Category: China

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Hello, HK, Goodbye

AJ

Hong Kong, China

January 31 – February 4, 2018

“Some places we stay in forever. Some places are mere stopovers. Just like Hong Kong.” That line opened Hello, Love, Goodbye, the Philippine movie that broke local box office records of all time. Ki and I made our stop at Hong Kong the previous year. Much of the movie was shot in places we had visited. We should’ve been the movie’s location scouts. A location tour usually followed the success of a movie or TV show (think Sex & the City in NYC and The Sound of Music in Salzburg). Done the other way gave us a sense of deja vu while watching the movie.

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Double-Decker Tram @ Hong Kong

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My Chinese Character

AJ

Yangshuo County, Guilin, China

September 4 and 6, 2017

Was it the Dalai Lama who said “Sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck”? Our last morning at our remote Yangshuo hotel, Riverside Retreat, was supposed to be a quick check-out. Nature foiled our plans. Rain started pouring in sheets at breakfast. As travel surprises went, our detention at the hotel turned out to be a stroke of serendipity.

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The Guilin Gang: Quinn, Koller, Binu, and TTT @ Riverside Retreat, Yangshuo County

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Memories of Macau

AJ

Macau, China

February 1, 2018

“Everything is a memory. Everyone becomes a memory,” I waxed nostalgic on Facebook. Even a place could become a memory. My first visit to Macau in the early 80s was marked with colonial nostalgia. Stone and clay were a stark contrast to the steel and glass of Hong Kong even then. Macau had since moved on 35 years later. Skyscrapers had broken out of its skyline, but it had done a better job at memory preservation than its sister city.

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TTT @ Cathedral Square (Largo da Sé), Macau

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The Wild West Street

AJ

Yangshuo County, Guilin, China

September 4 and 6, 2017

This street was made for walking 1,400 years ago. The oldest in Yangshuo, West Street was still a promenade when I pounded its pavement of marble. Since the county opened up to tourism in the 1980s, the pedestrian street had also become a melting pot, a conglomeration of cultures catering to Yangshuo’s international visitors. Chinese out-of-towners, though, outnumbered foreigners in the unending stream of people.

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West Street @ Yangshuo County, Guangxi Province

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Beach Hopping in Winter

AJ

Hong Kong, China

February 2, 2018

We came to Hong Kong along with a mid-winter cold front and a big chance of rain. Daytime temperature hovered just a few degrees over zero, certainly not beach weather by any stretch. But for Ki, it was beach season nonetheless. Insulated with woolen scarf, leather gloves, and the sentimental warmth of the jacket given by Mom many birthdays ago, I set out with beach-bum-for-all-seasons Ki to the island’s scenic coastline.

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TTT @ Repulse Bay Beach, Hong Kong

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Here’s Looking at You @ Hollywood Road

AJ

Hong Kong, China

February 4, 2018

I gotta hand it to the annual street art festival HKWalls for propagating art in public spaces in Hong Kong. The success of this annual event was not more evident than in Hollywood Road, the oldest street in the city. Otherwise merely a dense and aging concrete jungle, the main and intersecting streets had been gentrified by street art and murals. They rejuvenated drab, decaying buildings with vibrant colors and revitalized urban monotony with striking images.

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TTT and Old Townhouses Mural by Alex Croft @ Hollywood Road, Central District, Hong Kong

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Hiking in Hong Kong

AJ

Cheung Chau, Hong Kong, China

February 3, 2018

Streets crowded with tourists? Yass. Skyscrapers crowned with clouds? Double yass! Wilderness islands? Duh. Deserted beaches? Double duh! Farthest from my mind in Hong Kong. But as it turned out, not far from reality. Who knew that I would reach what seemed like the remotest part of Hong Kong? Apparently, only my travel companion Ki. His early morning online research yielded our day’s destination: Cheung Chau, one of Hong Kong’s outlying islands.

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