Antiquity to TV

Romain and I finally rejoined forces at a mutual friend's birthday party--and that matters to you because he returned my camera and now you can enjoy breath-taking photographs of Asia's "world city." A couple of weeks ago, Romain and I went on an adventure involving the Light Rail. I had heard horror stories about the Light Rail. These stories involved train cars packed so tightly that people get squeezed out of them and fall out onto the track. All false accusations; I must have confused it with trains in India. Our peregrinations led us to the far western reaches of the New Territories--uncharted waters for both of us. Fortunately, Romain is excellent at reading maps:We went to a unique Buddhist temple--one with an internal courtyard. And circular doorways:

The main event of the trip was to see this pagoda, which we circa date to 1300, making it the oldest pagoda in Hong Kong:

And Devon, don't worry, I have done something about that hair.

We somehow ended up walking around through narrow alleys with entrances to people's homes. Many people post these kinds of images on their doors. Romain usually isn't there:

These look like flowers, but they're actually pink leaves--amazing! :

Farther down the road, we came across a small temple with various porcelain figurines displayed out front. If we had been bad people, we easily could have stolen them.

Fast-forward to today--filming day for my students' TV debut. The glamorous TVB bus picked us up in high-fashion:


I'm in the back with Kiki, our intern, Matthew, Anson, Leona, Jamie, and the inimitable Enoch, who, as my family would say, is the dominant character of this picture. They interviewed the students in Cantonese and then Anson and Leona performed. I hadn't been involved in any sort of television production before, unless you count the time that meteorologist Gus Gordon came to my 5th grade class, talked about the weather, and then took a video of us waving. I'm sure my head was covered with that day's high temperature anyway. So I was pretty excited to witness the magic of television. I was too cool to notice all the minor celebrities walking around or take a lot of photos, but I got one on-set picture for the records. Leona, Jamie, and Anson:

I think they use that set for a children's show. Hong Kong, the definition of understatement. For the next 2 weeks, we have at least 1 show per day, so don't expect anything cool in the near future. However, I will be going to my favorite island to visit Elvis' grandma next week. The anticipation is overwhelming.