Best Men

Andrew's BFF Matt came to Korea for a 12 day visit this month.  His timing was impeccable since we know as much as we'll ever know about Korea (we hope).  Matt was, as always, great company and he was genuinely fascinated by this crazy place.  Matt joined Andrew and I on most of our "victory lap" around SoKo.  We went to the beach; we hiked to Seoul tower; we went to a baseball game; we sang karaoke; we flew a Chinook (simulated); we stayed out til all hours of the night in Seoul; we ate everything imaginable.  Here are some photo highlights:

Are they coming toward us or going away?  At Mallipo Beach on Korea's West Coast.

The beach town has a carnival feel and a pirate ship!

Why our friends fly to Korea: to loiter outside of convenience stores for hours.

Seafood feast with a white glove to keep from burning his hand.

Boys sure love their fireworks!

Who can guess the genre of music?

All smiles after the Samsung Lions beat the Nexen Heroes in Seoul.

Hong Kong Part Deaux

Traveling to Hong Kong for the second time taught us the following valuable lessons:

Lesson 1: All cities should be visited more than once to give them a fair assessment. 

Too bad we’re leaving Korea this summer and our vacAsians will be very limited, for a while anyway.  Our “Hong Kong the Remix” trip this Memorial Day weekend was devoid of any tourist pressure and gave us the chance to experience the city in a very natural way (lazily).  On the previous visit we hit the tourist highlights and posed in front of the obligatory sights, and really enjoyed seeing the city.  But the trouble with a first visit is that there are always too many “must-sees” for the time available, and there’s a continual undercurrent of wonder whether we’re tasting the true flavor of the city. 

View of Hong Kong from the Star Ferry.

Lesson 2: Visit cities with a fun tour guide friend to show you around.

This time we revisited what we enjoyed (the double-decker tram, the harbor lit up at night) and leaned on Tasha, a friend who has lived in Hong Kong for a few months, to show us her favorite places.  Can't beat a buddy for a tour guide since she knows what we like and she's always great company.

Tasha and Chloe at the beach on HK island.

 Lesson 3: Eat and drink fabulously.

I’d be lying if I said we didn’t eat and drink to our stomachs’ content on every trip in Asia, but Hong Kong was pretty terrific.  Tasha is practically a professional happy hour attendee, a requirement in a city so expensive and pretentious in places.  And the mix of Eastern and Western foods can’t be beat.  One night we had $10 happy hour glasses of wine overlooking the Hong Kong harbor before going out to gritty street food on Temple Street where the servers used cardboard boxes instead of serving trays to carry the orders to our table.   

Happy Hour at dusk overlooking Hong Kong harbor.

Lesson 4: Take a hike.

Combining exercise with a sightseeing mission by hiking to the Big Buddha on Lantau Island was a brilliant choice.  Instead of riding the cable car up, we hiked the two hours to the top.  It was a rare opportunity and pleasure to be alone and in nature near such a gigantic city.  One drawback was that I was too sweaty to be photogenic once I got to the picture-worthy spots, but that means less time spent trying and failing to get that perfect shot. Can you see why the hike gets my glowing review?

The view near the end of the hike: cable car overhead and Big Buddha on the left.

Riding the cable car down.

(Obviously I played with photo editing software for these picture effects, just for something different.)

Good Fortune

Last weekend was our second annual Memorial Day Hong Kong trip.  We enjoyed it last year but left feeling unsatisfied as if we missed something, so we decided to go back this year and do some more exploring in search of the elusive "What makes Hong Kong Hong Kong?"  Since our last visit, our good friend Tasha moved from Seoul to Hong Kong so she was our tour guide and bar hopping coordinator.  Also visiting for the weekend was Tasha's Korean friend Chloe (her English name) from Seoul.

Chloe speaks English beautifully and we took advantage by asking her a gazillion questions about Korean culture, specifically about her new boyfriend.  Every answer inevitably led to another question, but after one revelation we were so shocked we had to linger on the topic for quite some time.  Here's the story:

Koreans observe strict filial obedience and seek their parents' permission for nearly everything.  One example is that Chloe is 30 with a good job and her own apartment (shared with her sister, but rare to be living away from her parents while unmarried), but her parents insist that she send her money home.  This isn't because they need financial assistance, rather it's because her parents want to ensure she's spending her money wisely and therefore they manage it for her.  Chloe had to ask for permission to go to Hong Kong, both for budgetary reasons and because it was a long way to travel.  So it's safe to assume that Chloe's parents have strict rules for dating, and sure enough they do, but it's not quite what you'd expect.  Most parents want to know the background and education of their daughter's prospect, but Chloe's mom went to the fortune teller to get the real story.  In fact, she went to three fortune tellers to be sure she was getting the right story, and Chloe's boyfriend's mom went too.  So after about a month of dating, six fortune tellers weighed in on their relationship and determined based on their birth dates, birth times and birth locations that they are an "okay" match.  Not written in the stars or damned as star-crossed lovers, just "okay."  Chloe and her boyfriend didn't attend any of these sessions, but they were beholden to the results, because they said if they got bad results then they would break up.  How very superstitious!  Chloe said she was extremely nervous beforehand because her older sister was in love with a man for half a year before her mom consulted the fortune tellers, but the readings were ominous so she had to break up with him anyway and is still lovesick over him.  Can you imagine?  Chloe says all couples she knows have been vetted by several fortune tellers and she offered to take Andrew and me to see our future.  Korean fortune tellers use a book of numbers based on birth dates and times so there are no tarot cards or palm reading.  I'm pretty curious….

To be honest, I think we learned more about Korea than Hong Kong on this trip, but it was a superb trip nonetheless.  Expect another post with HK photos in a few days….