Tokyo trip

About a month ago, I had the chance to take off for a long weekend by using my personal days at work and head to Tokyo. My parents and sister met me there before they came to visit Hong Kong. We were able to stay with my Uncle Bill and he gave us the royal treatment of touring us around the city, feeding us to our heart's content, and taking us to Kamakura, outside of Tokyo. It was cherry blossom season, so the scenery was absolutely beautiful. It was such a great feeling to be with family again and to see the city where my mom grew up. I loved Tokyo and I'm looking forward to going back there soon.

Japanese garden

This is a prayer tree at the Meiji shrine.

We were able to witness many wedding parties on this Sunday afternoon.

Walking through Kamakura with Uncle Bill, Masami, my mom and Laura

Everywhere was simply beautiful.

At a cemetary near Uncle Bill's house.

Family picture by the Big Buddha.

Family visit

After we met in Japan, my family was here to visit me in Hong Kong. We've been talking about this trip for about 2 years now, and it just such a great experience for all of us to be over here together. Mom, dad, and Laura were here for almost 2 weeks, and I think I completely exhausted them with sight-seeing and touring. We fit in a lot (much of it involving food): dim sum, Indian food, visits to the HK harbor, the "Peak", shopping in the markets at Stanley and Mong Kok, foot reflexology, a visit to the fish market and pier, a Macau day trip, seeing museums, and some of my daily life here (work, home, church, friends, etc). Since we've all settled into life again, it's been so great to be able to talk and refer to certain places here and have them finally understand what I'm talking about! we went to Sai Kung and had a great fresh Chinese seafood dinner. Laura got a little addicted to the Mango juiceboxes at 7-11, so here we are posing by the pier.
Sai Kung pier
Well, this picture was actually taken in Japan, because I couldn't find a Hong Kong picture of the 4 of us where we all had our eyes open at the same time!

We went to see the Cantonese opera one night. Quite the experience...
I wanted my friends to meet my family, so we all went out for Italian food one night after work.

Hong Kong's harbor on a rare clear day

Olympic Torch Relay on Buddha's Birthday

Here are some spectators and their umbellas... an image that will forever be associated with Chinese people for me.
Here comes the torch...
Tour groups from mainland China. It's quite easy for me to now tell mainland Chinese people apart from Hong Kong Chinese people.




the "coca-cola" parade before the actual torch
Excited fans...many people wore red and gold to show their patriotism.
The torch!
Police presence was quite heavy. Although nothing happened, there were many threats of protests and uprisings.

Here are some schoolchildren who decorated t-shirts and had a special day out for the torch relay. I happened to be walking past just as they were posing for their group picture.

This past Friday, we had another day off for a Chinese holiday- Buddha's birthday. It happened to coincide with the Olympic torch relay going through Hong Kong. In fact, all of the Olympic equestrian events will held in Hong Kong, rather than Beijing, so this event was especially significant for many people. We live quite close to the racecourse, so we were able to walk from our apartment complex to see part of the torch relay along the road. Most people were quite excited and there was a general feeling of goodwill in the air.

recent pictures and events

Some work colleagues and friends out for a happy hour at the "speak easy", one of the only pubs close to our house!
We decided to go out in this "typhoon 3" one day...the streets were completely flooded.
We've been karaoking quite a bit lately...here's our remote from "J-Sound", which is a Japanese karaoke place. Somehow we managed to figure out the remote even though there was no English to be found!

This weekend we went to a barbeque on a friend's rooftop. Here's my good friend Kelly and I.
Some common signs on the MTR (the public train system). I thought this one was especially funny because it was all of them together on one poster.
Most Mondays, I go to a trivia night at a British pub, where we play a few rounds of trivia against other teams. We usually do pretty well, except for the sports questions, which are all aimed at people who watch soccer, cricket, and rugby (most popular sports around here).