Sights from NOLA

Just had the opportunity to spend a few days in New Orleans to work at our office booth at ACUHO-I , the Association of College and University Housing Officers.   I was especially impressed with the keynote speaker, Professor Roland Fryer, a Harvard professor who collaborated with the authors of Freakonomics.  He spoke about his involvement in the NYC Opportunity Project which is studying how students in low performing schools respond to financial incentives.  It was a very inspirational speech with some very interesting ideas about how people and children are motivated.  I certainly will be borrowing Freakanomics from Bart when I get home to check out some more of these insightful ideas about human nature.

The other benefits of the attending the conference: enjoying the charmingly scaled architecture of the French Quarter, eating  New Orleans cuisine, and sampling beignets at Café Du Monde!

St. Louis Cathedral

Gold scuppers!

Loved this freestanding facade

Each building has it's own distict look and color

A storm is coming!

I always have to make a stop here when I'm in town- so good!

Yum!

Grabbed some dinner at Mr. B's

Belated China Shout-outs

So.   As I have settled back into American culture (how else to do that but to enjoy a relaxed fourth of July weekend filled with BBQs, chasing cows at Bart’s family farm, a trip to Bass Pro and shooting guns) and returned to the craziness that is my life, there are still so many highlights of the trip that will not stop running through my mind.   Even as I am constantly juggling work deadlines, travelling for conferences, and returning to my studying schedule for my much dreaded (but almost completed) Architectural Registration Exams (ARE), I can’t help but stop and laugh to myself about what an incredible experience this trip was for me.  And so I would like to complete my travelogue with an appropriate quote and some shout outs to the people, places, and things that made our trip so memorable and fantastic.

What better for settling back into Midwestern culture than some good old fashioned fun with fireworks?  We found that the “Sky Rippers” were quite good for blowing all sorts of things up…Hope everyone had a great 4th of July!

“Ones destination is never a place rather a new way of looking at things.”  -Henry Miller

Can't get over how adorable this little boy at the dirt market was!

 Oh the split pants...I got a great shot of this one!

I will never travel without my Belle by Sigerson Morrison heels ever again!

I wore them all over China and danced all over Hongy Kong into the wee hours

of the night and they never hurt my feet AND they are fabulous!

Thanks to the Wagyu crew for the fun nights out in Hong Kong!

Thanks to Fodor's for keeping us on the path of the

sophisticated traveler, Jenn never left home without it!

 Stay tuned, next week I'll be in New Orleans for work, so I'm hoping to have some more pictures from my travels!

Last Day: Dim Sum at City Hall and Climbing Victoria Peak

I’m going on about 4 hours sleep in the last 48 hours at this point, and I’m showing no signs of slowing down.  Today we had plans to hit the horse races in Kowloon, but after our night out we found that we unfortunately didn’t have the energy for it...so, next time I come to Hong Kong, this will be #1 on my TO DO list!  Our first tourist item on the to do list today was to get Dim Sum at City Hall Maxim's Palace and then head to over to Victoria Peak and take the tram to the top for some bird’s eye views of Hong Kong Island. 

Dim Sum at City Hall Maxim's Palace 

It was literally the size of a reception hall

and full of people! 

I have no idea what these are...dumplings of some sort

Yummy but scary looking calamari and some sort

of fried chicken thingy...

A dumpling with hair...after being out all night partying this

looked less than appetizing to me...but I tried it anyway.

Sort of tasted like sweet refried beans

We finally try one of those rice things wrapped in a

banana leaf...it was anti climatic

So this is what I look like when I've had 4 hours sleep

in 48 hours and have been out drinking all night.

Thank god for makeup and fedoras!

All the girls for our last big meal together in China

So...the architecture nerd in me has to give

a shout out to the restroom signs that we

saw in City Hall...

Who doesn't love a handicap Pac-Man??

Climbing Victoria Peak

So this is a must when visiting Hong Kong, but I have to warn, it's full of mainland tourists pushing you out of line and out of the tiny trolley that takes you to the top.  You have to be able to stand your ground and be aggressive if you ride this thing to the top.  I have found these past few weeks that the Chinese are not really the most patient people, although if I were competing for 1.3 billion people then I would probably be the same way.

Sooo...many...people!!  It's claustrophobic, really.

Here comes the trolly!  Prepare to get pushy, 'cause those trolly doors are tiny and

something like 100 people are trying to get on this trolley!

Ahh, it's nice up here...and there are great views of the entire island!

Skyscrapers everywhere...

I think this is where the high rollers live....

I wish I could have added this poster to

my China poster collection.

Hong Kong:  The Riviera of the Orient

After this I crashed….we were ready for a serious nights sleep, to say good bye to Hong Kong, and to return to real life.  But don't worry Hong Kong...I will be back.



Everybody Have Fun Tonight…Everybody Wan Chai Tonight

After our amazing dinner, we decided to head back to Lan Kwai Fong and see where the night took us.   We hit a couple of the bars down the street from our hotel and then decided that we would have way more fun with our friends at Wagyu, so we headed there for the rest of the evening.  It was fun of course, if you don’t count the obnoxious Brit that was dominating my time with conversations about how he hates Americans, etc, etc.  Needless to say, it was an interesting and ineffective tactic for attracting American women.  After the Wagyu crew got off for the night, we headed to a club for some dancing and then it was decided that I needed to experience Wan Chai nightlife before leaving Hong Kong.  And  it was quite an experience. .. We ended up in some nameless underground club full of shady characters and scantily clad local Hong Kong women surrounding spellbound foreign men.  I tried to take pictures of the scene for the blog, but I was advised against it and told to take note of all the shady characters at the bar….so, my apologies, but words and your own imagination will have to suffice until you are able to experience the Wan Chai underground nightlife for yourself!  It was great people watching- in fact, it was so great that by the time I figured it was time to head out and go to bed, we exited the club only to be bathed in 6am morning sunlight. 

Post dinner drinks in Lan Kwai Fong

Jenn maybe had too much hong pútáo jiǔ when she took

this picture, but it's still cute!

People watching at Wagyu with night manager Alex

*Thanks for Jenn for being the photographer that night, Mary &

I were taking the night off!

 

Causeaway Bay and Dinner at a Hong Kong Private Kitchen

Thanks to our late night out, we got a late start for the day today, so we decided to hop on the MTR and explore other areas of Hong Kong Island a bit.  We decided to walk around Causeaway Bay where we grabbed a bite to eat at Din Tai Fung, (again!  It was so good and cheap!)  And then we rode the mid-levels escalators in SOHO.

I love that they use bamboo for scaffolding here

it creates this create dichotomy between old and new

Boarding the MTR for the real Hong Kong experience

No joke, the sidewalks have stairs they are so steep

Riding the mid-levels!

At the top of the Mid-Levels

Exploring dark and dingy alleys...

A stop at Watsons, our GO TO personal store, haha

Dinner tonight was at Sichuan Cuisine Da Ping Huo, a private kitchen in Hong Kong that only schedules 2 dinner seatings a night with roughly 6 tables.  It’s run by a couple- the husband runs the front of house and serves the guests while his wife cooks away in the kitchen.  The dinner was amazing, and what made it an even more incredible experience was that the husband and wife came out together to thank each table of guests and then the wife sang a piece of Chinese opera.  It was so moving and definitely one of the best dining experiences thus far in China, which is saying a lot!

a very spicey 4 course meal!

At Sichuan Cuisine Da Ping Huo

A picture with the owners

High rollers.