super cool.