Travel Archives - Page 2 of 5 - Annie Douglass Lima : Annie Douglass Lima

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Today was another really good day! I “went” to the online service for my church, House of Blessing. The whole thing was really good, but the most meaningful part to me was the song “Here Again”. (This link is to a different but also excellent version, in case you just want to listen to the song without searching through the whole church service for it.) I’d heard and sung it many times, but the lyrics were never so meaningful as they were to me today, shut in a room away from everyone and everything as I am:

I’m not enough/Unless you come./Will you meet me here again?/’Cause all I want Is all you are./Will you meet me here again?/Not for a minute/Was I forsaken./The Lord is in this place./The Lord is in this place./Come, Holy Spirit,/Dry bones awaken./The Lord is in this place./The Lord is in this place.

Later I finished up some other tasks on my to-do list and finally had time for something I’d wanted to do since I arrived: working on my new series (working title: The Wolves of Cedar Crossing – yes, it’s about werewolves!). That is, I didn’t actually start drafting the series yet, but I read back through some of the many ideas about characters and plot that I’d brainstormed a while back and organized them more logically. Now I have a better idea of what needs to happen in book one. I hope to work on it a little every day for the rest of my quarantine and hopefully actually start drafting some scenes before I leave.

Here are today’s meals:

Breakfast: the usual hard-boiled egg and greens, plus chicken nuggets and a couple of rolls. One of the rolls had a sweet red bean filling. And don’t forget the “mixed fruits and vegetables juice drink” (I could taste the veggies as well as the fruits)!

Lunch (clockwise from top left): bitter melon (I think – it was bitter and in the plant family, anyway), greens (surprise, surprise), scrambled eggs with raw green onions, pork, a seasoned chicken leg on rice, and a piece of steamed pumpkin in the middle. I think the pumpkin was my favorite, if only because it was the first time it had shown up in any of my quarantine meals. Let’s just say that barley tea never makes my list of favorites.

Dinner (clockwise from top left): greens (bet you’re surprised!), stewed pork with carrots and broccoli, some sort of spring rolls on rice, green beans, and I have no idea what that was in the middle. It was soft and ginger-flavored. The spring rolls were really good, and so was the broccoli – tender and very flavorful. I wouldn’t have minded a second helping of that.

I settled down to dinner with my Kindle, but after reading for a few minutes, I decided that God’s art gallery outside was much more interesting than the book. The sky kept changing as clouds drifted across the setting sun, turning gold at the edges as the sky turned orange. The picture doesn’t really show how awesome it was, so you’ll have to take my word for it!

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Today seemed to go by fast (which was nice!). Three separate video calls with family used up pretty much all the morning. Some editing, some work on my Amazon ads, some exercise (Dance Dance Revolution for the win!), and some lesson planning for the after-school classes I’ll be teaching this year used up the afternoon. As usual, working on my blog post is my after-dinner activity. And then I’m off to bed with one more day of quarantine under my belt!

This building, just visible to my far left as I peer out my window, intrigues me. During the day, it usually looks like a normal, solid, white building with a dark gray striped design in the middle. But after dark, it manages to look as though it’s shaped kind of like an arch, with the enter part completely open (you know, like all those buildings in Hong Kong designed with the big holes so that dragons from the mountains can fly through them at night on their way to drink from the harbor … never mind). A few irregular little lights in the gray part somehow look as though they’re on buildings behind this one, adding to the night-time illusion that the center section is empty. (Or is it an illusion? I’m not completely convinced!) And on a foggy day, the white part fades into the mist, making it look as though a tall, narrow, dark gray structure stands there instead. I’m beginning to wonder if someone purposely designed this building to provide hours of perplexity for stir-crazy inmates peering out at the city from their solitary cells and trying to keep reality and their imagination separate. Then again, is it worth even trying to keep them separate? Some days I’m not so sure …

Ok, time for the obligatory meal photos. Today I actually really enjoyed parts of both lunch and dinner! A couple of the items were actually my favorites out of everything we’ve been served so far.

Breakfast: the usual green leafy veggies and hard-boiled egg (but this time I actually had salt to put on it, thanks to yesterday’s delivery from my friends!). The thin meaty thing pretending to be bacon wasn’t bad, and I always like the almost-hashbrown patties with ketchup. I would like to also draw your attention to the large glutinous blob at the bottom right. I have no idea what it was this morning, but I’m pretty sure that in a past life it was part of the landscape on an alien planet, or perhaps a prop in a low-budget sci-fi movie that took place on said alien planet.

Lunch. Those breaded shrimp things were delicious! I wouldn’t mind a couple of those every day! Spare me the lecture about how fattening they are, please. I’m pretty sure we’ve had at least one deep-fried item in every meal so far, so it’s not like they’re much worse than anything else. The greens were tastier than usual, too – good and garlicky, just the way I like them, not bitter like most greens here have been so far. The mushrooms in the center section were pretty good, too. The dark little strips at the top right I’m pretty sure were ni the fungus family too, but I didn’t care for them much. One bite was plenty. I didn’t eat the chicken wing with the green pepper pork, either, but the shrimp made up for the rest of it. Oh, and the white gourd tea? Just look at the squash in the picture, imagine it turned to liquid with sugar added, and that’s exactly how it tasted.

Dinner: chicken curry with potatoes and carrots over rice. What a delightful change from the norm! This was definitely my favorite hotel dinner yet. I mixed the greens in with the curry and couldn’t even taste their bitterness. I wasn’t going to eat the deep-fried breaded pork slab, because deep-fried, but I took one bite and decided it was too good to let it go to waste. (I couldn’t say the same about the slab of tofu.) Even the soup was pretty tasty. It had some kind of vegetable blossom (squash?) in it, which I know sounds weird, but it worked. The broth had a pleasant flavor. I had promised my Kindle we would have a dinner date this evening, so all in all, the meal was quite delightful.

Anyway, here are some pictures from tonight’s sunset. The sun itself stayed hidden behind a cloud bank most of the way down, but the evening sky was still pretty. I’m so thankful for a room with nice big windows and a sunset view!

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Today was a good day! One of the first things I did was chat online with a colleague of mine who just started her quarantine on a different floor of the HiOne Hotel. Her wonderful attitude encouraged me, and so did the song she sent me a link to. “As the Deer” instantly became my quarantine theme song. I’ve heard it dozens, if not hundreds of times before, but it had never brought me to tears before. Of course, I’d never before listened to it when locked in a room alone for two weeks … and yet not alone. The phrase “you alone” takes on a whole new meaning when the Lord is all you have – and you realize he is really all you need after all. I can’t remember the last time a song touched me that deeply.

The picture above is what I saw when I opened my curtains. Typhoon In-Fa is hanging out off the east coast at the moment. Rain splattered my window, “falling” almost horizontally at the time. All day, there have been intermittent heavy winds, sometimes making my windowpanes rattle, and it’s rained on and off.

This morning when I opened my door to pick up my breakfast, I stuck my phone out and took a couple of quick pictures. Below is the view from my doorway. For some reason I always feel a little sad when I see all those other chairs with meals on them. I’ve never glimpsed any of the other guests/inmates here (though this afternoon I heard someone sneeze on the other side of the wall), but every chair represents a person sitting in a room by themselves. There are at least eight of us spending our two weeks in solitary confinement in this hallway, so close together and yet each completely alone. I hope the others have found meaningful ways to fill their time and connect with friends and family in the outside world, as I’ve been able to.

This chair just to the right of my door is where my meals magically show up. You can see from the stains that a lot of previous guests’ meals must have leaked! None of mine have, as far as I’ve noticed.

Here’s what I see to the left of my room. Floyd’s room is the one where you see that distant chair on the left side of the hall. The elevator we came up in is just beyond it.

A highlight of my day was receiving a delivery in the late afternoon!

Part of it involved items from my apartment (like extra clothes, so I won’t have to do as much laundry in the sink) that a friend who has the key had been willing to get for me. She also bought me some fresh fruit, yogurt, and a few other goodies. The rest of it was the delicious dinner that you see below, a gift from another friend. Yum! It was definitely the best meal (and the healthiest – nothing was deep fried!!) that I’ve had since I’ve been here.

This delicious dinner consisted of a blueberry-filled bagel, fresh cut veggies and dip, and chicken over rice (with half a hard-boiled egg and a few other ingredients mixed in).

Meanwhile, here are the meals the hotel served today:

Breakfast: French fries, some sort of glutinous pastry (the spiral pattern went all the way through), barley tea, a hard-boiled egg, those sausages I’d been hoping wouldn’t return to haunt me, and greens.

Lunch: the ubiquitous greens, shrimp with bean sprouts, a chicken leg on rice, soft squishy squash with rice noodles, and eggplant. The eggplant was a tasty change!

This is the dinner the hotel provided. I didn’t eat most of it, since I had the other one. I did try one of those little things in the round center section, just out of curiosity. It turned out to be chewy tofu sprinkled with sesame seeds. Oh, and I had the pieces of pork at the bottom left – they were tender, flavorful, delicious, and very fatty. (Have you noticed that fatty pork in various forms, tofu, and greens have been a recurring theme in these meals?)

One last picture before I close for the night. I didn’t actually see the sunset this evening because of all the clouds over the horizon, but it did make its presence known very briefly in this gorgeous display. Just a few seconds after I took this picture, the clouds shifted and the colors vanished.

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The highlight of my day today was being able to do a fun new form of exercise! I had bought a very basic version of Dance Dance Revolution long ago but hadn’t seen or thought of it for years. Then this summer I rediscovered it up in the closet in my grandparents’ house. Since the dance pad plugs directly into a TV, with no other equipment required, I thought it would be a perfect quarantine activity that I could do in my hotel room. So we brought it along, along with spare batteries, even though it’s a little on the heavy side and we had limited space and weight to spare in our luggage. When we first arrived in the hotel, however, it looked as though it wasn’t going to work right with the TV in my room. So Floyd went online and ordered something from PCHome that would help it connect. The something arrived and got delivered to my room today, and after a lot of fiddling and some tech support from Floyd over a video call, we discovered to my disappointment that it didn’t work. And THEN we discovered that the dance pad could connect to the TV the way it needed to after all, with no external help required! I was delighted, and spent the next hour dancing away! I’m really excited to know that I have DDR to look forward to every day now for the rest of my quarantine! (Hey, when you’re locked in a room alone for two weeks, you have to find excitement where you can!)

Here are today’s meals:

Breakfast: slightly sweet rolls with a red bean filling, hard-boiled egg, chicken nuggets with ketchup, and green salad, plus strawberry milk tea.

Lunch, clockwise from top left: greens, a chicken leg sitting on little pork strips mixed with something that looked like bits of onion but wasn’t, breaded pork slab on rice, something very moist and squishy that I’m pretty sure was in the vegetable family (only because it didn’t taste meaty and was definitely not mineral). The item in the middle involved a different kind of greens and something else unidentifiable but spicy. I stuck the boxed drink in the fridge without opening it. Maybe I’ll try it at some point if I’m desperate for a change from water.

Dinner: a deep-fried, breaded something-or-other that I thought at first was pork but wasn’t. It involved a slightly sweet paste that I believe may have been some sort of seafood in a past life. Also squash, an egg (not sure why it was that color – that’s the white you see, not the shell) and fried noodles. And clear soup with what I assumed were fishballs but weren’t. Perhaps some distant relative of the dumpling? (That is, Western dumplings, not the Chinese kind.)

There’s a typhoon moving in at the moment. It’s been raining on and off all day, interspersed with blue skies overhead but fast-moving dark clouds traveling south just above the horizon. My window panes have occasionally rattled in the wind, and when I stand near the door, I hear the wind whistling through some window that must have been left ajar somewhere down the hall. I wonder what it will be like in the next couple of days to watch a typhoon hit the city from the 22nd floor.

I’ll close with this photo I took out my window this evening of the storm closing in on the city at dusk.

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Day 0

I woke up this morning feeling joyful and grateful, thinking of how much I have to be thankful for. Yes, I’m going to be stuck in this room for the next fortnight, but at least it’s a pretty nice room! Want to see for yourself? Come take the tour!

I’ve wanted to learn to line dance for years. What better time than quarantine? This morning I learned the Cowboy Hustle! I have just enough space between the beds and desk in my hotel room to do it, as long as I skip the part where they keep turning around to face another direction. I plan to learn a new line dance each day I’m here. I’m so thankful for enough room to exercise, and for a fun variety of exercise options on Youtube!

Alas, the person in the room below mine apparently doesn’t feel quite the same way. Midway through my second exercise session of the day, the room phone rang. It was a lady from the front desk, asking if I could please exercise more quietly. Whoops.

A doorbell I didn’t know I had rang this morning. When I put on my mask and peeked out, lo and behold, a care package was waiting for me! What a delightful surprise to find these treats from some of my colleagues at Morrison Academy! (They had to leave the bag at the front desk, and a worker in a mask, gloves, and hospital gown brought it up and left it outside my room, then hurried away to safety as soon as he rang my bell.)

Opening the package brought tears to my eyes. It’s so nice to be loved and cared for, especially when you’re alone!

A closeup of the cookies in the care package!

In the late morning, I got a call on the room phone here in my hotel. “Hello, this is the front desk. The police are on the phone and would like to talk to you.” Fortunately, I knew what it was about, otherwise I might have been quite alarmed! It was just Olivia, my friendly neighborhood quarantine officer, trying to get ahold of me since we’d gotten cut off on our previous call on my new cellphone. She reminded me to keep track of my health and be ready to fill in the details when I get a text message tomorrow (and every day from then on, I think?), and that she would call me every two or three days to check in.

This evening there was a gorgeous sunset. My pictures don’t really do it justice, but they’ll give you a little hint of God’s artwork outside my window.

… until it got a little darker and more clouds rolled in, and the view turned to this!

It’s almost time for bed now. First, pictures of today’s meals:

Breakfast: a turnip cake with sauce, hashbrowns with ketchup, greens, sausages remarkable for their total absence of any sort of flavor, a hard-boiled egg, and mixed fruit and veggie juice.

Lunch: greens, cabbage, tofu, fatty but flavorful porky things on rice, a chicken wing, more of that soft squash, fishballs (I think), and barley tea.

Dinner: greens, tofu, asparagus stems with a piece of chicken, bitter melon, a different kind of fatty porky thing on rice, and clear soup with no discernable ingredients or taste.

As I end my day, my sports watch tells me I’ve walked (well, and it’s probably including my line dancing) a total of 10,016 steps today. I feel accomplished! Don’t be too impressed, though – today was about three days long!

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My husband Floyd and I have just returned home to Taiwan after a summer in California visiting relatives. Taiwan is taking the current COVID situation very seriously, and all incoming travelers are now required to quarantine in a hotel for two weeks upon arrival. I decided to record my quarantine experiences for anyone who might be interested (and to give myself one more thing to do in what I’m calling my luxury incarceration)! Today is day 0, because the 14 days don’t technically start until tomorrow. (They have to be 14 full days.)

Both our flights (LA to Hong Kong; Hong Kong to Taipei) were fairly empty. Getting through the Taipei airport was an interesting adventure, very different from any of our previous arrivals. First I had to buy a Taiwan SIM card for my new phone (required for all incoming quarantinees), which was pretty simple since they had a table selling them right after we got off the plane. There was a short line for that – the only line we had to stand in the whole time. Then there was a huge hassle about how to access and take screenshots of certain messages and quarantine-related documents on both Floyd’s and my phones, but some helpful airport personnel who sort of spoke English were finally able to help us.

Next we had to walk all over the place, always with uniformed personnel standing ready to point out the way, and always being followed by a masked and gowned cleaning crew spraying disinfectant and wiping the floors down behind us. After getting through customs and immigration as usual, we picked up our boxes and duffel bag from the baggage claim, where a sign informed us what had been done to them.

I did indeed open my duffel bag later to find that some items were damp, but since there was no smell of disinfectant, I think that had more to do with the rain in Hong Kong on our layover.

Along with showing our phone screenshots and other extra info at extra places, we had to take rapid COVID tests (these were in addition to the PCR tests we took a few days ago that actually let us fly). For these ones, we were escorted to private booths where we had to spit in jars, wipe down the outsides of the jars, double-bag them, and hand them to more masked and gowned personnel, who stuck big “quarantine Taiwan” stickers on our shoulders to prove we had completed that step.

Finally we were funneled outside to the quarantine taxi waiting area, where we had to submit documentation about our quarantine hotel arrangements and then get sprayed down with sanitizer, along with our bags. (All of that took almost two hours, even though, as I said, there were pretty much no lines. Actually, the whole airport was almost deserted.) To our disappointment, they had run out of the van-sized taxis, and the regular ones couldn’t fit all our luggage (three large boxes and a duffel bag, plus carryons and a few other small items). So we had to pay for two taxis, which dropped us and our things off at the HiOne Gallery quarantine hotel in Taichung.

Floyd checking in at the HiOne Gallery Hotel. Not all our luggage would fit on that cart.

Checking into the hotel was complicated. It didn’t help that neither of us speaks much Chinese, and the man trying to check us in didn’t speak English. There were all sorts of COVID- and quarantine-related things to deal with as part of the check-in process, too. We would never have managed without calling a couple bilingual friends of ours and asking them to translate over the phone! All this happened outside and in the entryway, with the expansive lobby standing empty, tape on the floor showing potentially contaminated guests like us which way to walk to the elevator so we wouldn’t contaminate anything else.

The HiOne Gallery Hotel lobby, with no other guests in sight. (Since it's a quarantine hotel, "regular" guests aren't allowed, and none of the quarantinees are allowed to leave their rooms.) — The HiOne Gallery Hotel lobby, with no other guests in sight. (Since it’s a quarantine hotel, “regular” guests aren’t allowed, and none of the quarantinees are allowed to leave their rooms.)

Though it will be hard to spend the next two weeks alone (no, husbands and wives aren’t even allowed to quarantine together!), I’m grateful for how nice my room is. I had very little idea of what to expect, but it’s better than I dared hope for. Tomorrow I’ll post a little video of my room.

A lot has been said (and wondered) by various people about the meals that are included in the cost of most quarantine hotels here. I decided to take pictures of each meal to include in my blog, for anyone who might be curious.

This lunch was waiting for me on a chair outside my door when I arrived in mid-afternoon. Rice, pork in sauce, a slab of breaded pork, anise-flavored tofu, and scrambled eggs with green onions.

Tonight’s dinner. Clockwise from top right: breaded chicken (basically chicken nuggets), ham-like pork strips on rice, pork with celery, bok choi, and in the middle we have that soft kind of squash that often gets put in soups here (not sure what it’s called) with rice noodles. Oh, and clear broth on the side, with tomato pieces.

That’s all for now. It’s time for bed. Here’s hoping jetlag will let me sleep!

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One of the highlights of my recent trip to Hong Kong was the afternoon I spent at Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden. Located outside the city in the New Territories area, the peace and quiet of this beautiful setting was a wonderful change from the hustle and noise of the metropolis.

For anyone who might want to visit, you’ll need to take the light blue MTR line to Tai Po Market. (I was staying at Fo Tan, so it was pretty convenient.) From the Tai Po Market station, take exit 1A and go to the bus area (don’t worry, it’s clearly marked). Take bus 64K to Kadoorie Farm.

The bus I was on did not announce the different stops, so you have to pay close attention, but it will be about a half-hour ride. This is how Kadoorie Farm looks from across the street. (It will be on your left as you drive up.) There is a sign, but it’s a little beyond the main building, so you may not see it from the bus.

This is the view from the same spot as above, looking after the bus as it continues on its way. Note the hard-to-read Kadoorie Farm sign just to the left of the bus, by the cyclists. If you’re close enough to read it, you’ve probably already missed the stop!

Kadoorie Farm was well worth it. I only had two hours to spend there, since I had a flight to catch that evening, but I managed to see most of what I would have wanted to anyway.

I spent most of my time walking around the grounds, enjoying the trees and flowers and a small stream. Apparently there was a longer hiking trail up to the top of a nearby slope (with a wonderful view), but I didn’t see it and didn’t have time anyway. If I ever go back, I’d like to do that hike.

I have no idea what this dragon thing was doing on its little platform in the trees!

This mountain boar is among dozens of animals (or maybe a couple hundred?) that call Kadoorie Farm home. Most were rescued from the illegal wildlife trade.

Hong Kong had just been experiencing a cold spell, so some animals were temporarily lodged in warmer quarters.

Informative (and sometimes interactive) displays accompanied most of the exhibits.

Indoor areas housed special exhibits of small reptiles and amphibians.

Several Chinese water dragons had a pretty comfy life there.

There was also a little building for fish and river-related displays.

Kadoorie Farm places great emphasis on ecology and protecting the environment.

Larger reptiles lived in outdoor enclosures. It was fun seeing some different species hanging out together!

There were several aviaries hosting a variety of birds, like this kite.

In a different enclosure, this cockatoo saw me walking by and came over to say hello (literally).

I could tell this mynah bird had also been somebody’s pet. He was very friendly and wanted my attention!

I really enjoyed the insect display. It was quite educational (and not too creepy!).

I don’t recall actually seeing any butterflies (it may have been too cold for them), but this display board was interesting.

There were several little deer in an enclosure there. They didn’t want to stand still and pose for pictures, though!

I enjoyed the areas where guests could just walk through and see animals in a (sort of) natural habitat, as opposed to behind bars or glass.

They had a scenic pond habitat that housed a number of varieties of small wildlife.

I think the little waterfall was manmade, but it was still pretty!

Some animals at Kadoorie Farm were gifts from other countries.

These flamingoes, for example, were sent over from the Bahamas.

Kadoorie has its own little cafe on the premises.

Everything on the menu is vegetarian and fairly healthy (but tasty)! Prices are reasonable, too.

I heard the red rice with veggies in curry sauce (option B below) was really good. I had eaten a late breakfast and wasn’t hungry enough for a full meal, though.

I ended up ordering the mushroom soup with garlic toast and a cup of hot citron tea. Tasty and satisfying on a chilly day!

All in all, my afternoon at Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden was time very well spent. It would make a great school field trip (for any grade) or family outing. Young kids would love it (and I saw plenty of them having a great time there), but as an adult, I loved it too. With admission costing only 30 Hong Kong Dollars (with discounts for kids, the elderly, and groups), it was more than worth it.

Highly recommended for everyone!

Floyd and I enjoyed a wonderful vacation in Myanmar and Vietnam over Christmas break! Scroll to the bottom for links to blog posts about other parts of the trip.

Here are some of our memories from the final evening of our trip, which happened to be New Year’s Eve, spent in Vietnam’s capital of Hanoi.

The traffic was terrible!

We walked around a bit in the evening and found this huge New Year’s Eve event going on.

A bridge in a park.

Light decorations.

They had shut off a lot of streets to all but pedestrian traffic, and the area looked like a giant theme park!

More light decorations.

A brief video tour of the area where the celebration was happening.

This was a fun end to our Myanmar/Vietnam vacation. Memories for a lifetime!

Did you miss any of our other memories from our trip? Click on the links below!

Yangon City

Shwe Dagon Pagoda

The Town of Ngaung Shwe

Bagan-Mandalay River Cruise

Floyd and I enjoyed a wonderful vacation in Myanmar and Vietnam over Christmas break! Scroll to the bottom for links to blog posts about other parts of the trip.

As part of our cruise in Vietnam, the ship stopped to let us out to tour this amazing cave right by the shore. It was absolutely incredible! The colors aren’t natural, though – there were different colored lights in different areas to show off the different formations.

A sign just outside the cave entrance.

Lots of cruise ships were moored outside the cave area!

The amazing interior of the cave!

A quick video tour of part of the inside of the cave.

Want to see more memories from our trip? Click on the links below!

Yangon City

Shwe Dagon Pagoda

The Town of Ngaung Shwe

Bagan-Mandalay River Cruise

Floyd and I enjoyed a wonderful vacation in Myanmar and Vietnam over Christmas break! Scroll to the bottom for links to blog posts about other parts of the trip.

Here are some of our memories from a two-day cruise we took around Vietnam’s incredibly beautiful Ha Long Bay.

The center picture in the above collage shows our little cruise ship; the others show the scenery around Ha Long Bay. This gorgeous area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

One of the cruise activities involved visiting a “pearl farm”, where we learned about how oysters are raised to produce pearls.

Our tour guide shows us the dangling nets where other oysters live while they’re young.

Young oysters live in baskets and on nets hanging from these beams. When they’re older, they’re taken out to the open water area in the background.

Here our guide explains part of the pearl production process.

Looking for pearls in an open oyster. This one does have a pearl! See it?

Another activity on our cruise in Ha Long Bay was learning to make spring rolls. Here’s the finished product, cooked and ready to eat. They were delicious!