Where I had the biggest, funnest summer vacation? China, actually.
Recapping last month's trip to China with a huge squad of Chens
For the last year, my dad meticulously planned a big family trip to his homeland, China. I don’t think anyone envied the task, made especially daunting by how many people were involved. We were traveling in a group of ~30 family members, most of whom had different flights (we all live in various parts of the U.S.). But if there was anyone who was going to do a great job at organizing all the travel details and keeping everyone straight, it was my dad. He’s a natural leader that takes charge even if everything else is a mess, and everyone can breathe easy when he’s at the helm.
Before I get into the trip itself, some more context: the idea of going to China with our extended family originated from my and Leon’s wedding. For the last decade or so, my family on my dad’s side hadn’t gotten together in the same room. Life happens! It was special to spend time with everyone on such a momentous day, and we couldn’t help thinking one weekend was way too short to hang out. Why not stretch it into a couple weeks? My dad conspired with the elder Chens (my grandpa and his two brothers) and realized the perfect opportunity was right in front of us: going to China to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Chen family scholarship. What scholarship, you ask?? At the time, I had no idea either. Apparently, my great grandfather started this scholarship to sponsor students in need at a school of his choosing, and my grandpa and his brothers have continued the tradition by giving back to a middle school in their hometown, Ningxiang, China. With 2024 marking the 30th year of our family scholarship, my great uncle wanted to celebrate with a musical ceremony (a.k.a. Chen family talent show) at the school. He somehow enticed all ~30 of us to practice our singing and instruments and take 2+ weeks off work to travel for the event.
So, while the scholarship ceremony was at the center of our big trip, my dad created an itinerary that included other destinations for us to hop around to together. Everyone had a main common schedule that he made, and then each immediate family’s schedule varied slightly from there. Here’s what it ended up looking like for me and Leon:
6/28: fly from NYC to Hong Kong
6/29: travel from Hong Kong to Wuhan - my dad’s hometown!
6/30: train from Wuhan to Fuzhou to visit Leon’s grandparents
7/2: train from Fuzhou to Changsha to meet up with a ton of Chens (this is where the main part of the trip started); bus from Changsha to Ningxiang
7/3-7/6: touring Ningxiang and visiting the school for scholarship festivities
7/7: fly from Changsha to Chengdu; bus from Chengdu to Jiuzhaigou Valley
7/8-7/9: tour Jiuzhaigou National Park
7/10: tour Chengdu to see pandas!!
7/11: fly from Chengdu to Hong Kong (this is when we said bye to the extended family Chens and started traveling with my immediate family)
7/11-7/13: shop and eat in Hong Kong (shopping + eating = main activities HK has to offer; they offer the grounds to do both very well)
7/14: fly from Hong Kong back to NYC
That was a lot of text. Time for photos!
6/28: flying from NYC to Hong Kong
We flew Cathay Pacific Airlines to and from Hong Kong, which was a solid experience. Their meals were delicious, their movie selection was prime, and—my favorite part—their on-demand cup noodles hit different when we were mid-journey.
6/29: traveling from Hong Kong to Wuhan
It’s safe to say that this travel day was one of the most stressful days of my life (in recent history). We were supposed to take the train from HK to Wuhan, but missed it, because we underestimated the security/customs lines. FYI, if you ever go into or out of HK when traveling in China, give yourself at least 2-3 hours. The wait times to go through security and customs were worse than the airport. We only gave ourselves an hour, and ended up going through lots of tedium to catch a same-day flight. Facepalm. But lesson learned. Many many thanks to my dad and my aunt, who saved the day with countless WeChat voice calls and Alipay transactions (which reminds me, in addition to setting up eSIM and VPN, it’s also a really good idea to have WeChat and Alipay accounts set up BEFORE you land in China, which would’ve saved us a lot of pain).
6/30: train from Wuhan to Fuzhou to visit Leon’s grandparents
The high-speed train is a popular way to get around from province to province in China. We spent our train rides to/from Fuzhou bingeing the new season of The Bear when we weren’t cat napping.
7/1 full day in Fuzhou
We spent most of our time in Fuzhou visiting Leon’s grandparents and hanging out with his cousins, who happened to be in town at the same time as we were. During our free time, we roamed the streets a bit and snagged fresh eats at a small fraction of the U.S. selling price.
7/2-7/6 Ningxiang
Our family, in all our matching polos, toured the many nature-scapes Ningxiang had to offer.
All of our dinners looked like this: cheers-ing (or gan bei-ing!) at a round table full of the freshest and most scrumptious dishes.
Our much-anticipated scholarship ceremony landed on our last full day in Ningxiang. I was so proud to see my grandpa and his two brothers up on stage with the school officials to award the selected students with their new scholarships. Oh yes, and I have to shoutout our matching polos again here.
Later that afternoon, we held a performing arts ceremony to complete the scholarship commemoration. Here I am on the piano, accompanying my cousin, Liam, on Meditation from Thaïs, a famous violin piece by Jules Massenet. All of us in the family spent the last few weeks up to our trip cramming our practice. Since we all live in different places in the U.S., we didn’t get to practice together until the last two nights in our hotel lobby. In the end, we didn’t do too shabby :D This is why procrastination is addicting…it kinda works. But make no mistake - it’s still so stressful to wait until the last minute. The 30-something of us collectively breathed a big sigh of relief once the ceremony was over. It was time to relax!
Before we left Ningxiang, there was one last activity we had to check off our list: KTV! Wow, China’s karaoke rooms are truly next level. They had an endless hall at rooms listed at very affordable prices, and all ~15 of us sprawled in one of their big rooms with plenty of space to spare. One thing about us Chens: we love our karaoke. We started around 9pm and stayed until 12:30am before calling it a night (could’ve gone longer, but we had to be up early the next day).
Once we were in Changsha to fly out of Hunan province, we stopped by a small night market to pick up some yummy treats. I got coconut shaved ice with various mochi toppings and some froyo bites. I also took a pic of banana and watermelon bread that my brother, David, saw at a local convenience store, but we didn’t buy them. We spent most of our time gawking at how low the prices were. Everything we got was maybe $1 (USD) each, and everything was of course DELICIOUS.
7/7-7/9 JiuZhaiGou
Now that all the scholarship festivities were done, we spent a few days touring some of China’s most widely known sights. 21 of us flew to Chengdu and took a train to JiuZhaiGou, an iconic national park with 114 lakes, 9 Tibetan villages, and 6 amazing wonders (a mix of emerald lakes and cascading waterfalls). I have to say, I was entirely blown away as I didn’t know what to expect (I thought we were just going to see a lot of forestry) and couldn’t believe my eyes when we saw huge stretches of clear, turquoise water, and the biggest collection of waterfalls.
It was also entertaining to pack a whole tour bus full of family members only. I think it was our tour guide, Evan’s first time hosting a big family rather than a group of strangers, and I caught him smiling and laughing a lot at our antics (e.g. my cousin Sophie performing a rap she wrote about our family on the bus mic, all of us poking fun at our 8-year-old cousin, Isaiah, by posing in photos where all of us touched his face, etc.). We’re hilarious, I must say.
7/10 Chengdu
Our final destination as a big pack of Chens was Chengdu, land of the pandas and rated the happiest city in China - we could all quickly see why: the streets were bustling with young adults and there were vibrant shops that greeted us everywhere we turned. Chengdu is also one of the biggest and most modern cities in China (one telltale sign of that being the case = the existence of multiple luxury malls with designer brands galore). Needless to say, it’s difficult to get bored here, and we so wish that we had more than one full day to spend there. But! Here’s what we did with our time:
We got up real early to go see the pandas eat breakfast at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. There were six 2-year-old pandas grouped in the same enclosure where we saw them munching away on bamboo. They were the most adorable creatures ever; we couldn’t get enough time watching them just exist.
For lunch, we went to Qin Shan Zhai, where we had the best meal of the trip. The food was incredibly flavorful, fresh, and authentic to the Sichuan province. Better yet, they had sitting toilets AND big paper towels in their restrooms (rare find in mainland China, iykyk).
We spent our afternoon touring Wuhou Temple and shopping the surrounding market to bring back gifts for friends and family. I bought loads of hibiscus tea (Chengdu is known for it) for my coworkers, after remembering that a Hopkins preceptor of mine encouraged me to share my culture at work through souvenirs, hence sharing the “full me.” The vendors were very happy to get our quick and non-hesitant business.
In the evening, we went to see an acrobatic peking opera show at an outdoor theatre. We got dressed up for photos, enjoyed the show with sunflower seeds and tea served by our side, and had our ears cleaned! Right next to our reserved seats, there were three ladies who ran an ear-cleaning business that offered customers ear wax removal while enjoying the show. All of us ended up getting our ears cleaned and backs massaged (add-on service), and my brother, David, had an astounding amount of wax removed LOL. We all got photos of the waxy chunks, including Evan, who said he’d show all his future tour groups.
To wrap up our time in Chengdu, we browsed the night market for trinkets and post-dinner desserts. I love how vibrant this city is and how much it has to offer. We are definitely spending more time here next time!
7/11-7/14 Hong Kong
At long last, our final leg of the journey - Hong Kong! At this point our extended family split up by immediate households from Chengdu and headed to their respective destinations. Some went to Shanghai, others to Taipei.
My brothers and I have always wanted to visit Hong Kong, as it’s where my mom grew up. The main highlights? Shopping and food!! On the first day, we took in the gorgeous view from our hotel, ate at Dim Sum Library (a modern take on dim sum) for lunch, window shopped at fancy stores, actually shopped at Don Quijote (aka Donki, a beloved discount store native to Japan), and walked through the city at night. Hong Kong is architecturally unique, because many of their high rise apartments are 100+ years old even if their corresponding ground-level units are now luxury storefronts. There’s an awe-striking amount of history here, and we only had time to scratch the surface (saving the rest for future trips).
Our second day was all about a very important event of the trip: our Hong Kong photoshoot. My mom has been planning this shoot since January, and has been thinking about it since, well, forever! She always wanted to get a quintessentially Asian, indoor photoshoot to commemorate her and my dad’s wedding, but never got the chance. So, she wanted to make sure we didn’t miss out on ours. Leon and I spent half of the day at the studio (White Production in Causeway Bay), getting our hair and makeup done and then posing for all the photos. Even though it was a bit tiring in the moment, we’re really glad we did it and are beyond grateful to my mom for her generous heart and my dad for his patience as well ;)
Post-photoshoot (3pm), Leon and I were so hungry and got a meal at Sen-Ryo. This Japanese restaurant is part of a bigger Sen-Ryo chain, and hit the spot with delicious, high-quality fish, big portions, and affordable prices. Because Hong Kong is so much closer to Japan than anywhere in the U.S., they’re able to get fresher fish at lower prices. We devoured everything we ordered and were sooo satisfied when we left.
That night, we joined the rest of the fam to catch a boat, where we watched the “Symphony of Lights” show that happens every night at 8pm on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront. It was nice to be on the water with everyone, but I think all of us would say that this event was a bit underwhelming compared to our expectations. I thought it was going to be some variation of Disney’s World of Color, or the Bellagio fountain show in Las Vegas, but…no 😅. It was more so that some of the buildings blinked, showed different colors, and synced up to the music. All in all, still a good, relaxing activity that included refreshing beverages and a gentle bay breeze.
On our last full day, we knocked out the last bit of eating and shopping. We went to Kam’s Roast Goose for lunch, a casual sit-down restaurant that looks relatively unassuming, but has one Michelin star for its absolutely delectable food. David’s girlfriend, Camille, said that Kam’s was life-changing when she went, so you know we had to try it. True to its hype (that line took over an hour to get through), the roast goose and crispy pork were AMAZING. I will never taste roast duck, pork, or goose the same ever again. They were juicy, crispy, perfect. I’m getting hungry just writing about it. We will be back someday!!!
The rest of our day was spent by making a final lap around a couple large malls, testing out matcha ice cream (it just hits different in Asia), meeting cousins that grew up in Hong Kong for the first time, meandering through night markets, and hitting up Donki one last time.
As tradition goes, Leon and I stayed up on our last night with my brothers to chat and make the most of our last hours of the trip together. We stepped out of the hotel extra early the next morning to get egg tarts (the one food that Leon wanted to try in Hong Kong) and saw the city when no one else was awake yet. Well, no one except the 5 other people already queueing for the bakery at 6:30am.
Later that morning, it was time to say see you later to my parents and brothers as they flew to California and we waited for our flight back to New York. It’s always bittersweet saying bye, even though I know I’ll see them again soon. Here we are in Hong Kong International Airport’s Chase Sapphire Lounge, filling up on last dim sum bits, which were honestly very mid compared to all the food we got to taste in the days prior.
We flew back on Cathay Pacific Airlines again, and - yes - got cup noodles mid-flight again (so good every time). Surprisingly, jet lag didn’t hit us too bad, largely because of how late we stayed up on our last night.
To anyone who made it through this lengthy recap, I commend you. Thanks for reading and maybe see you someday in China when we’re back next time!