Our worthless pile of rocks

So the latest around here--besides the typhoons; we are preparing for our third of the year--is the Dokdo /Takeshima controversy.  This came to my attention when a soccer player made headlines by running around with a sign that said "Dokdo is our land" after beating the Japanese team, getting himself banned from the medal ceremony.  South Korea has gone crazy publicizing this idea, putting ads here and in Japan supporting their claim to Dokdo.  Japan, which calls the island Takeshima, has responded with its own ads.  Things have gotten heated enough for Secretary Clinton to tell the two countries to cool it.

I finally looked up Dokdo today, and discovered that it's a worthless, tiny collection of rocks.  Even the Korean government can't make it look worth the fight.  Apparently, three people live there, all encouraged by the government to live on what looks like an uninhabitable piece of land.

Clearly, I don't get it.  This is a lot of wasted noise--not to mention money and effort--over something worthless.  Give me a break.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong was perhaps my favorite Asian city that we have visited so far.  With its abundant pedestrian side streets full of stairs, lush greenery, and wide variety of buildings, from colonial European to imperial Chinese, the city had a lot of character.  There were a variety of restaurants, which I have learned not to take for granted here.  We stayed on Hollywood Road, which had a lot of antique shops, but was not far from the midlevels escalators with its Ben and Jerrys (!) and other modern conveniences.  It reminded me a bit of New York, with a patched-together look that comes from a long history of several cultures settling there.  Except that there were mountains, and vast seascapes with green islands.

It rained our first day there, which gave us an opportunity to explore the midlevels escalators, which are covered escalators and moving sidewalks which climb all the way to the top of Hong Kong island.  Our second day, we went to Kowloon City to visit some friends, and travelled back over the harbor via the ferry, allowing us to enjoy the light show.  Our third day, we went to the peak, where all of Hong Kong's wealthy foreigners have resided for over a century.  We stopped by the modest zoo and saw some monkeys.

Xander loves to travel, but of course we were not able to do all of the sightseeing we did before the baby.  Our answer to this was to take double decker buses--and one tram--to all of our destinations, allowing for some fantastic window touring.  He's a pro at eating at "adult" restaurants, and has a fabric seat that will convert all chairs to high chairs.  Asians are generally tolerant of children everywhere, which helps.  As is the case in Korea, Xander is a particular hit, and he got a lot of free stuff.

One of the things we do when traveling post-baby is get a nice hotel room, because we spend much more time in it now than we did before Xander.  This one was a suite, and came with a window hawk who visited daily.

A local sparkler display, with drumming and chanting (no idea)

Midlevels escalators

A side street

Koi pond near our hotel

The harbor at night.  My camera takes awful night pictures.

Double decker tram

A nice restaurant on the peak

The view from the Peak

Hong Kong from the Peak

Xander in our hotel room with the balloon he got from the waiters at a restaurant

Our hawk

Xander and Bobby in Seoul, where we stopped on the way back