Today, I write from the motherland!

After a lifetime of hearing about Hong Kong from my mother and relatives, I’m finally here!

It started on Saturday, when we left Frankfurt on a direct,11-hour flight leaving at 22:00.

We arrived early and had 4 hours to leisurely wait at the gate.

Imagine fear of losing your luggage x 10 and that’s what I’m feeling right there.

Here’s part of my travel routing: packing up my wheelchair for flight. Since it is stored with the cargo and just generally handled by many strangers in transit, I never quite know what will come out at the final destination. Thanks to Gail’s meticulous packing, it arrived unharmed!
I even had time to video chat with some relatives and Jarkie, thanks to free wifi in the “Fraport” after a month of limited internet data. She told me that my hair was like “Murry Curry’s” (as in, the Nobel Prize winner; what a southerner!;) ). Some people leave flights still looking radiant; seems like I can’t even board them that way!

We arrived in the HK and were greeted by my aunt at the massive airport (there’s even a cinema!). She lives with my Pau Pau (maternal grandmother) in an apartment of a campus dorm where she serves as the faculty-in-residence.  I hadn’t seen Pau Pau since she moved back to HK 3 years ago, and it was even better than I expected to be in each other’s company again. Their home is so spacious by any standards, let alone HK’s, with beautiful views, and we feel so blessed to be here!

Maybe I should’ve gone to school here… the university sits on the hills of Kowloon, right next to the water, with the mountains in the distance.

On the first night, we went to eat at the Chinese restaurant on campus that serves dim sum every day at lunch time! :O A-mazing! (see caption above)

Yesterday, we rode a bus line from one end, a large mall, to the other, the waterfront at Sai Kung.

Pier at Sai Kung. My aunt says that this use to be a day trip for the family when they were growing up.

Drying fish

Just a regular day at the fish market aquarium…

Today, we went downtown for a buffet lunch and stopped to take in the Avenue of the Stars.

Look at the skyline! There were a couple of those so-called Chinese “junk” sailing ships.

My father and I, both visiting for the first time, are taken in by the vibrancy and composition of the city. I’m really looking forward to my mother’s arrival in a few weeks to see what she has to say about her memories and current impressions.