Shopping trip to Hong Kong

This is the massive Hong Kong airport...I'm glad that I have always been with more seasoned travelers when I've had to use it! My El Salvadorian friend, Lupita, needed to take a trip to Hong Kong to close a bank account as she prepares to move to the U.S. and she graciously allowed me to tag along with her on a quick, two day trip. She knows all the great shopping areas and is a wonderful person--a great combination!
The famous view across Victoria Harbor from Hong Kong island to the Kowloon side (if I remember correctly!) I never got to see this view at night, but it is reported to be pretty awesome when all the buildings are lit up. Hong Kong is a confusing mix of island and mainland components that I can never keep straight. Again, I like to travel with those who know more than I do and are not so directionally impaired.
Clock tower at the harbor. This place was almost deserted, though I imagine that's not always the case.
This is for my girls! Hong Kong is such a shopping and fashion mecca and it shows in the cabs. We only have green, blue, yellow and purple cabs in Xiamen, none that I've ever seen with advertisements quite like this. And, is it just me, or does this cab look like an English throw-back to the times of colonialism? Of course I benefited from this city's past as it left a legacy of spoken English.
Shopping at the night market, also called the Ladies' Market. We didn't find too much to buy here but did get some cute little things for the kids. This is the site of some terrible acid attacks, one of which happened when we were in HK for visa changes last October. A disagreement had escalated and a man returned to the market and splattered a bottle of acid across several stalls, blinding one man (with whom he had a money dispute) and injuring several bystanders. There have been other random attacks with people dropping open bottles of acid from windows onto the throngs of people below!
This is a long, narrow alley with stalls on both sides; we had to squeeze through the aisles at times. Sometimes we felt that the shopkeepers' knowledge of English was a detriment since they could then understand our discussions with each other! If I was more confident in my Spanish we could've used that language, but my vocabulary isn't great. Speaking of that, one day back in Xiamen we were having a pedicure together and were able to converse in Spanish when we didn't want the people to know what we were saying. I felt triumphant to be able to finally turn the tables--it really becomes tiresome to not understand what is being said all around me, no matter how hard I try to learn. Of course I get it that this is China and I should adapt to Chinese or suffer the consequences but it takes time.
One of the many malls we visited--I don't recall how many stories it had, but there were a lot! This is the inner courtyard, showing the corridors and the floating escalator. Lupita knew of many shops that I was not familiar with and we spent quite a bit of time looking for clothes. It was so great to find sizes that actually fit "Western" bodies and not just the under-100-pound frames that most Chinese women seem to sport. We were able to score quite a few good buys and I stuffed the extra duffle bag I had brought with clothes for myself and the rest of my family, cosmetics with familiar brand names, hard-to-find food items like lentils and split peas (and chocolates and cookies from Marks and Spencer!) and a few souvenirs.
We had purchased Octopus cards in the airport that allowed us to use the airport train into the city and then subways and cable cars throughout the city. We rode the tall, skinny cable car just once and it was fun. We took seats on the second story for a better view and I wished my kids could've come along for the ride! This was a quick trip but I think we walked about 50 miles judging by the state of my feet and were able to enjoy some lovely sandwiches the likes of which I've never seen in our part of China, did some successful shopping, saw a few sites and enjoyed a much-needed getaway!

What's all that noise?

A few weeks back Amanda said she didn't feel well and needed to stay home from school...I wasn't so sure that she was actually sick, but decided not to chance it. Her room is located in the back side of our apartment or, as we call it these days, the cold side. I'm directionally impaired, but I think it is the north side and doesn't get any sunshine. She and I were huddled under her covers, watching Lost on my laptop when I heard a loud voice and music. When I finally looked out her window, I saw that there was some type of presentation going on in a seemingly empty lot that is next to a construction site behind our place. A lady was yelling into a microphone (that's the way it's done here) at a group of people seated under a temporary shelter. This is the view, with just a little bit of zoom, from the window.
A closer view of the action--of course I couldn't understand any of the yelling, but we figured that it was the ground-breaking ceremony for yet another apartment building. I could not tell how those giant gold lantern/ball things were suspended so high in the air, but I guess they were attached to the construction cranes.
Next came loud music and a dance extravaganza! We watched as these big puppet guys danced around and put on a show (I found out later that it was probably the traditional lion dance--will post pictures of the one performed at the kids' school for Chinese New Year soon).
It was hard to get a good picture, but several times there were loud explosions and tons of gold confetti was shot into the air. Here is the aftermath!
We went back to watching our show. When I looked again about an hour later, this is what I saw. Seems that the ceremonial stuff had to be taken back to the rental place right away! We will continue to monitor the progress of this building from our 15th floor vantage point, but we hope the loud banging at all hours of the day and night that usually means construction around here doesn't disturb our peace too much.

Hiking the weather station path

Very near our home lies a high hill with a weather station perched atop. We'd heard that it offered a nice little hike and a great view but had not tried it ourselves until a beautiful Sunday in late January. (I refused to consider a hike during the very hot months of August, September and even part of October and then forgot about it during the more temperate months that followed!). This is the main entrance to the hiking path--we could tell that there were other entrances for both pedestrians and cars but are unsure of their beginning points. I suppose this place has a name, but we don't know what it is!
Oops, my head was not supposed to be in this picture--notice the round, white thing peeking over the treetops. That is the top of the weather tower.
This is the back side of the "mountain," looking out toward the shipping yards and across the water to the mainland. Even on this nice, sunny day only the closest buildings were in clear view as the distant haze shrouded the far-lying locals. But we know that our hometown tends to be gray for pretty much all of January and February, so we didn't complain!
About half way up the climb the tower loomed large. We had to walk in the road since the path only covered part of the distance, but not many cars came up this way. Many people we saw were wearing winter coats but I was down to my sleeveless shell by this point! The general population seems to focus more on the calendar than the actual weather when deciding on wardrobe choices...I could not disagree more!
We reached the plaza at the foot of the tower. Pretty anticlimactic as we couldn't find out much about the weather station itself, but maybe a reader of Chinese characters would have been able to appreciate it more.
See the smog? I would've called this a clear day before seeing this view. Xiamen is considered to be one of the cleaner cities in China, thanks to the proximity to the ocean (I guess?). I've heard that one can actually taste the air in Beijing and Shanghai and it's not pleasant, so we are certainly glad to not have that situation here, but we have noticed lately that we are congested all the time. We assume this is a physical reaction to the air quality or possibly our allergies flaring up. Either way, it is unpleasant but not unbearable.
Another close-up shot. Our daughters like to say that this is a giant golf ball and golf tee set up. I wish I knew more about this thing...
Gotta love signs like this...I know we have funny signs in the US too, but I couldn't resist.
This is apparently a tea cafe of some sort. There was a little stand that sold small, packaged snacks and tea (served in Xiamen-style sets made up of a tray with a receptacle underneath to catch the spillings, a small pot with a wire mesh insert to hold the tea leaves, tweezers to hold the little cups while sterilizing the cup edges in a cup of hot tea and a number of shot-glass sized tea cups). We don't really know how to order tea and all the tables were taken so we didn't spend much time here. Even though this is right in our neighborhood and people tell us that we live in the "foreigner" area, we were the only non-Asians to be found. It was a nice day and a nice walk that I might try a few more times before the heat begins to blast us again...