All the boys in the area hosted us.  This report is my way of expressing my appreciation, although I can never thank them enough.  I will try not to bore you too much; and please do not read on if you have more important things to do.  All you need to know is that I had a good time in New York and would like to thank all there.  You know who you all are.

What follows is an account of our trip.  I will try to be brief. (about 2,000 words, reading time: 10 minutes)

Day 1 (Thursday, July 27)

We arrive at JFK early in the morning, at 7:30 am and were picked up by Peter Yu.  He dropped us off at his house before he went to work.  Evelyn Yu fed us some breakfast and sent us to have a nap.  She understood that we flew the red-eye from Vancouver and needed the rest.

Evelyn then drove us to China town for lunch with many of the New York gang.  The special guests were Chan Iu Kau and Teresa, who had to leave that evening or early the next day.  Jimmy Chang had arrived earlier from Toronto.  Yeung Chung, whom I have not seen since graduation, also showed up, a long drive from home.

After lunch, Helen Wong volunteered to take us to a walking tour of Manhattan.  We took the subway and started out from the Rockefeller Centre and went to St. Patrick's Cathedral on 5th Avenue and 50th Street.  In it we found the statute of Saint John Baptist De La Salle.  Jimmy and I had our picture taken in front of it.

Towards the end of the tour of the Cathedral, I spotted St. Jude, the patron saint of desperate cases.  I actually got on my knees and said a quiet prayer for all of us, whether we needed it or not.  The last time I prayed in church, I was also with Jimmy, when he took me to church in Toronto the previous month.

By the time we got to the Museum of Modern Arts, it was almost closing time so we headed back to China Town where the cars were.  We were to go back to the Yu's on Long Island for dinner.

And what a dinner it was!  We had lobsters and steak and countless other goodies.  Peter and Evelyn apologized that we only got half a lobster each.  Fay Lo Mo, who is still fearless, had some of our share of the cholesterol.  When we were rubbing our stomachs, Maggie Hon tried her newly acquired recipe of "Ginger Juice Collide Milk" (薑汁撞奶).  It worked beautifully.

Day 2 (Friday, July 28)

Peter Yu drove our luggage and us to meet Louis Wong somewhere in Flushing.  There we transferred our luggage to Louis's car and had a "Soy Milk" breakfast (豆漿油條).

After breakfast Louis took us on a quick walking tour from China Town to Ground Zero.  We were on Wall Street; saw the New York Stock Exchange, the Bull, and the Statute of Liberty (from a distance).  On the way, we also stopped to use the facilities at Louis' downtown little apartment.  I often dreamt about the elevator door opening and walking into the living room.  His apartment was like that.  "Wow" is all I can say.  By then, it was time for the famous Friday Lunch.

We had two big tables of people.  So it was the famous Friday lunch and we were part there, an historic moment.  After lunch many of them retired to the usual watering hole but we had to continue with our tour.  Louis took the day off to be our guide.

We started out from Time Square and wandered through the busy traffic.  Suddenly there was a downpour.  Waiting for the rain to stop, I spent some time in a souvenir store going through their collection of "I Heart New York" T-shirts.

After the rain we saw David Letterman's Late Show Theatre (or was it Ed Sullivan Theatre?)  We even loitered outside Rupert's Deli for a bit.  Big daughter Cindy still wanted to see the Museum of Modern Arts, which was free on Fridays from 4:00 to 8:00 pm.  Kitty and Grace and I left her and explored more of 5th Avenue and some of Central Park on our own.

We had coffee at the Trump Tower and felt very cocky about the whole thing.  By that time, it was almost time to Go to the Welcome Dinner for Brother Thomas at Peking Court on 34th Street.

While we were exploring the famous shops on Fifth Avenue, Peter Yu and Victor Lee were transporting Brother Thomas from the Airport, fighting heavy traffic.

The dinner at Peking Court was well attended, considering that it was a very late after-thought.  Brother Thomas said he hadn't had real Chinese food for a long time and wouldn't mind some genuine stuff once in New York.  He under-estimated the strain of the eight-hour flight from London, the two-hour lineup at the JFK customs and immigration, and the two-hour drive to his residence.  He was a tired man by the time we finished singing the School Song.

The girls did not have dinner with us.  They left after a brief meeting with Brother Thomas.  Karina, Frank and Maggie's daughter, was very kind to take them clubbing.  Clubbing (hopping from one club to the next) is popular here.  It was considered safe because only one girl was raped and mutilated in the previous week in Soho.  After dinner, we retired to the Hon's residence in New Jersey, stopping only to get some cheesecake for late night snack.

Day 3 (Saturday, July 29)

It was the big BBQ at Chris Tse's place in Connecticut.  It was only about one and a half hour from where we were.  Driving instruction was provided but it did not prevent some of us from getting lost.  Nancy Tse actually had to drive out to rescue some who went astray.  (If you are so smart, punch this on your GPS and see what happens: 111 Gallows Hill Rd., West Redding, CT 06896?)

Anyway it was a fantastic party; the Tse's were fantastic hosts; we were fantastic guests.  (有詩為證) Anthony Chan (Ling) actually wrote a poem to mark the occasion:

劃破長空會桃李
海闊泛盡卻山行
晚霞不減來時路
添得滿懷歡笑聲
By 陳陵

I think he referred to the address and the distance somewhere.  I will let you figure it out.

It was a continuous meal from two in the afternoon till eleven at night.  Denise has shown you many pictures and provided many descriptions, so I will say no more.  The batteries I brought with me did not charge the night before so my camera had a good rest.

Day 4 (Sunday July 30)

By the time we got up, Jimmy and Maggie had already gone to church and come back.  Missed church.  (Golly gee!)  It was time to go for dim sum in Flushing, a famous regular Sunday after-football ritual.  This time, we had Brother Thomas as a special guest.  And this time, Frank Hon did the driving, as he did on Saturday.

As it turned out, some of the boys missed football practice (not Peter Yu and Anthony Chan, though).  They had to be there early to save tables for us.  Yes, tables.  At one time, there were five tables of us.  The restaurant was so crowded I remembered Law-See-Pike's famous question, "You guys have to have yum-cha on Sundays?"(你地係要星期日飲茶架咩？)  You of course remember Law-See-Pike runs a Chinese restaurant himself.

Anyway, it was quite an occasion.  Even Yeung Chung came with his young son and wife.  The batteries in my camera stayed uncharged so I did not take any pictures.  I trust someone else took pictures.

After lunch, we broke up the long feeding and joined Brother Thomas to visit the United Nations.  I guess it is more proper to say "visit the United Nations buildings."  I was relieved to find out that there was really a room for the Security Council meetings.  CNN did not make it up after all.  On that day, the Council was in emergency session.  No, we did not see them in session.   They were behind some closed doors doing the real bargaining.

After United Nations, Peter Yu drove Brother Thomas to the place where he was staying.  The slow traffic offered us a glimpse of Brooklyn.  We managed to deliver Brother Thomas on time at 5:30pm.  Apparently the brothers there would have dinner at 5:30 sharp.

Then it was to the house of Victor Lee (Gerald Lee's brother, a 64er, and the President of the Old Boys Association, New York Chapter).  There we had another wall-to-wall feast of delicious whatchamacallums (what-you-may-call-them's).  It was very relaxing: good food, good company.  We had a good visit, and even the second generation had a good visit.  Some of them went out two nights in a row and they got comfortable with each other very quickly.  I did not take any pictures but you can look at the pictures I stole from Victor's son, Derek.

It was very late when we went back to the Hon Hotel in New Jersey.  It was to be our last night at the Hon's, we were to transfer back to the Yu Hotel on Long Island the following day.

Day 5 (Monday July 31)

We packed our stuff in to the Hon limousine in the morning and with Jimmy as the chauffeur and Maggie as the guide, we headed back to Manhattan for yet another tour.  This time, Jimmy dropped us off at 34th Street and we rushed to the queue to go up Empire State Building.

The lineup was about an hour, as promised.  The views up on the 86th floor were spectacular, as promised.  I thought it was important that we walked on the same floor that Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr walked on in An Affair To Remember.  (Did Deborah Kerr make it there in the movie?)  Of course there was Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle.  (Very bad, meeting people like that.)  King Kong does not count because movie sets were used.  But if you really want to talk about movies with ESB in them, April Fools with Jack Lemmon and Catherine Deneuve was my favorite.  It was more 60's to my liking.

We spent only 20 minutes on the platform of the Empire State Building after the hour-long lineup.  We were hungry so we went to eat lunch in Soho.  It was a place called Lucky Strike.  It was indeed rather lucky, in that we chose it, instead of the umpteen restaurants in the area.

We went back to explore Manhattan after lunch and we went as far as Central Park.  This part of our trip we were on our own and we finally learned to buy ticket for the subway.  For a while I thought the subway was free, since it discontinued the tokens.  (The last time I was in New York a million years ago you bought tokens.)  Kitty reminded me that Helen and Louis had been swiping the tickets for us.  It costs money to travel on the subway!  Very disheartening indeed.

Then it was almost time to meet Louis and Maggie and Jimmy for dinner in China Town.  It was fortunate that Louis came down the street to meet us because I misheard the name of the street and was taking my family to a non-existent Market Street, when the restaurant was on Mott Street.  So the lunch at Lucky Strike did some good.  We did get lucky.

Of course Gerald was there.  So was Chan Lin To and Henry Hum.  I have to say a word about Henry.  I met him last year on the Grand Canyon tour and LA reunion.  He is not a La Salle boy but he likes the boys in New York so much that he hangs out with them a lot.  He was at the Friday Welcome Brother Thomas dinner also, and I noticed he was trying to sing the School Song with us.  Some character.

As usual we had a good dinner (the house specialty: rock snail 石螺) and Peter and Evelyn joined us for a tour of Little Italy.  A block away from China Town and it was like two different countries.  Little Italy felt like Italy, and China Town felt like, China.

And this is not all.  After the black sesame ice cream (rumored to be best in the world) and the tour of Italy, Gerald took to this bar.  We went into the basement and there was a karaoke going on.  Being right next door to some funeral homes, I thought it a perfect place to wake up the dead.

Henry Hum went up to sing and so did Evelyn.  Eventually, Gerald went home in a taxi.

Day 6 (Tuesday, August 1)

We slept in and got up late at the Yu Hotel.  Evelyn took the day off to be with us.  After the long feeding, we decided to just have salad.  And Evelyn turned on the sound equipment and treated us to her beautiful voice.  The sound effect of bar the previous night was poor or we had too much to drink so we did not notice that Evelyn was very good at singing.

We lost track of time with the karaoke and woke up when Peter called from the office to remind us that our flight was on time.

Evelyn drove us to Peter's office, and Peter drove us to JFK.  There was no food on Air Canada on the way back to Vancouver.   They knew what we had been through.

Thank you for your patience.  You are still reading?

Everly,
KMF