All Apologies

I am sorry. I have no excuse for taking so long to write. There was some serious slacking on my part. And the last thing I left you with was a picture of the thousand-year-old egg. I apologize once again. This may be the longest void between posts so far. I'll try not to top it in the future.

Where to start? We're coming home to visit!!! On March 2, we will have been here for one whole year (I know!). I thought we would have been home to visit before now, but finally after a year, we'll be home from March 12-26. We are really looking forward to the trip. What we have planned so far is a list of foods we want. If you want to see us, I'll let you know where we'll be eating throughout the New York area. And if anyone is inclined to show up at JFK Airport on March 12 to greet us with a big bag of bagels, no one's stopping you.

In other travel news, we are going to Bangkok, Thailand tomorrow. We stay there for one night (can you see the title of the next blog coming?) and then we head over to Siem Reap, Cambodia where the temple ruins of Angkor Wat are. Then we return home Sunday. We're on the move a lot in the next month, but it's not as intense as when we flew home from the Philippines and left four days later for a two week stretch including multiple flights throughout Australia.

Locally, we finally did something cultural and/or touristy on the "To Do in Hong Kong" list. We took a trip to what is known as The Big Buddha.

According to good old Wikipedia:

Tian Tan Buddha, also known as the Big Buddha, is a large bronze statue of the Buddha, completed in 1993, and located at Ngong Ping, Lantau Island, in Hong Kong. The statue is located near Po Lin Monastery and symbolizes the harmonious relationship between man and nature, people and religion. It is a major center of Buddhism in Hong Kong, and is also a popular tourist attraction.

The Buddha is 34 metres (110 ft) tall, weighs 250 metric tons (280 short tons), and was the world's tallest outdoor bronze seated Buddha prior to 2007. It reputedly can even be seen from as far away as Macau on a clear day. Visitors have to climb 268 steps in order to reach the Buddha, though the site also features a small winding road to the Buddha for vehicles to accommodate the handicapped.

I think it's kind of amusing that it's not simply the world's biggest Buddha but the world's tallest outdoor bronze seated Buddha prior to 2007. That's a lot of qualifications. It's like saying that I cannot definitively be labeled as the world's slowest moving person, UNLESS I am going out to a nice place and I want my hair to look smooth and want the certain makeup look with the extra eyeliner and I'm wearing an outfit that requires a decision on which shoes match best. Oh, and I also need to switch my purse. Then I might qualify. Feel free to add the entry on me in Wikipedia.

We took a train over to Lantau Island, the same island on which the airport is located. Then you can take a 25 minute cable car ride over to the Buddha with mountainous views along the way. We almost turned back once we arrived at the cable car station because the wait was one hour, but we were on a mission and I'm glad we got it over with - I mean, I'm glad we ended up completing the journey. One of the cable cars fell a few months back but fortunately nobody was in it at the time, so sure, that was in my mind as we glided over the mountains. Ultimately, we came; we saw the Buddha; we waited on line again to return home. If you want to be sure there are a lot of people in China, visit the Big Buddha.

Chinese New Year just ended. It's the year of the Ox. Everything has been decorated in red and gold and there are kumquat trees and flowers everywhere. It was fun to experience the festive atmosphere, which you could really feel in the air. For a couple of days, it was also one of the quietest times I've ever witnessed in this city because it's generally a time of family celebration so shops and things that NEVER close are closed and everyone is home celebrating. Many people travel too, especially expats taking advantage of the time off. When people returned to the office, performers came in to Paul's to do a lion dance. When he told me, I thought he said line dance. That was a confusing conversation. Anyway, it took him by surprise.

There were fireworks on the first night. We watched them from the roof of our building, but it was disappointing because, not only are they partially blocked by a building in front of ours, but it was a hazy night and the colors of the fireworks seemed to disappear into their own smoke. You could hear the sounds, but it looked more like a war off in the distance with a periodic glow behind the smoke cloud.

Another thing about Chinese New Year that is new to us is Lai See or red packets. There's a long list of guidelines on how and to whom you distribute them, but here's the quickie version. You give a small envelope, traditionally red but not necessarily red any more, containing money to people who work directly for you, people who regularly perform a service for you, friends who are single (only if you are married), children, etc. You don't have to give a large amount; it's more a token for good wishes and prosperity in the new year. Traditionally only new, unused bills were given, but now any bills in good condition are acceptable. I tried to play along and I went to the bank to get new bills. You give them out when you see someone during the first several days of the new year.

In our case, Paul gave out six envelopes at work and we gave about eight to the doormen in our building, which was not as easy as you might think. They don't wear name tags and they aren't always on the same shift and both of us come and go at different times, so we weren't sure if we had everyone covered. Paul thinks he might have given twice to one guy. Personally, it caused me a little anxiety not because of spending the money, but it's just not a familiar custom to walk up to relative strangers and hand them money, though believe me, they expect you to.

And in American custom, Paul watched the Super Bowl last week. He had taken the day off a while ago when it looked like the Giants would likely be playing in it... awkward silence... then he decided to keep the day anyway and he got up at 7 a.m. to watch. It has to be the first and only Super Bowl during which Paul drank tea.

Again, the live football viewing was possible thanks to the Slingbox. I mentioned back in October that it was no longer working because Scott, the Slingmaster, updated his software and it was no longer compatible with our Mac. He has since reverted to the older version so that we can still watch, and we remain eternally grateful, especially since Flight of the Conchords has begun its second season.

As I am mostly nocturnal, I also watched the inauguration this way. I'm glad I got to see this piece of American history as it happened. Apparently if I were living in China and only read Chinese, I would not have heard some undesirable parts of Obama's speech which were censored in Chinese translations in the news and on state-controlled web sites, like the bits about those who blame their society's ills on the West, and silencing dissent, and about successfully facing down communism in the past... shhh!

Speaking of society's ills, we finished the whole DVD series of The Sopranos, which we started watching while Slingbox-less. Too bad everyone already discussed it, probably to death, because we could add to the discussion now. Overall we were were left unsatisfied. It was good enough to kill time whenever we wanted to watch it, but if we were following it while it originally aired on HBO, we probably would have given up on it, particularly considering the long wait between some seasons. Rob, I agree: irredeemable characters. We were also frustrated by so many story lines that went nowhere.

Some films open here the same day they open in the U.S. and some trail weeks or months later, and there appears to be no telling which films will open when. None of the big Oscar films have made it over until just the last week or so. We watched Doubt this last weekend. It was alright, not great, but I could watch an instructional video on ironing pajamas if Meryl Streep was in it. The weekend before last we watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It wasn't terrible, but it was much better the first time around when it was called Forrest Gump. Seriously, aside from the main character aging backwards, there are so many similarities that the writer - same one for both films - should be embarrassed. What was missing was engagement with the character. I liked Forrest Gump. I didn't care much at all about Brad Pitt as a tiny old man-boy.

Hopefully more films arrive here in the upcoming weeks. I want to see Slumdog Millionaire, among others. Going to the movies here is a different experience than doing so back home. First, you most likely won't get into a theater for a popular film unless you pre-purchased tickets online one to two days before. We like to go on Sunday afternoons so I bought the tickets for Benjamin Button on a Friday night. It's a little annoying if you just want to see what's playing and spontaneously go in the next few hours and all the theaters are full, but overall I like the system. The theaters are much nicer than the last ones I've been to in NY/NJ, and you get to choose your seats ahead of time too. By the way, we rented Forgetting Sarah Marshall from iTunes recently and it was the funniest movie I've seen in a long time. That guy from How I Met Your Mother who wrote and stars in it is BRAVE.

I'll leave you with that and some photos and I will also say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Peter, Julie, Karen and Christine.

Maybe waiting endlessly for a new blog is something like waiting hopelessly for some one to visit you in Hong Kong.

Smoke on the Water

First sight of Buddha off in the distance

Pardon me, excuse me

Approaching Buddha

Hello, Buddha

The steps

The steps

Buddha's closeup