We spent Thanksgiving at Yee Po’s house this year. Woke up kinda early to get some food ready so we could head over sooner than later. I made prime rib and spam musubi and brought caeser salad and pumpkin pie and vanilla ice cream. Uncle chubber made the turkey (it was delicious!), mash potatoes, green bean caserole, mac-n-cheese, biscuits & gravy, and corn. We ate and ate and went back on Friday to eat again. After dinner, we looked through the ads in the newspapers to see which deals were good for black friday shopping.

Uncle Willy acting like she’s cooking

The turkey

Uncle Chubber and his amazing meal

The food

The gang hanging around

Checking out the black friday deals

We picked up our mail from the post office after returning from our trip and found several holiday catalogs and mailers. I still can’t believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving and Christmas is around the corner! We started our Christmas shopping last weekend. I’m determined to get done early this year.

Natalie’s like a broken record, “I want one too.” I keep telling her she’ll just have to add it to her wish list to Santa Claus. For the most part, she is ok with that. On Sunday, after a long day of shopping (2 malls & Costco!), we stopped for a warm bowl of yummy pho.

Saturday, November 15th, our last day in Asia. The Macau grandprix was going on and my uncle’s street was part of the racetrack. From his balcony, we were able to see the motorcycles and racecars race by. It was pretty exciting and loud. The motorcycles started practice runs around 8am! Since the road was closed, we had to walk our luggage down the road to a road that was open to traffic. From there my uncle hired a taxi to drive our luggage to the ferry station and the rest of us walked over. It was about a 15 to 20 minute walk which wasn’t so bad since we able to see the racecars zoom around. Plus it was a really nice day.

From the ferry station, we took the ferry straight to the Hong Kong airport. Our flight back was about 11.5 hours. On the way back, I caught strep throat, but at least the kids didn’t get sick. By the end of this trip, we were pretty exhausted and in desperate need of clean clothes! Overall though, it was a fun trip and we’re grateful to all the extra hands that helped handle Natalie and Tyler!

Uncle’s condo complex

Walking to the ferry station

Stanley Ho’s 4th wife’s house. Up the street from Uncle’s condo

Racecars

Grandprix grandstand

Here’s a video of the car’s racing by on uncle’s street as we were walking our luggage down the road

We arrived in Guangzhou on Wednesday, November 12th. A bus and tour guide came to pick us up at the Guangzhou airport and took us to our hotel. I think our tour guide was able to upgrade us to deluxe rooms, cause our rooms were really nice with a fantastic view of the city and river and the hotel itself was very nice too. Their buffet breakfast was very satisfying. By the time we arrived at the hotel, it was already dinner time and Po Po’s old college friend was waiting for us at the hotel with a dinner table reserved for us at the hotel restaurant. The food was magnificent! One of the best (and pricier – though still cheap compared to the US) meals we had in Asia. After dinner, the kids were beat. So we headed back to our rooms and called it a night.

The next morning after breakfast, our bus came to pick us up and took us to a few historic sites. Po Po’s friend came along to show us around as well since we were without a tour guide for the remainder of our trip, only a driver. For lunch, Po Po and Gong Gong met up with their old college friends whom they haven’t seen in 40 years. It was funny when we walked into the restaurant, they clapped. After lunch, they stayed to chat with their friends and the one friend who was acting as our tour guide took us shopping in an area close by. That afternoon we also met a great grand aunt and did more shopping. Our group decided to go watch a circus show at night, so they picked up some noodles to go (so cheap, only $1 per bowl) and we headed back to the hotel and dropped me and Tyler off. I figured he’d be too tired to watch a night show. So the two of us hung around the hotel and walked around the lobby shops and ordered some fried rice and just hung out and enjoyed our cool hotel room. It was fun & relaxing.

The next day, another bus driver came to drive us back to Zhu Hai. We did a little more shopping at an art and aquarium wholesale center and then headed back. We were eager to head back to Zhu Hai cause we wanted some more time in the underground shopping center. So after we got back to Zhu Hai, we had lunch at a restaurant close to the under ground shopping center and left our luggage there and then came back for dinner and picked up our luggage and then walked back across the border to Macau.

Po Po’s Friend

The Chen Palace

A ship carved from bone

The university where Po Po and Gong Gong met

Great grand auntie’s house

$1 noodles

View from our room

Underground shopping

Need a wallet?

Fauxlex anyone?

We arrived in Guilin on Sunday, November 9th and stayed for 3 days. A tour guide/bus picked us up from the airport. Our tour guide’s name was “Lisa”. She was nice and very attentive to our needs. And trust me, my group was needy! After checking into the Guilin Bravo hotel, which was a pretty nice hotel, we went downstairs and had dinner at the hotel restaurant. The food was blah. Guilin is famous for their rice stick noodles, but they only served it for breakfast at the hotel. After dinner, we had “free” time so we all decided to walk to the nearby shops and we picked up a few souvenirs and Natalie scored a pretty pink coat from one of her great aunties.

The next morning, we had a buffet breakfast at the hotel. The only item that was good was the Guilin rice noodles. After breakfast, our tour guide came to meet us at the hotel lobby and we went off on our first tour site: Chengyuan Palace. The place was old with a lot of history. We spent all morning here and then had lunch at a local restaurant that catered to tour groups it seemed. After lunch, we headed back to the hotel for a quick bathroom break (Natalie couldn’t go at the restaurant b/c she wasn’t used to squatters!) then we headed over to see some caves. The formations inside the cave were beautiful and they had lights to highlight certain formations that looked like vegetables or flowers or animals. The tour was given in Chinese, so I didn’t catch much of it, but they made it sound very poetic.

The next day we checked out and went to another part of Guilin. We had a 4 hour cruise down a river with beautiful scenery of the Guilin mountains. At the end of the cruise, we were dropped off at a tourist shopping area and then walked over to our hotel. That night, we watched an outdoor show that told stories of the traditional lives of the people of Guilin. The show was produced by the same guy that produced the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The next morning, after hitting a few more tourist traps we were dropped off at the airport – said good-bye to Lisa and flew back to Guangzhou.

Natalie’s new pink coat. She originally wanted a dress, but it didn’t fit.

A sidewalk vendor selling various cooked meats. That night, we saw a restaurant that advertised Rat specialities!

Tyler found the Pringles and wouldn’t let them go. He held them til he fell asleep. Talk about comfort food!

Chengyuan Palace

Bunny sitting over a well

At the Chengyuan Palace, we climbed to the top of a hill via ~270 stairs. It was tiring, but very refreshing at the top. Gong gong got half way and felt sick so he went back down.

Nat catching her breath at the top.

At the top of the hill, we got to dress up in traditional outfits and had our photos taken. Natalie was all over it, but Tyler was too busy running around.

Tyler was lucky, he got carried up and down the stairs.

At the bottom of the hill, there was this guy who did Chinese Calligraphy on scrolls or fans. You give him your name in Chinese and he writes a poem about it. A bunch of us lined up for these! I got a fan for myself ($35 Yuan)

Caves

Gong Gong at Elephant Hill park

River cruise

The back of the boat was the kitchen. They used a hose and pumped water from the river to wash the dishes.

I bought Natalie a Panda bear and she’s since replaced bunny with it.

Making silk

Girls dressed up in traditional Guilin outfits handstitching accessories

Tyler rubbing some buddha belly to get lucky

The outdoor show. Even though the show was outdoors, there were “no smoking” signs, but the darned Chinese tourists still smoked!

On our last day, Lisa brought us to an herbal shop where we got to have a foot spa in some medicinal herbs. Then they try to sell you all these improve your health drugs. bleh.

Tyler getting a free ride at the airport

After 10 days of being in polluted smokey air, Po Po remembers that she brought masks with her! It didn’t come at a better time. The airport was being painted and there was no air ventilation so the fumes were very heavy.

We literally walked over from Macau to China. It was wierd. We walked through one building and exited Macau and then walked to another building and entered China. On the China side, it was a mad house. People everywhere! And smoking! Everyone smokes there! It was very annoying. The city we entered into was called Zhu Hai. We checked into a Hotel nearby that was supposedly new, but stunk of cigarettes. In our room, there was a box on the nightstand that looked like a box of cigarettes for sale ($25Yuan), but David pointed out that they were condoms. Gross. After checking into the hotel, which was late afternoon on Saturday, November 8th, my aunt took us to this underground shopping mall that was walking distance from the hotel. It was like walking into heaven! I neglected to take a picture of this place cause I was too busy looking at things to buy (our time there was limited – and I was there with several women and we needed to stick together). This place had it all: Gucci, LV, Chanel copies galore! Art work, jewelry, clothes, shoes, food, everything! You also have to be good at bargaining. My aunt bought some scarfs, the price started at $70Yuan each and she got it down to 4 for $100Yuan. I was bummed, most of the clothes didn’t fit.

After being dragged away from the mall by the guys because it was way passed dinner time, my uncle took us to this seafood area. We walked down this alley way of live seafood sold by various vendors and you buy what you want and then take it to the restaurants behind there and they cook it to your liking. It was interesting. We picked up shrimp, eel, razor clams, fish, crab and oysters. Needless to say, the kids didn’t eat much that night. I think we ordered some chicken and they had that with rice. By the time we were done with dinner, it was pretty late. We headed back to our dirty hotel and called it a night. David said he saw 2 roaches in our room too.

The next morning, we had some quick dim sum for breakfast, checked out of the hotel and headed out to the Guangzhou airport via a 2 hour bus ride to head to Guilin.

Seafood alley

Raw Oysters

Raw fish & shark

Razor clams

Eel

Crab

Shrimp shells

Our bus to the Guangzhou airport

One of many of Tyler’s water bottles

Big Uncle enjoying a Chinese branded coca-cola

In Hong Kong, we were united with some additional relatives from San Jose/LA. Uncle Wen, Yee Po, Yee Po’s Friend, and George Gew Gong. They went on a tour in Taiwan while we were in Indonesia. From Hong Kong onward, we would spend the rest of our trip together as one big group. Having all these extra people around to help with the kids was great!

We arrived by ferry boat in Macau around 9pm on Friday, November 7th. The ride from Hong Kong was about an hour. In Macau, we stayed at my uncle Fe’s condo. It’s a pretty nice place with a great view of the bay. That night, some of the uncles and aunts went to the Venetian to check it out. All of the uncles pretty much got hit up by prostitutes. I heard they are very aggressive. They had some Vegas style games like Black Jack and Roulette, but also a variety of other strange Asian games as well.

The next day, we hired a bus driver to drive us around to tour Macau. We would only be in Macau for the day and that evening, we’d head over to China.

The view from uncle’s balcony was spectacular. He says on a clear day, you can see Hong Kong. They live on the 8th floor. He says alot of Casino loan sharks live in the building because of the Feng Shui.

The kitchen. Small and cute.

Outside the condo complex while waiting for the tour bus driver to arrive.

Packed in the bus like sardines. There were 14 of us plus the driver.

All throughout Asia, the kids got to sit freely in cars and busses without car seats. They loved it.

The wall is what’s left of a Church that burned down about 400 years ago.

Tyler on a canon pointed straight for the Grand Lisbon casino

Empress

Emperor

Tyler got tired and decided to just hang onto Nat

Big Uncle in front of a very old post office

Pizza Hut!

McDonalds!

A temple

We had some of the best dim sum in Macau.

Casinos

Casino construction. I was told that the casino business has slowed tremendously in Macau because China has limited it’s people to going to Macau only 3 times a year. Much of the business that kept the place booming all these years came from China. The Sands stopped contruction on new buildings and laid off 10,000 workers.

We arrived in Hong Kong on Thursday, November 6th shortly after noon. My parents’ friends rented a mini bus to pick the 7 of us (Po Po, Gong Gong, Big Uncle, Me, David, Natalie & Tyler) up plus our luggage. This was very convenient, because dragging all our luggage plus the kids on the train to the hotel would’ve been a challenge. We stayed at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Causeway Bay. It was right across from the Hong Kong Jockey Club. The hotel was cute and modern. In fact, most of Hong Kong is cute and modern. Our stay in HK was only 1.5 days. After checking into the hotel, David’s aunt came to pick us up and took her to her place for a visit. Then she took us for a late lunch and we had some delicious noodles. The kids really enjoyed riding the big busses. That night, we had dinner with Janet and Kai. Janet took us to this delicious fresh seafood place. The kids hit it off immediately. It was so cute listening to Kai speak with his British English and Cantonese. By the time dinner was done, the Tyler had passed out and Natalie was on the verge. Kai was so nice and invited us over to his place to play, but the kids were too tired.

After we got back to the hotel, we dropped sleeping Natalie and Tyler off with my parents and David, me, and Big Uncle went out and met David’s cousin Joann back at Causeway bay and she took us to the Kowloon side via MTR to shop at the night market and have some dessert. The night market wasn’t the same as it use to be and was a bit dissapointing. I did pick up a few Hello Kitty things though!

The next morning, we walked back to Causeway bay to hang around since we had time before having to check out of the hotel. That afternoon, we had dim sum at a private club near our hotel with some family. And afterwards, we hung around and then headed over to the ferry station to catch a ferry ride to Macau, our next destination!

View from the hotel room of the Jockey club

Another view from the hotel room

The hotel room

Davids uncle, aunt & niece

Kai & the kids

My future son in law

Dad, I want this TV for my birthday. (103 inches!!!)

Hanging around Causeway Bay

Dim sum with family

Outside the HK Jockey Club on our way back from dim sum

We arrived in Jakarta in the early afternoon on Sunday, November 2nd. It was hot and humid! It took us forever to get to our luggage. First we had to wait in a line for a Visa on Arrival. This took almost an hour and Tyler was being very fussy throughout. I was at the verge of cracking at this point. Then we had to wait in an immigration line, which went a little faster. The Jakarta airport is very shady. They use chalk to mark certain luggage, so if you have that mark you get dragged into a room for “customs” to search your bag. Needless to say, 2 of our bags were marked. There were some “luggage helpers” waiting by our luggage and pointed out those marks to us and said to me “Customs.” I said “Ok.” But these guys took us straight through to the “Nothing to Declare” line and right out of the airport. I guess they knew my dad was going to grease them (which he did).

We spent 5 days in Jakarta. Only because my grandmother on my Dad’s side lives there along with 3 of his brothers. The traffic is really bad and there are no rules on the road it seems. Many times, I had to close my eyes in fear we would be in an accident. In all the years my uncle has been driving there, he hasn’t been in one accident. Unbelieveable.

The kids have been fortunate to know 2 great-grandmothers now. Only this one in Jakarta still alive and well. She’s ~87. Yoeng Hie Wong.

We stayed in hotels during our stay in Jakarta A) I wanted the comfort of A/C, B) hot water. The first hotel we checked into, was dimly lit. My uncle selected this hotel for us because it was close to my grandma’s house and “new”. The hotel had no hair dryer, no hot water, you couldn’t make outgoing calls, and their complimentary breakfast was gross! Yet, the room came with 2 flat panel TVs (but only one remote control). We checked out the next morning and found a more suitable hotel that was also close by.

The first night, Natalie woke at 4am and decided she wanted to drink milk. This pic was actually taken of her sitting in the dark, but you can’t tell b/c of the flash. It took the kids about 4 days to adjust to the local time.

This little boy is the same age as Tyler, potty trained, and is also Tyler’s “uncle”. His name is Andre. Natalie took this picture.

Natalie snapping pics of herself and her great uncle

The kids playing superman and wondergirl in the hotel room.

Take me back to the US please!!!

The second night, Natalie got up at 4am and decided to draw.

Big Uncle enjoying a can of “Pocari Sweat”. It tasted a little like cactus cooler.

The view from our second hotel

Having lunch at a local Indonesian restaurant

We stopped for some refreshments at the mall and my uncle ordered these shave ice desserts, but I wouldn’t let the kids have any because the water they use to make the ice was likely not clean. I felt bad for the kids, but better safe than sorry!

Since our visit was almost like a family reunion, we hired a photographer to come take some family pictures.

Having dinner at Great Grandma’s house

The food.

Good-Bye Jakarta!

Our flight was at 6am, so the kids were pretty tired by the time we boarded the plane.

Mom’s happy with peaceful kids.

Onward to Hong Kong!

Our flight departed at 12:10am on 11/01. First stop, Taipei Airport where we had a 4 hour layover before our connecting flight to Jakarta. The flight time was 14.5 hours. The kids did good at first, Natalie even sat with Big Uncle. Both slept for at least 8 hours too. They were nice a comfy and got to lie down. But after they woke up, they started getting cranky, especially Tyler. He had a melt down on every flight throughout the trip. At first, they enjoyed getting the lunch trays but after awhile, they got sick of it and didn’t want to eat at all. We weren’t prepared for the ear pressure pain they encountered and they cried during the descent of the flight. I could tell people around us were annoyed, but what could we do? Funny enough, a caucasian woman who sat a few rows back from us said to me how well behaved the kids were given the flight time while we were departing the plane, but I said to her “You didn’t sit close enough” and she laughed.
After hanging out at the Taipei airport for about 4 hours, we got on our flight to our first destination: Jakarta. Flight time was about 5 hours. Tyler was even crankier on this flight. Cried several times and would not want to stay in his seat when we had to keep our seat belts on. We got alot of evil eyes from neighboring seat holders.

David and the kids shared a bowl of yummy beef stew noodles at the Taipei airport