When my tango passion got too high, I would do nothing other than Tango.

This trip was a complete tango trip.

2 days in New York. One night Milonga at East Village, One afternoon Milonga around Soho area.

I did not know why, I had a really high expectation on the tango community in New York, but it turned out to be quite disappointing. I thought the tango experience in Chicago was too good to be true, so I properly got some false hope on New York. 

Friday night Milonga at East Village- Milonga Rosa

It was a very fine day on my second day in New York. So, I decided to walk all the way from Brooklyn to Manhattan for the afternoon Milonga. It was more than 1.5 hours, but you know, I love walking anyway.

Every time I walked on Brooklyn Bridge, I can't help missing Steph who was the very first person that walked this bridge with me. It was a very very cold Xmas.

Love to capture the people who walked on bridge, they are interesting.

I got hungry after arriving at Manhattan, so I went to China town for lunch. A hot soup noodles was nice in the cold weather.

Soft V.S Hard, Warm V.S Cold

The old and new building can be together in New York. Why not HK?

Passing Union Square, people were having fun on a Sat afternoon.

Finally reached the venue of afternoon Milonga after this long walk. Of coz, I bought a pair of earrings and a dress on the way.
Had fun dancing with a black guy in Milonga and he told me a lot about the tango community in New York. Also met another flight attendant from Italy who dance around the world as me.

It was not the best tango experience, but I got a taste of dancing tango in New York. Hope to dance at the outdoor Milonga at Central Park one day.

 

First time to Chicago, very cold, very windy. It is really a "Wind city".

I was very upset before flying to Chicago.Natasha and I were facing the challenge of being kicked out from my building as she was yelling too much. I was tired of the situation, I was scared with the situation, I was guilty to Natasha.

Spent my first part of the stay at the hotel crying at the hotel room and then went out to meet Scott and Kelly.

I have not seen Scott for a long time, I guess since I broke up with Kyle (Scott was Kyle's friend in HK). Not long after the broke up between me and Kyle, Scott moved from Hong Kong to Chicago for Kelly.

In a snowy afternnon, I took a train to downtown Chicago from the hotel I stayed.
I slowly walked to the Chicago Millenium Park to meet up Scott.

Scott is always on time. So, I just spent a little while with "the bean" before he showed up.

Here you came, Scott! Nice to meet you again after so long!!!

We walked along and caught up a lot about Kyle, about Kelly, about Jimmy and Cliff. Scott is a history book and newspaper. He was asking about some Hong Kong news that I do not even have time to follow. Scott knows a lot about HK even he is not living there anymore.

Then we spent about an hour in Chicago cultural centre (the old library). It is a historical building with Tiffany dome, beautiful stairs and floors with huge space for public events.

 

Kelly met us up there after work and we bumped into a protest on the street. Obviously, the cold weather did not cool the people down with their anger although I did not know what they protested for.

We had dinner together. I told Scott and Kelly about my situation with Natasha and they suggested me to look for some people called "Cat Sitter". Thank you for the idea, it is working well now.

After dinner, we walked to the famous "Faces" together under the wind.

Say bye to Kelly and Scott, then I took a bus to search for my Milonga venue in Chicago.

I was walking on the empty street. It was very cold and it was a bit scary. I was telling myself that if I could not see anything when I walked to the next block as the address shown, I will give it up.

Then, I saw the light on with a Yoga center which show the name of the studio.

Here I danced tango with the dancer in Chicago. They are so far still one of the best and most friendly tango community I have met. They danced really well. To allow me to stay longer for the dance, they even offered to drive me back to the hotel. And so, I earn an hour more to dance in Chicago.

How wonderful!!!!!

It worth so much with the cold and the search.

 

Hope to visit Chicago again on a warmer day. See you again, Scott and Kelly. Thank you and happy marriage!!!!!

 

因為我寫得太慢，所以年底才寫年頭的事。但這種寫法讓我發現時間真是過得飛快。

2011年去青島當Esther的伴娘，不久她就懷孕了。回來香港安胎，我一月時去看她，肚子已經超大，喬帥下來照顧她。

二月去看剛出生的孩子，他們說快要回青島了。

趕緊在他們走之前再看他們一次，他們三月走了。

Esther常常在Whatsapp上發孩子的照片給我，還跟我說了她的青島生活。在大陸生活的香港女孩子，在學校教個英文都好不容易。

孩子長大得很快很快，Esther的生活也越來越開心，我覺得她真的好棒。

你們什麼時候回來啊？青島快變冷了。

 

 

Time to meet Scarlett, WY, Jocie and Zacky in Melbourne again.
Spent a relaxing afternoon with Scarlett and the kids in supermarket and home. Jocie woke me up from my short nap by calling: Ball Ball E, wake up!!!!

Then WY got home and we had dinner together before heading to Philip Island to visit the penguins! WY's brother WT was coming this time.

It was rainy on the way to Philip Island, we saw the rainbow.

Philip Island

"Every sunset, wild little penguins emerge from the sea and waddle across the beach to their sand dune burrows. Phillip Island is home to one of the largest little penguin colonies in the world. The little penguin is the world’s smallest penguin species and the only penguin permanently found in Australia."

When we arrived at Philip Island, the sun is about to set and we saw Penguins coming back home into groups. They were super super super cute. However, it was cold, rainy and dark, a bit hard to enjoy the moment with the penguins.

It was really fun to see them walking home from the beach with their big tummy though. haha!

Thanks WY and WT for taking me there. Finally, another checkpoint in Melbourne is gone.

Xujing was a mainland exchange student from Shanghai in my uni when I was in year 1 (2003). She met her husband Wenquan in my school who was another mainland exchange student from Sichuan. They were apart in China for 2 years, then they both moved to US for their Master degree and PHD. After 9 years of effort, they finally settled down together in US and decided to get married. Xujing and I seldom meet each other but we are very close in heart. I was shocked when she invited me to be her maid of honor, but I would love to be the special one for her. So, I flew to Shanghai for this old friend wedding.

Of course, as usual "Winky practise", I will be traveling before the wedding. I never give up any chance on traveling. This time, I picked Xitang （西塘水鄉），Suzhou (蘇州）and Jinze (金澤水鄉）。

My friend Guangdong spent 2 days with me exploring Xitang and Suzhou. He drove me from the airport directly to Xitang.
When we got there, it was about sunset time.
I chose Xitang because I heard that it was not as touristic polluted as other water villages like Zhouzhuang（周庄）, but it was disappointing.
Xitang was not an original water village anymore. Everywhere is touristic, everywhere is those shitty souvenirs shops, I hardly find any real water village life there, EXCEPT in the very very early morning, before all the touristic spots are opened.

Good night Xitang. Hope to see a beautiful you when I wake up in the early morning.

 

The waking up Xitang was quiet and beautiful. It looked real and natural. I am glad to see it without overwhelming tourists and disgusting shops. So I wandered around and treasure this short time with Xitang and chose to leave before the first bus of tourists came.

 

What a cute "Ad"

Suzhou

After breakfast, we drove to Suzhou.
The first place I wanted to visit is Suzhou Museum. I still remember one time I was traveling to Vietnam with my friend Po, we both watched a short film on the flight, talking about how Ieoh Ming Pei （貝聿銘）design this museum. Suzhou was his hometown and wanted to delicate his love of his hometown by designing this museum. Suzhou Museum was always in my checklist after I watched that short film.

So here I was, in Suzhou Museum.

I was playing this like a kid outside the museum.

Suzhou Museum

I hardly remember what did I see in the museum, but I clearly remember this wall. This is a very smart design of Ieoh Ming Pei. As Suzhou Museum links directly with Humble Administrator's Garden (拙政園）, it shared the wall with it. However, Ieoh Ming Pei's design could not affect any part of the wall of Humble Administrator's Garden as it is highly protected as a heritage. So, with this wall, he built a fake mountain in front of the white wall but remain the wall untouched. So, he successful use the wall without touching it at all.  It looks like a classic Chinese painting.

The exit of Suzhou Museum was actually the old house of the leader of Taiping Rebellion (太平天國）. I have been traveling in China for a long time, but I seldom see the remains of the history of Taiping Rebellion. This house is the first one I saw with the name of Taiping on it.

Humble Administrator's Garden (拙政園）

Humble Administrator's Garden was right next to Suzhou Museum, we definitely could not miss it. As the biggest and most famous Suzhou garden, we for sure paid a visit to it.

We paid for a guide to tell us about the stories and the design of the garden.
I would say Wenzhengming (文徴明）is definitely a genius designer of this garden.

The tower looked so close but it was actually miles away. The designer just use the magic of sight to "borrow" this tower to be a part of the scene in the garden.

For the following 4 photos, I was standing at the same spot but turning myself in 4 directions. Then, I saw 4 different pictures: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. How amazing!

Spring: This flower blooms in Spring

Summer: The lake is full of Lotus in Summer

Autumn: The leaves of tree turn red and yellow in Auntumn

Winter: The snow will be accumulated on the roof in Winter

Then we came to the dragon part of the garden. The main building was the head and the dragon body was the bridge at the back.

The roof looked like the skin of the dragon

The uneven surface of the bridge is the image of dragon body. I could also imagine how nice to see the reflection of women who were walking on the bridge.

The western element was added into the garden during Qing dynasty.

The window was like a picture frame

We had a really really good time in Humble Administrator's Garden. Then, we headed back to our hotel along Pingjiang Road (平江路).

Pingjiang Road Archi-Garden (築園會館）

I absolutely love our hotel- Archi-garden as it is converted by a historical house. Archi-Garden Hotel was originally named Sanhe Hall as residence of the Zhangs during the Qing Dynasty.

Now it is a hotel with 4 rooms which is always fully booked. We went in to ask and by chance, we got a room that the guests cancelled booking last minute.
I always wanted to live inside some historical building, and my dream came true in Suzhou.

http://www.archi-garden.com/

Kunqu（昆曲）

After settling down at the hotel, we slowly walked along Pingjiang Road and found Fuxi Tea House (伏羲茶馆) for tea and Kunqu (昆曲）.
I was very impressed with the performance as it was not only a performance, but more like an education.
The artist was showing a play and she explained every scene before she started, so that we could understand the content of her lyrics and know how to appreciate this art.

It was a wonderful experience to get to know more about Kun Opera.

I fell in love with Suzhou.

Wake up in the morning, my friend had to leave me as he was heading to work. So, I enjoy Suzhou by myself.

Suzhou is such a nice place. I love its air, its environment, its people. Spending a morning walking on Pingjiang Road is definitely one of the nicest things to do in Suzhou.

Got some daylight shots of Archi-Garden, my historical hotel.

A very nice reading area in my hotel, what a pity I did not have time to read.

Spent a short time wandering around PingJiang Road. It is one of the oldest street in Suzhou and it kept a lot of old habitat and neighborhood of old Suzhou.

Then I slowly walked to The Lion Forest Garden (獅子林）

The Lion Forest Garden (獅子林）

This is one of the 4 most important garden in Suzhou. With its creativity of placing the stone forest in the garden, The Lion Forest Garden for sure was one of the best garden I ever visited.

It was kinda a small garden, but with the small path and walkway inside the stone hills, you can spend a long time in the garden. The scenery changed with your footsteps, high and low, left and right. It was very interesting to walk around in such a creatively decorated garden. That was why even the emperor Qianlong (乾隆）could not help writing "very interesting" (真趣) after visiting.

The surprise was that this garden was built by a monk. So, it is believed that he implies some Buddhist thoughts in this garden.

 

 

I sat down at the tea house at the second floor and had a hot tea. Only by this, you can experience the life of Suzhou people. Listening to Kun Opera, Sitting at the garden, drinking tea. That is how they live.
Full of art and culture, amazing.

Then I walked to the stone ship. It looked very similar as the one in Summer Palace in Beijing.

 

What a beautiful door

After visiting The Lion Forest Garden, I came to The Lingering Garden (留園）.

The Lingering Garden (留園）

Comparatively, it was not as famous as The Lion Garden and Humble Administrator's Garden. However, it got much quieter because of less tourists. Lingering Garden is a garden full of artwork and detailed design of the designer. It contains a lot of Chinese culture. I just enjoy sitting there and look at all the details.

The marble is art of nature. With the pattern of marble, we can see the sky and the mountain. It must be the inspiration of Chinese painting.

Nice Shadow

This round marble used to be a table in the house. There is sun, mountain, cloud and water reflection in the pattern.
Nature is the greatest artist in the world. Unblievable!
I stood in front of this marble for a long time. I just could not believe my eyes.

The specials of the design of living room. 2 similar room with detailed difference show the difference in statue, gender and class.

 

After visiting The Lingering Garden, I rushed back to my hotel and got to the train station. And I lost my sunglasses on the way. >.<
Taking a train from Suzhou to Shanghai is extremely quick.

There, I met Xujing again, after all these years...........

 

I spent the morning with Xujing and Wenquan in Shanghai. We caught up a lot and it was interesting to know how their live is in the US. They were busy organizing their wedding, so I hang out with my friends in Shanghai in the afternoon to visit another water village.

I met Shen in a wine fair in Shanghai few years ago and found out that we both love to travel around China. This time, he came together with his primary schoolmate and drove me to an unpolluted water village near Shanghai- Jinze (金澤水鄉）.

Shen, Me and his primary schoolmate

Completely different from Xitang （西塘水鄉）, Jinze is an untouched quiet little village. I got to see the real life of people. Kids are running around and playing with the trees and water. Adults are cooking next to the water. It does not have any shops, any touristic attractions, but it is very beautiful in its way.

Find some info about Jinze on the internet. It is famous with its 21 bridges. It got one of the oldest bridge of its kind in Shanghai which was built in Song dynasty.

金澤古鎮是一個非常純淨的一個水鄉，周圍沒有林立的小飾品店面，也沒有任何擺渡船夫，同樣以橋多聞多，在網路上的介紹是這樣的：
金澤古鎮保留了格局完全不同的兩條長街：下塘街、上塘街，是明清風格 的商業街，全鎮現存古橋21座，是上海保留古橋最多的鎮，建於南宋年間(1267年)的普濟橋是上海地區現存最古老的拱形石橋，還有一些廟宇(楊震廟門票 5元、頤浩寺門票2元、關帝廟)和民宅建築(許宅、陳宅、陳家倉庫、朱宅、陸家廳、王宅)值得參觀，另外，值得一提的是頤浩寺銀杏樹、港東銀杏樹為有 700年曆史的古樹

This is the oldest bridge. Its age can be shown with its condition. It is pretty amazing to see a bridge like this nowadays.

On the way out, people are preparing their dinner next to the water.

I really like Jinze. Unfortunately, I heard that it gonna be developed as another touristic water village. I hope it can be as a hidden treasure forever, but it seems to be impossible.

 

After visiting Jinze, Shen was driving us to Liantang (練塘). It was getting dark when we arrived, so we could not see much.

This traditional soy sauce factory looked scary at night.

Shen drove us back to Shanghai and he picked a restaurant that he knew I gonna like it a lot- Shanghai old station (上海老站）.

Shen was right, I love to eat in a heritage. The most surprising things of all is that he booked a table at the train cable that Songqingling(宋慶玲）used to use.

The interior design of the restaurant was really impressive. Everything looked very historical.

Some info of the restaurant from the internet:

『上海老站』在徐家匯天主堂正對面，他不但是上海知名的本幫菜餐廳之一，更重要的是他在『內裝』上也非常有特色喔！ 不說不知道，餐廳內的花園裡有兩列老火車！而且大有來頭！這兩列火車是慈禧與宋慶齡的專列，一列1988年由德國漢諾威車廠製造，送到中國給慈禧使 用，另一列1919年由俄國葉卡捷琳車廠製造，新中國成立後由宋慶齡使用。這兩列極具歷史意義的車輛，目前由上海老站收藏，您還可以在其中用餐喔～

Shen's girlfriend joined us for dinner and drove me to the Milonga afterward. However, the address that I got was outdated. I was lucky to have Wifi in the lobby of a hotel and so I checked for other address.

Finally, I took a taxi to the right address for the Milonga and had my first Shanghai tango experience. And it was the day I heard of the news of Andrea Misse passed away in the car accident when Vivian made the announcement.

It was a long day with a lot of activities. I took a taxi to the hotel Xujing stayed and prepared for the wedding in the next day.

 

It is pretty weird that my first 2 experiences of being a maid of honor are both in Mainland China- Qingdao for Esther and Shanghai for Xujing.

So again, we woke up quite early and started to put on make up. Xujing was a really cheerful and cute bride.

 

After the standard "hiding shoes game" for the groom, Wenquan finally got in the room and picked up Xujing for the banquet.

The mother-in-lawS
Really thanks Xu's mum for taking care of me when I was very sick in her home.

Different from Hong Kong, they do not have a group of bridesmaids and groomsmen. Instead, they only have 2 each.

The only chance that we could take a photo together was in the make up room.

Xujing, Wish you a good life with Wenquan in US and I can't wait to meet you up again in US, in Shanghai or in Hong Kong!

 

 

The last day of 2011, I got 2 parties to go.

First one was the gathering with a group of my secondary schoolmates. Thank you Mark for not giving up at organizing the gatherings throughout these years. You are still the best Monitor ever.

Second party was the one with my cousin- Anton at his house on the peak. Aunt Ceci and her friends were having gathering at home. At 00:00, we watched the firework outside their house.

Hello 2012

Most of the guest were gone after the firework. Anton, Aunt Ceci, Alex and I stayed for a board game until 3:00am. I slept over and woke up in this beautiful historical building with sunlight in.

My dear cousin prepared breakfast for me in the morning. How lucky I was.

Thanks Anton for your invitation. I hope to join this gathering next year in case the world is not ended yet. haha!