Michelle and Dave's wedding banquet

The purpose of our Hong Kong trip was to attend Michelle and Dave's wedding banquet. We were unfortunately not able to attend their wedding in California for a variety of (fairly obvious) reasons. The reception began at 6 pm, with drinks, chatting, photographs, and, last but not least, mahjong:



Here's a picture of Gina with two (!!) glasses of champagne:



And here's me in my new suit (which almost anybody can immediately identify as a mainland Chinese suit because of the way the crease on the pants goes all the way up to the waist):



See how I drink more moderately than Gina (only one champagne glass).

There were well over 300 guests at the banquet, including MANY members of he Tung clan, some of whom are pictured here:



...and numerous Nigerian VIPs, including His Excellency Otunba Gbenga Daniel (special envoy from the "Nigerian president and head of the armed forces"), Ambassador Jonathan Coker (Nigerian ambassador to the PRC), and several important tribal chiefs:



Here we are with the bride & groom:



The eating part of the banquet began at 8 pm in a large banquet hall. Gina & I were among the very first to sit down; I was slightly uncomfortable when the bride & groom arrived and I realized that I had sat down directly next to the groom...I don't think I deserved the honor, but I couldn't exactly jump out of my seat and go sit somewhere else.

Here are a few more shots of the wedding (including the tea ceremony and the cake eating):

Hong Kong

We arrived in Hong Kong on the evening of June 15, and headed straight for our favorite hostel, the Wang Fat (located very conveniently in Causeway Bay). On the morning of June 16, I was studious (read some of the books I brought / went to the library) while Gina shopped. Later, we went to Gina's favorite Mexican restaurant in the whole wide world (she's only been to Mexican restaurants in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai):



More shopping in the afternoon...I liked this curved escalator:



Then, Michelle and Dave's wedding banquet! (see next post)

Last morning in Chiang Mai

We left on June 15. On the afternoon of June 14, we had done some shopping; nothing too interesting to say about that. On the last morning, we did a little more additional shopping (we needed to get something for Gina's little sister...we ended up getting her a hat). Also, breakfast, which included Thai iced tea:



Notice the kaffir lime in the picture...

Here are two pictures of Gina in a song tao on the way to the airport. Song taos are red covered pickup trucks. Notice that Gina is first unhappy in the back of the song tao, but gradually adjusts and gets happier:

Guangzhou -> Beijing express

Yesterday afternoon, after failing to obtain cheap plane tickets, I purchased a train ticket to Beijing (on the T16 express)...this new express train has cut two hours off the old Guangzhou-Beijing trip, and can now accomplish the run in a mere 22 hours. The trip started out ok. I had bought a soft sleeper ticket, so I could lie down in an air conditioned cabin. Unfortunately, one guy in the cabin started quarelling with his wife (over his cell phone). They quarelled non-stop beginning at 11:30 pm. The guy's cell phone apparently has a very hardy battery. By 2 am, they were still at it and I was starting to go insane, so I sought some relative peace on the floor next to the bathroom (which is where I sat for the next 14 hours). One interesting incident that happened as we were approaching Beijing was that all of a sudden the train stopped suddenly and a whole crew of train staff came rushing down the corridor. It turned out that a careless smoker had started a fire a couple of cars down, so for the next 20 minutes the staff was running back and forth with buckets of water. Fortunately, the train was back under way after only stopping for about 20 minutes. One last thing: for anybody interested in geography, the train stopped in Changsha (capital of Hunan), Wuchang (part of Wuhan, capital of Hubei), and Zhengzhou (capital of Henan).

Mae Sa Valley Loop

This morning we rented another motorcycle for a little ride out of town. After dropping off my passport at the Chinese consulate (to get a new visa), we went north as far as Mae Rim, then followed a lovely two-lane road that went up the Mae Sa Valley towards Samoeng. Not far up the road was the Mae Sa Elephant Nursery. Originally, we had planned to visit and even go on an elephant ride, but dropped the idea rapidly when we were informed of the price at the gate. Instead, we ate our fried chicken with sticky rice (that we had brought with us from town) on a picnic table across from the elephant farm. We did get to see some elephants from across the river:



The drive from there to Samoeng was really beautiful, through the northern Thai jungle, with a mist and sometimes a slight drizzle. No photographs could capture the impression, so I didn't bother trying. As we approached Samoeng, we were a little nervous because we were nearly out of fuel, but we did get to a gas station in time. Check out the gas pump we used:



We had lunch in Samoeng. Even in this very remote place there were two other white people who showed up. Both appeared to have "gone native" and married a local. One Englishman came up to me to introduce himself. I knew right away he wasn't an ordinary Englishman when he said "Me England" and proceeded to speak without the use of any articles. Seems he's been in Thailand for a few too many decades.

From Samoeng, we followed highway 1269 towards Hang Dong. Gina suddenly yelled that she had seen a deer and so we stopped to take a look. After much confusion, I figured out that she had actually seen a road (same pronunciation in Chinese). I'm still not sure why THAT was so exciting, but we did walk down the road a little bit to look at a minority village. There was nobody in sight and we had no idea who the villagers were. Here's me by a papaya tree we encountered there:



Here's a couple more views from the highway (the first one with a cow and a wat in the background):





Finally, how can I not mention the "Beer Hut". Nearly every sign along the entire route was in Thai. Lots of roads and driveways headed off to the sides, but since we didn't know if the signs were welcoming us in or threatening us with death if we trespassed, we thought it best not to intrude. The Beer Hut, on the other hand, had an English sign and we figured they can't possibly not want us to stop by for a drink.



I think you can actually spend the night in those houses back behind. If anybody is interested, the Beer Hut is on highway 1269, on the Samoeng side of the Belle Ville Resort. They have a phone number too: 01-7966037. If you want to look for our graffiti on the wall, here are our signatures (just under the elephant):



Back in Chiang Mai, we stopped at Dunkin Donuts since I was having a donut craving (actually I've had this unfulfilled donut craving since September). I ate four and am saving two for later...

Browny House and Wat Chiang Man

Browny House Internet & Coffee Shop is where I did my internet stuff yesterday early afternoon (and where I am right now). Here I am hard at work:



And here's the little kid next to me:



And, last but not least, the two funny metal statues in front of the Browny house (one wearing my hat and the other Gina's shades):



Incidentally, to my great disappointment, the Browny house doesn't sell brownies. Just coffee & tea...

After interneting yesterday, we visited Wat Chiang Man, one of the nicer temples in Chiang Mai:







Then pool, night market, dinner, etc....

Cleaning the street

Today, we decided to do a walking tour of the wats in the old town of Chiang Mai. We essentially followed one of the main east-west axes (Thanon Ratchadamnoen). The wats speak for themselves (see my flickr page). What requires further note is the huge mob of children dressed in red shirts ("Montport 72nd anniversary"), armed with brooms, sweeping the streets (most seemed not to be working all that hard though). Two fire engines were in the midst spraying water out onto the street. Some giggling boys neglected their duties to play with the spraying water. Here are some photos:







Oooh, one other cool photo from Thanon Rachadamnoen. Don't you think all police stations should have a statue like this in front?



For lunch, we went to a vegetarian Thai restaurant (over Gina's vigorous objections: "if it doesn't have meat, I won't eat it!"). As we were randomly looking for a restaurant for lunch, we "accidentally" walked by the vegetarian place that Gina had refused to go to yesterday. She was won over though: the food was not too bad and, more importantly, it was CHEAP (75 cents for lunch for two). Now Gina wants to go back for dinner...

Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep

We rented a motorcycle this morning. Here we are in our fashionable helmets:



Sixteen kilometers west of town is a forest mountain with a wat (temple) near the top (the temple's name, by the way, is Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep). There was a very big jackfruit tree at the temple; I had to get my picture taken in front:



Here's some pictures of the wat:







Further up the hill was the summer palace for the Thai king (the palace's name is Phuping). We thought of going, but decided we were too cheap to pay the admission (+ Gina, who was wearing a sleaveless shirt, would have had to borrow one of their shirts to not be disrespectful of the royal family...and Gina was guessing their shirts wouldn't match her pants).

On the way back to the guesthouse, we had a flat tire. I was very upset because I imagined we would end up being extorted out of a lot of money to get it fixed, but it ended up just costing 50 cents. One good result of this unfortunate incident was that we realized that the market we had been driven to yesterday was right next to the motorcycle repair shop. Gina had been looking forward to going to the Ten Payom Market once more because she thought the mangos there looked very good. We also bought more durian since we both love it so much.

More cats

I have this problem about taking pictures of every cat I see. At the Smiles Guesthouse, where we took our cooking class, there were three very cute kittens:

Cooking class

Today, we took a cooking class. Gina has been wanting to take this class since she first heard about it last year. Here we are in our fashionable aprons before embarking on our first dish:



Here I am hard at work:



And here's Gina proudly holding the fruit of her labor:



Note how happy Gina is as we prepare to eat 4 dishes that we cooked. She is giggling with joy (and her head is moving up and down very fast causing the picture of her to be blurry):

Market highlights

Here are some highlights from the market this morning. First, there was the curry stand, with 12 different types of curry paste (if you zoom on these pictures, you can make out the names of the curry...the darker red ones are the only ones that have already been fried; the frying, incidentally, causes the oil to separate out from the rest of the curry; as we learned, curry paste should always be fried before use):





Below are some of the vegetables. The tiny little green pea-like things on the upper left are actually a type of eggplant (known, not surprisingly, as the "pea eggplant"). These are frequently found in green curries. Two baskets to the right are the VERY spicy "bird's eye" chilis.



Finally, for those interested, here's a picture of Gina holding a basket of kafir limes. The limes are scratched to collect the fragrant oil used for flavoring dishes. The actual pulp of the limes is inedible, but was used in traditional times to make shampoo.

King & Queen of fruits

It turns out that several fruits that I like very much are in season. First, the "king of fruits," the durian. I really like durian. Very flavorful. The other day, we had durian milk shakes in the basement of Raffle's (right off People's Square). It was GOOD! One thing I did not realize is that there are four different kinds of durian. The best ones are called "long-stemmed durians" because they have...long stems. The best long-stemmed durians are from Rayang (Eastern Thailand). A region just outside of Bangkok also used to be famous for durians, but the prime durian land has been sold to developers to build housing tracts. Another thing I never thought too much about is that different people like durians at different degrees of ripeness; more ripe equals more sweet, but also more "fragrant". A good durian seller will have a little felt mallet; you strike the durian gently and if it makes a hollow sound, this indicates that the fruit is more ripe (as it ripens, the sweet pulp starts to pull away from the skin, creating a hollow space that will resonate when the skin is struck). A durian that is too ripe will emanate a powerful fragrance even before you break it open. A good durian seller will ask you how you want your durian, and can then pick the perfect fruit to suit your taste. Here are durians at the market we went to this morning:



The "queen of fruits" is the mangosteen (known as "shanzhu" (mountain bamboo) in Chinese). According to traditional ying-yang theory, the mangosteen is a "cold" fruit and balances out the "hot" durian; too much of one without the other and you might get sick. Here are mangosteens (60 cents/kilogram) at the market we went to yesterday afternoon (the saleswoman, incidentally, was from Guangzhou; her Mandarin was a little off, but her Cantonese was good):





Finally, my old favorite, the lychee, is also in season. Chiangmai is famous for its lychees. We bought the expensive kind ($1/kilogram), sweet with very small seeds: