New Year's Day - Visiting Family

On New Year's Day, the air was thick with smoke... the Chinese government cancelled fireworks due to air pollution issues, which I sort of marveled at, but could understand the following morning.  Later in the day we will head to Vicky's aunt's place for a chance to catch up with the extended family.  But first, we need to go to the fruit store in Agile and get some baskets put together.

When we arrive at her aunt's house, it is pure bedlam.  The door opens and everyone yells in greeting, of course then it your job to yell greetings as each following person comes in.

All along this visit, my role was to get some family photographs.  It's been a bit of a challenge as none of the places are really long enough to do good portraiture, so we're getting people who aren't too used to standing and posing, to try and pose for a photo.  This time, we found a nice background along one wall and the key was finding a time when nobody was standing in front of or behind the subject.

One special treat this time is that Vicky's uncle had heard that I was interested in seeing some of her childhood photos and was able to dig up a few...

After looking at the photos, we headed to the restaurant for our New Year's Day dinner.

New Year's Eve... Cooking Lunch, Playing Mahjong and Watching Fireworks.

On Thursday, we had the family (Vicky's parents, Tiger's family, along with her Godparents and an aunt's family) over for lunch.  I was given the task of cooking the rice cakes (under supervision from one of Vicky's aunts, of course) and helped by Demin (Vicky's cousin)

I should point out here that Demin is not married yet, and is willing to consider western men.  If a qualified guy wants an introduction, holler at me!

We we cooked lunch, the older adults played mahjong on Vicky's balcony, and after lunch the women chatted in the dining room.  I had some time to fool around with photography (catching up on working up many photos), and do some reading.

We later went out with Demin and ran some errands (I finally got to photograph the New Year's light display at the entrance to Agile Gardens), before meeting up with the whole family for an New Year's Eve dinner.

Following dinner, we returned to the condo with Tiger's family... we had to get their photos.  Demin stayed with us overnight and we had snacks and watched TV.

Finally, again somewhere around 11:00... maybe 11:30, the din started.  There were a few bursts of firecrackers early in the evening before some of the younger kids went to bed, but starting closer to midnight, it really started sounding like I imagine a war zone would sound.  Firecracker bursts were followed by blasts from commercial grade fireworks being set off around the development.  For many of these, I missed them... the camera being aimed at the wrong spot, but I was able to capture a few.

We went to bed, exhausted, a little after 1:00 (had to wait for the fireworks to die down), but even then many times throughout the night, we woke up to a few small explosions.  Happy New Year!

A Steak Dinner with a Beautiful Young Chinese Girl

On Wednesday, the ferry trip back to Guangzhou from Hong Kong was uneventful.  We passed the same scenery and again everyone stayed inside.  Giving that my window was covered with some sort of thick gelatin material that made the view even more blurry, I opted to leave the camera stowed.

Waiting for us at the terminal was Ruby (Vicky's former assistant) and her family who gave us a ride back home.  We spent the late afternoon chatting and taking some family photos.

I was getting antsy for something western tasting, as asked to go to the sushi steakhouse we visited a year ago.  Vicky and Ruby had something better in mind, and we ended up at this high end steak house.  Ruby's daughter, Emily was my dining companion (along with Vicky, Emily's parents, and tiger).  The steak was incredible!

It was an incredible end to a great afternoon and evening!