Vietnam - Spring 2009

Christina and Jessica in Vietnam.


We arrived in Hanoi late one evening. Ngo Mihn Duc (a.k.a "Duc from Wietnam" - "Duc" rhymes with "took" or "book," not "duck" or "duke"), our Genral Sales Agency in SGN and HAN, picked us up from the airport and took us to eat yummy noodle soup (Pho). Duc just has very young children, so it was our honor and duty to teach him a few things about 6 year olds - - sometimes they lose their teeth! Christina lost her first front tooth at the restaurant - it was quite a show, blood and all.

The Vietnamese Tooth Fairy came that night and gave her about $150,000 VND (Vietnamese Dong, which trade for about 17,000 to 1 USD) AND let her keep the tooth! Wow. They do things differently in VN!The next morning we set out on a long car drive to Halong Bay - a world UNESCO heritage site many times over. On the way, we stopped at some nice stone carving store - the stone carvings are done by handicapped people and are simply beautiful.



The gentleman to the right of Jessica (her left) was Son, our tour guide. He took super care of us all the way through.
After the long ride, we reached Halong Bay and were taken on a ferry to our destination - the "Bahaya" cruise ship. I had been on this before during a team meeting and couldn't pass up a repeat for the kids. They have one and two night programs, and we did the one night one this time. Next time, we'll do two, for sure!

Onboard the Bayaha in Halong Bay.

There are 20 cabins so the whole thing has a very intimate and family feel about it.



We had such a fun and relaxed time...
We took a cooking class where we learned to cook egg rolls...

Outdoor massage in a private area of the deck didn't bother Jessica one bit! (Christina, Mark and I enjoyed this, of course, too!)

Christina learning about sails.

We went via row boat to the floating village. Very primitive I suppose, until you see they have a bank! Cool!

Look even closer and you can see antennae for the TVs. It sure is quiet, though, and we saw the children coming home from school in the boats. Very different from our lifestyle.

We took a little ride to some caves and went exploring. Above is our "outing" guide.



The above speaks for itself, I think.
If you want to buy a snack, here's the floating 7-11!
Just a lovely view of the village surroundings and the water.

The scenery was just breath-taking, with the enormous limstone formations extruding from the water. Halong Bay has my heart!

Then we took a nature walk - Son, Jessica and Mark took the lead...We enjoyed some time on Catba Island at a resort, then back to Hanoi for some city exploring...

Touring the streets of Hanoi by "cyclo" - bicycle powered buggies - is a must. That way you can really get to know the energy and color of the city. Christina thought it was "crazy busy." Even more bustling than Hong Kong!

You can see why from the above...there are motorcycles everywhere. Being in a car (as we often were) was kind of a drag. They go too slow and can't dart in and out. Hanoi has no real public transportation system. A few busses, and that's about it. An underground train or subway system would really rock here!
The old mixes with the new.
Here's a great shot of infrastructure in Hanoi - this shot can ONLY be caught on every street corner in Hanoi.

More street life -
More infrastructure. All houses have water tanks on top. We were a little disappointed when we learned that they were not beer kegs. They have very narrow houses (which are often amazingly deep), because the taxes are levied based on the width of the house. On the right hand side of the house, you can see gray concrete. They don't paint the sides, only front. This is because soon enough someone will build a house joining yours.

By the time we left, we felt like locals! :-)

Australia April 1 2009

I got to celebrate my birthday this year in one of my new favorite cities in the world, Sydney!
After a long, hard, 2-week long winter in Hong Kong (ha ha!), we started our spring thaw with a trip to Manley Beach - a short ferry ride from Sydney Harbour (that's Aussie for "Harbor").
The Harbour is full of local color - an "aboriginal" tourist attraction with his Diggery Doo. Yes, of course we bought his CD. No, it just isn't the same on the home CD player. However, his makeup job did impress Christina.

Anyhow, about a 30 minute ride from the Harbour is Manly Wharf. Not the Caribbean, but perfectly awesome compared with HK beaches!

Just plain ole fun in the sun without any translators needed!

One of the things we really enjoyed was the opal museum. It is just a small museum, but since we're big geology and rock fans, this was right up our alley. We learned all about the history of opal mining in AU, and we saw everything from the raw opals in stone to majestic, crown-quality gems. One had recently sold for $14,000 USD earlier in the day. We settled for the free gift - the pin-on kangaroo with a 1/2 lady-bug sized stone :-).

Another great thing to do in Sydney is the history museum. They have an awesome booklet of activities for the kids. It guides you through the museum with activity-based learning. No photos allowed inside, though. Too bad.

The bridge is awesome! We didn't climb it although when the kids get a little older I'd like to put that on our list of things to do.
The opera house is even more impressive in person than it is in all the books, if that is possible.
Once, when Christina was 3 years old (before we had moved anywhere away from Texas), we were looking for something to read - - the kids have always liked fact books. We were looking through "Great Buildings of the World," and I saw the Sydney Opera House. I said, "Oh let's read this page." She said, "No way, Mom, that's too easy! That's the Sydney Opera House, of course!" [DUH!!!, Mom]

After dinner one evening on the harbour, we were visited by two new friends who gave us a talent show just off the restaurant's knee-wall facing the harbour. They are "Traveler" (the small Kangaroo), and Kelly the kookaburra. What great fun we had :-) !

Jessica, Christina and Dad got to see the real things the next day at the zoo while I worked. What a SUPER place to visit!!!


Yeaaahhhhh....Sydney!!

Hong Kong Sevens

The Hong Kong 7s are an amazing event each spring in HK. It is generally put together together by Cathay Pacific and Credit Suisse. I managed to get an invitation to the Cathay Pacific box. Tres chic! Below are Cathay employees as well as many of our oneworld colleagues.


Rugby teams from all over the world flock to this 3-day event for the matches. Unlike Union Rugby, these matches have 7 players per team, and the games have 2 7-minute halves, with a 1/2 minute "half time." Games are back-to-back all weekend long, beginning on Friday evening and going through Sunday. Mark and I were there for the very calm Friday evening.

It is somewhat like a Mardi Gras - people get dressed up to see and be seen.


USA was leading Scotland - for only a moment. Then Scotland stomped us. But I have the evidence of us on the map!

This is one of the most major beer events in Hong Kong....

BEER!!!



From Wikipedia - - -

Dressing Up/Party Atmosphere/The South Stand

The Hong Kong Rugby Sevens is traditionally one of if not the biggest event on the Hong Kong sporting calendar. As such, there is a tremendous party atmosphere, with particular emphasis on the South Stand, where hordes of rugby fans dress up and dance for most of the duration. Activities that typically ensue as the weekend progresses include the throwing of empty beer jugs around the South Stand, Mexican waves, and streakers running across the pitch. Since 2007 the South Stand has been made officially accessible to over-18s only, due to its hyper and somewhat provocative atmosphere, although this rule is not strictly policed.

The Hong Kong Sevens typically draws the biggest crowd and is the biggest party on the IRB Seven's Calendar.

History

The Hong Kong Sevens were established in 1976 after a discussion between the chairman of the HKRFU, South African entrepreneur, A.D.C. "Tokkie" Smith, Duncan McTavish (HKRFC then captain) and Ian Gow, a Rothmans' Tobacco company executive. Gow wanted his firm to sponsor a rugby tournament with top teams from throughout the world. McTavish and Smith suggested that a Rugby sevens tournament would be logistically more feasible and be a better spectacle than a 15-a-side tournament. After an initial proposal was refused by the Rugby Football Union in England, the HKRFU changed focus and sent out invitations to Asian and Pacific sides.

On 1976-03-28, clubs from Indonesia, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Japan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Fiji participated in the first Hong Kong Sevens Tournament at the Hong Kong Football Club in Happy Valley sponsored by Rothmans' Tobacco and Cathay Pacific. This was an important step as this was one of the first rugby tournaments that attracted commercial sponsorship. Of the countries represented in the inaugural sevens tournament, only Australia and New Zealand did not send national sides, instead being represented by the Wallaroos and the Cantabrians respectively. These two clubs met in the final where the Cantabrians won 24-8.

The series then grew into a competition with national representative sevens sides competing, and with this growth, the tournament moved to the Hong Kong Government Stadium in 1982. In 1994, the venue was deemed too small for the tournament and was rebuilt into a 40,000 seat stadium now named the Hong Kong Stadium. Today, 24 national representative sides compete in the tournament.

In 1997 and 2005, the Hong Kong Sevens was not held; taking its place was the IRB Rugby World Cup Sevens, which Hong Kong hosted in both years. Fiji won both World Cup Sevens tournaments held in Hong Kong.

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Lantau Island

We took a nice little Saturday trip to Lantau Island. The Parker family - some friends we met through Jessica's school (Mrs. Parker is the Music teacher, and Sabrina is in Jessica's class) - kindly hosted us for a day exploring where they live! They have a nice house in a residential neighborhood which was near a beach and other fun activities. The airport is on Lantau Island, but it also is home to a more "country" feel of Hong Kong.

Lantau Island is not far by ferry. We just hopped in a taxi and headed to the Central Piers - This is Jessica and Christina in front of the Ferry. The ferry ride took about 25 minutes.
One of the big highlights of Lantau is that you can see the Pink Dolphins - they swim around off the coast near some rocky cliffs. We took a boat ride to see them but unfortunately they were not out.

Here's the little boat we rode on to look for the dolphins.

It has been quite a foggy day until the evening came around - then we saw some nice scenery as the late afternoon sun came out.

One of the very interesting parts of Lantau is in "Tai O," a small fishing village where people have lived on stilt houses for ages. They just build them out into the water!


The photo above really amazes me - you can see straight through the stilts.

Pretty girls.

Now after a fun day of sight-seeing, you need a good sea-food meal! Try some of the tasty Hong Kong delicacies featured below! Mmmmmmm. Actually, I think they are used more for medicinal purposes than food, but I'm not really sure.

Looks like Jessie and Sabrina have their eyes on the dried puffer fish.
Spiny blow fish might be nice for a change...

OK this is just THE ugliest thing ever. Of course if you prefer sea horse, the bottom right hand corner is the ticket.

Anyhow, a really fun day overall in Lantau with our friends!

Only in Hong Kong

Before we leave HK, I'm sure I'll have enough Hong Kong funnies to fill an encyclopedia!

We see this fun stuff every day...I just finally decided to take a few pictures. These are two fun things I ran across today. If you try to take Hong Kong seriously, you'll be lost. After a while, you realize this town has an AMAZING sense of humor!



YUMMY!


Spicy undies got you down? Just try something a little bit more "blah." :-)

Snack time - Jimmy's desk

Hi Robin - this blog is devoted especially to fond memories of you and your snack drawer.



Please meet Jimmy Lee. He's the snack king of the HKG office, your counterpart on the other side of the world. He is as kind and as good a "light conversationalist" as you are! We've taken over his entire desk rather than just a drawer.

But in HKG we do things a little different from the way we did things in the US. You see, there is a lot of traveling going on around here, and it is a bit of an un-written office "policy" to bring some goodies in with you when you either return from a trip, or come to visit us from another far-away land. Here - let's take a look!




First, here's a lovely little yummy from Taiwan. It is quite creative! It is pumpkin seeds soaked in green tea then glued together with some sort of sweet syrup, then cut into a bar shape. Here's the close-up. Yes, it is a bit different from what we often see in your cube, but it is actually very nice!





Now whenever you see this label, "Bangawan Solo," you'll want to take a try. This is a lovely little bakery in Singapore. They have some butter cookies that are divinely wonderful! Pictured here on the right are some little coconut cookie bites. On the left are some little treats that go like hotcakes (you know, not literally, because I don't think hotcakes would really "go,"). They look like a little baked spring roll. The filling is dried shrimp. Has quite a fishy smell - like I said, they are VERY popular for a salty snack, but I don't care much for them. But yes, I've tried them. I'll take the coconut cookie bites any day!





Recently one of our colleagues took a trip to BKK, and these little fishy skins came back. All you have to do is open the plastic container to get a nice smell of what they might taste like. (Haven't tried them.)
Nice closeup of another variety of fishy chips from BKK! (Haven't tried). They just come in a plastic bag like when you buy bulk banana chips at the Whole Foods market with a scoop! (If you get too close, your eyes might water. )

Now on to some little tasty treats from Beijing. Green Bean Jelly Block (nope), Goat Liver Jelly Block (what, are you kidding me??? No seriously, I thought it was a joke. You know, there are about a billion different dialects in China so I thought it must be a issue of translation. Therefore, I sought four independent translations, and they all came up with the same thing - - goat liver jelly. Ah well, nothing to waste.), Taro Vegetable Cake and Sesame Cake (probably completely harmless, but since they came in the same bag as the Goat Liver Jelly Block, I haven't tried them).


And now can you possibly guess who has decided to take it upon themselves to manage the chocolate tin? Yep, you're right!!!

All the best, Love, EJ