Chiang Mai, Part One

We had a great long weekend in Chiang Mai,  Thailand.   We took so many pictures that our visit will be split up into three posts.   First up:  a look at a few of the beautiful wats in Chiang Mai.   Part 2 covers the delicious food/night markets and part 3 covers the highlight of our trip - a visit to the Elephant Nature Park.

Let's begin with a very appropriate picture of Mom.

Chiang Mai is one of the largest cities in Thailand and the cultural capital of the northern part of the country.   It is a very accessible city with cheap, delicious food, and a well organized infrastructure for tourism.   The exploration of Chiang Mai requires a visit to at least a few of the many (> 300) Buddhist temples/monasteries, or wats.   We started with a visit to a popular wat within the Old City Walls names Wat Phra Singh.

While we were visiting Wat Phra Singh,  the caretaker for the grounds came up to us and started talking.   Typically I get defensive,  expecting a sales pitch or something more shady,  but in this case it was just a nice man wanting us to enjoy our stay in Chiang Mai.   We followed one of his recommendations,  by visiting the Wat Sri Suphan,  or Silver Temple.   You have one guess as to how it received its name: 

 Here's the inside.   Note that only the boys were allowed inside this temple.

While Chandra and Esme were banished outside of the temple,  they approached a silver craftsman,  who was working on refurbishing some of the ornamental features of the temple: 

 Our next stop was the most popular site in Chiang Mai,  the Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep.   It is 5 miles from the center of town,  up on a hill overlooking the city.   Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a good picture of the temple from below,  but here's a view from the temple out onto the city:

There are actually two ways to get up to the temple,  you can walk up many, many steps,  or  pay 75 cents to ride the tram/elevator thing.    Here is a picture of us posing in front of the Dragon staircase,  you can guess whether we actually climbed the steps.

This is the entrance to the center square of the temple.

This temple is famous for its copper chedi (dome).  

The kids loved ringing the bells. 

 

Beautiful blossoms framing the architecture

Some monks in training.   They actually were on their way to buy a popsicle.

 

 Next post:  Eating, shopping, and tuk-tukking in Chiang Mai.   

Dragon's Got Back

Wrapping up Jenn's visit here in April, we decided to head to the great outdoors for some hiking.  While Hong Kong is full of sky scrapers and people, it's only minutes to get to the base of the big hills (maybe they meet the technical definition of a small mountain?) in the middle of the island. There is a variety of hiking trails and you can cross over to the south side of the island.  Now you know if I'm on the hike (Chandra here), it's probably not what hikers would deem a real hike, but I think it's still respectable.  The hike started with a walk through one of Hong Kong's hillside graveyards.

 
They are cement tombs with cement roofs and pillars over the top of them on big steps going up the hills.   The cemetery was interesting and there were nice views...

and we got plenty of it since we accidentally took a wrong turn, went left and should have gone right, so we had an hour of cemetery exploration before finally officially getting to the beginning of the trail.

While you're on the dragon's back, it just looked like hills to me, but I guess the view of it from elsewhere resembles a dragon's back (imagine that). We had good views half way up of Stanley (as featured in the previous Stanley Market post).

Nice, shady tree cover en route...

Finally at the top where we had great sea views and of the town called Shek O, which is really fun to say.  Maybe we should have tried to live in Shek O.

This beach is called Big Wave Bay and is the sufing spot on the island.

 At this point we were starving and so made our way down the other side of the hill to a road and caught a bus back into town.  We headed to Tim Ho Wan, the cheapest Michelin starred restaurant (supposedly), for the famed barbecue pork buns and a few other dumplings. Yum. Note, we didn't eat all of this ourselves, rather ordered extra to take home to the kids (didn't want you to think we were gluttons).

After the long day of hiking, we only briefly refueled at home before heading out for a walk through the nearby night market for some cheap shopping and dinner.

Thumbs up for delicious dessert (chocolate lava cake and mango pudding with pomelo and tapioca) at the end of a long day.  Thanks for visiting, Jenn!

Catching Up- with the Big Buddha

Paul and I have dueling posts this weekend.  While his is more current, mine is still from early April when Jenn was here for her visit.  We took in one of Hong Kong's popular sites, the Big Buddha.  It's the largest big Buddha of some kind, there seem to be many varieties claiming to be the largest at something.  This one is located on Lantau Island to the west of us, the same island where Paul's cousin Lizzie and her family live, where the airport is, and where Disneyland resides, among other things.  To get to the Big Buddha you can take a scenic bus ride around the island, hike up to it, or take a cable car ride.  We chose the cable car this time.  Here's our view at the beginning of the airport.

Here you can see the path if you want to hike up or down.  Jenn rode up with us in the cable car and then hiked back down.  The ticket counter lady said it was a four hour hike down, but it turned out to be less than two for Jenn.  Maybe the ticket counter lady was saying it would be four hours for me, which is probably true.

Here is our view of the Big Buddha as we near the end of the cable car ride.



The obligatory family picture at the top, taken by kind tourists with all of our cameras, but it looks like we never looked at my camera.

Hello Kitty, not really, but I don't know the significance of the chubby waving cat, seen in various places around town, including on PE's dresser.  I should research that. 

After climbing 260 steps, we get to meet Big Buddha and see some pretty views of the island.

After our descent back down the 260 steps we continued our search for the famous Chinese egg waffle that was shown in several pictures in the tourist info, but eluded us until the very end.  Sweet reward.



Boys weekend in Manila

Conveniently for me, one of the cheapest and quickest flight from Hong Kong is to Manila, Philippines. Last weekend,  Paul Eli and I took advantage for a quick visit to see family and have some father-son time.  This is us on the Airport express at 6 AM, leaving Hong Kong:

We stayed with my cousin T.J. who not only is a great host, but has a veritable mansion,  as you'll see.    He is the proud owner of a Shakey's pizza and Jollibee burger franchise, two of the top fast food chains in the Philippines.   We took a visit to his Shakey's for some lunch.  

Here's a video of Paul Eli making his favorite pizza,  pepperoni and olive. 

The waiter is thrilled with Paul Eli's craftsmanship.

T.J. built his own compound with two huge houses surrounding a courtyard with a fountain.  The courtyard is where we had a small family reunion on Saturday night.

Here's another angle of his house.

A picture with some family.   It was really nice to get together again - it had been too long since I had been back to Manila.

A few shots of the spread.   Mangos,  fresh lumpia (spring rolls),  lechon (fried pork belly), rice,  pancit (fried noodles), and salad.   Not shown are all of the desserts,  often some variation on coconut with cream.  I ate like a complete pig this weekend.  I am not proud of myself.

The next day we went to a local water park.   Paul Eli had a great time.   I will limit the action shots but I want to include this picture of Paul Eli and Fonzie,  TJ's younger son.

Paul Eli,   Fonzi,  Pepi,  and T.J.

After the waterpark, we hit the mall for some bungee jumping and some Teriyaki Boy for lunch.   I also picked up some dried mango and ube candy for the ride home.  

All in all,  a great visit,  and we are looking forward to coming back soon!