Xiamen: A Family Holiday

Xiamen Family Photo

Xiamen is a major coastal city in Fujian Province. It’s also the ancestral home of many overseas Chinese scattered around Southeast Asia. If you haven’t already guessed where I’m going with this, my parents’ are from here (Fujian). My dad actually went to school in Xiamen City, so this is sort of a homecoming for him. He hasn’t been back there for over 30 years though, and with the mega urbanization that went on in mainland China in the recent years, he’s as much of a tourist as we are.

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Walking Down the Nostalgia Lane

In 2007, I accompanied my father to Hong Kong where he had a business to attend to. The business wouldn’t take more than a day, but we decided to stay a couple more to visit his brother. My father was from Hong Kong before moving to the Philippines to marry and raise a family.

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The Lure of the Snow Mountain

Meili Snow Mountain 梅里雪山 is located in Deqin County. This beautiful mountain range is comprised of 4 four large glaciers: Ming Yong 明永,Si Nong 斯农,Niu Ba 纽巴, and Nong Song 浓松. The average altitude is at 6000m with Ming Yong being the highest at 6750m, the highest in Yunnan Province. While it’s not as high [...]

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Chinese Shangrila

The journey from Shangrila to Deqin was suggested in the Lonely Planet China as the “road less traveled” (compared to Dali & Lijiang), but of course this made the route popular to foreign travelers. :) The name Shangrila is a fictional Himalayan paradise described in Lost Horizon: A Novel by James Hilton in 1930s. Several [...]

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Festivals and Traveling

Resplendent costumes, colorful floats, abundance of food and alcohol, and manic street parties are the familiar scenes in festivals. From Sinulog to Ati-atihan, from Santacruzan to Aliwan, from barrio to barangay fiestas, Filipinos are no strangers to fêtes. It’s embedded in our culture to find every opportunity for merry making. Growing up, I’ve had my [...]

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