Mark Melissa Owen and Maci

Dear Family,

I'm writing this a week late because Mark, Melissa et al were still here last Sunday night. So I am finally getting around to this a week late.

We had a great time with MMOM. Weather was great, food was great, company was great. We took a lot of pictures so I'll just run through a small sampling of them here with some comments.

MMOM arrived late at night so we got up first thing next morning and headed out into Hung Hom for some bakery delicacies.



And then it was lunch time so we headed over to Hong Kong Island and had a dim sum lunch. Here Maci is learning how to eat the famous soup dumplings without getting the soup all over her.

Same for Owen. 


Then we headed over to the Bakehouse and cleaned them out of egg tarts and other goodies.

We then caught a bus up to the peak and had dinner out on the veranda. Delicious indian food.



And great night-time views of the harbor.


The next morning we headed over to Cheung Chau island for our famous bike ride up and down and in and out of the alleys.


We had to stop for some delicious fruit juices.

This guy can riding by with a load of dried noodles. Mark went dashing after him to get this picture. Look closely and you'll see his training wheels.

An especially narrow alley.

And some fruit along the way.

Can't forget mom's grapes. This shop keeper has gotten used to us dropping by to buy another load of grapes. She is always happy to see us and takes good care of us. Here she is washing the grapes with water from her hose.

Lunch on Cheung Chau island -- noodles and some other stuff.

We did baptisms in the Temple that night...

And then picked up some delicious fried dumplings on the way home.

Next day we went hiking in a rain storm. We got drenched but we stayed cool.

And then the strangest thing. Up near the top of the mountain we came across this bright red crab. Thinking that a crabs belonged in the ocean, Mark corralled him into a baggie to rescue him. Ask Mark and Melissa what happened next.

At the end of the trail, more Chinese food and peanut butter-stuffed french toast -- a specialty at this little surf shop / noodle stand.

Mark shredding at big wave bay....

Only to be shown up by his daughter.

And here are the two of them together. Owen was also surfing but no pictures.




So, I'm including a picture of Owen here waiting for the mini-bus back to town after a day of hiking and surfing.

That night we ate at our favorite "Dai Pai Dong" restaurant. Best street food in Hong Kong.


And then we finished off the night with lemon and chocolate chip waffles.

Waiting at one of the many subway stations.

Unfortunately, this was a holiday weekend and everyone in HK was out on the streets. This is us in a terrible, long, packed to the gills, line to get on the Central Ferry. I'm taking this picture looking back at all the people behind us (we'd been in this packed area for 30 to 40 minutes by this time).

And this is the same line or mob looking forward. We were in this mess for at least an hour before we finally got on a ferry.

Here we are at church on Sunday with Brother and Sister Yu. He is in the Temple presidency and she is an assistant matron. 

Maci hamming it up at a little installation near our subway station.


And we will close with yet another picture of food. Here we have Maci eating a pizza crust, ricotta cheese, berries and nutella dessert at our favorite pizza shop.



We had a great time together. We miss you all so much. Can't wait to see you soon.
Love you, Mom and Dad, Pampa and Grandma


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Diquattro Time

Image
Dear Family, It has been another whirlwind of a week. Or more acurately, two weeks. We met up with the Carli, Jeremy, Miles, and Penny almost two weeks ago in Thailand for just a day, after which they took off for Phuket and we stayed in Bangkok for Char's temple seminar with 30 return missionaries. (That week is covered in detail in Char's letter.)  We returned home a week ago, Sunday night, at the same time that the Diquattros arrived from Thailand. So we met each other at the baggage claim in the airport Sunday night around 11pm and took two taxis home and moved in (all of us) into our apartment. These first two pictures are from our day in Bangkok together. We visited a market, did some elephant riding and toured the canal markets by boat. I included just a couple of pictures from that day.  Here, Miles is making friends with the local snake. And here we have Jeremy and Carli aboard an elephant. Monday morning, we were happy to hit the streets with Penny. First stop was ou...
Read more

One Final Thought

Image
One final thought. By now, the temple theme to our mission is clear, so bear with me for a wrap up and one more story.  As members of the church we often hear our apostles and prophets talk about "the gathering of Israel" and  the purpose of temples in that pursuit. I believe all that to be true and important, but I have come to believe that regular attendance at the temple also offers another kind of gathering. I have come to believe that temples are also sacred gathering places for those of us on this side of the veil. Scattered through this last 18 months of letters has been stories of our "random" and unexpected temple meetings with beloved missionaries and meeting Cindy without a plan. Remember our story on January 14th titled "The Dream that I Hadn't Even Thought Of? when against all odds we "bumped" into Sister Thi at the crowded mall food court?  A month or two after that meeting I found this post on her Facebook page: Returning home nearl...
Read more

Second to Last Week

Image
 Dear Family, We moved out of our office Friday night, packed and cleaned yesterday and just took all of our suit cases over to the office to wait for our return from Bangkok. We leave for Bangkok early tomorrow morning for Mom's last temple seminar. She has fifty kids coming this time she is pretty stressed with all the work it takes to put this together and then execute next week. We have to get up early to catch our plane to Bangkok so this will be pretty brief. A week ago we got a tremendous surprise. I've been working on getting a meeting with the Cambodian Ministry of Cult and Religion in connection with our offer to help the Ministry draft their new Freedom of Religion law. I delivered a model of the law to the Ministry a year ago and have been requesting a meeting ever since. Well, out of the blue last week I got a call (on Tuesday afternoon) that they would like to meet with me on Friday. So we quickly got a flight scheduled and left Thursday morning. The meeting was v...
Read more