The best part about the snow

Is the sparkly day after.
(of course, since it’s now several days later, it no longer looks like this, but rather more patchy and icy)

This is/was near our house:our neighbors made snowpeople:our car:

This is/was at Doho Park:

And this is the art lesson – inspired by the snow - that we did. We talked about same-ness and then symmetry and made paper snowflakes. The older ones got the concept of linear/bilateral symmetry versus radial symmetry; the younger ones, not so much . . .

p.s. I am sorry this is sooooooo booooooring. Not everyone can write about battleships or, better yet, BattleStar Gallactica.

A Snowy Saturday Night

Kate and I passed our first (and perhaps only) snowy Saturday night in Japan playing cards (casino) and drinking hot chocolate with a little kahlua. I'm sure there is another more common name for that drink, but I call it "liquid kahlua bad boys," in honor of my Aunt Jo's award winning brownie recipe.

Snow Day!

Well, it finally happened here – and it might as well, if it’s going to be so darn cold all the time!

The snow is beautiful and magical (but the pictures are a little dark, since I took them first thing in morning through our windows)!

In other news, I just put the finishing touches on this ladybug hat for a baby born in October.

Return to Tsukuba

Well, I’m back – and it’s considerably colder here than it was in Hong Kong. Considerably. However, I’m wearing my nice, new Eddie Bauer flannel-lined jeans (brough to me by Eric), and I’m quite cozy.

I took the bus to and from the airport, and for those visitors who are considering doing this (or who may be forced to consider it if they bring too much luggage), it’s really very easy. And you can speak English to buy the ticket. No worries, really.

I would definitely recommend Hong Kongas a destination – it was interesting and not too difficult to get around - and the food and the shopping are really good there. I’d be more cautious about suggesting you take a day and go to Macau, unless you have as many days as we did.

It was great and fun to see and travel with Eric, and it’s great to be back with Mike.

10,000 Buddhas Monastery

Today Eric and I headed out of the (downtown) city again, this time to Sha Tin to visit 10,000 Buddhas Monastery.

The Monastery isn’t really in the country: you take the light rail, but not even to the last stop. And then you walk by some government offices and a big Ikea before you start climbing the 400 stairs up to the pagoda.

Eric fit right in.

The temple is beautiful.
And so is the pagoda (and you can even climb up inside of it).Also, dogs featured prominently in this temple’s statues. My kind of temple.

A day of pilgrimages

First, Eric and I went to see the big Buddha. Getting there was a bit of an adventure. To start things off, you take one of the subway lines to its terminus. Then, you ride a bus for an hour. Our Frommer’s guidebook stated that the bus ride was “hair-raising,” so I had envisioned breakneck speed and lurching around corners. This was not the case. Although there were sharp mountain curves, the buses didn’t move that fast. Rather, the thing that made the bus ride scary was the fact that the road was basically one lane. About every 600 feet or so (?), there’d be a lay-by where oncoming traffic could pull over. Good thing that there wasn’t much oncoming traffic. Except all the other buses.

Anyway, we arrived at the monastery in one piece after driving by some very nice beaches (Hong Kong has beautiful beaches. Who knew?). This is the world’s largest seated outdoor bronze Buddha (not sure how much competition there is in that category, though). For some unknown reason, I was always think that Buddha statues are very old, but this one was unveiled in 1993.

After walking around the Buddha (and up the 260 steps), we went to eat at the Temple’s vegetarian restaurant. The food was very good.

Then we took the bus and the subway back to Hong Kong. By the way, for those who think that Hong Kong is all city, the countryside looks like this:

Our second pilgrimage was to a restaurant (recommended to us by our friend who lives here) that specializes in spicy Chinese food. You know the food is going to be spicy when the outside of the restaurant looks like this:There was, blissfully, food on the menu that wasn’t super-hot, so I was okay. Eric loved his food (which looked so hot that I didn't even dare to taste it), and is thinking of going back on Monday.

Our third pilgrimage was to a place that has the best cakes in Hong Kong (again, suggested by our friend).

I am now so full that I won’t be able to eat anything until, oh, tomorrow.

Dissertation

Aside from pounding mochi and making latkas, there is actually a reason that I am in Japan: I am supposed to research my dissertation, and maybe even write a few chapters.

Today I took my first step in that direction, as I finished my first draft of a dissertation chapter. It is my theory chapter (which will be chapter 2). This weekend I will send it to some of my professors and colleagues, for comments. So, that's good (although I have a feeling it still needs a lot of work).

Today’s Amusements

Involved an amusement park: Hong Kong Disneyland. (The park is located about thirty minutes by train [complete with mouse-shaped windows] from central Hong Kong).Eric has a friend from high school who works there, and she was able to snag us some tickets. Eric’s friend was transferred from the Anaheim Disneyland. Her job: princess. The type of princess varies, depending on the day. Today she was Cinderella.We also rode the rides (of course!). We rode almost every ride in the park, and we waited only in one line for about 10 minutes. There were some rides that I’d never been on, like the Winnie the Pooh one and the Buzz Lightyear one, and then there were the old standards, like Space Mountain and the carousel. This park doesn’t have a Matterhorn or a Thunder Mountain, though.The park is much, much smaller than the Anaheim one. However, even though it is smaller (and thus we did the whole park in about 4 hours), we still left the park with that dazed/confused/exhausted feeling that one gets from the “real” Disneyland in California.

Our second amusement involved a free ride (arranged by the tourist bureau) on a traditional junk boat, the Duk Ling. At first, we thought it was this boat:But then it turned out to be this:

The cruise lasted about an hour and stayed all within Victoria Harbor.A big thanks to Jen Em, who mentioned that some of her friends had done this when they were in Hong Kong.

Last, after a very yummy Chinese dinner, we saw a light show. Every night at 8pm, the skyscrapers light up with colored lights, flash, and shine laser beams across the harbor for a choreographed 12-minute show. There is even music that accompanies this, but we didn’t have a radio, and so couldn’t hear the music. The show was pretty neat all the same – especially because Hong Kong (the city) is composed almost entirely of skyscrapers, so almost all the buildings that fronted on the water were involved in the show. Here's a shot of a portion [really, just a little, little bit] of the harbor and the skyline at night (although not during said light show):

Hong Kong update

We’ve been busy – and walking a lot, which means that I am almost too tired to write this right now, but I just wanted to share a few pictures.

This tree grows all over the city and has the most amazing purple blossoms.

More shots from the Botanical garden (the second picture is worth opening to see the inscription):

The views from Victoria Peak, high above Hong Kong Island. You can definitely see that Hong Kong has a great harbor.

High Tea, with Victoria Harbor in the background.

Raising the flag, complete with a pipe band.

Macau's Senate Square. Macau is only an hour away by ferry (and I only nearly backed out of riding the boat seven/seventeen/seventy-seven times before we got on. Kate hates the boats - but it did turn out to be a very smooth ride). Like Hong Kong, Macau is a Special Administrative Region of China. Unlike Hong Kong, it used to be a Portuguese colony. Thus, note the buildings . . .

(This is the remaining part of a church that burned down in a fire [I think]. The stone edifice made it, but the wooden building did not. So there's just this church standing there, with nothing behind it. Like a Hollywood set or something, but it's real . . .)

Tomorrow we go to a meet a princess! For real - details to come!

With Kate in Hong Kong,

these are my plans for the evening:

Eat these strange wasabi eggplant things that we got in Izu and Kate hates (although she has not actually tried them).
Make a strange brown rice, spinach, garlic, kim-chee thing for dinner.
Drink an Yebisu.
Watch Felicity.