On October 15, Alex and I headed to the Philipines to attend his cousin's wedding. Since it was going to be a large family trip, his parents decided to make this trip into a reunion. So we were going to meet many different relatives in Hong Kong and China. But first was the Philipines.
Day 1:
16 hour flight to Hong Kong, then another 3 hours to Manila. We arrive at around 6pm there. Alex, his parents and I meet Alex's aunts and uncles on his mother's side and we all end up eating dinner at a fancy philipino resturant near the hotel. Then we crashed due to Jet Lag (I got about 2 hours of sleep total the entire flight)
Day 2:
Met family for breakfast in the hotel's large breakfast buffet.
Then headed out with Alex to explore the city. We took the train to one of the more famous open air markets and looked for interesting trinkets and maybe some lunch. Unfortunately we found neither and realized that the food was not very good or trustworthy. In fact, we wandered into a meat market that had stray cats and dogs running around next to the meat and there was no refrigeration or ice. So we then headed over to Rizal park and hung out there for an hour before deciding to head back because it started raining. When we got back, the rest of the family had decided they were going to head out to a seafood restaurant where you buy whatever seafood you want at stalls and then have the restaurant cook it for you. We ended up going there in a cab and almost getting lost twice. It was pretty horrible. The restaurant was good and the food was well cooked. We got home and hung out with Alex's cousins some more in the hotel lounge.
Day 3:
The family was supposed to do a day trip into old Manila. Since Alex and I had already had our fill of Manila yesterday, we decided to sleep in and do our own thing. So we went instead to the large mall that was across the street from the hotel and got lunch there. It was adobo fish and barbacued beef. Really good. We then wandered around before stopping in to a salon and getting Alex's hair cut in preparation for an investor business meeting in Hong Kong. We styled his hair after Sulu from the new Star Trek movies. That night we ate pub food with Amy and his mom. It was ok, nothing great.
Day 4:
The wedding was at 3, so we stayed in and got dressed up and took a shuttle bus to the church. It was a large catholic church was a ton of doors that opened up, so it was practically an open air church. This was good because there was no air conditioning and the ceremony was a full catholic ceremoney. Which means it was over an hour long. After the ceremony, we headed back to the hotel to relax a little before the reception. Because the wedding was paid by Alex's religious family, there was no alcohol and the appitizers were not that great. But considering chinese weddings are 8 course meals, I didn't expect them to be spectacular.
The meal was almost like a show with the waitresses doing this choreographed serving to the immediate family. It was cute. There were also two slide shows. One of the bride and groom as children and one of the actual wedding ceremony that happened an hour ago. The food came out and it was a hit and miss. We got cold barbecued meats (amazing), Peking duck (amazing), shrimp with brocolli (ok, not great) abalone and sea cucumber (nasty), 2 whole fish (a little bland), minced duck in lettuce wraps (ok, not great), 2 whole crabs (really good), lo mein (not that great) and sesame balls for dessert. Alex ended up eating both crabs just because there was so much food. The sad part was the dessert. They had a cake but did not end up eating it. It was simply there for display.
The music was a live band, but they were not good at all. Plus, I guess in chinese culture, dancing isn't a thing, so only Alex, his sister, his niece, his brother in law and I were dancing. I was a bit disappointed in that, but it seems the wedding was a success and everyone was happy.
Day 5:
We leave early in the morning and head to Hong Kong. From arriving in the air port, it takes almost 2 hours to get to our hotel. So we don't arrive until after noon. From the hotel we head to this resturant that has the most amazing noodles. I took a picture because the food was really good.
After this, we decided to head out to the goldfish market. It was so worth the trip. The aquariums these stores had were larger than anything I've ever seen in a pet store. And they had so many turtles. There were also these large panels filled with bags of fish waiting to be sold. It was quite a sight.
Day 6:
We headed out to the Big Buddah in the morning. It was a long train ride, but worth it. We went up a very long cable car ride and had a really nice conversation with a girl who was from Seattle but doing a teach english stint in northern Thailand. Once we got there, we saw the big buddah, the museum that went along with it and looked in the trinket shops. Nothing too interesting, so we headed back. Then we met with the family for dinner at a Michelin star restaurant that serves soup dumplings. They were very good.
Day 7:
The family had scheduled a trip to grave site of Alex's grandfather (his mother's father), so we took cabs with the family to cemetary. Afterwards, we headed to a very hong kong style resturant where they have a mixture of western and eastern food. The combination is not as good as one would think and most of us ended up not eating what we ordered. Alex and I decided to split off after lunch and go up the worlds longest escalator. At the top, we walked over to Victoria peak, which is a cable car that take you up to the highest peak in Hong Kong. We ended up getting there at sunset, so that was really nice. After we got back down, we couldn't figure out what food we wanted because the lunch had made me sick. So we bought food from the local grocery store and ate that.
Day 8:
I spent much of the morning in the rooftop pool with Alex's brother in law and his niece. It wasn't exactly warm enough to go swimming, but it was nice to put my feet in the water. After that was Alex's business meeting, were we learned that the investor Alex was meeting didn't even know what google was. So the pitch was a bust, but then some other family members showed up for dinner after and it was a nice last night in Hong Kong. We took Alex's sister and her family to the goldfish market, which she appreciated. Since her daughter is only 2, they didn't do nearly as much as we did, so taking them out for the last night was nice.
Day 9:
We leave Hong Kong for mainland China on a ferry. It's 3 hours and we arrive in Zhongshan, China. The hotel we are staying at happens to be managed by one of the Yee family members, so we have this crazy expensive lunch in the hotel with things such as a chicken wrapped in lotus leaves and a bread shell, shark fin soup and squab. We then head out to see some of the sites and end up at Sun Yet-Sen's village, a market where we bought some guava's, then at the apartment that Alex's dad used to live in. It was a good first day and we finished the night with rice casseroles from a restaurant in the mall.
Day 10:
We were told we were visiting family all day that day, so we got up early and got into the shuttle. The first stop was a suburb of Zhongshan that was where a bunch of Alex's second cousins lived. We spend a couple of hours there seeing their apartment, which was very run down. After that, we headed to a farm on a mountain, where we were told to get out. From there, Alex and I were made to walk with the family on this umarked trail up a mountain to a bunch of graves. One of those graves happened to be Alex's great grandfather. There, the cousins burned incense and food and paper for the underworld. After we did that, we headed back down the mountain to a resturant that was open air. Alex and I did not eat anything for fear of contamination, as this resturant clearly had no refridgeration or clean water. We were able to finally get back to the hotel where Alex and I went to a muslim resturnant and ate the most amazing lamb dishes we've ever had. Including this one bao that was filled with lamb and baked in a tandorri. A good end to an otherwise crappy day.
Day 11:
Alex and I head out with his parents to see an uncle on the Lau side. We also got dim sum for lunch, which was the first time we had had dim sum since getting to Canton. We then went to a market with one of Alex's aunts and afterwards walked back to her condo, which was very lovely. I got to eat the most amazing banana ever, as apparently they are locally grown next to her condo. Alex and I talked with his parents and they decided to stay in China, but we decided we would head back to Hong Kong the next day. The entire family then went to a squab restaurant and ate a ton of squab.
Day 12:
We head back to Hong Kong on the ferry with Alex's aunts and uncles. After eating lunch with them, we headed out to walk around. Our first day back was heading to the Tsim Sha Tsu promenade. I had been wanting to go since we started the trip. So after purchasing our tickets to Disneyland, Alex and I headed out. The first place we went was this small shop that sold quadcopter parts. It wasn't very useful to Alex, so we left and ended up getting lost on our way out. We ended up walking into this huge mall of anime paraphinalia. There were so many toys, statues and cards. We probably went through 3 floors of this mall, completely surrounded by stores that sold nothing but Anime stuff. Once we got out of there, we headed over to the promenade and hung out there for a little while. It was very beautiful.
We then headed to Pizza Hut for our tradition of eating Pizza Hut in China. How I had missed cheese!
Day 13:
Hong Kong DISNEY!!! We got there at 10:30am and immediatly were able to get on all the rides we wanted. We started with the new Mystic Point, then headed to Grizzly Gulch coaster, the Lion King review, Toy Story Land, it's a small world, A stitch encounter, Buzz Lightyear's Laser ride and Space Mountain. Alex and I had quite a lot of fun. They had a lot of Lilo and Stich stuff, since it's easier for people from Hawaii to come to Hong Kong than to California or Florida. The Toy Story Playland was really cool and some really cool rides. I went on all the roller coasters and enjoyed every bit of it. The only sad part was there was no mention of Mulan in anything at Disney. Maybe they are saving the Mulan stuff for Disney Shanghai, but I was hoping for at least a mention. After coming back from that, we headed out to another section of Hong Kong that was supposed to be almost completely devoted to remote controlled vehicles. We found it to be filled with a ton of paint ball guns that looked very much like real guns. There were also shops devoted to remote controlled cars and two shops that had a lot of quadcopters. We looked around there before going to an open air trinket market and bought some souvenirs. Then we ate the best hot pot I've ever had at this little restaurant that didn't have any English on the menu, but the owner spoke English.
Day 14:
We met with Alex's aunts and uncles for the last time, having lunch at this small noodle restaurant. We then headed back out to buy the quadcopter that Alex wanted. We ended up buying two different copters, a small one called the Ladybug to practice on, and then a very large on to bring out once we've perfected flying on the small one. We then spent our last night in the hotel, talking with Alex's Aunt Faye, who was very helpful throughout the trip.
Day 15:
16 hour flight back to NYC. Good thing we were able to rest beforehand in the executive lounge at the airport. That was nice.
Now that China was over with, I decided that the pharmacy I was trying to start just wasn't working out. The investors said that they would have to delay the pharmacy opening until January, and I just couldn't do that. So I cut my losses with them and looked for another job. Luckily, I found a pretty nice one in a location not very far from my house. I work 15-20 hours a week, which is more than enough for me to pay all my bills. Plus, so far the owners seem very nice.
Day 1:
16 hour flight to Hong Kong, then another 3 hours to Manila. We arrive at around 6pm there. Alex, his parents and I meet Alex's aunts and uncles on his mother's side and we all end up eating dinner at a fancy philipino resturant near the hotel. Then we crashed due to Jet Lag (I got about 2 hours of sleep total the entire flight)
Day 2:
Met family for breakfast in the hotel's large breakfast buffet.
Day 3:
The family was supposed to do a day trip into old Manila. Since Alex and I had already had our fill of Manila yesterday, we decided to sleep in and do our own thing. So we went instead to the large mall that was across the street from the hotel and got lunch there. It was adobo fish and barbacued beef. Really good. We then wandered around before stopping in to a salon and getting Alex's hair cut in preparation for an investor business meeting in Hong Kong. We styled his hair after Sulu from the new Star Trek movies. That night we ate pub food with Amy and his mom. It was ok, nothing great.
Day 4:
The wedding was at 3, so we stayed in and got dressed up and took a shuttle bus to the church. It was a large catholic church was a ton of doors that opened up, so it was practically an open air church. This was good because there was no air conditioning and the ceremony was a full catholic ceremoney. Which means it was over an hour long. After the ceremony, we headed back to the hotel to relax a little before the reception. Because the wedding was paid by Alex's religious family, there was no alcohol and the appitizers were not that great. But considering chinese weddings are 8 course meals, I didn't expect them to be spectacular.
The meal was almost like a show with the waitresses doing this choreographed serving to the immediate family. It was cute. There were also two slide shows. One of the bride and groom as children and one of the actual wedding ceremony that happened an hour ago. The food came out and it was a hit and miss. We got cold barbecued meats (amazing), Peking duck (amazing), shrimp with brocolli (ok, not great) abalone and sea cucumber (nasty), 2 whole fish (a little bland), minced duck in lettuce wraps (ok, not great), 2 whole crabs (really good), lo mein (not that great) and sesame balls for dessert. Alex ended up eating both crabs just because there was so much food. The sad part was the dessert. They had a cake but did not end up eating it. It was simply there for display.
The music was a live band, but they were not good at all. Plus, I guess in chinese culture, dancing isn't a thing, so only Alex, his sister, his niece, his brother in law and I were dancing. I was a bit disappointed in that, but it seems the wedding was a success and everyone was happy.
Day 5:
We leave early in the morning and head to Hong Kong. From arriving in the air port, it takes almost 2 hours to get to our hotel. So we don't arrive until after noon. From the hotel we head to this resturant that has the most amazing noodles. I took a picture because the food was really good.
We headed out to the Big Buddah in the morning. It was a long train ride, but worth it. We went up a very long cable car ride and had a really nice conversation with a girl who was from Seattle but doing a teach english stint in northern Thailand. Once we got there, we saw the big buddah, the museum that went along with it and looked in the trinket shops. Nothing too interesting, so we headed back. Then we met with the family for dinner at a Michelin star restaurant that serves soup dumplings. They were very good.
Day 7:
The family had scheduled a trip to grave site of Alex's grandfather (his mother's father), so we took cabs with the family to cemetary. Afterwards, we headed to a very hong kong style resturant where they have a mixture of western and eastern food. The combination is not as good as one would think and most of us ended up not eating what we ordered. Alex and I decided to split off after lunch and go up the worlds longest escalator. At the top, we walked over to Victoria peak, which is a cable car that take you up to the highest peak in Hong Kong. We ended up getting there at sunset, so that was really nice. After we got back down, we couldn't figure out what food we wanted because the lunch had made me sick. So we bought food from the local grocery store and ate that.
Day 8:
I spent much of the morning in the rooftop pool with Alex's brother in law and his niece. It wasn't exactly warm enough to go swimming, but it was nice to put my feet in the water. After that was Alex's business meeting, were we learned that the investor Alex was meeting didn't even know what google was. So the pitch was a bust, but then some other family members showed up for dinner after and it was a nice last night in Hong Kong. We took Alex's sister and her family to the goldfish market, which she appreciated. Since her daughter is only 2, they didn't do nearly as much as we did, so taking them out for the last night was nice.
Day 9:
We leave Hong Kong for mainland China on a ferry. It's 3 hours and we arrive in Zhongshan, China. The hotel we are staying at happens to be managed by one of the Yee family members, so we have this crazy expensive lunch in the hotel with things such as a chicken wrapped in lotus leaves and a bread shell, shark fin soup and squab. We then head out to see some of the sites and end up at Sun Yet-Sen's village, a market where we bought some guava's, then at the apartment that Alex's dad used to live in. It was a good first day and we finished the night with rice casseroles from a restaurant in the mall.
Day 10:
We were told we were visiting family all day that day, so we got up early and got into the shuttle. The first stop was a suburb of Zhongshan that was where a bunch of Alex's second cousins lived. We spend a couple of hours there seeing their apartment, which was very run down. After that, we headed to a farm on a mountain, where we were told to get out. From there, Alex and I were made to walk with the family on this umarked trail up a mountain to a bunch of graves. One of those graves happened to be Alex's great grandfather. There, the cousins burned incense and food and paper for the underworld. After we did that, we headed back down the mountain to a resturant that was open air. Alex and I did not eat anything for fear of contamination, as this resturant clearly had no refridgeration or clean water. We were able to finally get back to the hotel where Alex and I went to a muslim resturnant and ate the most amazing lamb dishes we've ever had. Including this one bao that was filled with lamb and baked in a tandorri. A good end to an otherwise crappy day.
Day 11:
Alex and I head out with his parents to see an uncle on the Lau side. We also got dim sum for lunch, which was the first time we had had dim sum since getting to Canton. We then went to a market with one of Alex's aunts and afterwards walked back to her condo, which was very lovely. I got to eat the most amazing banana ever, as apparently they are locally grown next to her condo. Alex and I talked with his parents and they decided to stay in China, but we decided we would head back to Hong Kong the next day. The entire family then went to a squab restaurant and ate a ton of squab.
Day 12:
We head back to Hong Kong on the ferry with Alex's aunts and uncles. After eating lunch with them, we headed out to walk around. Our first day back was heading to the Tsim Sha Tsu promenade. I had been wanting to go since we started the trip. So after purchasing our tickets to Disneyland, Alex and I headed out. The first place we went was this small shop that sold quadcopter parts. It wasn't very useful to Alex, so we left and ended up getting lost on our way out. We ended up walking into this huge mall of anime paraphinalia. There were so many toys, statues and cards. We probably went through 3 floors of this mall, completely surrounded by stores that sold nothing but Anime stuff. Once we got out of there, we headed over to the promenade and hung out there for a little while. It was very beautiful.
Day 13:
Hong Kong DISNEY!!! We got there at 10:30am and immediatly were able to get on all the rides we wanted. We started with the new Mystic Point, then headed to Grizzly Gulch coaster, the Lion King review, Toy Story Land, it's a small world, A stitch encounter, Buzz Lightyear's Laser ride and Space Mountain. Alex and I had quite a lot of fun. They had a lot of Lilo and Stich stuff, since it's easier for people from Hawaii to come to Hong Kong than to California or Florida. The Toy Story Playland was really cool and some really cool rides. I went on all the roller coasters and enjoyed every bit of it. The only sad part was there was no mention of Mulan in anything at Disney. Maybe they are saving the Mulan stuff for Disney Shanghai, but I was hoping for at least a mention. After coming back from that, we headed out to another section of Hong Kong that was supposed to be almost completely devoted to remote controlled vehicles. We found it to be filled with a ton of paint ball guns that looked very much like real guns. There were also shops devoted to remote controlled cars and two shops that had a lot of quadcopters. We looked around there before going to an open air trinket market and bought some souvenirs. Then we ate the best hot pot I've ever had at this little restaurant that didn't have any English on the menu, but the owner spoke English.
Day 14:
We met with Alex's aunts and uncles for the last time, having lunch at this small noodle restaurant. We then headed back out to buy the quadcopter that Alex wanted. We ended up buying two different copters, a small one called the Ladybug to practice on, and then a very large on to bring out once we've perfected flying on the small one. We then spent our last night in the hotel, talking with Alex's Aunt Faye, who was very helpful throughout the trip.
Day 15:
16 hour flight back to NYC. Good thing we were able to rest beforehand in the executive lounge at the airport. That was nice.
Now that China was over with, I decided that the pharmacy I was trying to start just wasn't working out. The investors said that they would have to delay the pharmacy opening until January, and I just couldn't do that. So I cut my losses with them and looked for another job. Luckily, I found a pretty nice one in a location not very far from my house. I work 15-20 hours a week, which is more than enough for me to pay all my bills. Plus, so far the owners seem very nice.
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