The Farewell Tour

My last week and a half in Hong Kong was a blur. I actually had quite a bit of work that came up, and at the same time, I was trying to enjoy my last days with my new friends in Hong Kong. I won’t bore you with any of the work details, but will instead share some of the fun things.

On my last Saturday, Mandy took my to the island of Cheung Chau. It’s a small fishing community on an island just west of Hong Kong island. Melinda visited in one of her last weeks, but I was at work and unable to visit. We walked around the island looking at various temples and shops, and stumbled across a funeral being held in one of the public courtyards. It lasted for several hours and we walked past it several times. One of the traditions that we read about is for the surviving family members to burn fake money and paper replicas of cars, buildings, food, riches, and other nice things. Burning these things makes them available for their dead relatives to enjoy in the afterlife. Sure enough, at this funeral they had a paper Mercedes, a nice house, and several other things waiting to be burnt. The ceremony was fascinating to watch, and I really wish that I had been able to get a picture.





For the last several nights in town, I went out to eat with friends from work and tried an assortment of authentic, local experiences. The first night we went to a hole in the wall restaurant near the Temple Street night market for a rice dish baked in a clay pot. I had the curry beef and it was delicious. The next night was a little more adventurous with Cantonese style hot pot. Hot pot is pretty much like eating the main course at a Melting Pot fondue restaurant. You have a really hot pot in the center of the table with a broth and different spices to cook your meat in. In this case, we also had pork blood, tofu, and liver to add some flavor to the stew. Some of the meat I had was really good – the beef, for example. The cow stomach, on the other hand, was less awesome. My friend Jonathan Lau insisted that it was amazing, and that I would just love the texture – he misread the situation. Oh well, I still had a great time with my friends from the office.

I was really sad to leave my friends in HK, knowing full well that I may never make it back to see them again. The summer was a great experience that was made even better by the people I worked with. Hopefully our paths will cross again at some point, either in Asia or elsewhere.