Last Full Day of Macau

So this morning was presentation day! Yining and I were on the same panel which was nice because we were sure to hear each others presentation. We were on a panel at 11:00 in room 1302. We decided to skip the 9:00 panels and work on our presentations and make sure we were ready. So we got up at 7:30 and showered, got all pretty, and worked on our papers. We walked over to The Venetian and found our room. We sat through the last few minutes of the panel before us and then set up our room. At 11:08 we were worried. At 11:22 we were pretty sure no one was showing up. Our third panel member didn’t even show up. However, people did eventually show up at about 11:28. So we did end up giving our presentations and I got several questions about my research and was told it was interesting. Hooray. I also met a woman from Sydney who will be near me (in Semarang) while I am living in Indonesia and we exchanged information. That was very nice.
Then ICAS 8 was over for us. Both sad and happy really. Sad because I did learn some things, meet some lovely people, and have had a lovely time in China and will miss it. Happy because I am beat! So much so that Yining and I had another sort of relaxing day today. After the presentations we walked back to our hotel room and changed into shorts and t-shirts. It was too hot to be dressed up in our presentation outfits on the walk to lunch. We decided to make our way over to the City of Dreams which is located next to our hotel room for lunch.

Hey look! Blue skies!

We ended up having lunch at Hard Rock Cafe Macau. Why? Because it was tasty, that’s why. Also because they had a pretty good lunch set deal that included a salad, french dip sandwich and chips for me and half a huge chicken and chips for Yining, and a soda. My sandwich had super bread. Made me happy and filled me up. Yining’s chicken was seriously HUGE. I had a bite and it was nice as well. I also added a green tea panna cotta for 20 MOP or $2.50 US. It was very yummy. Incredibly smooth. Also the restaurant was just fun and it made me think of my dad who got me a Hard Rock t-shirt from the middle east which I love. We were then going to go to the giant panda park but it was closed for some reason today. BOO. So we went back to the Sheraton and I got some gifts for people. We then sat around in the hotel and watched a British dance show. Not very active or exciting but it was so wonderful just to rest a bit after a stressful morning. Also being in the room prevented us from spending anymore money. Which is always good.

Happy in Antonio’s

Especially since we had a last special dinner plan. We decided to bookend our trip with fabulous Portuguese food. This time we went to Antonio’s in Old Taipa. Antonio’s is a Portuguese restaurant and Antonio, the chef, has a michelin star under his belt. It was very good. Anthony Bourdain recommends it. I ate the same food as Anthony Bourdain. This fact makes me very, very happy. I ordered the tenderloin in a Portuguese style fried with garlic and white wine served with Portuguese smoked ham, a fried egg, potatoes and pickles. It was amazing. The sauce was so good I could have licked it off the plate. However this was a rather fancy place. They spoke excellent English and our waitress kept calling us “madame”. They even had their own brand of bottled water. So I did not lick the plate. Probably would have been rude. It was very good and I really enjoyed it… however, I liked A Lorcha so much more. The vibe was better and much more relaxed. The bread they gave us before the meal was miles above the bread at Antonio’s and my food was actually cheaper and superior at A Lorcha. If you’d like some Portuguese food in Macau my official recommendation is for A Lorcha. Make a reservation and enjoy some glorious bread and some wonderful food.

My lovely tenderloin from Antonio’s

And a note about Macau, I’ve found a lot of the cab drivers don’t know the Portuguese names for streets. Having the characters written down in a notebook has been wonderful for us. It made getting to and from A Lorcha and Antonio’s much simpler. Although after realizing how close the walk from Antonio’s was (much shorter than the way there) we probably could have walked back. Oh well. We did walk around Old Taipa a little bit before hoping in a cab. We went in and out of several bakeries and a super cute little shop. It sold items with the most adorable pandas. The father panda always looked so mad and I could not stop laughing at him. I almost got an adorable shirt with the angry panda and his wife panda holding a tray of egg tarts. They were also standing in front of St. Paul’s. It was adorable. A bit pricey though so I settled for a magnet with the angry panda in a bubble bath with a little ducky. It is wonderful. Silly angry panda. I’m still laughing.

Soda Pandas! Angry Laundry!

And that concludes our time in Macau. Right now we are in the hotel room watching Bunheads and packing. Well ok I’m on the computer but I was packing. Tomorrow we will get up, check out, head to the ferry terminal, and get our tickets to the Hong Kong airport. Our flights leave at the same time, around 14:00. Yining is going on to Shanghai and I will be heading back to Honolulu by way of Korea. Back to life, back to reality.

A Day Out in Macau

Tuesday was a wonderful day. Yining and I started the day out with early morning panels. We actually decided to go to the same panels for the 9:00 session and found ourselves in an early morning discussion on food in Asia. It was very interesting. The first paper was about the changes in temple food in southern India in terms of modern adaptations. For example the use of plastic take-out containers for blessed dishes instead of the traditional banana leaves. It was one of the more interesting presentations I’ve heard so far at the panel due to the fact it didn’t take itself so seriously. There were light hearted moments and I greatly appreciated them. The next presentation was about Taiwanese food culture. We did not stay for the last presentations because while we wanted to hear more about food in Asia (who wouldn’t?) we also wanted to hear our new friend, Harlan, talk. He was discussing a Taiwanese author named Li Ang. This author is a bit of a trouble maker and seems like an incredibly interesting read. Her book The Butcher’s Wife is available on Amazon and it may be one of my next for fun reads (Thanks Kristen and Brett for the Amazon gift card! It shall be put to good use).The book Harlan was actually discussing, Mi Yuan, is not yet on Amazon so I will have to wait to read it and discover if his feminist take on the novel is spot on or not. However, from what I’ve gathered about Mr. Harlan I trust he is correct. I also have learned about some interesting Indian novels that also have interesting feminist readings that I will have to check out: The Red Box, Anita and Me, The Namesake, and Brick Lane. You know… after I read the 100 books for my comprehensive exams.

Macau

The real fun of the day came at 13:00. We went on an excursion! The conference had set up free daily excursions to Old Town Macau and we signed up for it. It was a bit of a pain: started 20 minutes late, people were selfish and decided to sign up for the excursion even though they knew they had to be back early to catch the ferry and expected the excursion to end early for everyone because of it (rude!), and people kept interrupting the tour guide. However, the majority of the excursion was free time and Yining and I made the most of it.
We started the tour by getting off the bus near the old Portuguese fortress and walking down cobblestone streets filled with souvenir shops. The guide, Vincent, informed us the cobblestone had been brought all the way from Portugal. Which, to me, seems excessive but hey it was lovely. We made our way up to the Fortress and were give 15 minutes of free time to walk around. Cut a bit short by the fact we started late and we still had “more iconic” landmarks to see.

A canon overlooking Macau and across the river mainland China

After the fortress it was a very short walk to the ruins of St. Paul’s and Senado Square. They are very beautiful. The ruins of St. Paul’s  is Macau’s main landmark and has been standing as the facade of the church for nearly 400 years. The front of this church was made of stone but the rest was constructed out of wood. During a particularly strong typhoon season a candle was blown off the alter and burned down the back section of the church. The front, stone section was left as is ever since.

The Ruins of St. Paul’s

Cantonese Opera Advertisement

While at St. Paul’s Yining and I heard a wonderful thing. Gongs. Not just any gongs, the gongs of Chinese Opera. Oh yes. The temple next to St. Paul’s was hosting a performance of Cantonese Opera. Which was, as it usually is, stunningly beautiful. I love Chinese opera. Give me a good yueju or jingju or any kind of ju and I am a happy, happy girl. I am not sure on the particular story that was being performed since my knowledge of the Cantonese Opera canon is non-existant and I could not read the Cantonese. However, I did not need to know exactly what was going on to enjoy it. I just enjoyed it. Here are some more photos. Hooray for a photo heavy post. There are just so many beautiful ones. Thank you again to Laura for donating her old camera to me. I have obviously been using it on this trip. Love my little sister.

My favorite picture of the trip so far. Also I want this whole outfit. Headress to shoes.

More Cantonese Opera

Next we, sadly, left the performance because the group was moving on down the road to Senado Square. We actually missed the group moving on and were left behind with the Russian family I had met early. I scared the crap out of their son/grandson by asking him in Russian what game he was playing on his phone. The look on his face was PRICELESS. He was so confused that someone was speaking Russian to him in China. Made my day. I then introduced myself to his mom and grandma in Russian. We I guess missed the group leaving St. Paul’s by a minute or two. Damn beautiful Cantonese Opera. So I discussed a bit in Russian a bit in English with the Russians and in English with Yining and we made our way down the road because luckily Yining and I listen and knew Senado Square was next on the list. We did luckily find a couple Yining knew from an earlier panel discussion and they informed us we had till 4:30 for free time in the square. This is a beautiful Portuguese style square with colorful buildings, a bright yellow church, lots of shop, and beautiful cobblestone from Portugal. We walked up and down the square and then back to the bright yellow church at the end of the square. St. Dominic’s is beautiful and they have a, bless them, air conditioned museum of Portuguese and Chinese antiquities.

Senado Square

St. Dominic’s Church

Our little rain haven

After the church we walked around a bit more taking in the beautiful architecture, people watching, looking in cute shops and expensive shops we couldn’t purchase anything in even if we combined our money, and becoming increasingly warm and covered in what I like to call the lovely humidity blanket of sweat. After walking around for a bit we decided to stop in a small cafe for a drink. It had been a while since we had anything to drink at all. So we stopped in an adorable cafe with pictures of Audrey Hepburn on the walls. We had milk tea, which I love, and they even gave us free water with lemon AND free refills of water. Which is just unheard of here and amazing. As we sat down, continuing our good weather luck on this trip, it started to pour. When we were done with our milk tea it had all stopped. Loving our weather timing this trip. It was then time to head back to meet the group and walk back to our bus.
Next on the agenda was the ICAS 8 Book Prize announcement where they give out prizes for top-notch publications and dissertations as well as the keynote address. Both were interesting but the real treat was the gala dinner following the keynote address. There was just tons of food. It was also a nice time to pick a random table and meet new and interesting people while everyone stuffs themselves till it is hard to get up and walk back to your hotel room. They had: sashimi, mushroom soup, lamb, prawns prepared two different ways, beef in a Chinese style, fried rice, baked cod, steamed and baked vegatables, cheesecakes, creme brule, chocolate cake, sweet dumplings, tapioca, mango pudding… just so many wonderful things. I had three helpings of meats and veggies, a bowl of mushroom soup, and a helping of sashimi. As well as two plates full of  desserts. Followed by a cup of coffee and a cup of tea. I was quite full by the end of the night. It was a good choice to go on our excursion that day because we built up an appetite so we could fill ourselves to the brim with gorgeous food.
We were then too full to really do anything after than and went back to our hotel. Back in the room I took a lovely bath in the huge soaker tub which was just amazing and then we chilled for a while because we were beat and full. It was really nice. We haven’t really stopped moving since Thursday so the time to just relax and watch strange TV shows we had no idea existed (ie: Suburgatory) was so nice.

More on interesting panels, hot pot buffets, and egg tarts later. For now here are some more photos.

Working her sleeves – More Cantonese Opera

A little moment at the Macau Fortress

Inside St. Dominic’s Church

Close up of St. Paul’s

A bell in St. Dominic’s

The Sheraton from The Venetian at night

Marvelous Macau

Macau from the Fortress

Macau is quite lovely. Hot and tremendously humid but lovely. It is like Vegas x 10. Ok, actually x 6. Really. They surpassed Vegas x 6 in the amount of money they make in the casinos. They spent something like 2. 1 billion Hong Kong Dollars to build The Venetian Hotel and they earned it back in NINE MONTHS. NINE! Crazy. So how did we get to this lovely place? I’m glad you asked.

On the Turbojet to Macau

We took the ferry. The ferry was interesting. It cost about $20 US to take the one hour trip from Hong Kong to Macau which involves going through customs on the Hong Kong side and the Macau side. So it takes quite a bit more than an hour to really get from A to B but I digress. So you purchase your ticket for the next ferry at the station, wait in some lines, and then hop in the “line” to get on the boat. I say “line” because it was more like an angry cluster of people trying to fight their way onto a boat that had assigned seats. It was a bit strange the urgency felt by everyone to get on this boat. Although the urgency to get off was much higher. About 40 minutes into the trip the seas were rough. They were rough to start because of the rain but they were very rough at this point. Yining was luckily asleep, because that woman can sleep anywhere, but I heard about five people vomit multiple times into the handy vomit bags. Fun. Thank goodness for my preventative anti-nausea medicine. That could have been me. It was not me though. Yining and I made it, vomit free, to Macau Ferry Terminal at about 3pm. We then proceeded to wait for what seemed like forever in another customs line. I dislike customs lines. Then walked over to the free Sheraton shuttle. Bless free shuttles. All the hotels here have them because all the hotels here have casinos and they want you here. They want you in their casinos. They will take you to and from for free because they know you will lose all your monies.

Our room at the largest Sheraton in the world.

So we arrived at the Sheraton and checked into our room. We are in the new Sky Tower which is amazing. This whole hotel is amazing. It is the biggest Sheraton in the entire world. It really is enormous. There is a mall, two casinos, many restaurants plus a food court, multiple fountains, kiosks, tons of people, and a large bridge to another giant hotel. Luckily that giant hotel connected to ours is The Venetian where the ICAS is being held. Makes for quick and dry travel to and from our hotel room. We took the elevator up to our floor and found our fantastic room. It is beautiful and huge. Bless you Booking.com for the superb deal on this hotel. Not only is it amazingly convenient but damn comfortable. I’m sitting in the room as I type in a terry cloth robe after taking a bath in a giant soaker tub. Insert contented sigh here. We didn’t spend much time in the room, just enough to unpack, and then we were off on another adventure!

A Lorcha restaurant

This time it was a food adventure, the best kind if you ask me. We decided to take a taxi over to the other island because we did not want to deal with the bus, a transfer, and another bus in the dark. Where were we going you ask? To a little bit of heaven. We were going to A Lorcha. An amazing Portuguese restaurant. It is quite wonderful. It is a small place, nicely decorated in the Portuguese colonial style, polite staff, quick food delivery, and it contains some of the most amazing food. Yining and I started with a half jug of sangria that was delightful. We then had an appetizer of clams in oil, garlic, and cilantio which I probably ate too fast but I could not get enough of them. Then we each got our entrees. Yining had the tenderloin with garlic and chips (fries) and I had the African chicken. Each were beyond amazing. I had read about the African chicken on many websites that recommended A Lorcha and they were all correct. It was spectacular. However, we couldn’t finish out meals because they did give us a lot of food. So we got take away and saved it for a later night. A quick taxi ride and we were back at the Sheraton ready for bed and the first day of the conference on Monday.

African Chicken. Yum.

Monday was nice. We woke up early and walked over the bridge to The Venetian. We found our way through the maze of a hotel to the ICAS registration and got ourselves all signed in and signed up for the excursion around Macau on Tuesday afternoon. My first panel of the day was on the post-conflict/post-tsunami Aceh region of Indonesia. I think it went really well. It was very informative and the roundtable portion of the talk was lively. I think I may have not been clear on a point and sounded a bit rude… I hope that it not the case. The next two panels were ok. Just ok though. The best part of the day was the welcome reception where Yining and I got 1.) free drinks and 2.) to mingle and meet new people and fellow scholars. We did end up meeting some wonderful people and exhanging information and cards. All in all a good day.
Now it is late and I am very tired from walking all around a super humid Macau all day so it is time to hit the hay. I will write up more about Old Town Macau and beautiful Portuguese architecture tomorrow. For now I will say goodnight.

Oh Hong Kong. You’re Swell.

22 June 2013

Traveling is always an interesting thing. Our flights on Thursday/Friday (yay time travel) from Honolulu were very long. Not unpleasant, but being in a plane for 8 hours then in an airport for 2.5 and then on another plane for 3 hours takes it out of a girl. However, Korean Air is wonderful. Even if our flight from Korea to Hong Kong was delayed so they could fix something. The flight attendants really made it for me. They were so wonderful. Beyond pleasant. They went out of their way to help people. Just lovely. So when we landed in Hong Kong and had collected out luggage we were so beat we decided just to grab a taxi to our hotel instead of taking the train to Hong Kong island and then transferring to another train and then trying to walk to our hotel in the dark. Money well spent I think.

Cosmo Hotel Mongkok

The Cosmo hotel in Mongkok is just adorable. We had such a cute little room (and I do mean little: 18sq meters). It was just enough for our two nights. Two beds, a big window, wonderful shower that I wanted to take home, and a closet to hang our clothes. Even if my toes hung off the end of the bed I would still stay there again. Reasonably priced, close to Olympic Station, near a Watson’s (Long’s-y), and the staff was very nice. Yining and I got up to our room, unpacked a little, and then crashed. Hard.

On Saturday, our first morning in Hong Kong, we woke up to some decent rain fall. We thought for a moment about changing out plans for the day and Ta-Da the rain stopped! It was wonderful. So we walked our way to Olympic Station, figured out the train system, and popped down to Hong Kong island so we could make our way up to The Peak. The Peak is a high point in Hong Kong that you can see most of Hong Kong and damn near all of Kowloon. It is wonderous. The trolley you take up is a bit concerning. It is steep. Steep steep. Fun though. Once and the top Yining and I took several beautiful photos and made our way inside just as it started to pour. Again we had excellent rain timing. We enjoyed a vanilla latte each and the free wifi in the coffee place while the rain cooled off. It was then time to hop on the trolley back down (Backwards!) so we could get some lunch.

View from The Peak

We walked from The Peak about a mile to a restaurant that is famous for milk tea. Delicious, delicious milk tea. The pork cartilage spicy rice was pretty darn tasty as well. After lunch we took off about 1/2 a mile down the road to visit Man Mo Temple. It was beautiful. I felt a bit strange and out of place taking photos in this place of worship but no one seemed to mind. It is a famous temple so I bet they are used to the tourists walking about and are good at ignoring them. The giant coils of incense in the temple were the most striking. They smelled and looked wonderful.

Man Mo Temple

After saying goodbye to Man Mo Temple we walked back to a bakery we saw that sells egg tarts. Oh the joyous egg tarts. We each got a delicious little gem and went on our way to find a place to stuff our faces with tart. We walked through a cute vegtable and fruit market and found ourselves at one of the MANY malls in Hong Kong. We ended up at a Starbucks and got a small drink and plopped down to nosh on tart. They were a-may-zing, in case you were wondering. While in Starbucks, again taking advantage of free internet, we decided to check out information about the Chinese Opera Festival at the Culture Center on the Kowloon side. We found out tickets would be made available the day of and we had to pick them up at the theatre. So that was the next place we would go!

Victoria Harbor from Kowloon

Dragon Boats!

We made it all the way to the Culture Center and… wah, wah, wah… no tickets left. Very sad. However, we took our sad no Chinese opera lemons and made beautiful lemonade. The Culture Center is right on Victoria Harbor so we walked the promenade and took pictures of the view. We also walked right into the Dragon Boat Carnival! It was very cool. We sat in the bleachers and watched several races. They were quite exciting. Although I’m glad I wasn’t betting on them because I chose wrong every time. Damn you number 6! After a few races we decided to walk and find the San Miguel Beer Festival which was tied to the carnival. We found it. It was great. Yining and I sat down and drank our free beer and had a lovely time. I was also interviewed by many people who were doing projects for school or for the Hong Kong Tourism Board. Apparently I am a non-threatening foreigner. Yay?

We were a bit hungry after the beer so we got up and walked around a bit to find some food. We ended up at the iSquare mall and decided to check it out. It was fun. They had this store FrancFranc which may be the most adorable home store in the entire world and I want to find another one. It was amazing and not horribly priced. I want to go to there.

In the mall there was this one Italian restuarant that smelled amazing! Just heavenly. I know what you are thinking here… you go to China and eat Italian? What? Well, shush! We have had lots of Chinese and Korean food and you have no idea how good this place smelled. Also, it turned out really to be a great choice. My pasta in cream sauce with ham and mushrooms was exceptional. Really just so filling and hit the spot so perfectly. Yining’s pizza was good as well. She let me have a slice.

Hong Kong at Night… blurry this camera apparently hates the night.

After the spectacular food we walked back to Victoria Harbor to take pictures of the night skyline and watch the Symphony Lights. Hong Kong holds this event every night. They play music and the lights of many of the buildings on the Hong Kong side dance to the music. It was neat. Following the classy lights we decided to continue our night time fun by visiting the Ladies Market in Mongkok. We took a train there and walked around the stalls for a while. I ended up getting one small gift and haggling like a pro to toot my own horn. It is fun to haggle. By this point we were getting very tired and chose to head back to the hotel. It didn’t look very far on the map so we decided to hoof it instead of paying for a taxi. Now i’ll admit I was a bit turned around and I think we were both a little confused by the streets. We did figure it out after a bit of confusion and made our way back to the hotel after a long walk. Longer than expected but we survived. Kind of… If you hadn’t noticed I used the word ‘walk’ a lot so far. We walked about 6-7 miles during the day and stood a whole bunch as well. My feet are BARKING. I have blisters on my heels and toes. My fault for breaking in my new shoes on the plane flight and then walking all day. Oh well, nothing bandages can’t handle. Also, my kate spade conference shoes are the ones I work 8 hours a day in and they are comfortable. So hooray for the next few days.

Dumpling!

Being back in the hotel was wonderful. I took a shower in the best shower I’ve ever showered in and then we sat in our beds and looked at our photos, talked, and got ready to sleep. Hooray sleep. It was good sleep too. We slept in till 8:45am because our only plans for Sunday were dim sum! The dim sum place didn’t open till 11:30 so why rush? We took a train down to Canton Road and to, surprise, another mall where the dim sum place Yining likes is located. There was a line at the place, Din Tai Fung, at 10:45 when we arrived. By the time the place opened there was a line long enough to fill the large restaurant and then some. It was really tasty. We ate so many dumplings. So many. I wish I had some right now they were so tasty. I love dumplings. I could eat them every day. We also had some vegetables and a red bean bun for dessert. Mainly, though, we ate dumplings! Which was the plan. So we succeeded in our Sunday plans. Huzzah.

When we left the mall is was pouring. So even though it is a bit pricey we took a cab back to the hotel instead of walking 10 minutes in the rain to take two trains back and walk 5 more minutes in the rain. We had already checked out before leaving for dim sum so we just had to pick up our bags, use the free wifi in the lobby to check ferry times, and then head out to the docks to grab a ferry to Macau. We left at 2pm and arrived in Macau at about 3pm. Which is where I am now. In a coffee shop in Macau and drinking a nice cup of tea before bed. More on the ferry and what we did on our first day in Macau tomorrow after the conference.

Here we go ICAS 8!

Aw Hey, Korea.

At ICN Airport

안녕하세요 family and friends! How are you? I am super tired. That is how I am. I did not sleep well last night because my baby, Sunshine, was acting rather sick. He was very lethargic. I had never seen him turn down playing with a hair tie and it kind of freaked me out. So I was up till 3am making sure my baby was ok and talking to the 24 hour vet on the phone. I think it was a poor reaction to the Frontline Plus. The internet seems to have turned up several people who have run into this problem too. Poor Sunshine. Ya gotta have your medicine though, kid. I’ll just talk to the vet and try a new one next time that will work better with you.
So that is how my night went. Then I got up at 7am, showered, checked my luggage, and Yining was there to pick me up so we could head to the airport! The airport was a breeze. We waited in a short line to check in, sat for a little bit, and then got on the plane. The plane trip was very nice. Although I would have liked to sleep at least it was a pleasant flight. Korean Air is wonderful. The flight attendants were so wonderful with us and with the family with two kids next to us. They were very attentive, kind, and absolutely gorgeous as well. Fun times had by all. Korean Air even has individual touch screen entertainment sytems. So I watched Friends, Sherlock, and Oz: The Great and Powerful. Oz was AWFUL. Just terrible all around. The acting, the CGI, the script… just everything. The other entertainment was great, the food was good, and there was no turbulence. So all in all a lovely trip.
Now Yining and I are sitting in the Incheon Airport in Korea. Hooray Korea. It is a very, very nice airport. The world’s best for 8 years according to one sign. I personally like the Singapore airport better, but that’s just me. This airport does have the best thing any airport could ever have though. Free Wifi. I mean it is 2013. Free airport internet should just be a given. Am I right? I’m right. Also, there is a kids section with slides. I will not lie. I am very tempted to slide. I will refrain though. Our flight leaves in an hour for Hong Kong and I can probably stay out of trouble for that short amount of time. Then we will be in Hong Kong at about 10:30. We will go through customs, grab a cab, and head to our hotel. Thank goodness for late check-in at hotels.

More pictures and updates to come tomorrow when I actually have things to show and stuff to say.

Hugs to you all!

Travel Time

So I leave Thursday at noon for Hong Kong and Macau. I am super excited. I really, really need this trip. It will be very nice to get away and not only do some fun touristy stuff but also get back into the academic world. Not taking classes I have felt a bit too separate from the academic world. So Yining and I will leave Thursday and land in Hong Kong at 10pm on Friday. We get to spend Saturday and most of Sunday in the beautiful Hong Kong. Beautiful and super hot Hong Kong. It’ll be raining and 90 degrees but that’s ok because there will be so many dumplings to eat. Hooray. So far that is our biggest plan in Hong Kong. To eat. Also look at some beautiful harbor views. However, mostly eating dumplings.

Macau Skyline

Then we are off to Macau for the conference Monday-Thursday. We are both presenting Thursday so we will do a mixture of listening to presentations, networking, sightseeing, and stuffing our faces Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Then Friday I am off to the Hong Kong airport to fly home and Yining is off to Shanghai. I’ll post lots of pictures and things over the next few days. Our hotels have wifi so updates will come your way. Next time I write it’ll be from China. Hooray!