my REAL motherland: hong kong & macau

argh, i just accidentally deleted my entire post right when i was almost done! so now i have to start all over again but i'll do it anyway. it's just gonna be a little bit half-assed now. i'm just minorly devestated. i might shed a tear or two.

well before i start i have to put up this picture cause i find it hilarious. it's of a bus stop near my big cousin's house. i mean, why have a bench when you can just line up a slew of different chairs?

oh and i wanna let y'all know that my cantonese is getting killer good! ok i exaggerate. but i'm more fluent than ive ever been in my entire life and i'm really impressed with myself! i'm all in touch with my linguistic roots and shit. if i stayed longer i might turn even more honger. i'm already saying stuff like "ok-la!" anyway...

so last week my cousin pat took a day off work cause him and john wanted to go hiking. as many of you know, hiking + diana = incompatible, disasterous, ridiculous, etc. so we went hiking over a bunch of mountains on lantau island. OVER mountains.
that would involve moving uphill and well, my lungs and legs really only enjoy horizontal mobility. i kinda thought i was going to die. however it was alright in the end cause we ended up in a cool fishing village called tai o that had stilt houses.

also on lantau island is a giant bronze buddha. i think they promote it as the world's largest outdoor, seated, bronze buddha, to be precise:



me high-fiving good ol' buddha:



a short walk from the buddha is the "path of wisdom". john and pat looking super wise.

on the weekend, one of my uncles took us to the fisherman's wharf and i gotta say, they got some crazy looking seafood over here. it's nothing like steveston (the fisherman's wharf in richmond) that we've got going on back home.

MACAU:

we just got back from macau last nite and i loved macau! it was crazy cause we saw my big gangster-looking uncle for lunch the day before we left and when he found out we didn't have a place to stay at yet, he decided "you're staying at my sister-in-law's". then it was, "i'll take you there". then "i'll come with you for one day". and finally it was "i'm coming for both days and bringing along your cousin whom youve never met". and so it was, we ended up staying at a pimp 2-floor penthouse on the island of taipa. no complaints from me! i think my uncle really enjoyed playing tour guide and i got to see everything.

even though macau's only 1 hour away by turbojet ferry, it's very different from hong kong. it's turning all las vegas with its giant casinos (they have a wynn and a venetian is being constructed. god i wanna go to vegas again!)but what i really liked was the portugese architecture:

i also really liked the portugese food! macau was an on-going food-fest. my uncle took us to a bunch of restaurants that my grandpa used to take him, my mom and the other kids to. this is the super yummy portugese baked chicken from one of my grandpa's favourite restaurants.

this is one of the homes my mommy used to live in! my uncle was doing some serious strolling down memory lane with our trip to macau. a whole lotta "and i used to hold your mom's hand and walk around this park when she was 3! only 3! she was tiny!"

me eating my very first portugese egg tart. i think my mom dreams about these:

this is the catholic church my mom used to go to. i'm zero religious but i still found this church beautiful. the security guard there fancied me so i got a mini tour and got to take as many pictures as i want. yeeeeeee haw.

the famous "facade" of a church called the ruins of st. paul. all that's left of the church after it burned down is the front of it.

we went to hac sa (black sand) beach and well whaddya know, it's got black sand! (this is where my uncle would say "and this is where your grandpa used to go swimming!", "this is where we camped as kids!") i actually thought it was really cool. i mean, fuck, the sand is black!


we also went up the macau tower which i think is 60-something floors and you get a nice 360 view of everything.

this is a-ma temple where we got to witness/almost go deaf from a massive string of fireworks being lit up. apparently it's supposed to bring prosperity so perhaps i should go get me some fireworks. of course, it's not like im working...anyway, i really liked these insence coils that they had everywhere.

and so macau was a total whirlwind and it was fabulous. and today i went to chill at my big cousin's jade shop for a few hours. he gave me a pretty purple "doughnut" jade so i'm a happy little girl. oh and my little nephew just called so now i'm off to eat more with my cousins!