Tea in Hong Kong. July 28, 2007

We arrived in Hong Kong nearly a week ago, to visit our dear friends Jill Oviatt and Martin Tremblay. They live perched high above the city, in a condo that stretches 30 stories towards the sky. The buildings here are as big as China's ambition, the booming economy is evident in the landscape, in the fashion, in the youth and relentless pace of the people.

But you can escape the hustle and bustle. We tried to do it a couple of days ago when we visited two buddhist temples. One was hilarious, it's in the suburb of Sha Tin, and houses 10,000 Buddhas (well it is more like 12,000 as they keep adding them). When you arrive at the base of the mountain, where a small yellow sign marks the entrance, you know you are in for a show. Life-sized golden monks line the mountain path to the temple. Some are sitting on frogs, others reading books, many had wild expressions. Then on top of the mountain there was a temple that housed 10,000 small buddhist figurines, and the remains of the monk who founded the temple, covered in gold leaf!!! Wild.

We said a little prayer for Jasmine, and thought about how much she'd get a kick out of this place.

Then we found our friends back in Hong Kong and visited the oldest buddhist/Tao temple in the city, called the Man Mo temple. It was dark inside, with large coils of incense suspended from the ceiling. The smell was intoxicating, many people were praying for their ancestors.

Here we said a prayer for Max.

Louis went into the gift shop beside the temple, while Pierre and I sat outside in the sunshine. He arrived with two red envelopes, covered in Chinese characters. Inside were small necklaces shaped like jade tablets, hanging from red pieces of string. The characters read,"A great Father", for Pierre, and "A great Mother" for me. What a great kid.

We needed some tea. And walked across Hollywood Road to a small tea house, the Cha Yuen Fong Tea Room. It was beautiful inside, small, with dark wood furniture. An older woman sat at the back of the shop and beckoned us to sit down. She began heating the water, cleaning the tiny ceramic cups, steeping the small pot of tea. She poured it, just a few sips for each of us.

"It's Jasmine," I said to her. She nodded yes. We had a tiny sip and asked if we could try something else.

She rinsed out our cups, swirling hot water in each, and then began steeping more tea in another pot. It smelled fragrant. She poured a little into each of our cups.

"Mmm, what is this? It's lovely," I asked. The old woman said, "It's rose tea."

Jasmine and Rose. I looked at the boys, we were all surprised. To me it was a sign, that Jasmine was meant to be with our family.