Goodbye's and July Holidays

Grandpa Roy
Mark's Grandpa Roy passed away in March and the family celebrated his memorial in his hometown of Ishpeming, Michigan this week. Mark's parents drove across country from Kelso to Ishpeming and Mark's brother and his family made the long trek too.

This picture was the last time we saw him when we visited the USA last August. He was in a nursing home and was in his mid-90's, but when we got there, he woke up as soon as he heard Mark's voice. He recognized us and chatted as if he had the mind and memories of a 50 year old. We'll miss him.

Bye Bye Lu Lu
Someone else I miss is Goofy Lu Lu. On Friday, July 4th, I took Lu Lu back to the shelter to be adopted. We thought very hard about keeping her but decided we didn't want the possible 20 year commitment . Plus we couldn't foster again if we kept her.

It was very sad to take her back and I've missed her goofy antics the past 2 days. We visited her at the shelter today and I was surprised to see that she didn't really seem to care one way or another about us being there. Silly cat. If she were a dog, she'd been peeing herself with glee, but as a cat, she was calm, cool and collected. I guess that means she'll be okay. We'll check on her to make sure she gets adopted or we will bring her home.

A view of our neighborhood from the West
We've been accused of living in the ghetto from some friends back home who have seen pictures (Michael Lam) so I took a picture from the pretty side of our neighborhood while on a walk on Saturday. See the Green buildings on the left with the cranes on top? Our apartment complex is the one just to the left. The "short" buildings. (30 floors)

July 1st holiday
July 1st was Hong Kong SAR day (the celebration of the day Hong Kong returned to China rule). This was the 11th anniversary. It's a national holiday and they do a big firework display over the harbor. Every year, there's a big protest in central Hong Kong and this year was no different. It was blazing hot so even though we considered heading down to experience the activities, considering was as far as the thought got.

Canada Day
July 1st is apparently also Canada Day which was evident with all the Canada Day celebrations in Mark's favorite part of town (Lan Kwai Fong, i.e. LKF) which is the nightlife, bar area.

On Monday night before the Tuesday holiday, we met some friends for drinks after work and were greeted by all these Canadian and Canadian wanna-be revelers. Funny to note that there were no such celebrations on July 4th. Must be a bigger and more enthusiastic Canadian crowd here which makes sense because many, many Hong Kong people have spent some time living overseas in either Vancouver BC or Toronto.