Adventures with Adam and Emily: Last Day in Hong Kong and First Day in Taiwan

On our last day in Hong Kong, we headed out to Hong Kong Island on the ferry after walking Piles on the beach. We first headed to the University of Hong Kong to check out the campus and grab some brochures for Andy. It was a lot of walking so we did many rest stops and sitting.

Stopped for a lovely breakfast of egg tarts...soooo good!

We realized that the university was close to where my dad used to live so we headed out to the street where his house was. Of course, seeing as how it was over 40 years ago, his old building was replaced by a high rise. He said when he was growing up, the tallest buildings were 2 stories...now in his old neighborhood I think we only saw one or two 2-story buildings- the rest were at least 5+. It was also really neat to walk the path that he used to take to catch the bus to school and see the streets that he used to run around as a kid.

Dad on the corner of street where he used to live

A funny story- we saw this woman dragging a big chair along the sidewalk and totally struggling, so Paul helped her carry it to the end of the corner. We then asked where she was taking it and she said she was taking it to the dumpster but it wasn't far and she would be fine on her own. Adam and Paul decided to help her carry it- it turned out to be a pretty far distance. It took them no time to get it there but it seriously would have taken this woman a good half hour at the rate she was going. It was so funny to watch as the woman ran alongside them yelling "thank you" in Cantonese.

We ended our afternoon by walking through the seafood and chinese medicine street shops where Paul bought some rancid Jackie Chan hair shampoo (that he threw out because it smelled so bad). After that, we did a bit more walking around before finally heading back to Lantau Island, while Susan and Paul stayed behind to ring in the new year with Chris and Haylee. We were totally beat and Betty wasn't feeling so well that night so we were rather calm ringing in the new year (i.e. I rolled out of bed and groggily said happy new year right before midnight...but hey, we rang in the New Year a second time with Gamble over the phone!).

The next day we were met with a beautiful and sunny morning (the first sunny day while we were in HK)- a great way to end our time in HK. We packed up all of our stuff, made sure we left the house in orderly condition and loaded up into a taxi. We met up with Susan and Paul at the airport, made some phone calls to Adam's family before boarding our short flight to Taiwan (where they fed us some dumplings and Adam and I got the entire emergency row to ourselves!).

Finally a sunny day in Hong Kong!

The moment we set foot into Taiwan, we were treated with such incredible hospitality. It's been totally unbelievable how nice everyone has been, and I've been grateful for how gracious my uncle, aunt and cousins have been to us on our visit to Taiwan. I've felt like such a huge burden! For example, we were planning to get a bus from the airport to the hotel, but my uncle arranged a van to pick us up from the airport. After we settled in, we rode with my uncle in the van to a coffee shop to talk together over drinks, followed by the most incredibly welcoming dinner banquet that I've ever experienced. The group included 2 of my cousins (and one of their spouses) and their children, my aunt and uncle, my mom's cousin, and our group. The kids knew some English but were totally shy (one of them reminded us of Susan when she was younger). The dinner was very impressive- it felt like endless course after course of the most amazing and beautifully prepared food. I think Susan maybe has some pix of the food...for some reason I totally forgot. I must have been too engrossed in eating!