Christmas 2008

I think sometimes we take the holiday season for granted. For example, we have known ever since we can remember that Christmas is a day where there is no work or school; we get to stay up as late as we want and wake up as early to open up presents….

Well, this Christmas was the first time in my life where I had to work. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people in China (mostly ex-pats) that either get Christmas off or ask for a paid vacation day, but most Chinese people here treat Christmas like any other working day. I thought about asking my Pops for a paid vacation day, but realized: who am I going to spend the day with? My Mom and my brother are in Los Angeles and my Pops will be at work. I know that if I had asked my Pops would have given me the day off, but I just started working at his company and didn’t want to have any special treatment from him just because I was the boss’s son…

Thus Christmas Day was like any other workday, except that I decided to make it a little bit more festive. I borrowed a Santa suit from a member from my congregation (Thanks, Brother Lamb!) and decided to dress up as Santa. But you ask: what about presents? Surely Santa has to provide presents to everyone, right? Well, since there were about 60 people that work in my Dad’s company I had to come up with something small that I can afford, and this is what I came up with:

Those are called baozi (or steamed/fried buns in English). They are very cheap and can be filled with all sorts of concoctions (meat, veggies, red bean paste, etc.). I decided to play it on the safe side and buy all veggie baozi just in case there is a vegetarian (which I highly doubted, btw) at my Pop’s company…

So with my Santa suit and my Santa bag full of delicious steamed buns I walked into the office . Here were the results:

Walking down the hall...

Here's Santa!

What's a white bearded-man doing in our office?

Passing out baozi...
Oh, no! I'm out of baozi!
Santa with his Pops...

All in all, it was a pretty good Christmas; although I had to work, I spend the day with my Pops. I made my co-workers laugh hysterically and some even say it was the best Christmas they've ever had (which isn't saying much). Would I have rather spent Christmas Day around a Christmas tree opening up presents with family and friends? Sure. But this was one Christmas I will never forget....

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or whatever holiday(s) you celebrated!

Hong Kong

Because I came to China on a tourist visa (which only allows me to stay for up to 30 days at once) I had to leave the country and apply for a permanent work visa, so I had the chance to accompany my Pops on a business trip to Hong Kong!

I spent only about 3 days there, but I had a good chance to see what Hong Kong had to offer. We left really early on Tuesday morning and arrived at HK around noon. We dropped off our luggage at the hotel and went straight to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China and dropped off my application. On the way there I met these two cool guys on the ferry. We started talking and I found out that they were from Australia and they were in HK to do the “Thunder from Down Under” show. For those of you that do not know the show, it’s a famous male strip show in Las Vegas (Ms. Wansor, I think you’ve been to it for a bachelorette party, right?). They told me that they came for five days because it paid really well, but after every show all these women would come up to them and offer tons of money to sleep with them. The funniest part is when they said that they felt like pieces of meat (what did they expect?) and that they were trying to make an honest living (which is true). They both had families back in Australia. I couldn’t stop laughing when they were telling me the story…

A view of Hong Kong Harbor from the ferry during the day...

The dudes from "Thunder from Down Under"...

After I dropped off my application, I went to the church building which was right across the street. It’s such a beautiful building, and reminded me a lot of NYC’s Upper East Side church building. I also had a chance to go to the temple later that night. Not as pretty as the San Diego temple, but it’s definitely one of a kind.

The church building...

The Hong Kong temple...

The next day my Pops had to meet with some of his customers so I went to explore the city by myself. I spend most of the day at Victoria Peak, which had the most incredible view of a city I have ever seen. The view as you ascend up the mountain was just magnificent. I met this really cute older English couple from South Hampton on the tram. They were in the 70s and yet when we got off the tram they were walking around with the youthfulness of people in their 40s. Since they forgot their camera, I took pictures for them. I hope I have the same vigor when I’m their age.

Victoria Peak...

The nice English couple...

Later on that night I met up with my Pops and we had dinner. Hong Kong is probably best known for 2 things: the food and shopping. I had some amazing Cantonese and Macanese food, but alas, I always forget to take pictures when I’m eating because I’m always so hungry and I just devour the meal. Shopping, on the other hand, is not something I love. Actually, I despise shopping. But if you love shopping, HK is probably the best place because first, the city has all the name brands you want (I’ve never seen such a big LV store in my life!) and second, you can haggle with a lot of the shops (not the name brands) and pay between 30-80% of the asking price.

After dinner we went to look at the city lights in HK. The view of HK harbor is amazing. I thought NYC looked great at nighttime, but in my opinion its nothing compared to HK. Take a look at this picture….

Hong Kong harbor at night...

I picked up my visa on the 3^rd day and went to Lantau Island. There are many attractions on Lantau Island, but the most famous one is the Giant Buddha. It’s an eight-five foot bronze Buddha statue. The ride from the cable car to the Buddha statue was breathtaking, showing a great view of the island. I met this really cool young couple (Neil and Darcie) from San Francisco and Darcie’s sister, Carly, and we traveled together for the whole day. We visited the Giant Buddha, the Po Lin Monastery and the fishing village of Tai O. Almost all of the houses are built on stilts, which is quite amazing.

View from the Ngong Ping cable car...

Giant Buddha from afar...

Giant Buddha up close...

Po Lin monastery...

Po Lin monastery with Giant Buddha in the background...

Fishing village of Tai O...

After visiting Lantau Island I left my newfound friends and headed straight to the airport to meet up with my Pops. But before doing that, on the way down from Ngong Ping, the camera took a picture of us in the cable car. I said I would never do it (because I think it’s so stupid that all Asian people do this when they take pictures) but Neil convinced me to do the sign…

People think it stands for peace but it actually stands for victory (I’ll explain later in another blog on how that came about). Gosh, I look so much like a typical Asian tourist…

More pictures on facebook if you want to see them!