Taking advantage of the long weekend and holiday spirit, I decided to get started on a long-overdue mini-series of posts about our China trip from the fall. Over 20 years ago, I visited Hong Kong for the first time with my family: it was a couple years before the Handover, and I was too young (and it was too hot – who visits Hong Kong and Singapore in July??) to appreciate much besides frequent trips to Häagen Dazs with my uncle.
My parents have gone back quite a few times, and I’ve wanted to go with them in the past, but it’s a minimum two-week commitment for which Nick and I have rarely had vacation days to spare (after years of long-distance, there was our honeymoon to account for, plus our India trip…poor us). This year neither of us had changed jobs recently (hurray!), so we accrued enough vacation time to put toward a seventeen-day trip to Asia. I jokingly called it "birthright," but in a way it was pretty appropriate given how much family history and culture we go to see:
- My parents both grew up in Hong Kong
- Their pre-Hong Kong families were from villages (Shanjielingcun and Jhong Cun) near Ningbo…
- …Which makes us culturally Shanghainese…
- …and you kind of can’t go to China without visiting Beijing
There’s so much to see and do (and eat) in just seventeen days, so we did a good amount of planning with Mom and Dad in advance, making the “must-do” list by city. OR, as I retrospectively put together, the “Family Roots BINGO” card (or, in our case, NINGBO) to summarize (gray boxes indicate food experiences/click to view larger image):
(NINGBO card footnotes* below.)
While this quick summary hardly captures all of our adventures, it's safe to say that we wouldn't have had nearly as rich (nor tasty) an adventure if Nick and I had tried to go alone. We were so lucky to have my parents as tour guides for this trip, and it's one we'll remember for a long time.
* NINGBO Card Footnotes *
- Nian Gao: Sliced rice cakes, or pretty much the best thing ever. They're a little chewy, almost like gnocchi, and they can be sweet or savory, in soup or stir-fried. While you'll find them in Korea, Japan and other parts of China, nian gao is kind of a regional specialty.
- Wong Family Plot: The grave site of my Mom's grandfather, about an hour outside Ningbo -- my parents had just learned about it in the last couple years and had the site restored.
- Dragon Well Tea: A specialty green tea, the regionally protected (A.K.A. the Champagne of Dragon Well) is "Dragon Tongue" tea. We drank lots of this in Ningbo, and we also visited the beautiful, rolling tea fields.
- Chu Ancestral Hall: 30+ generations of my dad's side of the family are commemorated in a building, another hour outside Ningbo, where each generation's family historian keeps track of male lineage chiseled into a marble wall (and the rest of us are written in a book) -- yes, this is for real -- another gem our family just discovered in the last couple years.
- "Bivalves": These suspicious-looking freshwater creatures are also a local delicacy...known as "blood cockles," they contain a red liquid that (only) looks like blood. Try anything once?
- Xiaolong Bao: Soup dumplings! Delicate wrappers stuffed with pork, cabbage and aromatics sitting in a puddle of delicious broth which should be slurped out before enjoying the rest. These were at a tiny restaurant in Shanghai (Dad asked the hotel concierge, "Where do you eat around here?").
- Xintiandi: A.K.A. the "French Concession," or old French Quarter, this little European-style part of Shanghai is a posh restaurant and shopping district, known also for being home to the site of the first congress of the Communist Party of China.
- The Bund: The waterfront district of downtown Shanghai, where the famous skyline sits.
- Yu Yuan: A gorgeous garden in Old Shanghai, complete with a snaking dragon which tops the extensive garden walls.
- Nanjing E-W Road: A famous shopping street which runs, you guessed it, East-West through the city. This night photo shows the sign of the watch company where my dad's father apprenticed.
Hong Kong
- Peninsula Hotel: On the Kowloon side, this famous hotel opened in 1928 and was the site of historic meetings during WWII...my mom's dad's company once made furniture, upholstery and drapes here.
- Mom's School: St. Paul's Co-Ed; this is the view from the Peak Tram (Nick's fancy camera snagged it, even in motion). Fun fact, said in (my) sloppy Cantonese, "St. Paul" gets mispronounced, "St. Pineapple."
- Won Ton Mein: FREE SPACE!! This Cantonese specialty is everywhere in Hong Kong (this particular bowl is at the top of Victoria Peak at Mak's Noodle).
- Victoria Peak: The highest mountain on Hong Kong Island (1,811 ft.) and a gorgeous park for walking and taking in views of the city and harbor below.
- Dad's School: St. Stephen's boarding school, located in Stanley.
- Peking Duck: Duck-adent dinner at Da Dong, absolutely fantastic and classic preparation of crispy skin, juicy meat, paper-thin pancakes and fixings (for those who have never had Peking duck, it's kind of like the most amazing delicate fried chicken wrapped in a taco...what's not to love?)
- Great Wall: One of the Wonders of the World (by a few different classifications)...there are multiple tourist entrances, and apparently we picked the steepest one. Took us a couple hours to climb up, and under an hour to get down, to give a sense of scale.
- Tiananmen Square: (Translates to "Gate of Heavenly Peace") Massive physical and historic presence, heavily guarded.
- Forbidden City: Historic Emperor's palace which today lets in 80,000 visitors per day to see museum galleries of artifacts, jewelry, ceramics, clocks and more.
- Tian Tan: Temple of Heaven and gorgeous surrounding gardens. It took us three tries to get in per the confusing schedule, but we made it eventually and were rewarded by the sights.
Looking forward to Part II
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