I am so darn excited. This summer I will be traveling the world again with my friend Yining. Two summers ago I went to Japan with Nick, Matt, and Yining. Last summer I was in Indonesia. This summer Yining and I are heading to Hong Kong and Macau! I am so incredibly blessed. Yining and I booked our tickets today! We also booked the hotel rooms so it is set in stone now. I cannot even really express how excited I am to go to Hong Kong. I mean look at it:
Hong Kong Skyline
It is so stunningly beautiful and culturally diverse and historically amazing. I am just so thrilled. So, here is the plan. Yining and I are heading out from Honolulu to Hong Kong on June 20th. We are taking the amazing Korean Air and I can’t wait for that either. Everything I hear about Korean Air is amazing. Even their commercials are nice. So hopefully even Korean Air coach will feel lovely. We will be leaving on the 20th and arriving in Seoul, South Korea on the 21st. We have a nice 2 hour wait and then head on to Hong Kong from Seoul. That counts are being in Korea right? Hanging out in the airport for two hours? Sure… ha. We get into Hong Kong late and will take the train into Hong Kong proper.
Cosmo Hotel
We are staying at a super posh little hotel. The Cosmo Hotel. It is a short walk from the train station and hopefully easy to find. Yining speaks Mandarin and lots of people speak English in Hong Kong so we should be good. Also I may have looked at the map of Hong Kong 100x already and will probably look at it 500 more times by the time we get there so I’ll have it memorized. We are only spending two days in Hong Kong (in the tiny 18 sq meter room) and we are looking to fit in a whole lot. I’d love to see the Hong Kong Heritage Museum and participate in the Cantonese Opera Class, Enjoy the Jingju festival in town, visit the giant Buddha statue on Lantau island, EAT my weight in dim sum, spend time taking in the beautiful harbor views of the Hong Kong skyline, visit the ladies night market, see some temples, and take a million photos. Sounds possible in two days right? We have the full day the 22nd and part of the 23rd. We can do it! On the 23rd we will check out of the Hong Kong hotel and taking the ferry from Hong Kong to Macau. It will take about an hour and I am bringing my Dramamine and some ginger! Oh, and yes, I’m sure Yining and I will be reenacting the entire “I’m on a Boat” video. Don’t you worry. Then we will be in Macau! Yay Macau!
Macau!
Macau is the Las Vegas of Asia. Except better. Imagine Las Vegas in the middle of a beautifully cultural small Asian village with Portuguese influences. Wondrous. Yes, there is gambling and yes I will be participating in some of that. I have budgeted myself $20 US. Hey maybe I’ll win a million dollars. Wouldn’t that be sweet? Once we land in the stunning Macau we will be taking the hotel shuttle to the amazing, new Sheraton Macau – Cotai Central. We had many options in Macau when it came to hotels. The hotel the conference is in is the Venetian Hotel. Even with the participant discount for the conference the hotel was MUCH MUCH MUCH too expensive. So we did some Kayak and Booking.com shopping. Our first option was the cheapo route and stay at the Best Western. However, when we factored in taxis every day back and forth… staying there wouldn’t end up being so cheap. So after doing some math (Yes dad, I did lots of math when booking this trip) we decided that staying across the street at the Sheraton was the better deal. Plus we will always be on time!
Sheraton Macau
The Sheraton is amazing. For one the room is 42 sq meters. More than twice the size of the Hong Kong hotel. We each get a double bed, not a twin. We have a bath… I don’t even have a bath in Honolulu. So I am super excited about the room. The hotel is also very fun. Dining, three pools, gambling, and more exciting stuff. Although we will be spending most of our time at the conference rubbing elbows with fellow scholars and learning… it is nice to be staying somewhere that will feel completely relaxing once we hit the room at the end of a long day. We also have some ruins and temples to check out. Oh and there is a Panda park. Yes, Pandas! Also we will be having dinner at least once with my friend Rob who just moved to Macau to work on a wonderful show, The House of Dancing Water. I’m excited to see him! He is a wonderful person and I’m excited he is checking out some places in Macau so he can recommend things to us when we get there. He also lives and works just around the corner from our hotel. So a major plus. Hopefully we will even get a chance to see his show. Hooray! We have 5 days and 6 nights in Macau. Hopefully we can fit in a good amount of conference, some sightseeing, and even some relaxing. Also take a million more photos. I will be presenting on my early dissertation work at this conference: The International Conference of Asian Scholars. It is a large scale conference so I am hoping to make some connections as well. There will be 1,500 scholars from 56 countries with around 300 panels. Luckily Yining and I are presenting on different panels and at different times. So we can go support each other. We are on the last day (Thursday) which is nice. Leaves time to see plenty of panels and make tweaks to our own presentations to fit the style of this conference if we need. After we present we can see some more panels, sightsee, stuff our faces, or all of the above. Then Friday we check out and take the ferry back to Hong Kong. I will be heading back to Honolulu and Yining will be heading to Shanghai to meet her family. We will both be leaving from Hong Kong at about the same time though so that will be nice check out and take the ferry together.
Then I will be in Honolulu for all of July (maybe with a visit from the mommy) and work till the end of July to have some more funds coming in. Then I will be heading out to Indonesia in August. I am in the process of applying for my visa and then I can get the travel plans started with Fulbright. I got my new passport today so I can make copies and send them off to Indonesia and get all my ducks in a row. Let the tour of Asia begin! Honolulu – Hong Kong – Macau – Hong Kong – Honolulu – Jogjakarta! Hooray!
Prambanan in Yogyakarta
A Christmas Tree in Asia 