Dear Ceci, Finn, Gus, Kieran, Mary, and Francis,

Happy New Year! I got to talk/video chat/FaceTime  with most of you, so I know you had a great Christmas and New Year. Soon you’ll be back at school, ECFE,  or day care – can you believe it?! 

Before you return, here are a few photos from my days in Hong Kong with Auntie Elizabeth and a Minnesota friend of mine, Jeanne. 

               HONG KONG IS HUGE.

We visited Mongkok, a neighborhood that has more people than ANY PLACE ON EARTH.  Being there was like living inside a kaleidoscope!

This Mongkok  fruit market runs for many blocks.

The 7 towers of Elizabeth’s  complex have more apartments  than St-Saphorin has people —  over 2,000.   On New Year’s Eve, from my bedroom in Elizabeth’s  “Tower 4”  apartment on the 17th floor, I could see a sliver of the wild and beautiful fireworks in Victoria Harbor. 

HONG KONG HAS MANY TEMPLES AND CHURCHES.

One  day we visited a huge and beautiful garden inside something called a nunnery. This is a convent for Buddhist nuns. We also visited the temple there, where a Fortune Teller told me I would live a long and lucky life. I told her that I already had, and she laughed and said, “Lucky, more!”

HONG KONG HAS GREAT ISLANDS 

Another time, while Elizabeth worked in her studio on shark’s fin cyanotypes (yes!), Jeanne and I took the Star Ferry to Lamma Island for the day .  We ate mussels, oysters, and shrimp – no shark’s fin for us! It was so sunny, we ate outside looking over the beach.

I loved the time there, and like Elizabeth, I hope you can go visit sometime (and if you go in summer, she has a nice pool…).

PS – A few years ago, Auntie Elizabeth did the drawings and paintings for “H” is for Hong Kong!