Hong Kong 2

All I can say about blogger.com is I wish I was using another blogging program. Sentences broken, photos lost, blech. Wednesday: Back to Fa Yuen Market for breakfast. The woman at the café where we’re eating is willing to work with us on varying orders, so Leslie ended up with soup with spaghetti, ham, egg – which was okay, and worth getting, but not twice. It was a

leisurely morning with time spent in the office, talking with an English

man about our age – a regular Asia traveler, on his way to China. Photo: Breakfast place in Fa Yuen Market

We caught a bus down Nathan Road (the main road running north/south bisecting the Kowloon peninsula) to the Star Ferry, ferry across harbor, then bus #15 to the Peak at $4.9HKD/person senior rate. Most tourists take the tram straight up, but we learned awhile back that the bus is slower, more scenic, and way cheaper. Had a long, leisurely double espresso high, high above this great harbor, a super favorite thing for us to do. Bus back along Queen’s Road and getting off at exactly the the best place to walk to (surprise) Tsim Chai Kee Noodles for another bowl of shrimp wonton soup, vegetable, and coke and Leslie making friends with a majorly cute server. Our table-mates were an old woman and her somewhat strange son. Photo: These stores selling aromatic things are all over HK

On the way to the ferry we walked through the IFC Centre, a massive shopping mall and office complex. We saw a crowd around a store and went over to check it out. It was an event, including several glam models and assorted beautiful people.

Back across the harbor I left Leslie and took na bus to the Chungking Mansions to change money and walk around among the Chinese, Middle-Easterners, and Africans. There were fewer angry looking men with beards and whatnot than in previous years. I saw the Everly Bros – one of them with his dentures out – in their little store. Meanwhile, Leslie was sitting on the couch in the Dragon office with a German woman with a roach tattooed on her ankle shouting into her computer/skype on the one side and a Brit doing the same thing on her other side, and then a crowd of Chinese people came in talking loud (no surprise there!) with an old man with them wearing a spor

t coat, cable-knit sweater, slacks of dubious cleanliness, white socks, and felt shoes and lighting up what Leslie called “a big cigarette.” Photo: Dragon office/commons area

I’m not sure about Leslie, but I’m already prett

y much outside of time by now. Later she confirms the same. Random notes: Our first room was $240HKD ($31USD) and second was $280 ($36USD).

The second room was 6.5 feet wide, 9.5 feet long, and the bath was 27 x 66 inches. Sign on the wall: “Please DO NOT use the Bath Towel as floor mat,, or clean the stain (such as curry, food, hair highlight color …”). Stenciled on trash cans on Cheung Chau Island: “Beware the shaft.” On Star Ferry: “Take care when crossing the gangplank.” We ate for <$10USD/day/person. Photo: From Pacific Coffee on the Peak. Tram in lower right of photos

Thursday

An easy departure day – same café for breakfast, with “Jenny,” the woman running the place giving Leslie another variation on breakfast noodles. We bought some apples and coconut tarts for the trip. Walked to some gold stores to look at 24K jewelry. I’d looked for in 2005 and again in 2006 for good gold, but couldn’t find any. Leslie noticed a couple of nights ago a crowd of people in a jewelry store and was thinking there would be gold there. Then she talked with a woman waiting for the ferry who said that Yau Ma Tei is the place for gold, thus confirming the reason for the crowd. Sure enough, there was all the gold anyone could want – we’d just been looking in the wrong part of HK. But the price is >$1300USD/ounce, so too much for us. Looking at all the good gold, it’s easy to see why people

get gold fever.

Back at the hostel, said goodbye to Stanley, caught the A21 bus to the airport, going across amazing bridges over deep water channels with huge ships going under the bridges, and here we are in a true world-class airport. Photo: BBQ place in Mong Kok - this is the place where I stopped on a day when I got totally lost in 2006. Check out the goose with its head hanging out.

Hong Kong photo album is here

Hong Kong

Weird blogger program, breaking up sentences and even words and there's nothing I can do about it. Sorry. The 14.5 hour flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong was fine, with okay seats – the first and second seats of the middle

section, with, thankfully, a nice person in the third seat. I slept some, but Leslie never was able to s

leep. We got into Hong Kong a few minutes after 6am, changed a few dollars, and caught the A21 bus to

Mongkok. We dropped our bags at the Dragon, had breakfast at the Ho Fun Café, and caught

a bus to the Chungking Mansions to change $200. Rode back up Nathan Road and

checked in to the Dragon, where sure enough, we got a room with shared bath. Photo above: Mong Kok sidewalk

We walked around the neighborhood some, including to the Sino Plaza, a very busy collection of mostly tiny shops selling electronic gewgaws. By now, Leslie was shak

y-tired, so we went back to the Dragon and she stayed in the room while I went on a fruitless

search for Wing Hub Roasties. Unable to find Wing Hub, I went back to a place we’d gotte

n take-away (what they call to-go) pork and duck before. The duck was good, but the pork was just brilliant. The best. This day, Sunday, was kind of a lost day as we’d been quite a few hours with little or no sleep. By the end of the day Leslie had gone 48 hours with zero s

leep – not bad for 65 years!!! Photo above (by Leslie): bird fancier at Cooked Foods Court, Fa Yuen (people's) Market

We slept like logs. In the morning fixed coffee with the filter holder (kind of like a Mellita) that Leslie got for traveling), and walked a few blocks to the Fa Yuen Market. We had planned on getting dim s

um for breakfast at the 3^rd floor “Cooked Foods” food court for breakfast, but changed our minds and had a western breakfast (eggs, ham, toast, coffee)

at a place where we’d talked with the owner several years ago – and it was here that the trip seemed to really begin, with a friendly woman at a nearby table, men with so

ng birds in cages, and Leslie and I planning our day in this amazing city. Photo: random lane Cheung Chau

We took a bus down the canyon of Nathan Road to the harbor. What kind of a day would it be without a ride on the Star Ferry across the harbor? We had thought we’d go up the Peak, but it was a hazy day and so decided we’d take a ferry to Cheu

ng Chau Island. It was a nice 45 minute ride on the “fast ferry” (no smoking, no gambling, passengers must stay in the saloon) to the island. I guess if we’d not been to Lamma Island several times in the past Cheung Chau would have been more engaging. Maybe the best way to say it is it was a good trip to a kind of gritty (as Leslie would say) island town. We were tired by the time we got back to our room. We cleaned up and went out to Good Hope Noodles for shrimp wonton soup and a plate of Chinese broccoli. And finally back to our room where we are as I write this. Photo: Star Ferry, the very same ferry that Suzy Wong and her lover rode back and forth across the harbor, falling in love.

Sorry about all the broken-up sentences and words!

Asia 2010-2011

The trip started in Berkeley where we had Thanksgiving with David and Kevin. In a few hours we’ll take off for Hong Kong, where we’ll stay in Mong Kok at the Dragon Hostel. Photo: $4 worth of dim sum from Chinatown in Oakland. Starting the trip with a dim sum binge

http://www.worldisround.com/articles/336394/index.html

My amazing wife is fine with us staying 2 nights in a room with shared bath (hopefully without a turtle – see link above), then 2 nights with attached bath. The thing is we really like the Dragon – it’s well-run, it’s 2 blocks from the MTR and a main bus line, half a block from the Ho Fun café, 2 blocks from the Fa Yuen Market, and it’s in the most crowded area of a very crowded city with the most amazing crowds in the streets.

Then to Hanoi for about a week while we wait for David to join us. Depending on the rains, we’ll go to Sapa up in the mountains or Halong Bay. Then on to Hue (beautiful city of ghosts), Dalat, Saigon, Phnom Penh … deep into the lands of the Mekong ...

“Whole generations of westerners who went out there as soldiers, doctors, planters, or journalists lost their hearts to these lands of the Mekong ... there are places that take over a man's soul.” Jon Swain

More beautiful things

Two excellent short films by Jun, my cycling buddy. Jun did the video on Leslie and me cited elsewhere in the journal.

State Fair of Texas

Greenwood Cemetery

It's Magic!

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Sometimes I find myself wishing I wasn't working. Mostly it's just laziness, but also the fact that I've lost a step. I'm not as adept at keeping track of the multiple problems of multiple patients and the multiple questions and issues that come my way in a busy clinic day (I can keep only about 6-8 windows open). So I'm slower. But then there are realizations that I'm doing a good job for the patients and that I can have some fairly deep clinical insights; there is the pleasure of working with my colleagues; and there are moments like in this photo. What joy to see three generations together like this! What joy to provide care for people who really have their act together, like la abuela in the photo.

Photos and words

For obvious reasons I hesitated to write this, but it’s true, so ... I became enlightened and nothing other than this life, including the service, would do. That’s why. Of course it was transient. But those few days spent in that state (and Leslie’s profound influence) were enough to keep me on the path for >40 years. Photo: David and me

An email from a former student, very nice to receive: "Just wanted to see how things are going. J told me he was heading to the clinic, so I asked him to get your email address for me. School is going really well. They are definitely keeping me busy here. Seems like I literally study all day. Fortunately, I am a big enough nerd that I don't mind all the reading. I did not get a chance to come by before I left, but I did want to thank you for your support and encouragement. I remember as a nursing student the professors would always ask us about our plans post graduation. I would tell them that I intended to go to CRNA school. You were the only professor who told me I could actually do it, and supported me. I learned a great deal from you during my clinical rotation, and one of the most valuable things I learned from you was how to be a caring clinician. I admire how you reach out to the patients. Hopefully if all goes well, I can one day offer my services as a CRNA to those in need." Photo above: Highway Colorado headed into New Mexico

Part of my answer: A nerd in understanding the patho, the procedures, the meds, etc., makes for a stud out there at the literal edge of human existence, where you’ve been spending your time.

Photo: Chocolate chunk cookies (the best recipe) and whole wheat bread (Tassajara recipe)

Truth, Justice, the American Way

Like many other people I am deeply affected by the death of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers student who committed suicide after another student posted videos of Tyler having sex with another man. I realize (sorry to be soooo slow) that discrimination of any sort against gay people is a civil rights, a justice issue – the same as the other great civil rights/justice issues of the 20th Century.

Why this time? Why not (ABC News, I think): “… 13-year-old Asher Brown, who told his parents he was gay, fatally shot himself last week after they said bullies pushed him too far. Two other teenagers hanged themselves after classmates had bullied them for years over their sexual orientations. 15-year-old Billy Lucas of Indiana hanged himself three weeks ago, and 13-year-old Seth Walsh from California died this week, eight days after trying to hang himself from a tree.” Why not Matthew Shepard? Why not others? I don’t know.

But I do know, here I am, with no more tolerance for religious bigots who model intolerance and hate and then lie about it with the old “hate the sin, not the sinner” shuck and jive. No more tolerance for people who justify prejudice because it’s part of their culture (Hispanic, Black, Redneck [everybody else gets a cap, why not us], whatever). No more tolerance for looks and innuendo. No more tolerance for really, face it, people’s own personal threat over something (same sex sex) that isn’t unusual, that lots of people do or have done, that animals other than the human animal do.

Being gay isn’t a lifestyle choice – it just is, the same as being hetero, BUT if it was a choice, then so what. Who is anyone to tell anyone else that a choice that doesn’t hurt anyone is wrong?

Here is a link to the It Gets Better Project - a very good thing for young people struggling with cruelty. From one of the vids:

There really is a place for us
There really is a place for you
One day you will have friends who love and support you
You will find love
You will find a community
Life gets better.