I checked into my hotel for our annual sales and success kickoff quite early this morning — at around 11am. I was a little annoyed given that the front desk service was below subpar; she looked like she couldn’t care less about her job and barely made any eye contact with me. The woman said that they’d text me when my room was ready given it was so early. (I later told Chris this story. Given I was clearly complaining, he responded, “Sounds like a boomer.”) Maybe, but when you choose to work in hospitality, you should be… hospitable?!).

At around 3pm, I found out that a number of my colleagues had arrived and had already been given their room cards. Annoyed, I went back to the front desk and told a different front desk person what I was originally promised. He apologized profusely, then told me that while my booked room type wasn’t available, he’d upgrade me to a large top floor king room overlooking The Strip. This room was immediately available, so I could go to my room right away. I went up to my room and was pretty impressed: it was, indeed, a very large room with a huge bathroom, ample space throughout, and large floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking The Strip. I guess that situation ended up working out in my favor.

In between arriving and checking into my room, I was happy to see that a Famous Foods Street Eats Market, modeled after the Singaporean hawker food centers, had opened right here in Resorts World. The thought of having Hainanese chicken rice or laksa sounded quite tempting, so I made my way over there. Unfortunately, half of all the stalls were closed today through Thursday for Lunar New Year, so only a few desirable stalls remained open. I chose a claypot rice stall, which was fine, but it was a bit too greasy for my liking. At least they did do a decent job with the crispy rice bits.

While filling my water bottle with filtered tap water, I was abruptly reminded how terrible the tap water is here in Vegas. Even when I had hot tea (without milk), I could even taste how terrible and strange the water was through the tea flavor. Since then, I’ve decided to block out the awful water taste in tea by using black teas with milk only.

Las Vegas is a popular tourist destination year round, but around Lunar New Year, lots of Asian families love to come here to celebrate. And Vegas does do a good job getting decked out for the Lunar New Year: you can see endless Lunar New Year decorations everywhere here, with red lanterns, peach blossoms, and ornamental snakes given it’s the Year of the Snake. What’s also crazy is the type of gifts that are on display for purchase: you can buy extremely fancy, painstakingly handmade and decorated Lunar New Year butter and chocolate cookies for $88 (of course, it’s a lucky number with lots of 8s…), or even a solid gold snake statue for thousands of dollars and bring it home to grace your entry way!

Train travel in China has come quite a long ways since I first visited the country, my fatherland, in summer 2006. Back then, I studied Mandarin for a month in Shanghai, with lots of fun outings all over the city, plus two day trips to the neighboring small towns Suzhou and Zhouzhuang. Although I very much wanted to visit Hangzhou at the time, I was told that it would take me four hours to get there, which was way too much time for a day given my days without class were numbered, and I wanted to soak in as much of Shanghai as possible. Four years later, China’s rapidly developing high-speed train systems finalized the Shanghai to Hangzhou route, which reduced travel time between the two cities to just 45 minutes (during our summer 2019 trip, we did that exact train trip between Shanghai and Hangzhou, and it was incredible!!). Then, in 2018, the high-speed train was made available between Hong Kong and Guangzhou; the ride is just one hour long. It would be possible to take a quick trip to the capital city of the Chinese province where my paternal family’s lineage originates.

Though I was able to visit my mother’s home village in central Vietnam with both my parents in 2008, I know that it’s doubtful I will ever visit the village where my paternal grandparents are from — Taishan (or in local Toisanese dialect, Toisan), which is about an hour and 40 minutes away from Guangzhou by car. Three of my cousins got to visit our grandparents’ village when traveling to China with my aunt (their mom). But with my dad, he’s expressed zero interest in ever visiting the place of his roots… or anywhere outside of his own city of San Francisco, for that matter. I don’t have other family who could take me there to show me around, so it would feel like I was yet another stranger, gawking around at how everyday village people live in rural parts of China. So, Guangzhou is the closest I will likely come to my dad’s place of origin in my lifetime. I did not always feel this way, but I suppose that with time and age, I’ve really embraced my Cantonese culture. I am proud of the rich history of Guangdong, the vibrant culture, and of course, the incredible food, which is a culture in itself. Cantonese cuisine is so rich and varied that Guangdong could even be considered its own culinary country! Guangdong cuisine, or yue cai, has given the world yum cha (“drink tea”) aka dim sum (dishes that “touch the heart”), siu mei (Cantonese roast meats like cha siu), siu laap (cooked and preserved meats like lap cheong or Chinese sausage), lightly seasoned seafood to highlight the seafood’s distinct and fresh taste, claypot rice (the masters of crispy bottom rice; in Toisan, we call it “fan diew,” one of the few phrases in Toisan I can remember offhand and without any prompting), lou mei (dishes made from internal organs and entrails, like my favorite beef brisket stew), and of course, all the incredible and beautifully presented banquet dishes that define the word “sumptuous.” It’s hard not to like Cantonese cuisine even if you tried your best to be a hater.

From a language standpoint, I always wish I knew more Cantonese and could speak it properly. When I’ve had some free time, I’ve even taken some short courses on Cantonese in Udemy, since I have free access to the full collection of courses as an employee. But Mandarin has always been more of a focus. Toisan was really my first language with English, and as someone who spoke Toisan, I think it sounds a lot like Cantonese with the exception of a handful of key everyday phrases; pretty much NO Cantonese speaker agrees with me, though. 😀 My grandma and dad couldn’t speak Cantonese, so it’s not like I would have been exposed to Cantonese much at home unless my aunt were speaking it in my presence. At the end of the day, while I think it’s more important (practically speaking) to know some Mandarin vs. some Cantonese, Cantonese is closer to my roots. So, that’s why it will always be a little sad to me that Kaia will have little to no exposure to Cantonese or Toisan… and also why I got so excited when I heard her speak some Cantonese words she picked up at school, and that her bestie at school spoke Cantonese at home and with her at school. Outside of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is the one place where of all Chinese dialects, I mostly heard Cantonese aside from Mandarin; I probably heard it equally if not more than Mandarin. Part of that may also be we were surrounded by a lot of Hong Kong-based tourists, but I think it’s also because Cantonese the language really helps to define Cantonese/Guangdong culture. If you take the language away, the culture isn’t quite the same.

The train ride was over before we knew it. We had arrived at Guangzhou South Station. Chris had done all the planning and research ahead of time for this trip that I never did: he knew that China was almost completely cashless at this point, so he made sure to download the WeChat and Alipay apps before we arrived for payment (apparently, even homeless people beg and ask you to transfer money to them via these apps!). He also had DiDi ready to go on his phone for our Uber-like rides. Unfortunately, when we waited for our DiDi driver, we had no idea where he was. The app was precise; it told you where your driver was approximately based on GPS; if he was at a stop light, you could see the seconds count down to when it was ready for him to accelerate. But we couldn’t figure out where our driver was, or where the correct pickup/drop-off point was. All the signs (which were in Chinese and English) didn’t say anything about a general pickup/drop-off point.

Chris and the driver were messaging (good thing a translator is built into the app). He went to go look for the driver while I stayed with Kaia and our bags. Eventually, the driver and Chris found each other. The driver had spent at least 20-25 minutes looking for us, out of his car. He walked all over the station to finally find us. And when he found out I could speak some Chinese, he laughed at me and asked why I didn’t just call him. I told him my Chinese wasn’t great, plus I didn’t know all of the signs and areas of this train station since it was our first time here (all the signs I could see were for P2-P4; he was apparently waiting for us at P5, which is the official drop-off/pickup point that neither Chris nor I saw signs for….). We were both really touched he actually left his car unattended in the drop-off zone (he’s technically not supposed to idle) and ran all over the station searching for us. It was truly above and beyond and clearly done out of genuine concern. That is customer service right there.

When we got into the car, we made some small talk. I thanked him profusely for being so kind to look for us (and spending THAT much time, which ended up increasing our fare by 50 percent, but it’s fine because we knew he was trustworthy). He explained that Guangzhou station was full of ripoff artists, that all of them would charge 2-3 times what Didi was charging us for the same ride (this gave me bad whiplash of the stupid fares quoted to me while we were in Beijing and didn’t have access to DiDi), and he was worried that given we were visitors, we’d get ripped off, so he was happy we didn’t just leave and get into a taxi. He said cab drivers couldn’t be trusted, and he insisted that any ride we take should only, only be via DiDi and to not trust anyone. He asked the usual things Chinese people in China ask about me, a hua ren (overseas Chinese person): where is my family originally from, where was I born, where do I live, what do I do for a living? How much of China have I seen? Is this child in the backseat mine (ummm, yeah). What’s your relationship to this guy in the back (he’s my husband, believe it or not! He thought Chris was my friend!). He asked about Chris’s family origin. After I told the driver that Chris is ethnically Indian but from Australia, he asked me how we could possibly eat the same food, and how we got by. I was confused and asked him what he meant. “Indian people don’t eat beef because of their religion,” he said. “You eat beef, don’t you?” I laughed and told him that Chris wasn’t Hindu, and he says a typical Chinese thing: “I thought all Indians were Hindu!” He told me that he was retired; he was originally from Hubei but moved down to Guangzhou for work. He spent several decades working as a civil servant. He had a wife and three children, all grown. Although he had a comfortable pension, it never hurts to have more money, he winked. He was used to working six days a week, so he actually drove DiDi six days a week most weeks now as a retiree because he didn’t want to be bored. He was pretty honest about money with me, as most Chinese people are: With all his DiDi earnings each week, he collected over four times what his pension check gave him. That’s not so bad, is it?

It was frustrating at first to spend so long waiting to find our driver, but it was worth it in the end. Meeting and chatting with him on the way to our hotel was a very warm welcome to Guangzhou and back to mainland China for the third time.

It was the last day of 2024 today. We spent most of it exploring Kennedy Town, a neighborhood on Hong Kong Island that has been redefined in the last 10+ years. For the longest time, urban development was slow in this area until 2014, when Hong Kong’s incredible MTR extended out that way. Now, it’s gentrifying quite a bit, with endless luxury high rises going up, as well as trendy bars and coffee/tea shops.

We enjoyed coffee and a waffle at a cute little coffee shop called For Single. There, I had a flat white made with coffee beans from Yunnan province (I didn’t realize coffee was grown in China!). For the first time, Chris had siphon coffee, which is supposed to enhance the coffee aroma more. Watching our barista make his coffee with the siphons was really fun for the first time, as it was like watching a chemistry experiment in action. Although I doubt either of us would be interested in purchasing siphons to make siphon coffee at home, it was an experience watching it made for us, and the coffee itself did seem different than coffee made out of a Chemex or Aeropress.

We found a slightly off the beaten path swimming shed called Sai Wan, where you descend down several flights of stairs into a “swimming shed” that is essentially the open water. This was a good place to see some nice views of Hong Kong, and also helped me learn a bit of history: I didn’t realize “swimming sheds” were a thing in Hong Kong. They were built in the early 20th century by the Hong Kong government, providing changing rooms, showers, and piers for swimmers. The entry fees were cheap, and with cheap leased swimming suits, people started coming to swim in droves. Unfortunately, the water pollution in the harbor gradually got worse, so the popularity of swimming sheds in Hong Kong started dwindling. Today, Sai Wan Swimming Shed is the lone, single shed still standing in Hong Kong. From what I could see, most of its members seem to be older women.

We also hiked up Mount Davis for some views… which were mostly blocked off due to weeds and trees, but it was good to get the exercise anyway. Chris pushed Kaia up via the stroller, but coming down, we tried our best to get her to walk down a LOT of stairs. She had to be cajoled quite a bit and promised treats, as she kept on insisting, “I’m too small! This is too far for meeeee!” There were only about two public toilets along our hike, and Kaia never had to go…. until she decided she had to go where there were none to be found. I had to coax her to squat and pee by a bush, which she finally did because she was so desperate. Unfortunately, she wasn’t positioned properly, and she ended up getting some pee on the bottom of one of her shoes. Good thing we had alcohol wipes to clean that off!

Later on in the day, we had some claypot rice for lunch, then stopped at a dessert spot called Sweet Dreamer Dessert (or Sweet DD), where we enjoyed a decadent pistachio lava mini cake with ice cream, as well as peach flavored popping boba for the first time (which we didn’t realize would have popping boba in it; we just thought it would be a peach juice flavored drink!). Kaia was completely obsessed with the popping boba and even preferred it to her much loved ice cream. All she wanted to do was hold the boba in her hands, place them one by one in her mouth, and feel them explode in her mouth! I’ll be honest even if it makes me sound old: while it was fun to try out something new and trendy like popping boba, I will admit I probably would not order it again knowingly and far prefer regular tapioca boba.

Kaia also got lucky, as at Belcher Bay, we stumbled upon a big children-centered fair. They had several massive foam (or fake snow) machines that she was squealing nonstop about. The theme of the fair was very cutesy Chinese: “Saying Love in the Snowfall.” There was also a hilarious snowball throwing contest between two teams. Chris noted how clean and thorough the workers were between the fights starting and ending: every last smidgen of snow and ice was cleaned up to the point of being anal — I love Asian cleanliness!

We ended the evening with dinner in Central, where we ate at Little Bao, a fusion restaurant that a friend of mine had recommended. Kaia indulged in a bowl of Shaoxing wine and butter clams, while we had fancy versions of fried dumplings, “filet o fish,” and very strong cocktails.

While we were here for New Year’s in 2016, I was still recovering from pertussis, and so we didn’t actually stay out late that night to see the fireworks. I suppose we made up for it this time, though as parents of young children: Chris ensured we had a harbour-view room on a high floor (floor 37) that would allow us to see the entire fireworks display on the harbour from our room. We watched and recorded the full 12-minute fireworks show in our pajamas from our hotel window (with me sitting on Kaia’s roll-out bed closest to the window while she was fast asleep). It was quite spectacular, with fireworks on all sides, and lots of different types of firework artistry that I hadn’t seen before. You could say it was the lazy man’s way of watching the fireworks — to do it from bed and then immediately go to sleep after. Or, you could also argue that this is what people who are lucky to have means do: we can afford a room with a view like this at this time of year, so why not take advantage of it, especially since we have a young child who cannot yet appreciate things like staying up late to ring in the new year, or a fireworks show? This was a far more comfortable way to watch the fireworks for all of us given Kaia’s age, plus who wants to be standing around outside in the semi-cold for hours on end?

It was a fun and memorable way to usher in 2025; it’s a good thing I have a husband who plans this stuff out in advance and thinks of all this because I had no idea we were guaranteed a harbour-view room until we got here!