Asia

Yes! We're in Asia! We rolled off our 14 1/2 hour flight, took the train then the subway with three transfers and arrived at our hotel. If you're familiar with Hong Kong, the hotel was 1/2 block from Temple Street, the famous nightmarket. Since it was night, we walked over there to check it out and found a long flea market style market. The vendors had mostly touristy type stuff, but all the restaurants on the edges of the street were open and packed. The longest line for a restaurant was the one that served batter fried oysters.
The next morning we made our way to the Peak tram. At the top are amazing views of the Kowloon skyline and surrounding areas. It was a relatively clear day so we were able to see quite far.
 

We then took some different subways out to Laundau island, to go on the cable car and walk up to the largest Buddha. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, it was noon and the lines were a couple of hours long for each event. What we hadn't reckoned on was the fact that everyone in Hong Kong has Sunday off. We should have done this on Monday, but hey, we're new here. So instead, we went back to the Hong Kong waterfront and walked on Avenue of the Stars. Yep, all the famous Asian movie stars have a star on this walkway. It was a great place to drink some water and people watch.. While watching, we came up with a list of things that we've noticed so far, as in the "no" department. No dogs, no litter, no honking, no cleavage, no gangsta clothing, no graffitti, no napkins, no water at meals. I think we'll be able to add to the list. Obviously there is a huge Asian majority population here, but lots of Anglos also. The historical British influence is very prevalent.




It seems that we'd walked forever on Sunday, so we wanted to stay close to our hotel for dinner. Yelp wasn't much help but Jiro Googled our hotel location and found a nearby restaurant. Turns out, it is a classic old diner-type place, originally started in the 50's and still with the same decor, or lack of it. We walked over, sat down and the entire tabletop was covered in a menu in Chinese covered with glass. Hmmm, what to order? We thought of drawing little pictures of a fish, pig, cow, etc. but after a while the waitress brought us an abbreviated English menu. We had three dishes, all of which were very good.
Monday we took a double decker bus tour on Hong Kong island for most of the morning. We saw a lot of sights and learned some history. Then we tried to get our luggage out of the locker at the ferry terminal, but the locker malfunctioned.The newpaper vendor loaned us her cell phone to call the locker company.  In less than an hour, an attendant came and let our luggage out.
We took the ferry to Macau, which took one hour, and met up with Jiro's buddy Thad from jr. high. He's a pilot for a high roller on Macau who has several private jets for family and business. He wasn't flying that day so we had our own personal tour guide. Macau/Taipa is an amazing place. Of course the main thing is the gambling industry. Mr. Ho, Thad's boss owned the gaming rights for Macau up until 2000. So you can imagine his wealth. Picture a Chinese mafia person.His son is now on the development team for several of the major casinos.
Once you get past the gambling part of town, (why go to Vegas when you can come to Macua?), the town is really nice. It has a Portuguese influence, in fact it was turned over to China by the Portuguese in 1997. Many parts of the old town show that influence in the architecture, food, layout and feeling. The influence is dwindling fast because of the tremendous influx of Chinese who are building this new gambling mecca. The daily manual workforce numbers over 20K. From the hotel window, I saw a steady stream of 3 - 4 abreast workers from 6 am until we left at 8:30 walking into the main workforce check gate, It was hard to determine how many workers that might be, but Thad said they have so many workers that they stagger the arrival times.
Did I mention the dinner that Thad's father-in-law cooked us? It was a six course meal, each dish different, ranging from slow cooked meat + mushroom, to fish balls, mushroom with veggies, rape with mushrooms, spicy chicken and tofu with veggies. It was by far the best Chinese meal I've ever had. He served warm mulled wine with floating berries in it..And no rice was served with the meal. The next morning Thad took us to a Portuguese bakery and we had baked egg custard with fresh fruit cups and homemade yougurt with fresh raspberries. Yumm.
Next a ferry ride to the HK airport, and on to Hanoi. Goodbye China, we'll be back!




We arrived in Hanoi and it was pretty much culture shock. Going from a well developed area in China to a still developing area in Vietnam, I'm not sure we were quite prepared for that reality. But of course, after a couple of hours, we got used to it. You've heard about the driving here? The streets are packed with cars and scooters and motorcycles, about 2 million scooters are here in Hanoi. Drivers use the horn to warn other drivers of their location, which usually is within inches of the vehicle to either side, so there is a constant blaring of horns. We saw one scooter accident which was a little scary, but Jiro said it looked to be not very serious.
We spent the first day looking for apartments with a realtor. She was a young gal, an intern with a rental agency, homes4U. I had made arrangements via the internet and she had apts. lined up to look at. We went around the city, mostly in Westlake which is the expat area, but ended up going for the totally urban experience which is smack in the middle of downtown Hanoi. My building is very nice, newish with an elevator and several security doors. My 1 bedroom apt. is on the 5th floor, a very roomy place with all the regular ammenities including 3 times a week maid service and laundry included. It's called a service apt. My apt. is at the back of the building so the incessant street noise is very minimal.
Once you get onto the street from my building, you are in the thick of things. So far we've located a fruit stand and bakery for breakfast, and a little place that is good for dinner one block away. One of the gourmet high end restaurants is located on my block, not sure whether we'll go there or not.
Walking around and looking at the sights is what we're doing now, but we also are looking down at the sidewalks. They are built of interlocking concrete pieces and many of them are missing, tilted, above or below level, so you really have to watch your step. Good walking shoes are essential however ugly they may be.