Today’s a holiday. It’s Tomb Sweeping Day, which is a day
when people go to cemeteries and tidy up the gravesites of relatives.
Like in the US,
the holiday fell on Saturday but everyone gets off on Monday.
I’ve had a couple of three-day weekends so far and have
spent them in Hong Kong. Since I’m leaving
town in a couple of weeks, I decided to go ahead and stay in town for this one.
I had delusions of taking the subway with my newly-acquired metro card, but
that somewhat fizzled.
But I did get out an about a little, although I didn’t
charge my camera batteries. Oops.
On Saturday morning, I went with two couples (one from work,
one a friend of that couple’s) to this giant tea market. By that I mean, blocks
and blocks and blocks of tea shops. It was flabbergasting. Every little
storefront had a tea-related shop, each with oodles of different kinds of tea.
Tea bags, tea cakes, giant baskets of tea leaves, sticks, flowers, pots, bags,
tins, fermented tea, new tea, green tea, black tea – just everything tea.
But no sugar or any other additions. Just pure tea, and lots
of different kinds.
Both the men of the couples were tea experts. One was a
higher level expert than the other, and it was just kind of sit and listen to
how tea was made. We went to one shop and just sat there and tasted tea after
team.
I can’t say I remember the kinds, but I do know two were
horrible. One tasted like wet grass and the other diluted sticks. But the rest
were fine and had varying medicinal qualities. I think one you were supposed to
drink before you ate and one after. I forget why
Apparently you’re supposed to taste tea somewhat like wine,
which means I’ve been doing it wrong for four decades. Southerners apparently
are quite ignorant in the ways of tea. But I’m fine with it. And I do miss
Sweet Tea.
I didn’t buy anything. Essentially, I was too overwhelmed
with it all. I had no idea tea aged. Some of the stuff was 30 years old.
Apparently the older the better.
So that was Saturday, and the weather was just fine. Sunday
it rained. We’ve entered the monsoon season a bit late, but so far it hasn’t
been bad. And Sunday I really didn’t have anything of importance to do, so I
just worked out, went to the grocery store and then swam and hung out on the
steam room. Rough life.
Today’s big event was hanging out with a colleague who’s a
single mom this month. Her husband has been med evac’d and hopefully will be
back at the end of this week. She’s had a rough month. Her kids are about 6, 4
and 6-7 months. All that in one big apartment, but no yard and bad weather most
of the time. She was pretty stressed.
So I headed out there and had breakfast at their building
(nice buffet, but I had only bacon and toast) and then played with Play-Doh and
watched “Bambi” while mom ran to the grocery store.
We all hung out until about 12:30 and I hope I helped mom
stave off madness this week. She’d taken off Thursday and Friday, and when I
asked why take off two days before a long weekend she said since the kids have
been at home with the housekeeper all week, she was scared the housekeeper
would quit and therefore stayed home those last two days. She was *really*
frazzled when I got there at 7:30 this morning. The kids really are good kids,
but boy, that was intense.
I am glad I didn’t bother with Hong
Kong, but I do hope to go again in May. I’m still eyeing Disney.
And those are the kids I want to take. We figure we can go, leave the 7-month
old with their daddy and take the other two.
Maybe over Memorial Day weekend.
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