China - Hong Kong

Oh wait, there's more! Our journey back home required an overnight in Hong Kong. Of course we could not sit in the airport hotel. Mark engineered a way for Carol, Ro and I to get into Hong Kong and meet up with one of their friends. What an adventure!! Who knew you not only needed Hong Kong dollars AND exact change to ride the 2 stops on an airport shuttle bus to get to the Marriott hotel, where Mark and Ro were staying. You can see the hotel from your room but impossible to walk to due to construction. Note to self if ever get back here. After 3 attempts to use the bus, we got on but did not have exact change. A very nice woman passenger funded our ride $7 HKD ( about 90 cents usd ) to get to the Marriott. The 4 of us set out to find the high speed train. Success! We made it to the train station in city central. Then, the challenge to find Shirley, not hard, harder to find out way out of the train station. Holy cats! What a multilevel maze! With the help of Shirley, phone gps and asking just about anyone, we found our way out and to the Hard Rock. Invaluable to have someone with us who speaks the local language. Whew. We had a nice dinner and beverage which cost about as much as what we spent on food and beverage total over the last 3 weeks. But it was fun. Tomorrow we fly home through Seoul. We land in Mpls before we take off from South Korea. Wild...
Thanks for traveling with us!

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Cambodia Day 6 part f

Our last views of Cambodia. Tomorrow we begin the journey home.

Sunset at Angkor Wat 

Totally fabulous way to end this journey. 

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Cambodia Day 6 part e

One more set of pics of this most interesting world in which people have found a way to live.

Moving day. Twice a year, lock, stock, dog, laundry and the garden. 

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Cambodia Day 6 part d

Some more scenes of the river village.

Crocodile cage

Making fish paste. Eeewww

Not Wallmart, but River Mart. 

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Cambodia Day 6 part c

On and off, on and off, on and off the bus as we bounced and jostled down the rural road now to our main attraction of the day. Visiting a floating village on Tonle Sap Lake. A brief glimpse into life of the Cambodia river people. Tonle Sap means Great Lake. It is the largest fresh water lake in Southeast Asia. The lake levels rise and fall with the seasons due to the influence of the Mekong River River. The rains begin in summer, the river rises, but instead of flooding its own banks, the river pushes water into Tonle Sap reversing the river's flow. The waters of Tonle Sap River flood the lake increasing it tenfold which floods the surrounding forests and fields. October when the water recedes it leaves behind fertile silt perfect for rice cultivation. The river people literally move their floating homes twice a year with the ebb and flow of the lake. Such a different way of life. Much of their diet is fish. The fish they do not eat is collected to be made into fish paste. Eww. Nearly all the homes have little rafts with dirt on which they have a garden. Many are cultivating crocodiles to sell to supplement their income. There are floating stores, church's, schools, dogs, cats, and just about anything a village needs. You just need a boat to get from point a to b. Fascinating view into a unique way of life. No property taxes.....

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Cambodia Day 6 part b

Every tour seems to have a real touristy experience sometime they try to make it look spontaneous. Ya, not so veiled today for our ox cart ride through a genuine Cambodian village. It was fun despite the feeling of staged. Ox carts are used today in their farming process but minimally.

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Cambodia Day 6 part a

Our last full day in this unique part of the world, Cambodia. It was like stepping back in time to a time when life existence was based on physical labor and very little mechanization. Our day was full of discoveries starting out with stopping to talk to people in various stages of harvesting rice. The first is where the rice stalks are cut and dried. The machine is separating the grain, chaff and stalks. Looks like the women are in their pajamas. Interesting..... At the second stop, the family is cutting the rice stalks with a hand sickle. Wow. These are hard working people.

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Fwd: How to play Sichuan Mahjong

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Begin forwarded message:

From: Barbara Schwarz <bhs.schwarz@gmail.com>
Date: December 2, 2019 at 2:31:55 AM CST
To: Mark Svobodny <mass27@gmail.com>
Cc: Ida Sansoucy <iderann@q.com>, MARYANN WATTERS <pudley1920@comcast.net>, Cassie Zeng <cassiezmd@outlook.com>, marimerche9@yahoo.com, stravel80@aol.com, kentm@massie-associates.com, fredschlichting@hotmail.com, phxwilsonschris@aol.com, Joanie Broder <jrb51@comcast.net>, cal3419@yahoo.com, maryn4949@gmail.com
Subject: Re: How to play Sichuan Mahjong

So long Mark, here's a goodbye hug we missed as you left!  

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On Dec 2, 2019, at 11:03 AM, Mark Svobodny <mass27@gmail.com> wrote:



It was great traveling with all of you. Now on to Hong Kong where it's a chilly 6p degrees--brrr!

On Mon, Dec 2, 2019, 9:40 AM Ida Sansoucy <iderann@q.com> wrote:

thanks for sharing this blog.  i look forward to some laughs!

A great group.  Ida

---

From: "Maryann Watters" <pudley1920@comcast.net>
To: "Cassie Zeng" <cassiezmd@outlook.com>
Cc: marimerche9@yahoo.com, stravel80@aol.com, kentm@massie-associates.com, "I A SANSOUCY" <iderann@q.com>, fredschlichting@hotmail.com, phxwilsonschris@aol.com, mass27@gmail.com, "Joanie Broder" <jrb51@comcast.net>, "Barbara Schwarz" <bhs.schwarz@gmail.com>, cal3419@yahoo.com, maryn4949@gmail.com
Sent: Sunday, December 1, 2019 5:17:05 PM
Subject: Re: How to play Sichuan Mahjong

For anyone interested in the blog created along the way, here is the link www.pudley1920.blogspot.com.  

There is a technical problem at the moment ( thanks China ) so only half of the entries are posted. Hoping to get this resolved in the next week or so. 

Thank you all so much for your interest and you all were so much fun travel companions!

MaryAnn 

Aka MA

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On Nov 30, 2019, at 5:13 PM, Cassie Zeng <cassiezmd@outlook.com> wrote:



How to play Sichuan Mahjong:

There are 108 tiles together, three types, crack, bamboo and dot.  Four same pieces of each tile. Usually 4 people play and maximum 5 , at least 3.  Rules as follow : 

Shuffle all the tiles: it doesn't mater if the tiles are covered or not .

Built the Great Wall : built the tiles in front of yourself and it doesn't matter how many tiles you built , because it will be used as a bank . Everybody will take the tiles from the bank when the game starts. 

Throw the dice and the person who get the biggest number will be the one who start the game. Usually we will leave several tiles on the right and take them at the end of the game. How many tiles leave for the end , we follow the small number on the dice. 

Everybody take 4 pieces of tiles for three times until everybody get 12 pieces of tiles and the first person who starts the game take another two pieces . Remember : you need to jump :)  The other 3 people take one more tile. 

You should always have 13 tiles in your hand and the 14th one decide you win or not. Your target should be ABCABCABCABCDD or 7DD . ABC means 3 of a kind or 3 same type tile in a row . 

After the first person discard , we go clockwise , and the second person will pick one more , then discard .

When  can you Peng ? When someone throw the dice and you happen to have a pair of it (DD) in your hand , you can call out : Peng . And you take the tile from the table and put the three pieces aside to show people. Then you need to discard one . The person after you (clockwise ) will get the chance to take one more tile from the bank and it doesn't matter the original order. Which means, there maybe one or two people are skipped one chance . 

P.S. you can always Peng doesn't matter whether it's your turn or not , as long as you have DD in your hand . Another two confusing parts are :

1. You can Peng only if you already have a pair in your hand to make a AAA not ABC. But when it's Mahjong , it doesn't mater whether it's AAA or ABC. 
2. When you take tiles from the bank to have a AAA , you don't need to put them down to show people. You put them down to show people only when it's Peng. 

When you take your 14th tile from the bank and make Mahjong , everybody should pay you . If someone discards the piece to help you making Mahjong , only the person should pay you. When someone makes Mahjong , the game finishes. When we start a new turn, we start from the side who won last time. So from the second round , only the winner throw the dice and decide where to take the tiles (by following the small number on the dice) 

History of Mahjong :

Mahjong was invented by Chinese people in Ming dynasty around 400 hundred years ago. There was a fleet of China went to other countries to promote Chinese culture ( the real reason was to look for a person who may threat the position of the emperor) 

The generals and soldiers were on the sea for long long time . Most of them become homesick and bored ... so Mahjong was invented for them. Mahjong Literally means : Entertain the generals in Chinese . That's why we have bamboo , cookie , and Chinese characters and north , south ,wind for the tiles ( some region of China play 4 types of tiles ,which make the total number 144 ) 

You can always make the game more complicated by many ways. For example, you can make the rule like this : when you win , you can only have 2 types in your hand instead of 3 types. You need to decide at the beginning of the game, which type you want to get ride of and you can't change your mind afterwards.

Thank you for joining Cassie's Mahjong lesson and hope you will have fun with families and friends :) 

Cambodia Day 5 part g

So many temples, so little time. We visited Baphuon and  Phimeamaks temples then on to the terrace of the elephants. The king and queen would be peached on the terrace to watch games being played by elephants using a water buffalo like we would us a ball in sport. That had to be interesting, not nice to the water buffalo, but interesting.

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Cambodia Day 5 part h

> Ended our temple explorations at the royalty's crematorium. The swung back to Angkor Wat for one last look at sunset. Our guide surprised us with an Angkor Beer and a snack. It was pretty cool to sit relax, enjoy a beer and the temple. Memorable...

Cambodia Day 5 part f

> Bayon Temple. One of my favorites. It is unique to any of the other temples. Built in the 12-13th centuries as the state temple for the Mahayana Buddhist King Jayavarman VII. The most distinctive feature are the smiling faces on four sides of each of the 54 temple towers. Totally can get nose to nose with the faces, or at least you can by a camera angle. ☺️

Cambodia Day 5 part d

There is wildlife in Angkor. They are cleverly named, Angkor Wat Monkeys. Who knew... Dragon flies are there too. Maybe their name is Angkor Wat Dragon fly.... 😉

Cambodia Day 5 part e

> The South Gate into Angkor Thom led us to, yup, another temple. This one is Baksei. Chamkrong. A small Hindu temple dedicated to the Lord Shiva god. It held a golden image of this god. Built in 944-968 AD by King Harshavarman dedicated to his father, Yasovarman. Baksei Chamkrong means "the bird who shelters under its wings" arising from a legend that a huge bird sheltered the king during a siege. It is the first temple to be construed bricks and laterite with decoration in sandstone. Keep reading, more temples to come.