A Wedding Amongst the Stars

Being the warden of an HKU residence hall expands your social calendar in ways you might not have expected. Case-in-point: Katherine and I were invited, by the father of the groom (who happens to be a senior alumnus of our hall), to attend a wedding reception and banquet of unimaginable proportions. It took place yesterday evening in one of Victoria Harbour's most recognizable landmarks, the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre...

Here Katherine and I were admiring the harbour view on our way up to the Grand Hall (on the top floor, where all the festivities were held).

The reception area was adorned with massive photographic panels showcasing the happy couple in some of their favorite spots around Beijing (where they began their courtship)...


The reception area itself seemed quite large, but it was nothing compared to the banquet hall...

This was taken from the reception area just before we were ushered into the banquet hall. The large wooden panels you see were actually a solid wall when we arrived, but they rotated (like massive, vertical venitian blinds) into this open position to let us know that it was time for the banquet to start. Very much an "ooh" moment.

On the inside we met up with a few hall alumni...


...and thoroughly enjoyed their company. In the background of the second picture above, you'll notice two large (10+ feet tall) video walls. The hall is so massive that there are areas which really can't see the stage clearly, so the video walls were necessary to keep everyone involved.

There were at least 160 tables, each seating 12 people, which means about 2000 guests were invited (of which it was estimated that over 1300 actually came). It was a night that was artfully crafted for the Hong Kong elite, with a line of paparazzi greeting everyone as they walked in (and, yes, that means all the Hong Kong tabloids took pictures of Katherine and I as we strolled together - though we didn't make any of the articles in this morning's news ;>). Entertainment stars, business tycoons, both Hong Kong and mainland Chinese high-ranking government officials...and the two of us. ;> It felt much how I imagine something like the Oscars ceremony feels - larger than life - and we were honored to take part in it.

Midway through the proceedings, the groom put on his own concert (complete with glow sticks and lighters waving in the air), serenading his bride with a famous Cantonese pop ballad...

That's just the kind of night it was. Of course, it also had all the hallmarks of any standard Chinese wedding banquet, like a first course of roast pig...


The smile garnish is a reference to the Cantonese pronunciation of the word "roast", which sounds almost exactly the same as "smile" (but uses a different character). Very cute.

We were there from about 7:30PM until after midnight, and it was an experience we won't soon forget.

A belated Merry Christmas to all of you!

No stopping at the border!

As mentioned in my last post, about a week ago Katherine and I went to drop off my Chinese visa application. Today it was ready to pick up, so we went to Wan Chai and grabbed it...

Snazzy! To personalize this experience for you, though, I will no longer refer to this object as "visa" - instead, he will be known as "Karl". Let's see what we did together tonight...

Karl and I reminiscing outside the place where we first met.

Karl and I sharing some some coconutty, waffle-like "gai daan zaai" from an extremely popular street vendor.

Oh! Karl notices a Filipino restaurant - something neither of us has ever tried!

Karl and I share a bounty of Filipino dishes.

Goodnight, Karl.

A full week...

This week has been nearly non-stop for both Katherine and I, so I thought I'd round up all the action into a single digest. Let's walk through it day-by-day...

Monday: During a conference at the Chinese University of Hong Kong the previous weekend, Katherine met Jennifer Heung and her sister Angela. Jennifer is an assistant professor of Anthropology at Saint Mary's College who independantly discovered our film, purchased it, and now uses it in her curriculum. Katherine uncovered this when she overheard Jennifer tell other conference attendees about a "great Hong Kong code-mixing documentary". When Katherine inquired further, thinking that she was going to get a lead on some new material for her own classes, she found out that Jennifer was referencing our own work. Amazing! On Monday, we took Jennifer and Angela out to dinner and then to a nearby dessert shop that we hadn't tried yet...

Angela is on the left, Jennifer the right

I decided that this would be a great opportunity to show you a Hong Kong dessert shop menu, so here are both sides from this shop...

Tuesday: Katherine's parents asked us if we would like to join them on a trip to Shenzhen to visit some extended family. We hadn't been to mainland China since moving to Hong Kong, and I have never been, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity! In order for me to go, though, I needed to secure a Chinese visa. For that, we went to the Wan Chai branch of "China Travel Service" and submitted my application with a few required documents (passport, Hong Kong ID, and picture). In return, they gave me a receipt, which I'll use to claim both my passport and new visa once the processing is complete...
Afterwards we decided to head to Ebeneezer's Kebab, a local Indian + Middle Eastern fast food chain (with a branch in Wan Chai) that came highly recommended to us by one of our Hall residents...

I was famished, and couldn't wait to pose for a picture, so I just ripped into my chicken kebab pita wrap with cougar-like ferocity...

Wednesday: Wednesday night was the School of English end-of-semester party (and a farewell party to some faculty who are moving elsewhere for the next phase of their careers), so Katherine and I got gussied up and spent a few hours there. After it was over, a subset of the attendees went out for a little dessert, but we didn't bring our camera. :(

Thursday: A day of rest! Or, at least, a day we didn't go out. I was on a work-related conference call until midnight, so I suppose it wasn't exactly "restful". ;>

Friday: Dinner (Shanghainese) and a movie ("The Day the Earth Stood Still") at Cyberport with Katherine's brother. Also a day we didn't bring the camera out. :(

Saturday: We started Saturday by having our residental tutors (somewhat like RAs - they are graduate students or HKU staff that live among the residents and provide hands-on guideance) over for brunch. Two of the tutors couldn't make it, but we had a great time with those who did...

After brunch, Katherine and I took three of our residents (one from Xi'an, one from the Phillipenes, and one from Macau) to an eye-opening and heart-wrenching exhibition in Sham Shui Po which focused on the unimaginable lives of "cage-dwellers". First, we toured the museum-like exhibits...
...and then we joined a walking tour of Sham Shui Po to learn more about its facinating history...

Sunday: The winter solstice and Dongzhi (a Chinese holiday) meant a day focused on food, friends, and family! First we had one of Katherine's best friends, along with her family, over for lunch...
...and then we went to Katherine's parents' apartment (the old one - they haven't yet moved into their new one) for a feast...

(and this didn't even include the two fish Katherine's mother was still steaming!)

With a very satisfying week in the books, there was nothing else to do but collapse...

Unpacking...

...at least, photographically. :> Katherine and I safely returned to Hong Kong about a week ago and I'm just now going through all our pictures, so I thought I'd throw a few up here to briefly chronicle our time in the States (and a few events that have occurred since our return).

Let's start with this little video - taken by Katherine - which will give you an idea of what it is like to fly out of Hong Kong. You'll be able to see parts of Lantau Island, Kowloon (including the old airport landing strip), and some outlying islands.

Here's a mid-flight shot Katherine took of a secret world between the clouds. :>

Katherine, now in San Fransisco, catches up with two of our old Ann Arbor buddies: Tony and Hermann!

Katherine catches up with another Ann-Arborite-turned-San-Franciscan: Mei!

Sunset on Fisherman's Wharf (while having dinner with Mei).

Now it's time to leave San Fransisco and head to Virginia, where you'll find me...

Having a lovely lunch, prepared by my mother, with my aunt and uncle.

Filling my Thanksgiving plate alongside my sister.

Snatching delicious vittles from my second cousins.

Observing Thanksgiving participants while they enjoy some filmed entertainment.

Telling secrets!

Ready to cheer on the now-ACC-Champion Hokies (before their dismantling of UVA)!

The day after the VT vs UVA game, Katherine and I hitched a plane back to Hong Kong...

...where we saw the sunrise on the icy rivers of Alaska.

A day after we returned, Katherine attended the International Assiciation for World Englishes conference at CityU, where we met up with our good buddy Daniel Davis (who is a professor at the University of Michigan) for lunch in Kowloon Tong.

A few days following that, we met up with Michael Meyler, a conference attendee from Sri Lanka who is a good friend of Dushy's, for a hot pot dinner in Tsim Sha Tsui.

And to close out the week, before watching the ACC Championship game, we went to get the keys to Katherine's parents' new apartment!

Packing...

I'm heading back to the States on Wednesday and will be staying in the West Virginia / Virginia area for a month. Katherine still has some teaching to do, and a conference to attend in San Francisco, but she'll join me just in time for Thanksgiving. It isn't likely that I'll do any blogging while I'm there (Katherine will have the camera), but you never know. :>

An intimate moment with Fui Fui...

Here's a little video of Fui Fui having is favorite treat: hairball prevention paste! Seriously, he loves it and will beg for it each time we approach the refrigerator...

Quiet drumming...

Now that we have a bit of space, I've been wanting to return to my percussive roots, so this week I picked up a Roland electronic drumkit...

It's very light, compact, versatile (over 1000 percussion sounds), and perhaps most importantly, quiet (I can plug in headphones so that the rest of the hall doesn't have to listen to me). It also makes a nice conversation piece - and might let some of the residents (including Katherine!) get the drumming experience they've always wanted. ;>

Haunting of the 10th Floor!

The 10th floor of our residence hall was haunted last night and its occupants gave tours, two people at a time, to all who dared enter....

We were shown out of the elevator into seemingly endless dark corridors...

...before my camera mysteriously went haywire, refusing to capture any of the horrors that lurked within. Fortunately, though, everyone made it out alive, and my camera returned to normal.

Halloween isn't something that has been historically celebrated in Hong Kong, but in recent years it has become more popular with certain parts of the community. Decorations, costume parties, and a haunted version of Ocean Park (Hong Kong's most popular theme park) are highlights, but trick-or-treating is very rare. It is pretty difficult, since almost everyone lives in an apartment with a locked security gate on the ground floor. So, if there's going to be any trick-or-treating, it would be confined to the complex you live in.

As such, Katherine and I stocked up our candy and hung a "trick or treat" sign just in case anyone wanted to give it a shot...

(Our colors are Halloeen-themed, but we're not really dressed up as anything...except head-wounded versions of ourselves. ;>)

In the end, though, we had to go outside and push candy on whomever we could find, no one came a-knockin'. Perhaps though our years here we will train them better. ;>

Happy Halloween!

A visit from Mary and Larry!

Mary (a colleague of mine at Michigan) passed through Hong Kong this weekend with her husband Larry, so I spent the whole of Sunday whisking them around town...


We started at their hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui and...

1. strolled down the Victoria harbor front
2. crossed the harbor on Star Ferry
3. passed through the weekly farmer's market in Star Ferry pier
   
4. canvased Central, witnessing the amazing congregation of Filipinos in one of Hong Kong's great Sunday traditions
5. explored SoHo, making sure to take a turn around Lan Kwai Fong
6. rode up the mid-levels escalators, taking a break for a light snack at the Hang Fa Lau dessert shop branch found Wellington Street
   
7. hopped on a minibus, which took us close to the University of Hong Kong
8. carefully walked a ways down steep Centre Street and then hung a left onto High Street to see where Katherine and I lived when we first arrived
9. snuck up Hing Hong Street, leading us to the University of Hong Kong main entrance
10. meandered around the campus, seeing "Happy Square", the library, the lotus pond, Chong Yuet Ming complex, the (closed) bookstore, Main Building, and Katherine's office
11. hopped on a bus which took us directly to where Katherine and I live
12. gave the apartment tour, relaxed and chatted for awhile
13. set off for Causeway Bay, passing through Admiralty and Wan Chai on the way
14. crisscrossed through the shopper-packed streets, sighting Sogo and Times Square before having both hot and cold turtle pudding
15. hopped aboard the MTR and zipped back to Tsim Sha Tsui for a delicious hot pot dinner at Yau Gwat Hei
16. saddled up again on the MTR bound for Mong Kok, where we ducked down Tung Choi Street (for the Ladies' Market) and had some mango desserts
17. used the MTR to get us to Jordan so we could run the length of Temple Street (to see the Night Market)
    
18. rode the MTR once more back to Tsim Sha Tsui and their hotel

In all, we covered right around 20 miles of territory in about 11 hours. I've concocted this little map (thanks to Google) so you can better orient our journey...


Quite a full and fun day!

University of Hong Kong Open Day....

Hong Kong U held it's "Open Day" this Saturday, inviting the public to come on by and meet students/faculty/staff, learn about student life and academic programs, etc. Our residence hall, among others, also participated by setting up an information booth, giving hall tours, and performing in the day's opening ceremonies...


Katherine and I went over to spend some time with folks from the hall, as well as the School of English, spreading cheer (and carbs) with a few snacks and drinks. It was a great time.

An night on the town...

The past few weeks have been so busy for us that we really haven't been able to venture beyond our little corner of Hong Kong Island. On Friday, though, we decided to put everything on hold, take a breather, and spend some time in Causeway Bay. Inevitably, that means food!

We decided to head to a place, just behind the SOGO department store, famous for its buffalo milk desserts. We'd been there once before, and quite enjoyed it, but neglected to photograph the event. We wouldn't make the same mistake twice. :>


Katherine dives in to her bowl of soup noodles, which look like...


On the left you see tender beef brisket, in the center you see a few tiny abalone, and on the right you can see the ho fun noodles peeking out from the broth.


My bowl consisted of goose liver dumplings (right) and balls made from beef tendon (left). Both were delicious, despite what you might be thinking. ;>

After dinner, we did a bit of shopping in Times Square and then visited a dessert shop we'd been eying (but had never set foot in before)...


Sometimes I get so excited that I skip the spoon and just plant my face right in the food. I'm sure you understand, especially since we shared...

Durian-stuffed sticky rice rolls, sprinkled with coconut.

A special variation of yeung zi gum lo, my favorite Hong Kong dessert, which contained iced mango pulp in addition to the standard chunks of mango, pomelo, and sago in a coconut milk + mango juice soup.

Bananas rolled in pastry shells and baked, then sprinkled with powdered sugar.

After dessert, we went to IKEA and picked up a coconut tree (yes, IKEA sells plants too :>) for our living room. As soon as we got it in the door, Fui Fui became very excited, lunging at the broad leaves...

Through the eyes of Fui Fui, all things are toys. :>