Hong Kong: Travelling thorugh China with my mom

Okay -- I've seriously been missing-in-action, I KNOW! In case you don't know, my mother was visiting me in Hong Kong for the first time and I spent about two weeks travelling around China with her. It was a really memorable, really remarkable trip and pretty fulfilling for me personally because I was finally able to play tourguide to my mom.

Some of you who might know me only since I've moved to Asia might not be aware that I could barely speak any Chinese whatsoever before I set my heart on moving to China four years ago. Starting four years ago, I began preparing my way to move to China by teaching myself Chinese and visiting China for work/fun every three months. Finally, two years ago (2006) I finally moved to Xiamen (in Fujian, China) for a year and then finally to Hong Kong (now in month 16!).

I managed to do a fair amount of travel around China.

On the other hand, my mother -- born in Taiwan and immigrated to the United States in 1964 -- has never been to mainland China and was in Hong Kong in, well, 1964 -- on her way over to immigrating to the United States. As you can imagine, then, it's quite an experience for her to finally visit China for the first time and revisit Hong Kong 45 years later.


Over the next several days, I'm going to slowly release the dozens of photos that I took during the trip. It's not so much for your sake as it is for my family who was also concerned about her coming to China for the first time...

All in all, I think we both had a wonderful time.

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Hong Kong:
My mom is not really the heavy shopping-type so I limited our time in Hong Kong to just two full days. On Saturday, I took her to Causeway Bay where she did a brief amount of shopping while I met with the rest of the AnD boys. After that, we headed over to have dinner with the alivenotdead.com team and then to the Chanel Mobile Art Exhibition where Galleri Magazine was having an event. What fortuitous timing -- what women wouldn't want to go to an art exhibition centered around Chanel handbags? It was a pretty snazzy event and something different and distinctively Hong Kong for my mom. After the Chanel event, I took her to Victoria Peak were we were blessed with really beautiful, clear weather and a the best looking night I've seen in Hong Kong.

Sunday was more relaxed: We headed out to Shek O for lunch and a walk on the beach. We then headed over to Tsim Sha Tsui where I walked with her from the Avenue of the Stars down to Harbor City where we grabbed a meal. Finally, I brought her back to Hong Kong via the Star Ferry which she rode 45 years ago while visiting Hong Kong.

My mom was pleasantly surprised by Hong Kong: her impression in 1964 wasn't overly positive -- dirty and dangerous compared to the nicer parts of Taipei at the time. Her viewpoint has definitely changed.

Next album: Shanghai!