The Latest and Greatest

Hello all! Here is a misc blog of sorts. I wanted to catch up a bit before our trip home for the holidays. I'm sure we'll have many more pictures to share in 2010.

Love and hugs from Hong Kong and Happy Holidays!!!

Thanksgiving 2009

To avoid being homesick a big group of our friends got together on Thanksgiving evening to enjoy some French food together. Even our Aussie, Kiwi, & British friends helped us celebrate! We went to a private kitchen near our flat that serves great food including a huge seafood platter as the first course. Yum! Poor Chris was traveling for work and spent his Thanksgiving in Seoul, Korea with work mates. Don't worry, I saved him some pumpkin pie. Of course I made Chris and I a traditional Thanksgiving meal over the the weekend with all the classics!

New Territories Tour

Chris and I went on an all day historical tour of the New Territories with a local historian. We were able to explore existing old walled villages, temples, and other historical landmarks just minutes away from modern downtown Hong Kong. We went up almost to the border with China.

Baycura and Nicola & Amos' Visit and some misc

We had a few fantastic visitors last month including our good friends Mike Baycura, Nicola, and Amos. Great times! There are few misc pictures in here as well. Enjoy!

Halloween 2009

Chris got another use out of his Captain America costume this year. We had a blast dressing up as superheros. We won 3rd place in a costume contest and had lots of requests for pictures!

Beijing

Day 1
We technically arrived at 11pm on the 30th, but all we did was go straight to our hotel. One of Chris’ co-workers that’s from Beijing was on our flight and her parents drove us to our hotel. It was a bit of an adventure because our hotel was near the National Day festivities that would begin early the next day. We thought we were going to have to get dropped off a 15 minute walk from our hotel. This isn’t fun with suitcases at 11pm, Luckily we were able to get dropped off right at the door. This was a good start to the weekend. Thanks Jia!

Happy National Day China! We woke up in Beijing on the 60th anniversary of communism in China! Those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes, eh comrades? (quote from Austin Powers, we aren’t communists) We were hoping to catch a glimpse of their once a decade military parade. We knew in advance we weren’t “allowed” to watch, but we wondered how they could hide hundreds of thousands of soldiers, ICBMs, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, etc from us?! We took a walk around after breakfast to find all the streets around us blocked off to cars, but people were walking around. On the end of our block we found a SWAT team looking type guy with a machine gun and there were soldiers lining the streets. We realized right away they weren’t there to mess around.

We ended up watching some of the parade on TV and were lucky enough to see the air show portion from our hotel room window. We saw fighter jets, attack helicopters, bombers, etc. It was sweet. We took lots of pictures. We got sick of watching TV shortly thereafter and wanted to venture out to see the city. Our hotel told us not to leave because of the restrictions around the celebration area. They warned us we might not be able to come back to the hotel if we left. We weren’t going to waste one of our days sitting around in the hotel, so we decided to risk it. We had to walk for about a half an hour to find a taxi which we didn’t think was bad. On our way to find a taxi we saw the parade participants that had just performed. They had busses lining the streets to shuttle the performers out of the area. It actually seemed very organized.

The taxi dropped us off at the Summer Palace. We decided to rent the audio tour and were on our way. It was perfect weather. It was in the 70s with a breeze. We both overdressed a bit coming from the HK heat, we thought we were going to be cold. We walked around and enjoyed the palace for a couple hours. Realizing we didn’t eat lunch we thought we’d try a snack. The hotdog/sausage on a stick thing looked pretty good. The vender thought I was crazy putting ketchup all over mine. The first bites were ok until I had a crunchy bite! Ewwww! Crunchy hotdogs?! I immediately spit the bite out of my mouth which is not something I would normally do. I'm glad we were outside. We tossed out the dogs and had suddenly lost our appetites. We wrapped up the tour with a boat ride across the lake. This was one of our favorite sights of the trip. I can see why the past emperors used it as their summer get-away.

We decided to take a load off and relax in the “bar area” of Beijing. After a confused taxi driver and a lot of walking we think we found this bar area. We picked a random place with outdoor seating and had a few beers. They had an eclectic variety of music including a Christmas carol…in October…It was starting to get dark and we were hoping to catch the fireworks show that we thought we might be able to see from our hotel room. We found a taxi and went back to the hotel for some dinner. To our surprise the taxi was able to pull right up to our hotel. Yippee! We had some yummy Peking duck, spicy tofu, noodles – a feast for dinner. We made it back to the room just in time for the fireworks. We could see most of the show right from our window.

Day 2

The second day was probably our favorite. We woke up early to meet our guide and driver by 7am. We headed out to the Great Wall, the Mutianyu section. It’s about 50 miles north of Beijing. After a speedy ride with our insane driver we made it. It was worth the drive because it is much less touristy than the section closest to the city. I wanted to skip the cable car and climb the 1,000 steps up for the good view, but Chris talked me into taking the cable car up and I’m glad we did. We did plenty of walking once up on the wall. You can tell from the pictures that it’s not exactly flat. We wanted to hike on but some areas are restricted where the wall hasn’t been restored yet. It was a wonderful time of year to visit. It was in the 70s and the trees were just started to turn for the fall.

After a few hours of exploring around we got some locally grown peaches, apples, and roasted chestnuts for a snack on our way to the Ming Tombs. Our driver got even crazier as the day went on. I literally had to watch out the side window and pretend like I didn’t think we were about to get in a fiery crash. They made us stop at “The world’s largest jade factory!” aka “a tourist trap!” for an informational tour and lunch. We have already seen this song and dance in Guilin, China with the “silk factory”, "pearl factory”, and “art museum”. Can you imagine a museum where everything just happens to be for sale?! We hurried through their spiel and on to a below average Chinese lunch. Then it was on to the Ming Tombs. We learned a lot here, but it wasn’t as exciting as the Great Wall. After an hour or so we decided to head back to the city. I’m glad we made it back alive. When our guide told us that tips were appreciated and wanted our opinion about the driver Chris let him have it. Let’s just say they didn’t get a tip from us.

After showers and a rest we ended the day with dinner at a popular restaurant Da Dong. This was our second night of Peking duck. This place had a leaner and slightly different take which was fun to try. We ordered some fried rice and peas to go with our duck. To our surprise we were served 1 spoon full of peas each with a shot of peppermint liqueur. I have included pictures in the slide show. Interesting!

Day 3

We had another early start in attempt to beat the crowds at Tian’amen Square and the Forbidden City. We arrived at Tian’namen Square around 8am to find it completely packed with people. We dodged the crowds to explore and also to view the floats on display from the parade 2 days earlier. We made our way to the Forbidden City with the hoards of people (mostly Chinese folks). One of my favorite parts of the day was actual the garden next to the Forbidden City. It was peaceful compared to the madness we had just been a part of. It was decorated with red lanterns and flowers.

We also got to watch some of the military guys go through some training.
Next we ventured into the crowded Forbidden City. It was beautiful and very impressive. The buildings all kind of started to look the same after a while though. It wasn’t the best experience to share with a million+ other people either. We tired after a couple hours and decided to head back to the hotel before our next sightseeing adventure.

We spent the afternoon in an area called Hou Hai. There was a nice lake lined with bars, restaurants, and shops. We had lunch and took a rickshaw ride through the hutongs (old style homes of Beijing). We ended the day with another Peking duck dinner at Made in China at the Grand Hyatt. It was really good, but we are done with Peking duck for a while. The best part about the duck was the deep fried skin that you dip in sugar. So naughty, but delicious!

Day 4

Our wake-up call came early once again. We got up at 6am to go to the Pan Jia Yuan antique market. After 30 minutes in the car, we realized our taxi driver was lost. He was speaking to us in Mandarin and pointing to buildings, but of course we didn’t understand. We called the hotel for some translation help. About 10 minutes later we were on our way to the right spot. We arrived at the sprawling market while vendors were just getting set up for the day. It was only about 60 degrees (freezing cold to us!). We hadn’t had breakfast or coffee yet. We both thought it was a mirage when we saw a sign “Cafe”. Amazingly enough we were able to get hot coffee to warm us up while we shopped. I can’t reveal our purchases because some are Christmas gifts for our families, but we found some treasures. I did buy something for myself…I overpaid for an (I think it’s amazing) old looking cloth with Buddha’s and elephants. I’m having it framed right now. Of course we got charged gweilo prices and I paid about 4 times what I should have. I did get over 50% off his original asking price, but I still I realized I got ripped off. We had a lovely shopping experience and still made it back to the hotel in time for the buffet breakfast.

After breakfast and showers we went to see The Temple of Heaven. The traditional style architecture as similar to the Forbidden City, but had distinct blue roof tops symbolizing the sky. This was located in a beautiful park that was decorated for the mid-autumn festival and 60th anniversary. We spent a few hours touring the grounds and enjoying the nice weather.

Our grand finale of the trip was dinner at The Red Capital Club nestled in a hutong area of Beijing. It’s an original structure and dates back to war times. The staff was dressed in old army uniforms. The food was fantastic. After taking about 20 minutes to read through their witty and extensive menu we finally decided a few dishes to order.



Overall we thought Beijing was fantastic. I hope you enjoyed reading about our trip.

Chris' 2nd Birthday Party

Sorry for duplicates all you facebook users! Here are the photos from Chris' 30th birthday party in Macau. We spent the weekend with a small group of friends in the "Vegas" of China.

The good old USA! 1st stop: Idaho

We had a fantastic trip to the USofA in July. Our first stop was Idaho for Kari and Jeff's elopement party. We had a great time celebrating and seeing all the family. It's not often the Lasco-Vail family is all together! What a great time to be together. Congratulations again to Jeff and Kari!

Jeff & Kari also took us to their wonderful cabin up in Island Park for a night (only about 90 miles away from IF). It was gorgeous and such a nice break to be in the forest with wild animals and fresh air! We made smores, BBQed, hot tubbed, took walks, went off roadin', boating, etc. So much fun!

Sorry for all the duplicates photo's to you avid facebookers!

2nd Stop - Oregon!

We had an awesome trip to Oregon as well. We stayed in Beaverton with grandma Jeri. It was great to see the Sugg-Hinkle side of the family. We also made a trek down to Eugene where Uncle Rick and Aunt Tally threw Chris a HUGE surprise 30th birthday party! They pulled out all the stops - decorations, amazing food, plentiful beverages, great people, good times! They dug a fire pit in their backyard and did an authentic pig roast! It was so delicious! Everything was just wonderful. It was so great to see everyone. Happy early birthday, Christopher!

On the 6th of 7 legs of our journey, we had a hefty layover in San Francisco. Our good friends Amy, Derek, & Michael picked us up from the airport and took us out for drinks and a quick visit. It was much too short, but great to get to catch up with good friends.

And don't worry folks, we did our part to stimulate the US economy. We dropped some major cash shopping at our favorite and missed stores. I wish there was a Target in Hong Kong!!!

I didn't take enough pictures in Oregon. Sorry for the poor showing folks. I'll do better next time.

Misc Photo's

So, it's been awhile since I've published a blog. Here is a hodgepodge of pictures. You'll see our 38th stories high garden. Chris deserves all the credit. He has the green thumb and does all the manual labor. You'll also see some pictures of our friends' going away party - themed "white trash". We had a blast with this one! The rest are misc Hong Kong fun. We hope you enjoy. Thanks for checking out our blog.

Love,
Chris & Margs a.k.a. Maggie

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Chris and I recently spent 4 days in Siem Reap, Cambodia. A short 3 hours by air from Hong Kong. We got a great deal going on the cusp of rainy season. The only downfall was the HEAT. It was around 90 degrees with 90% humidity and all the temples are very exposed. The city of Siem Reap was very quiet compared to high season. Our hotel, Khemara Angkor Hotel, had 120 rooms but only 21 were booked while we were there. Instead of the breakfast buffet we got room service every morning. Not bad! Some hotels were completely shut down due to the low number of tourists. We were lucky enough to only have rain showers at night. We lost power one night for a few hours. All the restaurants stayed open, so we enjoyed a cold beer and dinner by candlelight.

We had a private guide and car for our trip. You'll see our knowledgeable guide "D" in some of the shots below. What a great deal - just $25USD for the entire day. We were surprised to learn that U.S. dollars are the preferred currency there. Tuk Tuk rides were $1 and 2 bottles of water were $1. Between the entry visa, temple passes, and airport fees we ended up spending more than expected. The area is very dependent on tourism. We felt good about spending the money there in hopes to help boost their economy. The city is very developed, but the country side is still quite primitive.

Enjoy the pictures and please excuse any of my mistakes naming the temples. I should have been taking notes during the tour! This show includes: Angkor Thom, Bayon, Terrace of the Elephants, Terrace of the Leper King, Phnom Bakheng, and of course Angkor Wat.

Outer Temples

Our second day of touring was even hotter than the first day. I wasn't as good about labeling as our first day...Our guide took us to some of the smaller "outer" temples outside of Siem Reap. We also made a stop at the landmine museum and learned a lot about the tragic history of Cambodia. A former child soldier of the Khmer Rouge, Aki Ra, dedicated his life to de-mining Cambodia. He was safely removed over 50,000 landmines. Sadly, thousands of active landmines still exist in Cambodia. We also visited a memorial site of the many victims killed during the Khmer Rouge in areas know as the "killing fields". Almost a third of the population were wiped out during this time.

On a much lighter note we really enjoyed our journey. The temples are truly unbelievable and the Cambodian people very welcoming. We feel very lucky to be able to visit such an incredible place.

Random - Mirror Falls Hike from this spring

I thought I would share some photos of 1 of our last hikes for the AWA hiking group for this season. June - August are too hot for some of the longer more difficult hikes. Chris and I will continue to hike this summer, but will stick to covered and shorter trails.

Stanely Warm Up Race May 1, 2009

We had our first dragon boat race this past weekend. It was a great warm up race to prepare us for the Stanley International race on May 28th.



Only 3 women's teams entered this particular race. We got 2nd place in 2 heats and 2nd overall. Not bad for our first race!

Deep Water Bay Race May 3, 2009

We also had our 2nd race of the season this past weekend. It was the first year our team had entered the Deep Water Bay race. It is a 500 meter race versus the 270 meter races we train for. Everyone was very nervous about the distance. We hadn't even done a 500 meter race simulation in practice yet. We were expecting the worst, but ended up holding our own. We placed 5 of 6 in the first two heats. Then placed 2nd in the "losers" bracket. This felt like a triumphant victory given the circumstances. What an amazing group of women!

Check out the great video one of the husbands took. We are the yellow team. I'm 3rd back on the right hand side and have pigtail braids :)

Hong Kong Rugby Seven's

These are a little old now, but better late than never. Chris and I were lucky enough to get tickets to all three days of games. I can see why rugby is so popular. Beer, beer, costumes, and more beer. The 7 minute halves were great too. That can even hold my attention!

Our Easter weekend in Cebu, Philippines

We were luckily enough to book a last minute package to the Philippines for Easter weekend. We stayed at a resort in Cebu on Mactan Island. The resort was gorgeous and reminded us a lot of Cabo San Lucas, MX actually. It made us miss our family trips over the past couple years. The area around the resort was very poor and rundown, just like you see in Mexico. We only ventured off the resort a couple of times. They didn't have a Gigglin' Marlin or Trailer Park : )

Night out in Cebu City & Misc

We were surprised that our good friend Jeff and a new friend Justin booked a trip to Cebu the same weekend as us. They even ended up staying at the same resort as us! Jeff speaks the local language so that was extra handy to have around, even though all the staff at the resort spoke excellent English. He coordinated a dinner and night out in Cebu City for one of the nights which was a blast. We also met some other couples on holiday from Hong Kong that we spent some time with.

A few kitten pictures

Most of you know how obsessed I am with Baxter and Lily. I'm not afraid to admit that I am. Here are a couple cutie pictures I've taken over the past few weeks.

Tuk tuks, pad thai, fried crickets, bargain prices, wats – some of our favorite things of Bangkok!

We arrived late Friday night after a quick happy hour with some friends in HK. Our hotel was in the Old city right off the Chao Phraya River. It was small and simple but very clean and had a convenient location.

We spent the first day touring the Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaeo, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun. We also took a long boat tour around the canals. It was once called the Venice of Asia. You'll see in the pictures below. It's not as fancy! We took a dip in the rooftop pool to finish out the day to try to cool off from a hot and sweaty day of touring. Then we spent the evening around Khao San Rd which is know as the backpackers area. It had tons of shopping, street food, bars, restaurants, massage/beauty salons, etc.

Bangkok Day 2

Our second and last full day we went to the Chatuchak market which is the famous weekend market. About a quarter of a million people visit the market every weekend. It was overwhelmingly big! It had great deals on shopping and lots of good food. After our bargain shopping we went to Wat Saket and the Golden Mount also in Old City. We happily went back to Khao San Rd for the evening.

After a relaxing breakfast on the riverside patio of the hotel we had to head to the airport and end our stay in Bangkok. We had a wonderful and would love to go back!


I'll have another trip to report back on this month as well. Chris and I are heading to the Philippines for Easter weekend.

Macau - They have a Vegas here?!

Macau - another SAR of China. Just an hour ferry ride SW of Hong Kong. It's the Las Vegas of China so to speak. It doesn't have quite the party scene of Vegas and is more targeted toward gamblers. We played some interesting games. They actually have the card game "War" as a casino game. I thought that was amazing! Finally, a game I can play. They also have a shrimp, crab, pig dice game that is very popular. Chris tried to play Baccarat which is a very popular game for the Chinese. The cards are weighted at different values and basically if the dealer or person playing has the most points wins. It's customary for the player to bend and destroy the cards dealt to him. I thought the person playing just had a really bad temper, but I guess that's the norm. Macau is also home to the Venetian hotel/casino/etc which is the largest building in the world (not the tallest). The design is very similar to the one in the U.S.

We visited during the Chinese New Year and were able to buy and set off our own fireworks. Chris was pretty excited since we can't do such activities in HK and also because they had some fireworks that would have been considered illegal in the states. He was like a kid in a candy store!

Shenzhen = Shopping Mecca

We have taken a couple trips to Shenzhen on the mainland. It's about an hour MTR ride from where we live and has an overwhelming amount of shopping. Once you're on the train you don't even have to go outside to hit up the shopping. The mall is connected to the Chinese immigration area. You can get a "copy" of anything you want, cheap massages, and Cold Stone Creamery ice cream! (we don't have anything like that in HK). We got 1 hour foot massages and 2 hour body massages for about $50 USD total. It's a pretty nice facility with friendly people, but no one speaks English. We have a funny "lost in translation story", but it's too complicated to write about here. Another time, maybe?

A shout out to the sisters!

Congratulations to our sisters! Chris' sister, Stephanie, got engaged to Ryan Gore around Christmas time and they are getting married on New Years Eve of 2009. My sister, Kari, got engaged to Jeff Sanders and they were married on Valentines Day this year. We love you both and would like to welcome 2 new brothers to our families! Congrats!

Stephanie & Ryan

Kari & Jeff

Rick & Tally Visit HK

We were very happy to welcome Rick and Tally to Hong Kong for the first time (aunt & uncle on the Sugg side). They stayed a short 5 days, but we packed it full of activities! Check out the many pictures below. We started the visit off at the Peak and around HK Island. I think we ended up going to Kowloon almost every single day. It has great markets, restaurants, and our tailor. Tally got a fabulous custom made suit and we did lots of other shopping :)

We also went for a moderate hike around Lamma Island and ended up missing our ferry home... Luckily we found a smaller ferry going to Aberdeen, so we hopped on that instead. It ended up being a great boat ride and took us to a favorite seafood restaurant in Aberdeen (on HK island). We saw all sort of kinds of boats - there is a lot of action in Victoria harbor!

Rick & Tally Part II

One day was spent out on Lantau Island. We saw the big Buddha (largest sitting bronze statue in the world!), the Po Lin monastery, and had a leisurely lunch on lower Cheung Sha Beach. It's one of the most beautiful beaches in Hong Kong (in my opinion).

We also took a scenic bus ride out to the south side of the Island to Stanley. We had a blast walking around the market and did lots of shopping! We enjoyed a fabulous seafood lunch on the water.

As you can see we ate a lot of great food and enjoyed a cocktail or two over the visit. A good time was had by all!

AWA Lunch at the China Club

I was able to have lunch at the exclusive, member's only China Club in HK. 3 floors on top of the old Bank of China building make up the club. The building is just 15 stories high and looks tiny compared to the modern day skyscrapers surrounding it. There is a main dining room, private rooms for booking, and a library of several thousand books on China and all aspects of Chinese art, culture, history, religion and literature. The food is said to embody the traditional Chinese food found in Hong Kong. In the pictures below you'll see shots of a tea ceremony, noodle making, and some of the art and inside of the club.

Homemade Chinese Noodles

Home for Christmas

We were lucky enough to go home for Christmas this year. I went a few days early to visit Kari in Idaho. Then Chris met me in Indiana to have Christmas with my side of the family. We then went to Gig Harbor Washington to see the Sugg side and my dad. It was a great, but short trip. A lot of these photo's have been on various facebook pages, so apologies for duplicates!



We had a little blip in our travels to Seattle, but made it just 1 day late. We weren't expecting snow in Seattle!

It was great to see everyone while we were home. :) Thanks to all of our gracious hosts for making our stay so wonderful.

New Years Eve in Hong Kong

Happy New Year! Our friend Jeff had a NYE pre-party followed by ringing in the New Year at our favorite club, Dragon-I. Some of the pictures have been edited out to protect the innocent...



Chris had my camera most of the night and did a great job taking lots of pictures. We had a great time and were glad we weren't too jet lagged to make it to midnight.

I'm kind of famous!

I was interviewed for a small biweekly magazine a few weeks ago. There was a feature on new comers to Hong Kong. I was recommended by a friend from the American Women's Association for the article. It was fun to be interviewed and a photographer came to our apartment to take the picture. My 5 minutes of fame!

Suggs Visit Part III: Guangxi Region of China

After a fun week in Hong Kong with Tracey, the 4 of us headed for 5 days in mainland China. We went to the Guangxi region to Guilin primarily. It was only about a 1.5 hour flight away which was nice. We stayed in Guilin most of the time but also ventured out to Yangshuo and Longsheng (more details in the sections below).

Guilin is a thriving city in China with 1.34 million residents. They get over 10 million tourists each year (mostly from China and other countries in Asia). The city is very developed, but still maintains some of it's original character. Pictures below include our sightseeing in Guilin, our river cruise to Yangshuo, a tour of a small village outside Guilin, tour of a local tea farm, and the Reed Flute cave.

Li Jiang river cruise to Yangshuo

We took at 4 hour river cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo. The river is lined with beautiful limestone mountains and caves. We had a traditional Chinese lunch with some fresh river fish. The fisherman ride their bamboo rafts up along side the boat and sell fresh fish daily. It was delicious! We ended our journey in Yangshuo a charming fishing village. We did lots and lots of exploring, shopping, eating, and drinking Tsing Tao beer. We had amazing Chinese food in Yangshuo. Our guide hooked us up with some spicy local cuisine. Chris and I rode bikes through the country side with a local guide. We wish we could have had another day here.



My pictures didn't turn out of the Liu Sanjie performance on the Li River. It was choreographed by the same guy who created the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics, Zhang Yimou. It was spectacular and all done on the river! I found these pictures on the web. They hardly do it justice.

Longsheng Rice Terraces

We traveled 2 hours Northwest of Guilin to Longsheng county to see the famous Longji Titian rice terraces. We were able to see the Zhuang minority village on our trek up the mountain. We all made it to the top and it was well worth the view. Our visit was after the rice harvest. Each season has a distinct beauty. We were also at the cusp of the slow season, so it wasn't too crowded. We had some of the best Chinese food I've ever had; bamboo rice, roasted sweet potatoes (whole and plain), lemon chicken, spicy red pepper dishes, eggplant, etc.



Slide show:


That's all of our trip to China. I hope you enjoyed the million pictures we took!