2007 – Yemen

This is a beautiful middle Eastern country. The women must wear a veil outside their houses so that you can only see their eyes. It is quite strange to talk to women like this but they are actually friendly. The men often wear a knife on their belt. You can see that in this photo. The food there is great. This is a large piece of bread which they seem to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

2006 – Madagascar
Many students have seen the 'Madagascar' cartoon. There are lots of creatures there, including giant turtles. Connie is hoping for a ride from one here.

2005 – Iran

Iran is the first country in the Middle East that we visited. Many of our friends thought it would be dangerous but we felt quite safe there. Connie had to wear a headscarf outdoors. Women in Hong Kong are much freer but we were happy to respect their local customs. The people were friendly. We were invited to sit with families in parks and eat watermelon. Here are two families we met.

2004 – South Africa

Most people think of lions and giraffes when they think of South Africa. As you can see, it also has penguins!

2003 – Peru

We love South America . There is so much history and great food. I had a coffee in the morning. This lama was happily walking through the town. Many people live in straw houses. They look small but the villagers enjoyed their lives.

1998 – Tunisia

Tunisia is in North Africa . You might recognize the first photo. They used these houses to make the first Star Wars film. Do I look like a Jedi warrior? We also went to the desert in Tunisia . It was huge and we had to have a car & driver. I like to see places where there are few people . We only saw tourists and guides here.

Croatia

We went to Plitvice National Park by bus. It is a very beautiful place with sixteen lakes and many trees. It was about six in the afternoon when we got there. The sun was setting. We needed to find our accommodation – two houses we rented near the park. However, we got off from the wrong bus stop and honestly, we had no idea where our houses were. We just followed our intuition. And with our heavy backpacks on our backs and the sun setting behind us, we walked inside the park with very tall trees and no street lights.

Suddenly a stray dog came out from nowhere. Having no idea which way we should go, we decided to follow that dog. After an hour walking inside the woods following the dog, we magically found the village where we rented our houses. Our host came out to greet us. We wondered if that dog was our host's pet but she said she was afraid of dogs and she shoved it away. When we got there, it was already 8pm .

We were so hungry but there was no restaurant around. We asked our host if she could give us something to eat. However, she had nothing except breakfast food. Luckily, she managed to get us some rice, bread, vegetables and potatoes. The potatoes had already sprouted but we decided to risk our lives and eat them because we were too hungry. We cooked for another hour. It took us such a long time as we seldom cook in HK. Then, we sat next to the fireplace and ate our simple dinner. That turned out to be the warmest meal we had had in awhile as it reminded us of our homes.