8 Hours Ago Tomorrow

2011-11-25T09:30:00.002+08:00

Rewind back to a few years ago.

Back to when we were very first considering making this move to Hong Kong. One of the main reasons we decided to go for it was so that our kids could be exposed to different cultures and languages.

Pretty obvious reason, right?
And in a city as cosmopolitan as Hong Kong it should be simple and straight forward to obtain a bilingual (or even multi lingual) education, right?
WRONG.
Here's what we've learned:

We were lucky enough to arrive to Hong Kong at a really opportune time to drop our kids into the Hong Kong school system. G had just turned 4. D was 2.
Opportune time? Well, sort of. People would argue that. I mean if you actually give birth to a baby over here you get them on a list for school as soon as they get their passport. I am not kidding in the least. 6 week old babies on the wait list for primary school 5 years later. Say what!?!? I personally know one family who moved here when their son was 8 months old. At the urging of their relocation lady, they put their baby on the list for "the" school. This year was his intake year. He BARELY got a spot in Kindergarten. Not even in the morning class.

Just as it is in the USA, kids are not legally required to attend school until the year they turn 6, Primary One (P1). Which is equivalent to First Grade. But I'm not sure who is really waiting that long. Because everybody I've met here is quick to put their kids into some sort of school/play school usually starting at 18 months or so.

There are 3 years of Kindergarten. K1 (the year kids turn 3), K2 (the year kids turn 4), K3 (the year kids turn 5). Intake is based on the calendar year of birth. Like all of G's class was born in 2006. All of D's class was born in 2007.
K1 and K2 are half day (3 hours) and K3 is full day (5hours).
So G was dropped into K1 (she had turned 3 in the year the school year began) and D was put into a play group 5x a week (2 hours).

We were fortunate to enter into an awesome kindergarten that offers a bilingual program (English and Mandarin Chinese) and the kids are now in the midst of 3 years of Chinese and English learning. Perfect.

So we breathed a sigh of relief and started nosing around for Primary schools. I had quickly picked up on the fact that we were behind the times and we NEEDED to get our butts on some lists!

We live on Lantau Island. It's like the suburbs of Hong Kong. There are not too many options on Lantau as far as primary schools go.

There's the International School which seems to be "the" school. For no other reason than it's close? I can't figure out why it's so great. The facilities look dingy. The kids learn Chinese the same amount kids in the USA learn Spanish: only just enough to appear smarter than the help. It's really taboo to talk about it around here. But for real: it costs too much money and I don't see the bang for the buck. I did not move half way around the world to send my kids to school with a bunch of rich white kids. I could have done that for much cheaper and with not nearly as much stress at home. Right? And aside from that it's the school with newborns on the wait list. Next to impossible to get a place if you move to Hong Kong with "older" kids. Unless your company buys you a spot... but that's another story.

There's the English (British) school which is a gorgeous facility. But in a style sort of similar to bussing kids from the city to the "better" schools in the burbs like they do in the USA sometimes, they engage in the use of a lottery for places. So needless to say--it's a total lottery and the wait list for the younger kids has hundreds of kids on it. And many of the places are given to kids who are bussed in from all over Hong Kong. And again--minimal Chinese language. No one is getting fluency in Chinese by going to school there. Just as with all schools it is possible to buy a spot there. It only costs about $50,000usd. !!

There's the rural International school. It's interesting. The facility is very indoor-outdoor. It actually has a very good reputation as far as the curriculum and school spirit goes. But again, no Chinese language (or very little). I visited once. It didn't do it for me. Although I know plenty of families with kids there who love it.

And that's it.

All the other schools are in the city which either takes about an hour by bus or by a ferry plus a bus ride. Once you get outside Lantau your options increase tenfold. Every country you can think of operates and International School here. But any school with the word "International" in the name is most likely out of our budget. I'm talking nearly $20,000usd a year. And the wait lists are outrageous!

Of course there are local schools. The curriculum in local schools in entirely Cantonese Chinese which is what is spoken in Hong Kong. It's a whole different dialect than Mandarin Chinese. And though B and I feel that any foreign language is more useful than no foreign language at all, the curriculum is strict local style. Memorizing and rote learning with no room for creativity and not much assistance provided for non-Chinese speaking kids. We COULD send G to a local school (we actually applied to one) but we didn't think it would be socially in her best interest. And I was afraid her English grammar (written) would suffer.

So then we stumbled on what they call DSS schools. These local schools are given a "direct subsidy" from the government but they have a lot of freedom to tweak the curriculum and make it more western. They attempt to take the good in the local schools and combine it with the good in Western schools. It is like what we would call a charter school in the USA. And as an added bonus, a hand full of these schools use English as their medium of instruction. Sounds perfect! So that is what we focused on. Some of the DSS schools are just as expensive as an international school. Some of them are still operating as very local style schools with zero English on their websites. Some are way too far away. It was still proving to be not too wide a selection. But we found 2 we really really liked. That we can afford. That aren't too far away. That focus on language skills and the arts (and of course math because after all we are in Asia!) So we put all of our eggs into these 2 baskets.

And it's a level playing field: no way to buy your kid in and no wait list. They interview the kids. They interview the parents. The want letters of recommendation from their kindergarten teachers and they want to see their report cards from kindergarten. In the interviews the kids are asked to read English. Identify Chinese characters. Spell words. Write their names. Draw a picture based on a story that is read to them. They make them play games or do tasks in a group to assess how they interact with the other kids and how well they listen to what the teacher has told them to do. And I don't know this because I was informed as to what would happen--I know what G has told me. Parents are not a part of the interview process they do with the kids. These schools are hand picking who they want. And lucky for us not too many white people seem to apply to these schools so maybe we are a sought after demographic? Who knows. All I know is that for both of the schools we pursued, over 5,000 kids applied. Both schools offer about 150 places. Odds are not good for these kids!

The school G has already been accepted into is called PLK Camoes Tan Siu Lin. You can google it. They have a beautiful website. The even have an iPhone app for their school. As a non native Chinese speaker we applied for the English and French stream. So G will learn English and French language and grammar in the same intensity. She will attain fluency in French. Mandarin Chinese will be her third language and they say by P6 the kids can speak like a third grader. I consider third graders to be fluent... So I am hopeful she will have an excellent grasp and useful knowledge of reading and writing Chinese. The people I've had contact with at this school have been lovely. Very welcoming and friendly and G has enjoyed her time there too. It's all good.

The other school is St. Margaret's. We should hear back from them in the next two weeks and if she is offered a spot there I think we'll end up taking it. At St. Margaret's, G will learn English and Mandarin in the same intensity. In P1 and P2 she'll have multi lingual exposure in French, German, Japanese, and Spanish and in P3 she will have the opportunity to choose 2 more foreign languages from those to study intensely for the remainder of her time there. This school engages in a big foreign exchange program so there are constantly kids from all over the world (in the older classes) and if we stay here then G will have the opportunity to study abroad at a pretty young age. Very cool. The other thing we like is that each student must learn to play an instrument. In P1 and P2 they are taught a little of all the instruments and then in P3 they choose the one they want to really pursue. The school also has a fantastic dance team and G LOVES to dance so we know that would be great for her as well. This school has been just friendly enough but it's been all business dealing with them. Not as much of a warm fuzzy but they are a very highly esteemed school around here. They don't have to be warm and fuzzy to be desirable with all they offer! This kids are always smiling and seem happy when we've been at the school so I am confident it's not a bad learning environment once you're on the inside.

Over all we can relax--she's got a spot! But it will be interesting to see if she makes the cut at St. Margaret's. And really it will be interesting to just see how the whole things shakes out.

2010-12-24T17:59:00.000+08:00

My kids love to have the occasional bag of microwave popcorn. We use it as a tool for our bribery so they really don't get it too often and usually it is given as a reward. I popped a bag of it a few days ago and was splitting it into bowls for serving and decided to make M her own bowl so we wouldn't eat so much of it.

Usually M doesn't eat here at our house. When we eat something she may have never tried before (like fish tacos, B's baked salmon, guacamole, lasagna) I always insist she try a serving. Which is funny. In a good way.

Anyway. I set her bowl on the kitchen counter and told her that it was all hers. She was really excited about it, more so than I expected. I had shared popcorn with her a few times before so she knew she liked it but had never said it out loud to me. Then she asked at what grocery I bought it and if it was expensive because she would love to get some to send home to The Philippines. Turns out they don't have such a thing as microwave popcorn in The Philippines. They have to actually buy kernals and pop them stove top 1982-style. Can you imagine? I told her that it was for the betterment of their waist lines. Ready made food hasn't really been so good for us big fat Americans. She really got a kick out of that. I think she is starting to get my sarcasm.

I wrapped her a box of popcorn as part of her Christmas present.

If anyone would like to ship us over a Costco box of Pop Secret that would be great.

2010-12-04T21:23:00.000+08:00

Well if you thought yesterday's post was bad, I have another one for you.

B and I went Christmas shopping today.

I was trying on some flats at the Hush Puppies shoe store. Just the fact that there's a Hush Puppies store is funny to me. But the shoes are actually really cute and advertised as comfortable. For those of you who know me well--comfort comes before cute for these feet of mine. They aren't pretty and I know it.

As the sales girl was helping me slip into a pair of shoes she paused briefly and touched my bunion gently and said "oh you have... that."

Why yes I do. Thank you so much for pointing that out.

Cut to later this afternoon. The community center by our house does one hour massages every Saturday for just $15 usd. So as you can imagine, I do this whenever I have time. It's slightly different than a massage like you are thinking--you stay clothed and they cover you with a big towel and rub you through the towel. Easy. No oily mess, no nakedness. All in all it's a good deal and worth every penny of $15.

Today was a new girl. When she got to my left foot she actually lifted up my foot and peeled the towel back to assess the situation and see this bunion up close and personal.

Would it be considered cosmetic surgery to have bunion surgery on a bunion that doesn't even hurt?

2010-12-03T16:32:00.000+08:00

I went shopping at the mall today. I need a dress for a Christmas party. I think I have decided to just wear something I already have though because I do not want a repeat of today.

Store number 1:

I find a dress. I decide the medium looks too big and the small looks about right. I hand the small to the girl who was helping me to put it in the dressing room. She says

"Oh that one is nice. ---Ah, this size small. I get you the medium. Medium will be more better for you than the small."

Alrighty then.
For the record, the medium was too big. And I let her know.

Store number 2:

Jeans! As if that isn't bad enough they aren't sized in American sizes so I have no idea what size to grab. A guy comes up and asks me right away what size he can help me find.

"Uhhh I really don't know..."

He looks at me for 2 seconds and declares he thinks I am a 27. I was guessing more like a 29 so this was a good rebound from the previous store.

Together we grab a few pairs of different styles in a few different sizes and he disappeared to put them in the dressing room.

I then found another style I liked and a girl asked if she could help me find my size. I tell her I need a 27 or 28. She stopped dead in her tracks and said

"Oh this style only have small size. No big size in this style."
And she walked away.

OMG. I just googled it--a 27 is a US size 4 people! Since when is that a big size????

2010-12-01T08:01:00.000+08:00

I had a conversation a few days ago that I still can't get out of my mind.

I was talking with an acquaintance of mine, who is a local Hong Konger born and raised, and after a break in conversation she exclaimed

"Oh! I know what I need to ask you! Can you share with me a good recipe for bacon pie? I had it at a buffet last week and thought it was wonderful. I had never seen it before. But my friend told me it was normal American Thanksgiving food."

"...uh bacon pie? Like a quiche maybe?"

"Oh sorry sorry sorry. Not bacon.
(She closed her eyes and thought. Hard.)
Pecan? With a p? Pecan? You know pecan pie?"

"Yes. Pecan. With a p. I know pecan pie."

I never knew bacon and pecan sounded basically like the same word. Try it.

In other news school is going well for me. My first assignment is due later this week. I finished it already and my brain hurts less every day. I am finding the readings to be very interesting and to this point it is taking exactly as much time to study as I thought/hoped it would.

Sorry I stink at keeping the blog current.

2010-10-19T20:51:00.000+08:00

Well, it's official. I have been accepted into a graduate program at Hong Kong University. I am not officially enrolled yet but all the paperwork should be complete by the end of next week. I have to go to an orientation this Saturday and then to an introduction on next Monday.

I will be working toward a Masters degree in "Information Studies" which is a newfangled title for what used to simply be called Library Science. My goal is ultimately to be a librarian in a university setting or maybe work as a reference librarian in a public library.

This program I'll be doing is part time and semi-distance. I think I should only have to physically go to class a few times a month. It should take about 4 years to finish the Masters at the slow pace that they set. It includes a work study and all sorts of fun stuff.

So this is kind of a big deal.
It seals the deal that I will not be going back to flight attending. My logical and rational side knows this is for the best but my heart can't help but to be a little sad. I honestly always thought I would go back. But I left on a high note. Those glory days could never be re-lived.

It also means that we are now more committed to staying in Hong Kong for longer than we had initially planned. I think when we came here we thought we'd spend about 3 years or so. But we are really enjoying it very much. It's a great place for our young kids and we are having a blast. So we are more than ok with the idea of staying longer than we originally thought we would.

I am very excited to take on this challenge! Getting a masters degree in library science has been something I have wanted to do for a long time. I have looked into it in every single city we have lived in and in every city we ever thought we would move to. It was always too expensive, seemed too time consuming, too in the way of my babies or time with my husband.

So now it seems to be the right time. The program the cheapest one I have ever seen, it is part time so hopefully it won't be all-consuming. My kids are in school 3 hours a day, my husband is not commuting and is around a lot these days, and I have M to look after my house. So it's now or never.

I will keep you all posted.

2010-09-25T11:05:00.000+08:00

I mentioned a while back that B was going to get back into home brewing beer here in HK. He has had some pretty good luck making some yummy beers over the last few months. It has been comical--home brewing is very uncommon over here. It actually only became legal in 2000 I think. So he can't find any supplies (ingredients or equipment) over here and has had to ship a bunch of stuff in from the USA.

There is one small craft brewery run by some British guys located fairly close to us so he has exchanged some info with them and that has been fun for him. This micro brew is on tap at a few pubs here in Hong Kong so last week when making plans to go out to dinner in the city on HK Island with a few other couples, B took charge and made the plans to go check out one of these pubs. We were not disappointed with this place and I think it has quickly become a favorite of B's (and everyone else who has been there too).

Last night we were meeting some people out for dinner on the Island at an Indian place that happened to be located pretty close to this new favorite pub so of course we had to go there first. We grabbed seats at the bar and, since it was early in the evening, it was pretty quiet in there and the bartenders were stocking some newly arrived bottles of beer.

We got talking with one of the bartenders about beer, life in Hong Kong (he's been here 15 years), having babies (his wife is pregnant with their first child) and all the things you generally chat with a bartender about. The conversation quickly turned into a discussion about food quality (or lack there of) around here and how what we miss the very most from home is fresh food with known (local & clean) origins. I should mention this guy was Nepalese.

I love stumbling into these types of conversations. One of the things I love most is the cultural studies I get completely by chance and mostly when I least expect it. Isn't it funny that people from COMPLETELY different walks of life can have the same impressions of a foreign city and have the same ideas about things like food?

Well... not exactly the same ideas....

As the conversation progressed he told us that he grew up on a farm in Nepal about a 10 hour bus ride from the airport. There they cultivated everything and only had to buy salt and oil. So that's a bit (I mean A LOT) more rural than I have ever lived. Fascinating. He mentioned that they kept chickens, dog, goats... and then I completely lost track of the 5 other animals he so casually listed. Dogs. Such a normalcy. Such a non-topic that it's second on his list after chicken?

Sometimes the world gets really small for me. I can look at my wall on facebook at any given time and see my old airline friends posting from cities and countries around the world. I see comments from my new friends here in Hong Kong who are from all over the world. I can see people who don't know each other at all posting from the same cities because they randomly happen to be on vacation to the same place at the same time.

And then I have a tiny conversation like this with somebody and it blows the whole world wide open and makes it gets big again.

I wish I had time to write more better. But I am way too busy learning stuff about people.

2010-09-19T08:48:00.000+08:00

Did you know that if you are at a restaurant here in Hong Kong and order "nachos" you will get pretty much what you expect. Except they use generic Doritos as the chips. Isn't that weird? At first I thought it was a one time deal but we have confirmed with several other people that the standard base for nachos in Hong Kong is generic nacho cheese flavored Doritos.

Last night we went out to dinner with a few friends. The waitress (who was not Chinese) spoke with a sort of Indian British accent. She was reciting the specials to us and mentioned "pan fried groupa fish bla bla bla" and I was like oh grouper--that sounds good, man this girl is kind of hard to understand. I got the fish. It was delicious. As we were eating I noticed the specials were written on a chalk board. It said "pan fried groupa". Groupa? Is that the same as grouper? Who knows. It seemed about the same. I mentioned it to the people we were with and they confirmed that they had seen this "groupa" before and wondered if it was the phonetic spelling of how a British person would say grouper. I think it is. I googled groupa and couldn't find anything. It just asked me if I meant grouper.

Recently a new library opened close to our house. B and I went to check it out last week while the kids were at school. The public libraries here pretty much look exactly like a library in the USA. I am kind of a library junkie so I like to pop in and check them out because I am curious. I get the impression that it's about a 60/40 split with 60% Chinese books and 40% English. The Chinese books are arranged separately from the English books but they are still shelved Dewey decimal style. But it's a little different here because libraries are NOT kid friendly.

At the old library location where we went to apply for our library cards there was no separate kids area and while I was dealing with the beaurocracy filling out the paperwork, B took the kids back to the kids corner to read them a story. When he began to read out loud he was immediately shushed. Um, our kids are 2 and 4, lady, they can't read to themselves. We're just trying to keep them quiet and contained in the "kid's corner". Way to make it seem like they aren't welcome here. Thanks for scaring them into thinking the library sucks.

I digress.

This new library is really beautiful. It's in a much better location for us too. We were delighted to see a huge separate colorful children's area right by the entrance on the ground floor. Yay! So we immediately headed in there to check it out and see if they had story time in English and what was in there for the kids to do. No English story time. Only Cantonese. I am considering begging them to let me spearhead an English story time. There were internet gaming stations and art on the walls and cute colorful benches and little kid tables. It was adorable.

Then we took notice of the built in signs hanging everywhere. The signs said things like "No playing." and "No talking out loud." It was a totally separate area! Why the harsh phrasing? Somewhere the whole purpose of a library has been lost in translation I think. Everything is always SO literal around here. Learning is serious business I guess. I can't wait to take my kids and see if we get shushed in a room that looks like it should be so much fun. My kids are going to be so confused. It should be entertaining if I can refrain from being annoyed.

2010-09-16T21:53:00.000+08:00

Both of my kids have had a lingering hacking cough. For like a month. After hearing people talking about mono or walking pneumonia or worse, I finally took them to the doctor today. It was the first doctor visit since we've been here.

I think it's both lucky and miraculous that my kids can go 5 plus months without a doctor visit.

The doctor's office is located about an 8 minute walk from my house. It's 5 shops further away than G's dance school.

We have heard nothing but great things about our insurance and the group of doctors that is available to us here in Hong Kong. Even with high expectations, I was still impressed.

My kids were not diagnosed with anything at all really. Thankfully. Just a lingering cough. We were given a few prescriptions and if they aren't better within the week we will go back. The doctor's office actually has the pharmacy right in it. The doctor enters the Rx order into the computer in the examination room and by the time you leave to head back to the waiting room your drugs are ready and waiting. How convenient is that?

I brought D this morning and then brought G back this afternoon. For 2 separate visits and 2 prescriptions for each kid I paid less than $5usd TOTAL. $2.30usd per child. It's cheaper to get prescription drugs and see the doctor than to go buy a bottle of Robitussin. Unreal.

2010-09-13T09:22:00.001+08:00

I am still recovering from my first trip to Shenzhen, China a few days ago. It was my first time to cross the border into China and my first time to hang with The Professional Shoppers (other wives). I had a great time and I am looking forward to going back. Even though the shopping is GREAT and cheap, it's still a fairly expensive endeavor so I think it will be something I do every couple of months. Some of these people go a few times a month! I would be exhausted! And broke...

A few weeks ago I had to go to apply for a China visa. Which relatively speaking, is like going to the DMV. For your first visa, they will only give you a two entry visa. I have been told that if you use those 2 entries in a short time they are more likely to issue you the 6 month unlimited entry when you go to re-apply. I am hoping that works out! Once you factor in the cost of the visa, the cost of transportation, and the cost of the shopping it can start to add up. But if you have realistic expectations and you get good deals then it's totally worth it.

Shenzhen... how do I explain it? Well first of all, it's a city. I went to a single mall in this city that is directly outside the train station and customs and immigration. Like, we got off the train, went through customs and immigration, and then went to the ATM to get China money (RMB it's called). We walked out of the doors, crossed a little bike path/street and went up an escalator into the mall. I was told that this mall is kind of the obvious place to go and it has a bit of everything offered inside.

You could also head to the art district, the home goods district, the antiques district, or one of the other malls. It could take years of going there regularly to see it all. We spent 9 or so hours at this one mall and by the end of the day I still wasn't able to keep track of what floor we were on. The mall had 5 floors. I think.

What did I buy you ask? I got two handbags. One is a knock off, one is by a Chinese designer. And I got 3 dresses and a shirt for D. All of them with intact designer labels. Are they real? Are they fake? Who knows. I paid TJ Maxx prices for everything.

So, more about this mall... Where do I begin? Take your idea of a Western mall in middle America and erase it completely from your mind. The aisles are narrow. The ceilings are low. The stores are tiny. The biggest stores were maybe 20 feet by 20 feet. The small stores are the size of a walk in closet. 5 floors FULL of tiny little stores. And then instead of Macy's or JC Penney as the "anchor" stores, there are huge open areas with a million (ok hundreds) of vendors all selling the same things. There was a huge jewelry area. Actually there were 2 because there was one on the 2nd floor and another one on the 3rd floor. And then there is an even huger area of fabric vendors and tailors. So you can go get whatever you want tailor made with whatever fabric you want. Also the shop keepers sit on little stools outside their stores and talk to you (shout and touch you) to try to get you to come in and shop. While they smoke cigarettes and simultaneously eat noodle bowls with chop sticks. It's a smoking mall.

When you go to shop for the handbags and shoes they have all these illegal knock offs on the shelves. They can only display these knock offs because they are the "obvious" copies. My untrained eye has no idea what these obvious signs are... If you want the really good knock offs you have to weasel yourself an invitation to the "warehouse". Which is either in a totally different location (like a 10 minute walk down the street up in an apartment building) or behind a secret hidden door at the back of the store (that appears to sell bedding).

Some of the things purchased by the other people I went with:
custom throw pillows and matching throw blanket
entire set of custom made curtains and custom bedding (including sheets and the whole deal)
barstools re-upholstered (she brought the seats)
a huge framed print
many many pairs of shoes and even more handbags
clothing was brought up to be altered
a few pieces of custom clothing were commissioned

Most of the custom stuff will be ready in a week or two so this is the type of stuff that necessitates repeated trips up there.

For my first trip I just wanted to observe this interaction and learn the ropes of how to get things made. I stuck to shopping at the tiny little stores full of ready made clothing. Where everything has designer labels. It's like being at a really high end TJ Maxx or Nordstrom Rack. But NOTHING has prices. You have to bargain for everything. And you have to try things on over your clothes in the middle of the store.

I think living over here is totally going to warp me as a shopper.

2010-09-03T20:00:00.000+08:00

I don't want to let too much time pass between my posts but there is nothing too exciting to write about...

The kids did well at soccer. They actually both loved it and they are both asking when they can go back so that is wonderful.

Today D brought homework home for the first time. Two Chinese characters, the words for "people" and "big" and the letter S is what he's working on this weekend. And he can confidently count to 6 or 10 in Chinese depending on his mood. His teacher phoned me today to tell me he got hit (or hit himself? Her English isn't perfect so I really don't know what happened.) and to expect him to have a little bit of a black eye but not to worry he's happy and singing and he's fine. His class is 9 or 10 boys and one poor sweet little girl. Can you imagine those poor teachers with all those little boys? Insanity.

There's a tropical storm happening here right now so we have had lots of heavy rain and wind and cloudy dreary skies. The best part is that it cooled the air and the temps have been a lot more comfortable. Makes me excited for winter. Mind you, winter here is Florida mild. Well I guess it feels colder than that because it's so damp... but it doesn't get too cold. I am looking forward to it!

I also got the order form for winter school uniforms today which is another reason I have winter on the brain. But it's still a ways out as the kids don't change to winter uniforms until November 15.

Looks like a soggy weekend ahead...

2010-09-01T20:28:00.000+08:00

Met up with a friend of mine for a quick afternoon of looking around in the garment district or fashion district of Hong Kong. It is so interesting and really overwhelming! I am not a crafty person AT ALL and I get inspired and want to make shit when I walk around there. I cannot imagine how it must be for someone who is into crafting, sewing, jewelry making or whatever. Like my friend. She was really working hard trying to control her ADD and attempt to focus on what she went there for.

Whole stores with nothing but buttons. Entire stores with nothing but zippers. Whole stores with nothing but ribbon. Whole stores with nothing but beads. There are actually streets of the beads stores. Street after street of reams of every type of fabric imaginable. There was a store today with aisles full of different types of elastic. Aisles and aisles of lace. Stores with the materials and hardware for jewelry making. And one of my favorites are the stores with the costume type stuff like endless rolls of feather boa in every color and beaded/crystal patches (for prom dresses?) up to the size of a dinner plate.

I love Sham Shui Po.

And I love that I can get my kids ready for school, drop my kids off at their bus, go catch a bus of my own and then be home in time for dinner and all the while M has cleaned up the lunch mayhem that we left behind and started yet another load of laundry. And she's here to pick up the kids from the bus and keep an eye on them so I can have an extra hour out.

It takes roughly 50 minutes to get to your destination around here, no matter where you're going. Or if you time the bus/ferry wrong call it 70 minutes. And that is for anywhere normal that you'd need to go. If you are really branching out to see something, say on the other side of any given island, you can count on 2 hours in transit.

So that 3 hours my kids are in school is all well and good if I am staying local around my neighborhood here. But if I need (or want) to go to the city I would not have time to accomplish much before having to turn around and head back to meet the bus. I am very thankful for M!

My kids have their first day of soccer tomorrow. Oops I mean football. They both are way excited which makes me excited. Thankfully they are in different lessons (or on different teams--I am not sure of the terminology at this point but they don't have games for the little kids, just practices...). And thankfully their practices/lessons are at the same place during pretty much the same time footprint. Very convenient! If we don't melt or have a heat stroke it should be fun times.

2010-08-31T20:19:00.001+08:00

It's official--my little D has been in K1 for less than 2 full weeks and he can confidently count to 10 in Mandarin. I am so proud of him!

We were reading books before bedtime last night and he was counting the stars in the illustration in the book aloud in English. I asked him if he could do it in Chinese and he got all shy and said he couldn't do it even though he counts it with G sometimes. I knew he could do at least to 3 or 5.

And then he made some comment about how he couldn't do it because only G knows how to count in Chinese. !!! I felt so bad for that little squirt. He's got a sister who, like her daddy, seems to be effortlessly good at stuff right away. He knows he doesn't know as much as she does so he was really sheepish about trying. I didn't pressure him but I gave him a big pep talk about it and let it go.

So tonight, we were looking at the exact same picture as last night and I asked if he wanted to try the counting in Chinese. He jumped right into it and flawlessly counted to 10 in his most commanding little voice. He owned it! I asked him to do it again and he got a little out of order between 7 and 10. What a hoot! He makes me laugh. I told him I was so proud of him and I could tell he was really proud of himself.

I got a phone call from his Mandarin speaking teacher today because somehow he had misplaced his bus id. She was just calling to tell me it was at school and they had found it, not to worry. She then told me that D is very good at school now (he cried a few times in the first few days) and that he is happy and seems to enjoy being there. That was great to hear. She is intimidating. She is a teeny tiny little Chinese girl with a BOOMING very in-charge voice. Which is why, I am pretty sure, D used his commanding little voice to count those numbers out loud.

2010-08-30T21:21:00.001+08:00

Today after we sent the kids off on the school bus, B and I headed to Kowloon to buy a giant wok for his mom. We found it for $8usd. How cool is that? And even cooler, this was a very productive day!

We have decided that shopping is a totally different sport over here. Especially since we are so new I think. You always have your list of things you'd like to accomplish for the day when you are out and about, but in addition to that we have developed a Master List.

Like today, the errand was specifically to go buy a wok for my mother in law so B can take it home to her when he goes to the USA later this week. Mission accomplished.

But that Master List is tricky. It has the stuff on it that we would really like to buy or places we'd like to check out in the city but we haven't found where to buy it or we're never in the neighborhood with enough time to spare.

Today we crossed three things off the Master List which is huge. First we walked by a school that we are considering for our kids after next year. Looked like a nice building in a nice area. Great information.

Second, we have had our eyes peeled for a globe that wasn't too expensive and had Chinese as well as English--found it today! Kids love it. G was spinning it very gently between the USA and Hong Kong just checking it out and then she said "Daddy, where is Japanesa?" I had to exit the room in a hurry because I sure didn't want her to see me laughing at her but man it struck me as so funny. B said "You mean Japan?" And she stood her ground with "No I want to know about Japaneeeeza. Where is Japaneeeeeza?" We got that all cleared up. I think this globe is going to spark some pretty amazing conversation around here. And right before bed tonight I asked her to find Hong Kong on it. She spun by herself to Asia and pointed to Macau which is just west of Hong Kong. She was SO close--check google maps.

Third, we have been on the lookout for chalkboard paint. B swears he saw it right when we first moved here but since that day when he should have bought it, we've never seen it again. We were walking on the opposite side of the street today from a big paint store. And I just knew with the size of that store they had to have it. And they did. The had the magnet paint and glow in the dark paint and every kind of fun paint in the world. The guy working there had to make two different phone calls to see how much he should charge. I don't think they sell much chalkboard paint around here.

I mentioned a few days ago that I am beginning to be able to hear Cantonese a lot better with help from my pilates/yoga instructor. Today we were on the MTR (subway train) and I was noticing I could her the names of the stops a lot better during the Chinese portion of the recorded announcement. (There's an English announcement following the Chinese.) And then a bit later the recording said to exit from the "left side" of the train and I UNDERSTOOD IT. B happened to be looking at me right when I realized that OMG I just understood that announcement when the lady said "left side" because I hear "jaw bean" in my yoga class. I think I made a really amazed face--and I was pretty excited about it.

2010-08-26T20:45:00.000+08:00

It's fun to get back in the habit of writing something every day on the blog. I hate that I let the summer get away from me with out keeping you all in the loop.

M came to work for us the first week of July and it just seemed like those first few nights when I wanted to write something, all my thoughts and all my stories were centered around having her here in the house with us. I just found it impossible to put my many thoughts into coherent sentences that could adequately explain how things were around here. I am not a good enough writer...

I know you are all curious about what exactly it means that we have a domestic helper and what she is doing for us. Keep in mind the cultural gap is ginormous and please don't think I sit around eating bon bons all day. I definitely do get to sit down more often--that much is true! But really life is just so much busier over here. And not that it makes any difference to you but, for real, most everybody over here has a helper. Especially people with young kids. On a scale of 1-10 (1 being she's got it super easy and 10 meaning she's treated like a slave) our lucky M ranks about a 1.5.

M arrives at about 9am. My kids get up at 6:45 or 7am. Since they have afternoon Kindy we have the luxury of a leisurely morning and we cook a hot breakfast most every day. When we finish breakfast, I make sure the table is cleared and cleaned so I don't have to look at the mess on the table and that's it. M does all the dishes (we do not have a dishwasher) and finishes cleaning the kitchen when she gets here.

She does most of the normal household chores like putting away the clothes that were hung to dry from the previous day, straightening the kids rooms, laundry. I make my bed every morning and she remakes it because I guess I don't do a good enough job. ??? Depending on what we've got going on, she may watch the kids while I go to yoga if B isn't here or she may watch D if I take G to ballet and he doesn't want to go. If we all leave the house as a family she will deep clean something like the bathroom or the floors or she'll change sheets on our beds.

I do not direct her too much. She has a little routine for cleaning and I am generally happy with how she does things and the amount she gets done. She's a hard worker. But some people do say they have to tell their helper exactly what to do all the time. That would make me crazy! I love that she just does stuff. I would feel like a major bossy lazy lady if I was demanding her to do things all the time.

I usually let her prepare (and clean up) lunch and while she is doing that I spend time with the kids doing arts and crafts or, now that school is back in, helping them with homework.

The kids get picked up by the bus at 12:45 for school. It is AWESOME to have an extra set of hands to help me get them dressed and ready when B is gone! M takes a long lunch while the kids are at school. I tell her she doesn't need to be back until 4pm but she always gets back around 3:30.

Sometimes she cooks dinner, sometimes we cook. It depends on what we're having and how much I feel like cooking. B and I like to cook so a lot of the time we want to do it. If I want her to cook, our routine is that I set out the recipe for her and tell her what time I want it to be done. When dinner is done she cleans up the kitchen and does dishes while we bathe the kids.

While we read bedtime stories she tidies the bathroom.

She leaves between 7 and 8pm.

Jealous? I know. That's why I have a hard time writing about it. But I want to lay it all out there. It's a fine line between sharing the awesomeness without making it sound like I am bragging. So I hope that it never comes across that way.

I want to write more about what M had to deal with while working for her previous employer here in Hong Kong... but it's long. If our house is a 1.5 on the scale of ethical treatment I mentioned above, the house she used to work in was a 9.5. This is a great deal for M. I will write more about it from her perspective soon.

2010-08-25T19:59:00.000+08:00

B and I went to the mall today for 2 hours while the kids were at school. That alone is blog worthy and amazing. We have both kids in school half the day. I am not over it.

You know how in China there's that stereotype about no respect for personal space? It's totally true and never more apparent than when you are at the mall. Looking at the size S on a rack in a store? It's only 12 inches wide but so are 3 other people.

Trying to get on the escalator? So are 10 other people so get in line. Never in my life did I think I would come to see waiting in line to get on an escalator a normal event.

Trying to get into the mall? Well so are a bunch of other people, not to mention the people who are trying to come out. So deal with it. And don't expect any body to hold the door for you.

Did I ever tell you the story about the time I took my kids to McDonald's when I opened the door and held it open FOR MY KIDS and a grown man totally about knocked them over as he walked through the door as I held it open FOR MY KIDS. And then he proceeded to get in line in front of me! I was so annoyed! But karma is awesome--a new line got opened and he was .001 seconds too late because Flo Jo here was on it. And I totally gave him the stink eye as I flew by and threw my purse into his elbow (which honestly was an accident but I let him think it was on purpose). Ha!

There was a point today--we were in the Adidas store with 300 other people--when I said to B "Is it just me or is this store full of exceptional people who are purposefully trying to get in our space?" He just replied "I'm out" and headed to the door. We were cracking up.

I want to buy a hair straightener. I have never owned one so I am just seeing what brands I can find and getting some prices. We went to Fortress today which is a Best Buy-type place to see what they had. The sales guy asked if we had any questions and saw that I was looking at the flat irons. He was very helpful and directed me to some that I hadn't noticed further down the aisle. He picked up a box that contained a straightener that came with multiple accessories like a curling iron, crimper, etc. I barely looked at it--not what I want. But the conversation was THE BEST.

Him:"Here is one with many accessory. You get curl iron (which sounded something like kew el iwo) and uh... this to do what picture on box show." Which was crimp.
Me: "Oh wow you never know when you might need a crimper." Then I realized I was about to talk too much so I switched gears. "No need for accessories, only straightener."

But he was intrigued.

Him: "Um what word you say for this style of hair in English?"
Me: "It's called crimping. Uhhh... to crimp is the verb." (I paused to make sure this is the type of information he wanted and clearly it was.)
Him: "Cwimp?"
Me: "Yes, crimp."
Him: (thinks about that damn dreaded r really hard) "Crimp. Crimp."
So I continued "Yes. Crimp. You say her hair (girl on the box) is crimped. This tool (pictured on the box) is called a crimper. Like C R I M P. Crimp."

He then took his index finger and wrote imaginary letters on the box to spell it out in English in his mind which must be a mental tool they learn in school because I've seen that often.

B laughed and told the guy he picked the right person and if he had any English questions he should ask me. We all laughed. It was funny.

But I think I made that guy's day. Talk about a near useless word in English--he's totally going to be the first of his friends to be able to throw that one around.

2010-08-24T21:04:00.000+08:00

D did great getting on the bus today and was in a fantastic mood when he got home. Whew! What a relief that is. And I had 3 whole hours all to myself today. How weird. In a good way.

G and I sat down this morning to take a look at her first bit of homework for the year. It was the Chinese workbook. It opens backwards. I knew this. But I still opened it my way first anyway and I opened it to the last page. So they seriously do read backwards. Or we read backwards, however you want to look at it. So we talked about that for a minute--the idea that Chinese books open backwards is not insignificant!

And then I looked at the pages she was to complete in the workbook. I was underwhelmed. The page was a grid of squares (their equivalent to that wide lined paper that a grade schooler would use to write sentences) so she can begin to practice character writing. In the example square was a dash centered in the middle of the box. - Just like that. That was it? Seemed a bit juvenile... but then I decided to be grateful it was simple! G tends to use Chinese words when she does her Chinese homework. She was counting and saying numbers--I know that much by now. And a few minutes later it dawned on me!

- is the number 1 in Chinese.

Oh my goodness--it's not juvenile, it just happens to be a very simple Chinese character and a very good place to start.

When she got home this afternoon I checked out her assignment that we'll do in the morning. It's the English numbers workbook. Tomorrow morning we practice writing 1.

This is going to be a neat year! I am so interested to see how she does!

2010-08-23T21:12:00.001+08:00

On Saturday, D asked if he could go to school. He was bummed when I told him no. I was excited he asked. On Sunday he asked again. I briefly explained what "weekend" meant and told him he'd go tomorrow. Today he got ready willingly and was eager to get out the door. And then he cried when we got there. Poor little man. He loves it, I know he does. He just got overwhelmed.

Tomorrow will be his first day to ride the bus. G started the bus last Friday since she's K2 and rode it last year. It's old hat to her. I am keeping my fingers crossed that he willingly gets on that bus tomorrow. We shall see.

For the past 2 months I have been doing a yoga/pilates class twice a week. The same instructor teaches the pilates on Mondays and the yoga on Thursdays. I am the only native English speaker in the pilates class. Thankfully the yoga class has a few other Western girls now. It's such a hoot in so many ways and I love it.

First of all, I am TERRIBLE. I mean it's shameful really. I am like a board. Completely inflexible. I think at first the teacher couldn't understand that I seriously can't do some pretty normal things (like sit on my heels). And with the language barrier it was comical having her try to figure me out and me attempt to explain myself to her.

After the very first class we attempted communicating. I said "I'm kind of a mess. I had juvenile arthritis when I was young so I lost a lot of mobility. It really causes pain when I bend my left knee more than this (I show her my limit). And my right hip got dislocated when my second baby was born. I couldn't put weight on it for like 3 days. So it causes me pain when I do this (show her the bad angle). I've never been very flexible. That's why I'm here! I am excited to see if pilates can help me to improve my range of motion and I hope you can have patience with me."

She blinked twice and then did the short giggle that translated to "I'm sorry. I don't understand a single word you just said."

Damn. I hate it when that happens!

So I did the short embarrassed giggle and then said "oh... sorry... old injury, hurt long ago, long time problems" while I pointed to my left knee and then my right hip and she nodded. She got that.

I really think I lucked out--she is an amazing instructor. And the soundtrack on her iPod is something else. We jam to REO Speedwagon, The BeeGees, Avril Lavigne, local Asian pop music, Whitney Houston, Selena (the real Selena, not Gomez)... I could go on. It's the best mix tape ever.

And I am learning Cantonese. For the first month she was really good to me saying "right" and "left" and "inhale" and "exhale" and using short phrases in English to direct me. And since I'm so awful and I don't speak Cantonese she spent a lot of time physically helping me to make sure my posture was correct and all. But now I've been in there long enough that I get very little English and she will come position me if necessary. I can understand most of what she is telling us--just from the repetitive nature of it and I know what to expect. But right and left, inhale and exhale, back to center... I am picking up a ton of little phrases like that.

So if I am ever lost and can't find an English speaker--well basically I won't know how to say anything... but if they direct me to breathe deeply, sit up straight and tilt my head to the left I'd totally know what they were telling me.

2010-08-22T21:59:00.000+08:00

I can't believe how many random emails I've gotten from people harassing me to write more on this blog. And not just from my mom either. So I'm back. I do really enjoy writing and sharing our stories here and I am not sure what exactly I've been doing all summer that has made me too busy to blog...

Now that my kids are officially back in school, and D is now going every day, I have no excuse. Technically I should have plenty of time on my hands, right?

We've had a fun summer. B has been on reserve, meaning he is on call for a few hours a day for half the month. Reserves usually only have to go fly when something crazy happens like someone calling in sick in the middle of a trip. So he really didn't have to go to work too much. I think he went twice. Like all summer. We spent a lot of time at the pool and had more fun than should be legal.

Our helper M has been with us now for about 6 weeks. It's working out very well. It is awesome actually. There was definitely a bit of a learning curve at first. I had to get used to someone folding my underwear (oh yes she does). And I think she has finally come to understand that I honestly enjoy cooking and I want to be in the kitchen doing it. I think at first she thought that I didn't think she was a good cook (--and she is a very good cook). But now she's figuring out that I'm just the weird American lady who bitches about missing Mexican food and doesn't even own an iron.

Having M has allowed me and B to go out and do things with our friends here in Hong Kong. It has been wonderful to be able to have date nights a few times a month. I was explaining to M that we appreciate her very much for everything she does for us but that getting to go out for the evening was the biggest treat. I was telling her how much it costs to hire a babysitter in the USA per hour converted to currency she knows. You should have seen her eyes! She couldn't believe it! And then to tell her that normally a babysitter literally sits with the kids and watches tv or whatever--there's no house cleaning, cooking or anything expected of a babysitter other than watching the kids and making sure the house doesn't burn down. She really couldn't believe it.

School started the middle of last week. D is now in K1 (he'll be 3 in October) and G is in K2 (she's 4.5 and would be PreK in the USA this year). So far I get a good impression from all of their teachers and both kids seem happy to be going. They get SO tired though. I wish we would have lucked out and gotten spots for the morning but I'll take what I can get. They get picked up by the bus at 12:45pm and dropped off at 4:05. Monday through Friday.

G has got a big year ahead. She will be learning to read which is super exciting (for me--I hope she is excited!). And also, of course, she will be learning more Mandarin. She will actually be learning to read and write Chinese characters which is amazing. The teachers are very cool. They know the curriculum is completely overwhelming and though we parents have all been warned to expect 20-40 minutes of homework every night, they are realistic and have told us to encourage the kids but not demand them to do it all. I am really curious to see what will be G's favorite homework to do and how she will take to all of this.

That's it in a nut shell. See you tomorrow.

2010-07-30T09:10:00.001+08:00

We have been patiently waiting for the iPhone 4 for months and months. It has been physically painful for B to hear about his friends in the USA getting them. Hong Kong just began to sell the iPad and iPhone 4 (for pre-orders only) yesterday.

B has been stalking the Apple website for so long that he was most likely the very first person to sign up to be notified as soon as it was possible to pre-order. A few nights ago he got a text at midnight (!!!) to tell him he could pre-order the following afternoon. He was like a kid on Christmas Eve and immediately set his alarm for the designated time.

What we didn't realize at the time he pre-registered was that it would only count for one phone. We were making American assumptions that our "family" was pre-registering, not just him. But alas this was not the case. B got an email this morning telling him he could come pick up his iPhone 4 today. Today is the very first day they are available for pick up in HK.

I, however, was not on the list so mine is back ordered. What a bummer. Will we ever learn how things work around here? Honestly I don't mind being kept on my toes. Never a dull moment.

And if you are wondering, cell phone plans are way cheaper here. I think we'll be paying about half of what we paid in the USA for monthly service.

2010-07-27T21:30:00.000+08:00

I think I have learned that blogging is kind of like exercise to me. I really enjoy it when I do it and makes me feel good. But I have a hard time forming habits.

Today B and I went to Sham Shui Po to hunt down any random place to make us a blackout curtain for one of our living room windows. The afternoon sun comes in directly and it's so hot and so bright in the afternoon that we seriously cannot sit on our couch between the hours of 2 and 6pm. Since our apartment is only 1100 square feet, losing our entire "family room" is kind of a big deal.

Armed with measurements converted to centimeters, we set out on a mission with high hopes and a low budget. After ambling around block after block through all the fabric stores we finally saw a store front decorated with valances and different curtains and mini blinds. Jackpot! We walked in, looked around a bit and decided we kind of liked one of the demo curtains they had on display.

It is always touchy when someone at a store helps you. We never know how much English the person will speak and for all they know we might speak Chinese. We got the nod from one of the guys in there and I said "Hello" to let him know I needed to be helped in English. It's all very subtle. He said "ahhh hello one minute" and nodded toward a woman working with another customer.

This is always a good sign--he was nice and friendly and didn't ignore us so we felt welcome, but he told us (without using words) that we needed to wait for the woman. She spoke decent English thankfully. After perusing some fabrics we ended up taking the easy way out and getting the demo curtain we had seen at the front of the store. The quote was less than I expected and well within our budget. What a nice surprise! In 7-10 business days we'll be all set. Hopefully we will be able to actually find that store again when it's time to go pick it up.

2010-07-16T00:36:00.000+08:00

I am not sure if I have mentioned this... We have not been getting any of our forwarded mail from the USA. We have an address through B's work and they forward everyone's mail to a FedEx retail store in Kowloon.

In the beginning we waited very patiently after being told things could take 3 or 4 weeks to arrive to us. After being here over a month we had received just a few things and we got concerned. B contacted somebody at his work to check up on the situation and we were reassured that it just takes time.

In the mean time, we have two Grandma's asking if we have received specific things they have sent. We are waiting on final bills from our Oregon utility companies, we can't sign up for a credit card because we aren't getting B's pay stubs, we are waiting on restart discs for the computer that was dropped in May... We are watching everyone around us get mail but we were getting nothing for ourselves.

So after a few emails of gentle prodding from B and the generic responses indicating no one was actually checking into it, he got a little more forceful and we then received a very apologetic email telling us that there had been a mistake and our mail was going to B's locker in Memphis.

My reaction: "You have a locker in Memphis?"

Anyway we were told the stuff would arrive here in Hong Kong this week and we'd get a phone call when it came in. It all came today. 4 months of mail. Granted, not many people/companies have this address so 4 months worth of actual mail that you actually want is a lot less than 5 months of mail including catalogs and all your junk mail. But it was still a huge bag full.

B and I headed out right after dinner to go pick it up. How great to have M around to hang out here with the kids while we run out for a "quick" errand. I say "quick" because no errands in this city are quick. It took us over two hours to go get the mail and pick up a pair of pants B had tailored.

We rode a ferry to Central, walked .3 mile to take another ferry over to Kowloon, and then walked another mile to the FedEx store. Then we went to pick up the pants which was pretty close to there and did the whole thing in reverse to get home. And it's 85 degrees and 95% humidity. Insane!

2010-07-13T22:19:00.000+08:00

Today I went out for a girl's day of shopping with a new friend. We had such a good time checking out all sorts of markets and walking until we couldn't walk anymore.

My friend, R, was specifically looking to buy beach towels and we couldn't find them anywhere. We saw all sorts of kid's character beach towels and regular bath towels in the market stalls but we didn't see any adult beach towels. We decided to go into a store called Sincere in the Dragon Center Mall in Sham Shui Po to see if we could find them retail.

Sincere is a cross between Kohls, Service Merchandise, and JC Penney.

As luck would have it, the Sincere store came through. R found herself the towels and a few other things to buy and the amount she spent qualified her for a free gift. The cashier directed her toward the back corner of the store and told her to present her receipt to claim her gift.

We got back to the corner of the store and didn't see a customer service desk, only the jewelry counter. Confused, she showed the lady behind the counter her receipt and asked where to go to get her gift. The lady checked the receipt and told her she was in the right place.

This mall is a local shopping place. The ladies working there are super friendly but they don't speak the greatest English. Still, it's enough to get by, and their English is far better than my non existent Cantonese, but there's a lot of silence in these interactions that would be filled with more conversation and more information if the language barrier wasn't in the way.

So after telling R that she's in the right place, no more words are spoken as the woman lays out a towel and a knife on the glass counter, slaps on a huge pair of rubber gloves, and reaches down where we can't see. What the heck was going on here? Her dripping wet gloves come back up to counter height holding an oyster. Which she then shucks and out pops a pink pearl.

R was so taken aback that she just exclaimed something like "Oh wow! A pearl?! It's so pretty!" I mean really, what else would you say? And the lady was so pleased to see that R was excited about it she replied something like "It pretty like you. I give you another. Free too." And she reached down and grabbed another oyster that happened to have a sandy colored pearl inside.

So there was the hook. For the low low price of $150hkd ($19usd) she could have these pearls made into a beautiful pendant necklace with her choice of a gold or silver chain. She caved and did it. And it actually turned out really pretty.

What a hoot. I think the funniest part about the whole thing is that while this was all happening I can't say I found it that funny. It was more confusing than anything else. But as I was telling B all about my day tonight (and this bit wasn't even at the top of my list) I started to tell this story. And only then did I realize how funny it really was.

2010-07-10T20:46:00.000+08:00

I can't believe I haven't posted anything this week. Time flies when you're having fun I guess.

G started ballet and Mandarin lessons this week. She was beaming during the ballet. Beaming. She's glad to be back at it I think. And the Mandarin lesson was fun for us both. 4 little girls in the back room with the teacher and 4 mommies drinking coffee and eating snacks in the living room chatting away. The kids had as much fun as the mommies during that hour.

The biggest event of our week: M arrived and has started working for us. It's been so awesome to have an extra set of hands around here. And the kids love her so that is a bonus.

Earlier this week we saw a flyer that Shrek was going to be appearing live and in person at the grocery on Saturday. So yesterday we headed over to the store at the designated time to let the kids have a chance to meet a celebrity.

We approached the massive crowd in disbelief. There were tons of people there! Kids with melty ice cream cones and were running around everywhere. It was hot and super humid. All the parents were kind of standing around looking miserable and the kids were antsy. Where was Shrek? Turns out Shrek had to take a break. His costume was massive and full body and he couldn't take the heat.

We saw someone we knew and she told us we better go ahead and get a number. A number? Why? Well so we could have a turn to get up close next to him, of course. Of course we had to have a number. I love that about this place. Super organization skills to a fault around here. At that point one of the other moms who had been standing there just offered us her number because her kids were over it. So we saw Shrek and the kids were happy.

And then we all had to go get a Vitamin Water to replenish.

It is unbelievably hot and humid here. We have friends who just got back from the USA a few days ago after being gone from Hong Kong for a month. They ended their time in The States in Orlando so it was interesting to hear them say that, even coming straight from Orlando (where they lived for years), they can't believe how hot it is and how crazy the humidity is.

We are spending lots of time at the pool, going through tons of sunscreen, and drinking gallons of fluids. Summer time is in full swing.

2010-07-05T13:21:00.000+08:00

I just got back from my first Pilates class ever in my life.

I was the only Western person in there. The teacher spoke good enough English to give me personal directions but 90% of the class was conducted in Cantonese. It was so awesome!

I learned the words for inhale and exhale.

I can't wait to go back next week!

2010-07-04T20:51:00.000+08:00

We decided to take the kids to the movies today. It was D's first time to go see a movie in a theater. I really want to see Toy Story but it's not released here in English until July 15th. The only kid's movie playing in English right now is Shrek.

When you go to the movies in Asia, you choose your seat or block of seats when you buy your tickets. So if you buy them online you get a screen that looks like an airline ticketing screen with a layout of the theater and you choose the exact seats in which you will sit. And if you pay for them at the ticket booth there is a screen that pops up and you have to choose your seats there on the spot. Your tickets print out with your seat assignment on them.

And we were met at the door to the theater by an usher who sat us in our exact seats. There were maybe 20 people in the whole theater.

This movie was at 9:05am this morning. Do they play movies in the USA that early? I thought it sounded really early but it was great for the kids and it was perfect timing to have lunch when the movie got out.

The ticket prices are about the same as in The States. Just slightly cheaper here. And the popcorn, coke and candy were all just slightly cheaper here too.

After the disappointing experience going to check out that Mandarin class for G a few days ago, today we got some good news. At the request of one of the moms, G's Mandarin teacher from her Kindergarten has offered to give a Mandarin tutor session once a week to 3 or 4 kids from G's class. How perfect! Her teacher will know exactly where these kids are already, she knows their personalities and temperaments and she is moving up a grade so G will still have her next year. The best part is she is charging us a very reasonable rate. So that was a great phone call to get today!

2010-07-02T16:08:00.000+08:00

School's out! Today was the last day of school. Now what? Now I know how my mom felt...

Today I joined up with a Vietnamese mom, a Chinese mom and a South African mom to go scope out a place that offers Mandarin lessons twice a week for 3-5 year olds. Unfortunately, we were not impressed. It was a couple running this "lesson" in their living room and it was weird.

It ended with the mom who had organized the whole thing apologizing to the rest of us about wasting our time. It was comical really. One of the moms had the giggles about it and she couldn't stop laughing. I am still just scratching my head. If someone actually speaks the target language they are teaching (which is kind of a requirement right?), why on earth would they use a horrible CD Rom program that uses the computer to instruct the class?

So that is a no go. I have had G wait listed for a Mandarin playgroup since we got here. So I decided to drop in to check her status once I knew the other place was such a bust. That looks like it will work out for the fall so I am excited about that. And they offer a summer camp the last week of July and I think I may sign her up for that.

Tomorrow there's a birthday party for one of G's class mates on the beach in Mui Wo. So we have to take the ferry there and back and schlep all of our stuff to have a day on the beach. I'm looking forward to it because I know the company will be good. But I'm dreading it at the same time since I know it'll be hot and I know once the ferry dumps us off we are stuck for a full 3 hours until the next ferry goes back to Discovery Bay.

B gets home tomorrow afternoon. He will get back home in time to meet me at the ferry pier when we get back so that will be great to have an extra set of hands because I know by then the kids are going to be DONE.

The lifestyle over here is almost indescribably more busy and active for kids (and adults too of course). Some examples: 5 days a week school starts the year they turn 3. Kids have to walk and it's really hot and humid here. It's also very hilly so even on a quick and simple walk you can't avoid stairs and hills. And there's always activities like riding bikes, swimming and lessons and whatever else people will pay to have their kids in. There's no childhood obesity here, that's for sure.

2010-07-01T22:15:00.000+08:00

Today was another holiday in Hong Kong. Coincidentally, it's kind of like their 4th of July. But I don't really get the impression it's celebrated quite like Americans celebrate the 4th. On this day in 1997 Hong Kong was handed back over to the People's Republic of China from the UK. You can google that and read all about it. It's actually rather interesting.

So G didn't have school today and lots of stores were closed. We spent most of the day at the pool and had a great time. The weather was gorgeous! We got back home about 2:45 and both kids immediately fell asleep on the couch. By the time they woke up at 4, I had showered, done laundry, dishes and had afternoon coffee since I knew it would be a late night with both of them getting a nap.

We seized the afternoon and had dinner at McDonald's. We can no longer eat inside at McDonald's. It's too cold in there. After spending all day outside (which is the only time we ever decide to go to McDonald's it seems) we are so acclimated to the heat we can't comfortably sit inside. Super weird. So we got a picnic table outside in the plaza. As we sat and ate, I was comfortable. But I could feel the sweat on the backs of my knees and by the time we finished eating there was still liquid in the cup of Sprite I was sharing with the kids but not a single piece of ice remained--it had all melted. So I knew it was hot.

I did a little internet research to figure out what the temp was today. It looks like it was about 92 degrees F and relative humidity was over 80%. And we "had" to sit outside? This blows my mind!

2010-06-29T21:21:00.000+08:00

Well after the torturous rainiest weekend I think I have ever endured in my life, today we have been rewarded with an absolutely beautiful day.

We spent the morning at the pool which was lots of fun. Except after all the rain the pool water was FREEZING. Yesterday the temp was down in the 70's and it felt down right cold outside. G wore her cardigan sweater to school, people were wearing jackets... so weird.

B left for work on Sunday and will be gone until next Sunday. He was home on reserve for quite a long time so it feels funny to have him gone.

This is the last week of school for my kids this week. The school year is much more like what I imagine year round schooling would be. All the schools start sometime between August 16-September 1. And summers start sometime between June 20th and July 12th or so. So it's basically the same as the USA but the holiday breaks are a little different making summer break a bit shorter. Hong Kong schools get two weeks off for Christmas just like schools in the USA. But instead of a one week long "spring break", Hong Kong schools have two more weeks off in February for Chinese New Year and then another two weeks off in April for Ching Ming Festival. Most expats just call that one "Easter break". Seems like a lot of time off in the spring but, with no Thanksgiving, there's no long breaks in the fall. Just long weekends here and there.

I had the end of the year teacher conference with G's teachers this afternoon. --Remember she has one Mandarin speaking teacher as well as an English speaking teacher. Wow, they had some really great things to say about my baby. I am so very proud of her. She got an excellent report all around. But they both raved and raved about how amazing she is with picking up Mandarin. Too cool. I asked if there was anything we should work on this summer to get her ready for next year and they both said they couldn't come up with anything but the Mandarin teacher begged that we get her a summer tutor. When I told her that I was going to check a place out on Friday with another mom for a twice a week summer program she was thrilled. The Mandarin speaking teacher will be moving up a grade so G will still have her again next year.

After overhearing all we talked about at this conference (G was there for it) she was really free with the Mandarin tonight. She was singing songs I hadn't heard her sing before and I could tell she was feeling extra confident about it. And during the conference the teachers were joking that G's Mandarin is better that Miss N (the English speaking teacher). Miss I (Mandarin) started speaking to G in Mandarin, saying a few sentences, and G just laughed and responded to her IN MANDARIN. How crazy is that?

Tonight I am feeling very happy and relieved. I feel so lucky and blessed to see that all the decisions we've made and everything we've been through the last six months (really the last 2 years) making all this happen have led us to a point where we are settled into a comfortable routine. It has been a fun challenge, though completely overwhelming at times I am not gonna lie.

2010-06-27T15:21:00.000+08:00

It has been raining for 36 hours straight and counting. I'm not talking about it being "rainy" or intermittent showers. I seriously mean it has been pouring down rain non. stop. for 36 hours. It's crazy! So this weekend has pretty much been shot.

At the birthday party I took G to last weekend I exchanged phone numbers with a mom of one of G's class mates. We made plans this week to meet at the pool Saturday morning but the rain cancelled that idea. So we rescheduled for Sunday lunch. She, being Chinese, suggested we meet for dim sum. We have been too chicken to take the kids for dim sum so I thought this was a great idea!

B and I are fairly comfortable going by ourselves but I still feel like I have no idea what's going on. You know, things like how to order, what exactly I am ordering... And I feel like the etiquette of it all is kind of out of my league. So how can I take my kids when I don't even know what I'm doing? I was really excited to go with people who know how it works and with their son who actually eats it.

We have been looking forward to having a chance to get to know this family better. She is Chinese, a native of Hong Kong, but has spent some time in the USA. So her native language is Cantonese but her English is pretty flawless and she speaks great Mandarin too. Her husband is American but hasn't lived in the US for maybe 10 years. He speaks Mandarin and pretty good Cantonese. Very nice people and I think it will be great to have them as a reference for school questions and just local info in general.

We have a children's book about dim sum (called Dim Sum For Everyone by Grace Lin) so it's something my kids have heard about before. And there is a mall we go to frequently with a huge beautiful dim sum restaurant on the first floor. The floors above are open and you can look down into the restaurant and see the big round tables full of little dishes. So my kids have seen it before too. They just had not had a chance to eat it.

Did they eat it you ask?

G took one single tiny bite of the fried crispy part of a shrimp dumpling and one single bite of steamed bun that was untouched by anything saucy. She asked for a pb&j as soon as we got home.

D, on the other hand, did awesome! He ate mass quantities of fried squid. !! He tried the shrimp dumpling, he tried congee, and he tried BBQ pork buns. And the cutest part--he loved the tea. I was pretty proud of him.

My kids are funny. They are both picky sometimes and both adventurous sometimes but they are never both adventurous at the same meal. They can both be picky at the same meal though so I was thrilled that we got 1 out of 2 to try some dim sum! Success!

2010-06-25T22:49:00.000+08:00

We have decided to sign the kids up for soccer ("football") beginning in the fall. We figure we might as well expose them while they are young and while we are surrounded by people who actually call it football.

The major bonus is that both of my kids will be in the same lesson. Kids are categorized by their year of birth over here and the youngest "team" is for kids born in 2006 and 2007 which happens to be when my kids were born. The other major bonus is that it's a weekday morning lesson. Since the kids are in afternoon school it really limits us. I don't want to be at activities until 7pm. My kids are too young for that. And I'm too old.

So as everything is over here, it's all just kind of vague. The website says the registration form is available to be printed. It's not. So I email the guy on the contact link and he nicely tells me to look harder and if I still can't find it he'll send me a pdf. I then emailed him right back with another question before I looked for the form again. And once I looked harder and still couldn't find the form (because it wasn't there) I had to contact him again to send the pdf.

This is an amount of communication that has already crossed the threshold into annoying. I am NOT that person. If I had my way I would remain completely anonymous, registering the kids online (what a novel idea! I think I am going to invent that over here!) and paying with a credit card.

But it continues. The form that he sends me has lesson/practice times that are different from the timetable and schedule on the website. So reluctantly I emailed him yet again to confirm there is this one lesson time that I want. He writes back and tells me that there is the lesson time that I want and I should just write it in on the form next to a certain spot. I felt like asking if I should stamp it with one of G's animal stamps to make it all official.

I wonder if he's annoyed. I am sure he thinks I am THAT lady. But I assure you, I am not that lady.

I paid for both kids with one check. I hope that's ok--I wasn't about to email him to ask. I addressed the envelope and it just doesn't look like enough information. Just a city. No state, no zip code... You have to put the floor number in any address... It just looks foreign. Because it is foreign. And the funniest part--I had to actually lick the stamp. I think I am going to invent sticker stamps for over here too.

2010-06-20T21:59:00.000+08:00

I made another batch of Muchang (ranch) dressing today using Fage brand Greek yogurt. I really prefer that stuff. After trying all the different brands of Greek style yogurt around here I have settled on that one and I will not stray again. I attempted the cucumber ranch this time and was very pleased. Here's the changes/new recipe.

1 7oz/200g cup of Fage
3 inch section of cucumber, peeled and finely chopped (remove seeds too if there's a ton)
3 Tbl lemon juice
1 Tbl fresh chives
1-2 tsp minced onion
1/4-1/2 tsp salt (I used kosher, so use less if you're using table salt)
1 tsp coarse ground pepper
1/8 tsp cayenne

Blend it up and enjoy.

Yesterday we wanted tacos. We are sick of chicken. Trying to choose what kind of beef to buy is overwhelming. There's beef from China, USA, Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, maybe Thailand... (I know Thailand ships in chicken and pork but beef I can't picture for sure.) Anyway you get my drift. Most of the time, I just have to choose with my gut instinct. It's a complex mathematical formula that uses factors like how it looks, the date, the price, the quality of the packaging, the amount of English on the label there to convince me that it is coming from a healthy and happy cow. Yesterday's answer led me to buy the organic Australian ground beef. Mostly because it looked the best out of all the varieties. When I got home and later did the other math I realized I had paid $15usd/ pound for this beef. Wowza. I don't mind paying that for a grass fed steak, but ground beef? Come on!

We got another letter from the Immigration Department yesterday telling us that our helper M's visa has been approved and is ready for collection. I had to fax a copy of this letter to the agency we are using and they will go pick up the visa hopefully tomorrow.

So now, the visa will be sent to M in The Philippines and she's almost ready to come back to Hong Kong. I saw on the agency's website that it takes 5-7 days from when the visa is collected here to the travel date from The Philippines. We could be just a week away from welcoming M back. (With wide open arms.) I can't wait!

2010-06-19T18:14:00.000+08:00

I accompanied G to a birthday party today. It was our first experience with a kid's birthday party in Hong Kong. It was insane. First of all, let me just say that the mom was super sweet and gracious and that it was a very, very nice party. G had a great time and so did I.

Let me tell you all about it.

We showed up to the place where they had rented the party room and we were welcomed by the Hostess Mom (I had not met her before). As she welcomed us, she invited G to go ahead and take her shoes off so she could go in and out of the bounce house as she pleased. And she told me to head to the drink table and get myself a drink and to have a seat at any table.

Yes. There was a full size ENORMOUS bounce house IN the party room.

The round tables were covered in white table cloths and they had seats for 8 people on fabric chairs. I think there were maybe six tables. Each table had a tray of chocolate chip cookies, mini cupcakes, potato chips and a bread snack. The bread snack was adorable--crustless white bread spread with butter, cut into neat triangles, and then "breaded" or dipped into nonpareils sprinkles. Very cute.

So G took off into the bounce house and I found a table with some parents I recognized. We chatted a bit and then I took some time to look around a little more. It was then that I noticed the drink table was actually staffed by a guy in a uniform shirt. There was every kind of juice as well as tea and coffee. And also a bin underneath the table full of Costco size bottles of hard liquor. Just in case you're into that at a birthday party for a 4 year old. Which really, is there any better time and place to have a drink?

And then I noticed a few other workers in uniform shirts tending to the chafing dishes over by the buffet tables. OMG there was a buffet? Are you kidding me? So I got a drink and then wandered to check the food. A few other different desserts, jello cubes, samosas, chicken satay, chicken nuggets, glazed carrots, cheese pizza, french fries... Wow!

After sitting and enjoying the conversation with many parents of G's friends (most of them I hadn't met before but only seen in passing) the Hostess Mom gathered all the kids and got them all pumped and primed for some big surprise that was about to happen. And in walked a clown. The clown was a Chinese guy who spoke pretty good English. But it was absolutely hilarious to listen to this guy interact with the kids in Chenglish. He said things like:

"Don't follow me kids to do this at home." (Don't try this at home.)
"You, Boy, come up to help me." (Hey there, would you like to be my assistant?)
"Make laughing sounds I give you present." (If I hear you screaming, I'll toss you a toy!)

I wish I had a pen and notebook because I know there was more he said that had me laughing out loud. Secretly of course. I was laughing out loud inside my mind.

He then performed a pretty good magic show while his boom box belted out Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice in the background. And after that he made ballon animals and swords for all the kids.

By the time he finished his show, it had been announced that the buffet was open and we should eat.

After giving everyone ample time to fix themselves a plate, someone went around to give each of the kids an empty bag. For what? For the two pinatas that were then brought out, of course. TWO. And after explaining to the kids what was going to happen, the pinatas where simultaneously opened and it was mayhem as all the kids scrambled to gather the candy and toys.

G was way too busy in the bounce house to eat. But she did come out for the pinata action. And then there was cake. The cake was an amazing professional piece of art. And it was delicious. And upon our departure G was given a goody bag full of candy with a helium balloon attached.

Presents were not opened during the party. And speaking of gifts, I am pretty sure it cost more for her to host G and me as guests than I paid for the party gifts I brought. But oh well, right?

2010-06-16T22:33:00.000+08:00

Today was the Dragon Boat Races and Festival. It's a public holiday here so the kids were out of school and everything. It's a celebration according to the lunar calendar. And that's all I know.

To compete in a Dragon Boat race you need to field a team with about 30 people, rent a dragon boat, decorate it, order uniforms, and practice a few times. Some teams take it very seriously and some teams are just there to have some fun and go rowing. It was a ton of fun to watch!

There are different locations to go watch races throughout Hong Kong (and other places in Asia too) so we felt very lucky we could take part in the festivities right here in our neighborhood.

G's school sponsored a boat and so we knew several people rowing for that team and lots of people just hanging out to show support. B was so sad he wasn't on the team and out there rowing! I got the participation sheet in G's backpack the first week she was in school. Practices had already started, I had no idea what a Dragon Boat Race even was and I had no idea if he'd be off and in town to show up on race day. I didn't turn the form back in. I don't even think I told him I got it until like a week ago. Oh well--there's always next year.

So it was a hot, humid, partly rainy full day of outside play around here. I was happy it was a little rainy and not full on sunny. We would have never been able to spend a full day outside if the sun had been out the whole time. And G still fell asleep sitting at the dinner table. No joke.

Summer is upon us and the humidity is getting intense. It's almost indescribable.

Speaking of indescribable things, I went to shop at the markets in Sham Shui Po yesterday and I wish so badly that I could find words to explain this area to all of you. It's where you go if you are shopping for fabric, buttons, jewelry making supplies, toys, tools, electronics, electronic components/parts, clothes, magnets, batteries, light bulbs and light fixtures, seasonal trinkets like pool toys/swim wear, toilet seats and on and on and on. I kid you not there was a hawker selling kitchen sinks. Everything and the kitchen sink. Literally.

I enjoy Sham Shui Po because it is so local around there. It's a little further outside the city. At street markets in Wanchai or Central you can market shop till you drop then pop out and find a couch in Starbucks or shift gears and head inside to shop in a swanky mall. This is not as likely on the Kowloon side especially the further north you get. You'll find swanky mall shopping and abundant coffee in TST in Kowloon. But if you find yourself a little further out of town all you've got is a 7 Eleven every 50 feet and McDonald's with no McCafe.

And public bathrooms that do not stock toilet paper. But thank God public restrooms are there at all!

2010-06-14T21:39:00.000+08:00

This move has been crazy and insane in so many ways. I am sure you guys know that without having to wonder what I mean. But sometimes things that happen just make you stop and think "what the heck?"

Like today I was cleaning off the top of B's dresser and gathered the small hand full of coins to put in the bowl of change we keep on top of the fridge. Two coins caught my eye and they weren't Hong Kong money. B has all sorts of currencies from work so this isn't odd at all. So I turned to go back into our room to put them with his work stuff instead. I flipped one of them over to see what country it was from. Ummmmm it was a US quarter. I absolutely did not recognize it, even after seeing George Washington. The mind boggles.

One of the easiest parts about moving here has been making friends. Which is awesome! Usually I have found that to be the hardest part of a move to a new city. Well, here everyone is relatively new. In general it seems like everybody is open to making new friends. Or at least everybody is open to a chat--that is how you learn everything about anything around here. It's mostly word of mouth.

G started school in the middle of April and there happened to be another girl in her class who was starting the very same day too. G and L have become fast friends. And D is currently at the play centre with her brother. Best part--the mom is cool too. So we usually meet somewhere for a play date at least once (or sometimes two or three times) every week. A few weeks ago we were discussing how sad we were that there's no library closer to us and we came up with the idea of swapping our own children's books. Every Monday we trade about 5 books which has worked out so well! The kids love borrowing books from each other. It has turned into kind of a big deal around my house. I'm not sure what we're going to do when we have traded all the books...

We had the good fortune of nice weather for all of these play dates until last week. Rain. So it was awkward... Do I invite them to my house? Will she invite us over to hers? It was like considering asking someone on a date but not knowing if they were interested in you like that. Well she did ask us over! And since then we've had them over on a rainy day too.

It's so funny--the next step will be getting our whole families together over a weekend for dinner at some point. How do you decide what to serve to such an international group of adults AND kids. (She is South African, he is Portuguese and they lived 10 years in the UK). Next I am going to suggest we trade recipes!

2010-06-14T14:23:00.000+08:00

I am excited to start sharing recipes!

Without further adieu, here's the Ranch Dressing. And by the way, I have named it Muchang Dressing because the word "ranch" is "muchang" in Pinyin. And I am perfectly aware that this Chinese word for ranch probably doesn't mean dressing. But I thought it had a good ring to it anyway and my kids like to say "muchang".

Muchang Dressing

1/2 cup Greek yogurt
2 Tbl milk, half&half, heavy cream--whatever (be ready to add a few more Tbl)
2 or 3 Tbl lemon juice
1 (small for me) clove garlic, chopped
2 tsp grated onion (I use the part of the cheese grater with the tiny holes)
1 Tbl minced chives
1 Tbl minced parsley
scant 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne

Throw all of the above into the food processor or blender and whip it up. Give it a taste. Adjust lemon, salt, pepper and add another Tbl or two of milk to thin it if needed. I personally like the dressing to be thick and it's way easier to make it thinner than to try to make it thicker if your initial result is too thin! I used a brand other than Fage to make this and it was a considerably wetter yogurt to begin with so it will depend on your brand too.

Isn't it the most exciting thing--ranch dressing with no mayo, no oil, no eggs and no unpronouncables... I am still not over it.

2010-06-13T16:12:00.001+08:00

B and I both like to cook so we have never been unwilling to spend time in the kitchen. I didn't realize we were so set in our ways. And I really didn't realize how often we cooked/ate Mexican food.

There are no Mexican ingredients to be found over here. No jalapenos, no corn tortillas (or masa so I could make them from scratch), no tomatillos, no Cholula, no sour cream, no Mexican cheeses/queso... Even the selection of tortilla chips is underwhelming (and expensive). My two groceries do sparingly stock canned enchilada sauce or hard taco shells and we can easily find packets of taco seasoning but these ready made foods aren't what I want.

So instead of variations of Mexican two or three times a week like we used to do (enchiladas, fish tacos, or Mexican chicken soup) we have shifted into Asian dishes two or three times a week instead. We may not be able to find Mexican food but of course we can easily find all kinds of Asian ingredients.

I mentioned a while ago that we had not been eating salads because greens are super expensive and we were just getting to know our temperamental refrigerator. Not to mention the measly selection of salad dressings available. We were really starting to miss a daily salad! I was completely addicted to Paul Newman's Sesame Ginger dressing in the USA and am still searching for the recipe for homemade Asian style vinaigrette that will be "the one". But for creamy dressings, Greek yogurt has come to the rescue! I have been using that stuff in so many recipes with great success.

You can find Hidden Valley Ranch here but it's way expensive. And store bought ranch always grosses me out with all the oil and unpronouncables (is that a word?) in the ingredients list. I used to eat lots of ranch dressing until we really started making the move into whole foods and then it was just something I chose to not buy any more. So now I am excited to have (homemade!) ranch back in the fridge.

Kitchen tools/ingredients I never used too much in the USA but could not live without here:
my wok!
and therefore canola and peanut oils (olive oil doesn't fare too well in a super hot wok)
food processor attachment on my immersion blender
meat tenderizer hammer
cornstarch
Fage Greek yogurt
lemons, limes and oranges (turns out when you are making salad dressing and Asian sauces from scratch, some kind of citrus is always in there.)

I'd love to share some simple recipes for sauces that we've tweaked into our personal perfection. All of this stuff is really easy to make and will keep in the fridge for at least a few days. I've found that I mostly had all these ingredients on hand in The States--it's nothing too scary.

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Stir Fry Sauce (compiled from many recipes and further tweaked so I guess it's ours)

1 1/2 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp fresh grated ginger
1 birds eye chili, leave it whole (minus stem) or chop it up for lots of spicy heat
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 Tbl soy sauce
1 Tbl dark brown sugar
1/8 tsp sriracha
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch (dissolved in 1-2 Tbl water)
1 T rice wine vinegar

In a small sauce pan heat the sesame oil and briefly saute the ginger and chili until fragrant. Add the rest of ingredients except cornstarch and rice wine vinegar. Let it come to a boil and then bring it back down to a simmer. Then add cornstarch and vinegar and let it simmer until thick. This will make enough for a meal with 2 huge portions or 4 small portions.

Add this to fried rice, noodle stir fry, whatever.

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Peanut Sauce (again this is compiled from many different recipes)

In a food processor or blender place the following:
1/2 Tbl chili oil
1 1/2 Tbl sesame oil
scant 1 Tbl fish sauce
2 Tbl soy sauce
1 1/2 Tbl rice wine vinegar
juice from two limes, maybe 3 Tbl (have more reserved to add after tasting)
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 inch cube ginger, grated
1 birds eye chili, coarsely chopped

Blend that up until it's smooth and adjust lime. Serve warm or chilled in noodle salad or as satay sauce. Garnish with TONS of thai basil--that is what makes it work so don't leave that out! (Italian basil would be better than no basil at all.) And top with fresh chopped peanuts too.
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Give me some feedback here if you want to see more recipes. I will probably keep them coming whether they are related to what I am writing about or not. I feel like we are coming up with all sorts of stuff that's worthy of being shared. If you try anything let me know what you think!

2010-06-11T20:46:00.000+08:00

The kids and I saw a huge long green snake right outside the door to our building today! I know this place is loaded with snakes but that was the first one we've seen. And it was on the stoop of our building. Gross!

I have spent all 90 minutes of my free time today (while both kids are at school) researching schools. Good grief.

G has been invited to a birthday party next weekend for twin boys in her class. This is very exciting as it will be the first time to see her with many of her class mates and I'm looking forward to meeting some more parents. And I am really curious to see what a 4th birthday party is all about here in HK. This party is to be held in a rented room at the Marina Club. Rented rooms sound like a necessity to me--I can't imagine a real party in my tiny flat. But it will be interesting to see what happens there. Food? Cake? Games? I really need to ask around to find out what the gift giving etiquette is.

2010-06-10T16:09:00.000+08:00

I think I am really starting to get the hang of grocery shopping around here.

The grocery closest to my house is always super crowded and crazy so to avoid having to maneuver a shopping cart through the crowed aisles, I only use a basket when I shop at that store. When the basket gets full/too heavy I know I have to stop. I have to hand carry all of this stuff home so it's a good system to keep me in check so I don't end up with more than I can carry.

If I happen to only need a few things and know I won't be maxing out my volume/weight carrying capacity I have a standard list of things that I always pick up. Milk, sparkling water, fruit... all the staples that we always need.

I go to the grocery almost every single day, at least 5 days a week I think. Especially when B is home. We consume a ton more because we cook bigger and better meals when he's around.

The other grocery store in Discovery Bay is about a 12 minute bus ride away. They have a bigger selection of American brands and it's always calm and quiet in there. I would prefer to shop there exclusively but it's too far from my house. All my cold food is warm by the time I get it home from there.

Speaking of cold food being warm, let's talk for a minute about food safety. It is SO not the same set of rules I am used to in the USA. We always see pallets of food that needs refrigeration sitting outside for a long time waiting to be brought into the grocery. And even inside the grocery it is common to see all the food that should be cold just sitting there waiting to be stocked. And it's hot outside here. I don't like to think too hard about all that.

Recently one of the stores had all these markdowns on organic yogurt. I got so excited! Then I realized that the expiration dates were still pretty far out. (It's common to score awesome deals if you find things close to their expiration dates.) So then I had to wonder why it was discounted... and I am sure it probably sat out too long. But I went ahead and bought it. We ate it and we didn't die...

I have seen stacked trays of steaks sitting out next to the fridge section. Just sitting there. Each tray had probably 10-15 steaks and they were stacked as high as my shoulders. So lots and lots of steaks. With $10usd price tags. How long had they been sitting there? Who knows.

You have to be vigilant. I have to always check expiration dates (today I saw fresh ears of corn with a sell by date of more than a week ago), make sure the packaging was not damaged in transit (like that bag of tortilla chips I once bought that were completely stale because the I presume the bag had a tiny whole somewhere), and give the packaging a shake to make sure the product inside is in good shape (like no crushed pasta/chips or no rotten meat/fruit that isn't visible at first glance).

Most of the produce is shipped in from all over the place. The apples are in a big bin just like you see in the USA at any store. Except each apple is inside a sock like net thingy made of cushiony stretchy styrofoam stuff to protect it in transit. The pints of strawberries often have the same stickers and labels that you'd see in the US. But they're in an abnormal size container. It's bigger than normal because there's a big layer of bubble wrap in the bottom of every single container so they can stack them up and they are less likely to get squished in transit. There's many little oddities like this.

The Chinese do food differently than we Western people do. Like if they want some meat for dinner they head to their street vendor and buy it from the butcher who cuts it off from the whole pig while they watch. They don't do meat from styrofoam plastic wrapped trays. I don't think they get it. They buy their fish live and they see their meat come off the animal. It's not a bad system, right? But it's sure not what I am used to!

And, yes, there is an enormous fish tank with live sea creatures of every variety in my grocery store.

2010-06-09T21:25:00.000+08:00

B made it through his week on reserve and did not get used for a trip. So now he's on his week off. We are enjoying this time with him home and it's amazing all that we can get crossed off the list with both of us around here to take care of things.

I successfully got G registered for ballet! What a relief! She's enrolled for the summer session that begins next month and I was also able to get her enrolled for the session that begins in September and goes through next June so we are all set. Best of all we can walk to the dance studio in about 3 minutes from our house.

I got a letter from the Hong Kong Department of Immigration earlier this week confirming they have received M's visa application and have begun to process it. I have a confirmation number that I can use to check the status on the Hong Kong government website.

The gov.hk website is pretty fantastic. It's similar to what you'd fine at your State government website in the USA but it covers all of Hong Kong. I have been pretty impressed with the information it provides. Parks, libraries, sports grounds, schools and such as well as all the tax, visa, legal stuff you'd expect too.

If you want a crazy read in your free time check this out:
http://www.labour.gov.hk/eng/public/wcp/FDHguide.pdf

That's the handbook for how to employ a domestic helper. It will blow your mind if you are unfamiliar with how all of this works. Keep in mind that there is a HUGE cultural gap between what an American knows and understands versus what the reality is over here. It's oddly fascinating.

2010-06-06T22:00:00.000+08:00

Things I would buy if I could go shopping in the USA right now (in no particular order):

Cholula
Corn tortillas
jalapenos
Natural Instincts haircolor in Roasted Chestnut
Arm and Hammer toothpaste
Reynolds release foil
a cast iron skillet
a new copy of the Fannie Farmer cookbook (mine is now officially in 2 pieces and missing pages)
children's medicine (the stuff here is horrible tasting)
sunscreen with bug repellant (I have no idea what brands even make that in The States...)

Things I wish I had but just haven't had the energy and/or time to make them happen:

an iPhone fully loaded with (lots of hip hop) music
a book club to join
time to read the South China Morning Post newspaper a few times a week (I feel like I am living under a rock most of the time)

Notes:

Starbucks is no good here. Pacific Coffee is way better.

2010-06-05T15:00:00.004+08:00

An update on the Mandarin progress:

G has picked up more Mandarin than I would have thought possible in the 6 or 7 weeks she's been attending her bilingual "Kindergarten" program.

I know I have gone over the schooling before but just to refresh:
The kids start K1 when they are 3/4, K2 at 4/5 and then K/3 (or P1 depending on your school) at 5/6. So G is finishing K1 now and will start K2 in August. D will begin K1 in August.

My kids will be in their bilingual program until they finish K3 so we have 2 more full years of it for G and D will get the complete 3 years. After that I am not sure where they will end up but language exposure for the kids is very important to me and B. Unfortunately we can't financially afford the few schools offering near-immersion programs. It's absolutely outrageous how expensive these schools are!

I am constantly researching school options and there are some promising ones. We may be heading back to the USA by then... who knows. We gave up trying to plan everything a long time ago!

G readily counts to about 20 in Chinese all the time. She is now equally as likely to count things off in Mandarin as she is to count aloud in English. Honestly I feel like she counts aloud in Mandarin more but maybe it's just because that is more exciting for me and I take notice.

She will sometimes say things and ask if she said it right. I hate telling her I'm not sure but I have to tell her that often. We google things and listen to pronunciation if we are near the computer.

She does little worksheets for homework that involve Chinese character recognition. She whizzes through it. I have to secretly check on google later and am always amazed. Sometimes while she works on her homework she will say the words only in Mandarin and the English word never gets said aloud. I find that to be the most amazing thing. I always let her finish and then later ask her "Was that the word for x?" Because I have no idea, all I see is the picture. And she will have to think for a minute ... and then she'll say "No it means y."

For example:
Is it a log? No it's wood.
Is it a rose? No it's a flower.
Is it produce? No it's fruit.

Things like that. But she is so cute when she has to translate. Very cool to see her work it over in her mind.

She also learns songs in Chinese at school. She sings "It's A Small World After All" all the time. We don't sing this at home ever. She doesn't know it in English. That tune is unmistakable so I asked her if it was "It's A Small World" and she never really answered me--she doesn't know it in English, only Chinese. She didn't know the English name. And a funnier one is "Frere Jacques". She already knew that one in English and French--we do sing those at home. And now she knows it in Chinese. Pretty rad.

I would love to get the kids a Mandarin tutor or get them in a small group lesson. D is still too young and G is wait listed. I think in another 6 months, after he has turned 3 and he's going to school hearing it every day that will be more beneficial. I am looking forward to eventually doing that for them.

2010-06-04T22:22:00.001+08:00

We've been here in Hong Kong as a family now for 2 months and a week. I can't decide if time is going fast or slow. Things are going well and that's all that really matters. The kids have adjusted well to school and work is going well for B. By now we've had the chance to meet many (most?) of the other families here with B's company and fortunately they make up a nice solid network of people all looking out for and taking care of each other. It's so Song. And if you know what I mean by that then you know it's a great thing.

For the first time today I felt very at home. Not that I've been uncomfortable or anything, but today I was in the groove and it felt pretty good.

I walked along side the kids as they rode their bikes to The Plaza this morning for some morning fun. The kids knew the way. They knew all the places to stop, all the areas I wanted them to stay away from and it was so nice to not have to direct them constantly or worry about them getting too close to danger zones. (I have mentioned safety features are sometimes completely absent here--how about no barriers or railing at all at the edge of the concrete walkway that drops off about 10 feet into the bay?)

After we'd been at The Plaza for about 5 minutes, G realized that there were a few girls from her class there too. She was SO happy to see them and took off to start playing with them. I knew who 2 of their moms were and had talked to them both briefly once before. So I got to talk with both of them again which was great. One of the moms was born and raised here in Hong Kong but moved to the USA as a young adult and now she's back here. She is great to talk with because she totally gets me as an American but she has (unknowingly) given me lots of insight about local culture as well. The other mom is Vietnamese. I love talking with these people! And I love that our kids are friends even more!

I also started talking with another (Portuguese) mom of a younger toddler and she was asking me where my kids went to school and my thoughts about all of that. She was asking ME for advice?! I told her I was probably unqualified to give advice since I've only been here for 2 months. She told me she'd only been here for 2 weeks so in her eyes I was definitely qualified. Which is funny. I feel so brand new but I actually was able to share some things with her that she seemed to be glad to hear. I think I helped her? I hope I did anyway.

And when I was at the grocery while D was at school I saw a lady with 3 young kids. Twins in a double stroller and an older one. I helped her with her stroller onto the bus and we began talking. Her family has only been here 3 weeks and today was only her second time to go shopping without her husband there to help.

I guess I'm not new anymore?

2010-06-03T19:46:00.001+08:00

We had to visit our bank branch today which is always a good time. I was trying to do some things online and I wasn't allowed to access some of the functions on the website. We realized it was because we hadn't ever given them our HKID numbers. They only had our passport numbers so we didn't appear to be residents of Hong Kong. We had to visit the branch in person to update this.

I have said before that Hong Kong has this technologically advanced reputation but in reality we feel like it's way behind the USA. Our experience today proved this theory true once again.

To be fair, keep in mind that we bank with USAA in The States. There is no branch. Everything is online. You sign everything electronically. I can deposit checks by using an app on my iPhone that takes a photo of the check. It's amazing. So anything will seem archaic compared with what we are used to I guess.

B explained to the girl that we needed to get our HKID numbers into their system and she got to work changing this for us. I felt like I was at an airline ticket counter. She kept typing and typing and typing. The printer started to whir and out printed a 3 page report. She handed it to B and told him to sign in one place on the very last page. He signed. She then stamped every page with two different stamps. Initialed it in a few spots. Got it all official. Then she had to do it all over again to add my information. Seriously? Six printed pages to add this simple personal info to our account? All triple stamped and everything? Where (and why) on earth do they keep all this stuff filed?

We couldn't help but kind of giggle. Well, I was giggling. I think B truly was annoyed. But I had noticed her name. Winnie Poon. And it struck me as funny so I was able to find more amusement in the whole situation. Winnie Pooh. Winnie the Poon. Who picked that English name for her? The only cuter name I can possibly think of would be a spin on Hello Kitty.

When we first signed up for our bank accounts we were told that we had to have the accounts for 3 months before we could apply for a credit card with them. It would be nice to have a local card and it's been long enough so we asked Winnie how we could apply for one. She clickity clicked for a minute and

she said "Hmmmm you no have salary?"
B (was looking at her blankly like "what?")
Winnie "No salary deposit direct to your account?"
B "Oh. Not to this bank, no. My salary goes to a US bank."
Winnie "Ahhh I see. You have to proof salary. You no can have credit card with no proof for salary." And she chuckled at having to state such an obvious fact.
B "Ok. How do I prove salary? How do I apply?"
Winnie "You can print the application from the website and then fill it out. Bring it to the branch with your HKID, your passport, salary statement for 3 months time and any statement from other bank for 3 months time."
B (clearly is not amused but remains silent)
Winnie "All this will proof you can have credit card."

On the other hand, maybe we don't need a local credit card.

2010-06-02T22:30:00.001+08:00

We finally became members at the Resident's Club here in Discovery Bay today. We have been holding off because they don't prorate the monthly fee if you join in the middle of the month. Say what? Yes--if you join in the last week of the month, they still charge you the full monthly fee. No pro-ration.

G's school doesn't prorate either. G started school the 12th of April. We paid the full month of tuition. She began to ride the bus the very last week of April and we still had to pay the full month's amount for the bus fee. That is how I learned of this no pro-ration situation.

B took care of all the school registration while I was not here. I hadn't followed any of it too closely so it never occurred to me that we had paid for the whole month of April. When I got the bill for the bus fee I thought it was incorrect. So I called and she explained they didn't prorate. She told me no one prorates in Hong Kong.

I have no idea if that statement is really true. But so far it seems to be the case. Lesson learned.

How can they get away with that? And why didn't they tell me? I would have held off on the bus for another week. Walking up hill both ways to get her to school was good for me.

Anyway, we are very happy to have access to the club now! It will open up tons of other activities for our family. The pool, of course, is the huge deal! But there's other very nice amenities as well.

M left for The Philippines this evening. I know she was very excited to go home to her family for a few weeks. So now, we wait. Supposedly I will receive some information from The Philippines immigration department in the next week or two to confirm the paperwork is being processed. I have been instructed contact the agency we're using if I have any questions. And M's sister in law is here in Discovery Bay so I can call her too. And I have M's phone number and email so I can reach her. Like I have said before, I will remain skeptical. The whole thing seems too easy and too good to be true.

2010-06-01T22:42:00.001+08:00

Is M going to live with us? This is actually a very good question. And oddly it doesn't have a very straightforward answer.

Technically according to her contract, we have to sign that we are providing her with accommodations including a bed, a chest of drawers and (I am not making this up) access to fresh water for drinking and bathing and (my favorite) sunlight.

Our flat has a "helper's room" adjacent to the kitchen. It is a room that's about 6 feet wide by almost 7 feet deep. It has it's own little bathroom complete with a shower. The bathroom has a window and the room itself has a nice big window. Gotta provide that sunlight, right?

Here in Discovery Bay where we live, most of the apartments do have a helper's room. I would say that of the apartments we saw while we house hunted 4 out of 5 had them. So 80%. Some floor plans have them right off the kitchen and some have them back by the bedrooms.

Currently our helper's room is known as "the garage". It has bikes, the beer fridge, our empty suitcases/luggage, the vacuum and broom, the mop and bucket. Sometimes we hang laundry in there to dry. It's a much needed walk in closet in a house that doesn't have much storage.

I do know a few people who have their helper's room actually occupied by their helper. But more people I know have verbal agreements with their helper allowing them to "live out" regardless of what the contract says.

M's contract says she's living in that room off of our kitchen...

B and I went to tour a school today. We were sort of underwhelmed by it. Which is easier. G could actually start there in August and I was fearing that I'd love it and want to enroll her right away to ensure she gets a spot there for primary. But keeping her where she's at is going to be SO much easier. It's so much closer to our house and D will be starting there in August so they'll ride the bus together and both be closer to home. So that is settled. And I am relieved about it. I think B and I are both relived about it. I'm telling you: the schooling for the kids is the most stressful thing about this whole move.

After we finished the school tour we hopped in a taxi and headed back toward the city and went into a mall by the MTR station to eat lunch. The food court was unlike anything I'd seen. It was about 15 different restaurants. All nameless. Except for the signage that simply said what country's cuisine they served. All Asian countries. And Portuguese thanks to Magellan. (History that I don't know enough to tell you about.) We picked Japanese. I don't know why. I think it was the first one we both agreed on.

After lunch we were ambling through the mall and I saw an Optical store. I have needed new glasses SO badly. Getting new glasses has been on my list since before we even got here. My current glasses could crumble to pieces any minute. They are crooked, the lenses are scratched and they are on their last leg. Have I mentioned I am not a candidate for LASIK and I haven't been able to wear contacts since I was pregnant with D? It sucks!

I've done enough research to pretty much know how it works here. You go in to buy glasses and they give you a free eye exam. They don't have vision insurance like we do in the USA so it's a simpler and cheaper process from what I understood.

I timidly walked in and started perusing frames. A guy came over to help me and thankfully he spoke really good English and was very friendly. So I asked him about the process and if I needed an appointment. He confirmed what I already knew and said I didn't need an appointment. They could give me an exam and have my glasses ready this weekend. Sign me up!

Then I really started looking at frames in earnest. I found two frames I liked and then looked at the prices. This girl right here, the one who unintentionally always picks out the most expensive model of whatever I'm looking at, was so excited to see that both frames I chose were from the cheap rack. $144 per frame. HKD. That's $18usd. For frames to eyeglasses. That's insanely cheap! So I decided to get 2 pairs of glasses today which also scored me a discount on the second pair.

I got an eye exam and two pairs of glasses with upgraded lens coatings for $150usd total out the door. No insurance discussed or taken. Isn't that nuts?

The doctor was quiet and efficient and spoke good English as well. It dawned on me while I was reading eye charts that I wondered what Chinese eye charts are like. Like what characters do they use? I mean if an Asian person who doesn't know our alphabet goes to get an eye exam, what is on the chart they have to read? I almost asked this doctor 5 different times and I just couldn't figure out how to phrase my question so that A) it would be simple enough English and B) he wouldn't think I was the biggest idiot ever. I was more afraid of the latter. I never did ask him.

2010-05-31T16:52:00.001+08:00

Our soon to be new helper, M, has finished her contract of employment with her other employer and will leave Hong Kong to go back to The Philippines later this week. She has to exit the country to await the processing of her new visa. Her new visa will be sponsored by us as her new employer.

So she is working for us this week until she leaves. It's beyond interesting to have someone in my house who is familiarizing herself with every nuance of how we do things. From what's in all the dresser drawers to where we keep the soy sauce. And she's watching to see how I deal with my kids and what I expect from them. My kids were terrible this morning so at least no one is pretending any fake behavior around here.

She has been coming over once a week for a few hours to do general house cleaning for us but has not had the time to really integrate and go beyond the bigger chores of house keeping. I know this sounds so crazy you guys. Believe me I do. But it's just a different life style over here. It's much busier in every way. And the climate requires so much more attention to cleaning than you would ever believe. You can't let things get away from you or you will be dealing with so much laundry that you'll honestly never catch it up. Or mold. Or both.

I know plenty of you understand the culture but for the rest of you I couldn't write enough to single handedly explain it all myself. There's too many information gaps and cultural gaps--even for me.

This is kind of an alternate parallel world over here. B and I dropped the kids off at school today and headed to get a coffee. There was not a single free table available in the whole coffee shop. At 1:40pm on a Monday. We were like "don't these people have jobs?" But then we caught ourselves. If we were out for coffee why can't everyone else be? And they all have helpers at home to make sure the house is in order. Why not go out for coffee?

B went for a mountain bike ride this morning. With 8 other guys. Don't these people have jobs? But pilots don't really count. They spend enough time completely away from home that they deserve to enjoy all their time off.

Around here among the expats it's a very Euro-Californian vibe. People take their leisure time and they take it very seriously. They work hard. They wouldn't have been given the position to be here living abroad if they didn't work hard. But they play hard too. If you move abroad to a busy crazy city like Hong Kong I think you're pre-wired with a sense of adventure.

Whenever I fill out a form there's always a spot for my occupation. With an asterisk so it's not optional--they need to know or else the form isn't complete and won't be accepted. In the USA "they" would never demand to know your ethnicity (--here it's your nationality) or your job. Here you have to fill it out or they won't take the form. I'm American. And I'm a "housewife". And I have a University degree. On every form I must declare this. Library card, grocery saver card, school forms for the kids. Everybody needs to know.

I was involved in a discussion recently with a few other Americans that are fairly new here too. We all agreed that the obvious class separation and frank talk in public places about cultural stereotypes (by non Americans) had made us all squirm. American's are so politically correct! We have all been brought up to think that everyone should be equal. You know, equal rights, equal opportunity. It's so ingrained in how we think. People from other countries don't seem to think that way. And it's really hard for me to wrap my mind around that. I just have to keep my mouth shut sometimes to keep my jaw from hitting the floor.

It's not always comfortable. Always fascinating. But often uncomfortable.

2010-05-30T14:19:00.000+08:00

Yesterday we decided to go to a little village/town called Mui Wo. Pronounced moo ee wo. If you google our location at Discovery Bay, Lantau Island, Hong Kong you will see Mui Wo down to the south of us in the next little bay.

If you were going to take ground transportation it would take half a day to get there. You'd have to take the bus to Tung Chung and from Tung Chung catch another bus or a taxi. I know the bus from here to Tung Chung is a good half hour ride. I bet the bus ride from Tung Chung to Mui Wo takes about an hour. If you factor in wait times it would probably take 2.5 or 3 hours to get there? Hilly, curvy, crazy roads between here and there.

Instead of having to bus it, we are lucky enough to have the option to take the ferry down there. And even better our apartment is very close to the ferry pier so we just have a short walk to get ourselves to the boat. The ferry service is infrequent; it runs every 2-4 hours or so during the day. So when you go, you're sort of stuck there until the next ferry runs back.

You could always hike it. There's a nice hike between here and there. That takes about an hour. I haven't had the chance to do that yet but B has done it and it's a pretty common activity around here. You could hike both ways if you're crazy or you can time it to hike one direction and ride the ferry in the other.

Mui Wo is a little beach town with 2 groceries, several little furniture stores, 2 bicycle shops, a McDonalds and many little restaurants and bars. There's also a market where you can buy touristy beachy things like toys for playing in the sand and flip flops and hats. There's a hotel right on the beach and everything. I sort of reminds me of a Chinese version of Seaside, Oregon. But not as big and not as crowded. And obviously not as American.

As we were walking with our double stroller toward the beach we passed an outdoor bar where there were a few people sitting on plastic chairs at a plastic table having a grand old time. The empty cans of Carlsberg were in a pyramind 6 cans high. It was 11am. And the beer was cheap! $6 hkd a can. That's .75 cents usd. Looked like fun.

The beach is just past the "town". It has really nice facilities. A huge nice play ground. Lifeguards. Lots of shaded picnic tables. A snack shack with cold drinks, ice cream, and snacks for sale. Outdoor showers and public bathrooms that are very clean and even private changing rooms. I was surprised how nice and clean it was. And the beach is very clean and the water isn't too scary either.

Keep in mind that Hong Kong is one of the biggest and busiest shipping and receiving ports in the world. The water is generally pretty polluted. Our beach here at Discovery Bay is pretty to look at but I wouldn't go walking barefoot on it or anything. And I see people swimming here in our beach but I personally wouldn't get in. But that's just my opinion and I don't care much for open water when I can't see the bottom.

Anyway, I can't wait to get back to Mui Wo. And if you come to visit Hong Kong I definitely think it's worth a day trip to go check it out when you need to take a break from the city.

2010-05-29T21:28:00.001+08:00

After our family hike a few days ago I realized I was the only member of my little family who does not own a pair (or 4) of tech pants. You know, outdoorsy pants with spf that dry super fast AND convert into shorts. With the way the bugs like me around here I am thinking that long pants are a necessity.

We were at the mall a few days ago (the same day we got the library cards) and I saw a Columbia Store. Perfect! And I was pleasantly surprised at the prices. I would have been happy to find similar prices in Oregon. I grabbed two sizes to try on. My normal size (I lived in Oregon. That's how I know my normal size in Columbia.) and I grabbed one size smaller thinking maybe just maybe all this walking and sweating in the heat was contributing to extra weight loss.

We forgot our scale when we moved here. I don't want to talk about that.

Anyway I took the pants into the dressing "room" which I swear to you was the size of an airplane lav. But darker. And the mirror was tiny. I tried the smaller ones first. One leg half way in was all it took for me to realize that wasn't going to work out. So I reluctantly grabbed my normal size and put them on. Felt right, looked right. I was especially pleased with the length--it's unusual that stuff is not too long on me. I heard my kids starting to go crazy out in the store with B so I quickly put myself back together and headed to the cashier to buy the pants. I couldn't believe how easy it had been to find them!

I handed the smaller size reject back to the sales girl and I put the ones I wanted on the counter. She starts to ring up the sale and as she scans the tag
she says "These are big size. Small size no fit you?"
me "No, bigger size was better." Thank you so much, Tiny Asian Girl, for pointing this out.
she says "Oooooohhh small size no fit you. Ok ok."
At this point I know that my use of sarcasm will only confuse her so I kept quiet.

When we left the store I asked B if he had heard any of this. He said he did hear it and he knows that she was actually complimenting me because she thought I looked little enough that the smaller size should have fit. B is a smart smart man. I truly hope that's what she meant!

So today I went to put these "big" pants on and, for the first time, really got to look at myself in them. From the front they are totally fine. From the back? Looks like I need to lay off the Haagen Dazs. How can this be? I own like 3 other things in this same size in the same brand. I guess the "big" size in Asia is still not big enough.

There is a total sizing issue over here. B bought a cycling jersey with a local logo on it a while back and needed a XXXL. That's triple X, people. Tri Chi. And I remember he had a very similar conversation with the sales guy when he was trying on these jerseys. I think he started with the XL (in which he compared himself to a Vienna sausage) and the guy then offered to get him a XXL from the back room and when that didn't work the guy was baffled and went back to search and hunt for a triple X. I think he was calling B his "big strong man" or something like that during this whole thing. I only wish I could have been there in person to see all that. I am pretty sure it would have been hilarious.

2010-05-28T21:44:00.000+08:00

First thing is first. Has anyone ever heard the term dust man before??? It's the British way to say trash man or garbage man. The Queen's English can sometimes make me giggle but none of it is truly "foreign" to me. Or so I thought anyway. B said he had heard it before. I have known that they say rubbish instead of garbage. But dust man was a new one.

Turns out garbage is a harsh sounding American word to them. To me it sounds harsh when you use the phrase "tell you off" directed at your 2 year old. So I guess we're even.

I went to get our mail in Kowloon today. We didn't have any. Again. We have been here for 2 months now and we've received one single piece of mail that I know for a fact was sent while we were still in the US. So if you have been considering sending us something, don't send it to the Memphis address. We'll never get it I'm afraid.

When B and I were here alone in HK getting settled in February we stayed in Kowloon. So the area directly around where our hotel was, the area of crazy shopping and the touristy stuff close to the Star Ferry, and now the area by our mail pick up location is pretty familiar to me.

I decided to go a new way today and got totally lost. I know it happened when I exited a building (with a mall in it) thinking I was heading in the correct direction. I still haven't sat down with my best friend Google Maps yet to know exactly what I did. All I know is that I was not going the way I thought I was and I walked for longer than I should have to try to figure it out.

But I saw things that were new and learned things that are good to know so it all worked out fine. I was pretty close to hailing a cab when I realized I had entered into familiar turf. And I was like 10 blocks south of where I wanted to be.

I don't know if I can really wait for this new iPhone to come out. All I kept thinking today was if I had my iPhone I'd know exactly what was up. But I also would have missed out on seeing some of the sights I saw. It's a tough call.

2010-05-27T21:53:00.000+08:00

B and I took the kids to the library today to sign up for library cards. From what I read on the library website and from what I had heard from a few different people it sounded like it would be sort of like a trip to the DMV. We had to bring copies of utility bills to prove our address and passports to confirm the identity of the kids. I had to fill out a full page application for all 4 of us while B wrangled the kids.

The lady checked every line to make sure all the info I provided was correct. She checked every one of our ID's and asked to see proof of address. Apparently they do not abbreviate Avenue around here. She had to correct my address on all four forms and she also added our middle names to each one too. And THEN she had to enter all the info from each sheet separately into the computer. Whatever works.

Since the kids are minors of course I had to fill out the "guarantor" part assuring them I'd pay the fees for my kids and all that. I left the signature line on the kid's forms blank and just signed down by my info as the guarantor.

library lady "This line need signature here."
me "Yes I see. Kids too little to sign."
library lady "Oooohhhh kids no can sign names? Cannot?"
me "Cannot." I nodded.
library lady "Ok is ok is ok. You sign here."
me "Ok." I sign my name on both forms.
library lady checks my signature and pauses... "This your signature? Yes?"
me "Yes." ???
library lady "No. You sign kid name."
me "You want me to sign the kids names?"

And so I did. Whatever works.

We left with our cards and that is all I really wanted! It seems the library here in HK is much the same as in the US. Some libraries have play areas (that you have to make a reservation for to schedule a time slot!), they do story time (but you have to make sure you pick the one for the language you want to hear). It all seems sort of the same. You can reserve and renew online. But I think I caught today that if you reserve something online they charge you a small fee like .35 us cents... And you can only check out 6 items at a time.

I haven't had a chance to even go online to create a log in and play around with it yet. I have been on a hot streak today learning all kinds of things about the public school system. I hadn't ever bothered to look into it too deeply because I understood that most schools weren't appropriate for kids who don't speak Chinese. But today I learned there are a hand full of public schools who teach primarily in English. This could be a great option for us. It would be the most affordable option by far. I feel like I have opened a can of worms though.

We have an appointment to go see a school next week and I am looking forward to it. It's located in a rural village about 40 minutes south of us (which is not far by HK standards--it takes that long only because of the hills. Geographically it's pretty close). Supposedly when you take the taxi there to go for the tour you feel like you are driving through people's yards and the school is not much to look at. But it's right on the beach and the kids spend a ton of time outside and the teachers and curriculum are supposed to be really good. The only hang up is the (lack of) facilities. It should be interesting. I'll report about that next week.

I have a feeling later this summer and into the fall I will be writing lots about school... We apply for primary school for G this fall and I think it will be all consuming. But interesting.

2010-05-26T21:46:00.000+08:00

We took the kids hiking today. G asked where we were going. I told her we were going up the hill. She was like, no, where are we going TO? And I elaborated and told her we weren't really going anywhere, we were just hiking. (The trail did go somewhere but I knew we weren't making it all the way to the destination.) I really don't think she believed me at all when I told her that lots of people enjoy hiking for fun and exercise. She gave me the eyes when I said that. Like she wasn't buying it.

We did have fun though and the kids did great. You have to suit up around here to leave the house. Sunscreen and bug spray. Hats and sunglasses. Long pants to avoid bug bites. The standard mom kit has expanded to include ice/cold water or frozen juice boxes that melt while we're out. Snacks for carb loading. Bug repellant and itch relief medicine... It's always tough to get out the door when you have little kids isn't it?

The bug spray is somewhat of a phenomenon around here. You can just be hanging out chatting with someone having an engaged conversation and without breaking eye contact or missing a beat they can reach into their bag to grab their bug spray and just start applying it. And by using body language alone they ask if you need some or maybe glance around to see if anyone standing around looks interested in getting a squirt before they put it away. And that's that. It's like pulling out the Altoids or applying chapstick (except I suppose you wouldn't offer to share that). Bug spray is a standard addition to everyone's kit, mom or not. They also have "mozzie" patches over here that a lot of the kids wear. It's a sticker that just goes on your clothes. I need to try those. I meant to buy them today actually and writing this right now just reminds me that I forgot. "Mozzie" as in "skeeter" by the way. Those crazy Brits and Aussies with their funny English!

Speaking of bugs, I saw a very pregnant woman today with legs that were as bad as mine were when I got attacked by that swarm of sand fleas last month. I felt so bad for her! I find it difficult to buy and take/apply this medicine here with zero English on the package. I can't imagine how leery I'd be if I was pregnant. I guess it's not like there's zero English. My favorite itch relief medicine has a Romanized name (as in it's not in characters). It's called Mopidick and it says it's "Made in Japan". Other than that it's ALL characters.

I bought new fruits for the kids to try today. A dragon fruit and a package of mangosteens. A dragon fruit is most similar to a kiwi maybe. But it looks like a hot pink pineapple on the outside and the inside is white with tiny black seeds. Mangosteens are sort of textured and flavored like a plum. But they have a much thicker skin almost like a husk. And the fruit is sectioned like an orange. It looked like garlic. Tasted like a plum. There's mangosteen juice available at the grocery which would be the easy way out. Like buying pomegranate juice because a pom tastes so delicious but it's almost (almost!) not worth the effort.

2010-05-25T20:25:00.001+08:00

D got a new pair of trainers yesterday. You know, trainers. I am finally to the point that I am not confused every time I hear this term. Trainers = sneakers. Or tennis shoes if you're from Indiana.

B went to run some errands today. He picked up a new cord/plug assembly for our vacuum that I thought would work over here. It didn't. Luckily though it didn't blow up so it's repairable. The one thing that I said I thought would work that he didn't double check. And I was wrong. Blast! I hate when that happens. It's just one of those hard wood floor small vacuums with the pop out dust buster. He said the cord/plug he bought was $6 usd. It would have cost a heck of a lot more to buy a whole new vacuum over here. And it would have been extra annoying to know we had one sitting in storage. So it's all good.

He (literally) ducked into McDonald's to grab a quick snack while he was out. McDonald's was in the basement of a big building so he had to go down a flight of stairs to get in. On the way back out he said he totally hit his head on the ceiling in the stair well and about knocked himself out because it was so low clearance. And he didn't say it, but I will add that the stairs were probably kid sized. All the stairs are always so small. Even too small for me at times.

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous this week. It has been such a treat!

2010-05-24T20:53:00.000+08:00

What a great day we had today! You gotta love it when you feel like you are on vacation all morning and then send your kids off to school in the afternoon. Today was by far the most gorgeous day I have ever seen in Hong Kong. Blue skies, low humidity, warm sunshine. What a great day. It's too bad that the weather isn't like that very often...

B was supposed to leave us for a trip tomorrow morning but he got confirmation today that he got bumped. Basically that means he gets the week off and still gets paid for the trip. This is a first for him. It's one of those things that you hear about because it happens. To other people. Having it happen to you is kind of like winning the lottery. So we are stoked about that.

He's been working quite a bit. Since he's newly trained and flying a new (to him) airplane over here, he was required to have so many landings and so many hours within a certain amount of time. So he's got all those requirements met as of last week, he got the bump this week and in June he's on reserve and so he may or may not got to work. It's looking good.

I even bought myself a new book today which is a rare treat. I really need to get going on this whole Asia education I want to give myself. I am also considering starting a book club. I searched a bit for an existing one around here today but couldn't find one. There has to be one though. I need to ask around and search in earnest. I have been wanting to join a book club for a long long time.

2010-05-23T13:45:00.000+08:00

I am dragging today! I scored a last minute invitation for a night out last night. There is a play going on in a local little theater running through this weekend. One of the main characters in the play is a coworker of B's. It was a great time and a lot of fun to see this former military dude all decked out in stage makeup singing and dancing. You don't get to see that everyday. This guy is not new to the biz. He was in the real Top Gun when the movie Top Gun was being made. He was one of the pilots who did the actual flying in the movie. He's my neighbor. That's as close to a famous person as I have been in a while.

It's been a few years since I was flying around and seeing famous people like Sisqo, Cool and the Gang and Hulk Hogan on a regular basis. Oh the glamour.

Hong Kong has their own celebrities too. People I have never heard of. Other than Jackie Chan of course. He's the only one I recognize. There is a chain of "world class" fitness centers in Asia called California Fitness--Jackie Chan Sport Club. You should google it just to see some of the print ads. It makes me laugh. But I think mostly I find it funny here in person because of the sheer size of these prints that are in mural form on the buildings.

Speaking of "famous" people, Boy George was here playing a concert last night. B and I are just sick we didn't know this. We totally would have gone. We were talking it and we both agree that if you could draw a person that looks like Hong Kong he would look a lot like Boy George. Maybe from the Karma Chameleon video? I don't know. But I am super bummed we missed that show.

2010-05-22T13:18:00.000+08:00

We have moved a lot. Like every 1-3 years for the past 10 years. When you move a lot you really get the chance to de-clutter often. I have been known to goodwill or throw away many an item that I later wished I had back. On top of this I am completely not sentimental when it comes to Things. I honestly cannot tell you where my leather bound/framed college diploma is. This does actually sometimes bother me but I haven't ever lost sleep over it or anything.

So then, how is it that we were able to still need 2 storage units in Oregon for all the Things we won't need for at least 3 years? One unit has the contents of the garage including a car. The other is climate controlled and has the Things like furniture in it.

I am pretty sure that Americans have too much junk because they have too much space to keep all their junk. (By the way I use the word junk not in the literal sense. It could be interchanged with the word treasure if it makes you feel better.) But I think it's like a goldfish in the fishbowl theory. The fish will get as big as the bowl will let it. And if the fish get happen to get too big for their bowl they can just go ahead and pay rent for a storage unit.

Everything here in Hong Kong is smaller. Our apartment is about 1100 square feet which is big by local standards. We are in an area populated with expats so things are a little different here. For example, M currently works for a Chinese family. That family lives in a 550 square foot apartment on the 23rd floor of a high rise. Can you imagine hanging your laundry out the window on the 23rd floor?! Vertigo!

Compared to any place I have lived in The States, my closets are way smaller. They aren't even real closets. Technically they are wardrobe cabinets and we were thrilled this apartment had them at all! My fridge, oven, washing machine--all smaller. (Fridge and oven are same size as big city/tiny apartment living in the USA but in those situations I never had my own laundry.)

Our "master bedroom" is the size of an average kids bedroom in an average house in the USA. And when we saw it in the midst of our apartment hunting we both thought it was big compared to others we'd seen. Our kids have teeny tiny bedrooms. G's is bigger than D's. D's seriously is taller than it is wide. It's like 8x8 with a 9 foot ceiling. And his wardrobe cabinet takes up space within that 8x8.

I have mentioned in a previous post about food being packaged in smaller quantities so I won't go all through that again...

And don't forget the people are smaller. Everyone is so petite and tiny. When we are on the train, B is a head taller than the crowd and even I feel average/tall. I'm 5'2. And the women carry huge purses. To hold things they buy throughout the day. I don't carry a purse. I don't even own a purse. I need to get one though. Actually I think the bags are normal size but they just look really big on the shoulders of these tiny women.

And G in her class? She looks 2 years older than everyone in there! When we went for the tour and they showed us her classroom we both had to look to double check they were showing us the right grade because the kids looked too little!

2010-05-21T15:15:00.000+08:00

Today is a public holiday in Hong Kong. Buddha's Birthday. That's all I know. No one has suggested any books for me so all I know I learned from a wiki.

M is here today working for me on her holiday. I got a little update on the status of her paperwork and it's all good information. It's all as I thought. So far. I keep waiting for there to be some piece of the puzzle to come falling out of the sky. Something that will delay her arrival when she comes back to begin working for us. Something that will cost us money that we didn't expect. So far, so good. But truly I will be shocked if we make it through to the first week of July and she's back with us without a hitch. We'll see. I just can't imagine that this whole process is so easy. I still don't get it.

My kids wanted to help her clean their rooms. What the heck? They never want to help me clean their rooms! So they are all three currently hard at work singing songs while they clean.

She asked if I would consider getting her a squeegee on an extendable pole so she will be able to "properly wash the large windows" (those were her words). I told her I thought we could arrange that. She also told me she couldn't wait to have the time to really scrub the mold in the grout in my bathroom. *Swoon* I think I'm in love.

Now I hear G counting loud and clear in Mandarin while she plays. Alternated with the chorus from "I'm a Barbie Girl".

I cannot tell you how many times a day I ask myself if all this is for real.

2010-05-20T21:56:00.000+08:00

B made it safely out of Bangkok yesterday. He actually did end up getting "evacuated". Not quite as dramatic as it sounds, I assure you. This trip has worked out well for him! He picked it up for extra work and was supposed to be gone from last Sunday to this Saturday. They altered it though, so he didn't have to go until Tuesday and he'll be home Friday night. Not a bad deal. For him or for me.

G picked out a bag of chocolate wafer cookies from the grocery a few days ago. I normally do not cave into this stuff but she was cute saying she had tried them before (where??) and they were so good. So I said ok. Cheapest cookies in the aisle of treats. Totally local brand called Garden Ltd. They have a factory here in Hong Kong where they make their bread, cookies, crackers, etc and then distribute them. I am all about buying local even though I am learning that's not always the best idea for food around here...

Anyway I didn't intend on even reading the packaging because I didn't want to know. But of course today when I brought them out I couldn't resist taking a peek. Especially after I had one and was surprised that it didn't taste so super sweet in that simultaneously gross and yummy way that store bought cookies tend to taste. Get ready food friends.

First ingredient: whole wheat flour. Wow. Who would have thought I'd see anything other than enriched/modified flour? No hydrogenated oil at all, just palm oil and good old coconut oil. No HFCS. It said "sugar". And it also said "cocoa powder". And about 3 other things that I could pronounce. No sodium benzoate or BHT or any of that crap and I would have bet money in this climate those chemicals would have been present... I was really pleasantly surprised. Not that I want to add chocolate wafer cookies to my weekly shopping list but it's just good to know that I need to branch out and start reading labels on brands I have been totally turning my nose up at since I have been here.

B and I went for Thai food last weekend. You don't get automatically get a side of rice with your order. Isn't that weird?

We bought some new-to-us kind of white fish last week that I can't remember the name of... It looked like Tilapia or Grouper or anything else we've ever eaten. It looked good at the store, smelled fine and all that. It was the grossest, toughest, rubberiest fish we could ever remember eating. What the heck was it? And for those of you who may be thinking that maybe it was overcooked or something, you don't know B. He is a Fish Master. And he comes from a long line of Fish Masters. I was just kind of grossed out and worried about still being hungry. I think he was troubled and completely perplexed as to how he could have not known this fish would be gross.

I needed ground pork for a recipe last week too. I had a choice between imported Australian ground pork for $50hkd a pound ($6.40usd) or local ground pork from China for $16hkd a pound ($2usd). I went with the Australian. The stuff from Australia looked 3 times better so I figured the price was about right. Jeez. I don't want to gross anyone out with talk of meat. I could not imagine walking up and thinking the Chinese stuff was a good idea for my nice dinner for my family that I like. I prefer to think all the restaurants around here are going with the better stuff too. Yeah right. But I'll eat it from them. I am just not going to buy it when I have the choice.

Sour cream is hard to come by over here. I prefer Daisy brand. It has a really short list of ingredients and all of them are things that should be in sour cream. Like cream. No gelatin or guar gum or whatever else Big Food can think of to throw in there. Anyway, anytime I come across sour cream over here, it definitely not the quality I would have bought before. I had been wanting to switch from sour cream to plain Greek yogurt (Fage) anyway but just hadn't done it so I figured now was the time. Holy cow that stuff is good! It is different than sour cream but strangely I like it even better. I have been using it in tons of recipes and am so glad that I knew that was an option. I can find Fage at any store any day of the week. So I never have to worry about not being able to find it.

Speaking of not being able to find things, here's a list of things on my shopping list that I couldn't find just in the past week: chocolate chips, canned black beans, organic eggs, my normal brand of chicken broth, my favorite brand of club soda... I know there's more. Every week there is a list like this but it's always got different things on it. If I was a normal person it would probably drive me crazy.

2010-05-19T15:26:00.000+08:00

I just skyped with B. He's in Bangkok. You know, the city with all the political unrest and all the travel advisories warning everyone not to go there. So I will breathe a sigh of relief when he departs there later this evening. He is not staying near where all the action is happening but he did say he could see fires in the distance from the window of his hotel. Awesome.

So, at the risk of sounding like a complete idiot: I have no idea what is going on in Thailand. Well I mean I googled it and I read all the news articles I found. So I know the basics of what is going on. And people around here discuss it because it's "local" news and a current event. But I guess more importantly I don't know WHY it's going on. Like the whole history of the situation...

This feeling has come up many many times in the few short months I have been trying to get acquainted with Asia. She's so big and mysterious. And so old. It's not an easy thing to figure out where to start to begin learning about her history.

I love history. I like traveling to historical places and seeing sights where things happened. I am particularly interested in World War II, Nazi Germany, British Royal history, American history, local history of the many places I have lived... You know the usual stuff. The things you get a taste for in school. And then you may learn more about them in an elective college course. And then you choose to learn more about when no one is forcing it upon you from a syllabus. Well that is how it happened for me anyway.

There has been no Asian history involved in my education... Which I find odd when I think too hard about it. I have desperately tried to recall what I learned about Asian history or culture in school and I can't come up with anything. I have asked my American friends and it seems I am not alone. I don't think we were taught much about Asia.

Someone told me a story about someone here in Hong Kong having some paperwork drawn up by their attorney in The States. The story went that the this work was completed and paid for and shipped over here. And when it came time to present this paperwork for whatever reason they had it drafted, it was pointed out to them by the receiving party that it said "Hong Kong, Japan". Whoops.

We have had countless people make the mistake that Hong Kong is a part of Japan. It's actually a part of China. It's a Special Administrative Region of China so it's not governed under the same Communist laws as Mainland China. There's a free market in Hong Kong. Even with my Hong Kong ID card I still can't go to China without heading to the consulate and applying for a visa. And even if I get a visa it's not unlimited entry. They run a tight ship! I am so not qualified to give a history or a beaurocracy lesson! Google it if you like, it's actually very interesting.

When we first came over here in February we were working with a local realtor to find an apartment. We were placed with a young girl in her early twenties. Born and raised here in Hong Kong. She speaks Cantonese at home, pretty good English at work, and she knows zero Mandarin. I can't even remember how I started asking questions but I came to learn that her father was born in Macau (had I ever even heard of Macau before coming here??) but came here during the war (what war??) and on and on it went. She would share information that implied I knew a little bit about the history of Hong Kong or of Mainland China. But when I would tell her about life and culture in the USA she seemed to have a really good grasp on what I was talking about.

Things that make you go "hmmmmm."

If anyone can recommend a good introductory book on Hong Kong or Chinese history, I am taking suggestions.

2010-05-18T15:56:00.002+08:00

Sorry I've missed a few days! Kids have been sickly and on top of that we were super busy attempting to get ourselves more settled in while B was home last week/weekend.

Our Ikea furniture purchases will get delivered tomorrow. And the boxes will sit in a pile until B gets home this weekend to assemble all of it. Partly because we are too cheap to pay for their assembly service and mostly because we are too perfectionist and don't trust anyone else to put together our crap furniture.

We are still not over the lack of instant gratification around here. In the USA it's all buy now- pay later, same day delivery, put in in the bed of your truck and take it home. Here, nothing is instant unless you physically carry it yourself or it will fit in the taxi with you. But even taxis charge extra to haul your junk along with you. On the interior part of the door in the taxis, the rate schedule that's posted goes so far as to declare the fare amount to carry a pet bird or fish.

Anyway, it was a major bummer to go on a big shopping trip for pieces of furniture we truly need and head home completely empty handed knowing the stuff won't be in use for a whole week. But I am so glad we took care of it and found stuff we like. Mostly. I mean as much as anyone can "like" anything from Ikea.

Even the grocery delivery gets me. So convenient! So wonderful that they do it for free but you come home without all your pantry items. So you get home all grocery stored out and put away your produce and perishables and then a whole 24 hours later during the vague delivery window you get invaded by the stinky guy who is working so hard for his money in this heat.

Cardboard boxes are dropped inside the front door all taped up. You have to get the scissors out to open the boxes and then put away all this stuff. And then you are looking at all this cardboard box trash. It's crazy to me. The waste. The vague delivery scheduling. (But remember, everyone has a helper to receive the delivery and put the stuff away for them. So no one thinks it's weird or inconvenient unless of course like me they don't have a helper. Yet.)

Even trying to get the kids enrolled in classes around here is different. In the USA we ALWAYS signed up for stuff online. Swim lessons, classes through the parks department or whatever. Here the schedule posted on any given website is not even for the current season. There is no way to enroll online at all. And I swear maybe I have bad luck but there seems to be a waiting list for EVERYTHING. G is on a wait list for ballet and for a Mandarin Chinese play group class. And for both I have repeatedly stopped in to these places to check her status or phoned to see if she has been placed yet.

I just want to log in, send the form, get confirmation and show up on the first day. Is this so weird? I would like to remain anonymous and be a number. I was a number in college and I was a number at my airline job. And I am ok with that. I like to maintain a bit of mystery. And really I just love the internet and the magic it can do. But it's not magic here on the internet. B and I agree that the functionality of websites and the internet are way behind US standards. You would think with the language barriers it would be easier for everyone to communicate electronically. But no. The phone. My arch nemesis.

I haven't even attempted swim lessons registration yet. You actually have to take the kids in for a swimming assessment so that they can be placed in (or wait listed for) the correct class. It totally makes sense. Everyone is coming from different places so everyone would have different swim lesson experience... G has taken seasons and seasons of swim lessons but I still think she would go in the beginners category for her age group: one of the descriptions for a 4 year old class talks about stroke swimming for 5 meters. I have never seen her do close to that. But apparently there are 4 year olds than can? Anyway, that whole thing is going to have to wait!

Check this video out:
http://www.timessquare.com.hk/timessquareataglance/
It gives a great time lapse day in the life of the city and I really like watching it.

2010-05-15T20:03:00.002+08:00

Today we headed into the city and took the kids on one of those cheesy double decker bus tours of Central, Hong Kong Island. Those bus tours are a thing for me--one of my regrets in life is not taking advantage of doing stuff like that more often on my layovers when I was flying the friendly skies. Today I figured it would be a really easy way to cover a lot of area above ground (versus the mtr which is all underground within the city) with the kids. The kids liked it and it wasn't too sunny or hot so it was a good day for it.

I learned how to pronounce the word Bauhinia today. And you just never know when that may come in handy.

We treated the kids to McDonald's in Times Square (yes there's one of those here too.) It was packed! We shared a table with a young 20ish girl and then when she left an older couple sat down to share with us. The woman spoke pretty good English and seemed to be intermittently translating our conversation back to her husband. But he was wearing a hat that said "New York City" so really they were probably talking about us. But they were sweet.

Table sharing is just part of the culture over here. You just ask if you may sit or if the seat is taken and viola, you're sharing a table. You don't usually interact with the people at all. Places are crowded so it's done out of necessity. At Starbucks recently I actually shared a love seat with a stranger. Would that ever happen in the USA? I just can't see that happening...

Tomorrow B and I have a sitter scheduled to watch the kids in the afternoon so we can go pick out a computer desk and a shoe cabinet. Probably from Ikea. We have been living with the computer on the dining table and shoes all piled up by the door. I don't have to explain why the computer on the dining table is wrong on so many levels. But I will say that shoe cabinets are a complete necessity here. There is no such thing as an entry closet and the bedroom closets are wardrobe cabinets. No place for shoes in there... I have had people ask me "Have you joined the club(pool) yet?" and answering with "Gosh we don't even have a shoe cabinet yet!" actually works as an answer for that question.

2010-05-14T16:21:00.000+08:00

G missed her first day of school ever today. She was up with a low grade fever last night and she's just kind of been lethargic. So we are hoping she doesn't get worse. At least I feel comfortable knowing where the doctor is now and how all that works. Except today is, of course, Friday. Nothing like having a sick kid over the weekend--no matter where you live.

D had his first good day at school today. The teacher gave me the two thumbs up when she sent him out the door to me and it made my day. He was so excited and proud of himself. He said "I talked at school Mommy. I only cried for two minutes." Good for him.

Yesterday we learned that there is an audio button on the remote control that changes the language on the Disney Channel. ! How awesome is that? So we can choose between Cantonese, English or Mandarin. We were very excited when we figured out that we could get in in English. And then after 5 minutes we got really bored with it. It turns out the G and D (especially G) want to hear it in Chinese. We agreed we'd listen to Mandarin since that's what she is learning at school. I would say it's 80% Mandarin and 20% English. It's like watching Dora in English with a little Spanish, except it's Mandarin with a little English. So it's really good for her. And it is so funny for me to catch myself throughout the day singing different Playhouse Disney theme songs in "Chinese". I have no idea what I am saying at all. And it's totally a reflex thing. It makes me laugh at myself.

A month ago when we first got here and first had this Chinese speaking Disney Channel, we honestly didn't know if it was Cantonese or Mandarin. Could not tell. And some of the shows are subtitled. Canto subtitled in Mandarin and Mandarin subtitled in Canto. Neither B nor I could hear the difference or see the difference between the characters. Now we are starting to get it. We are both now able to see and hear the differences.

We had a deep thoughts conversation about how an Asian person (with no prior exposure) hears and sees Western/Romanized languages. Like is the difference between Japanese and Chinese the equivalent to English and Russian or Spanish and Finnish? And is the difference between Canto and Mandarin more similar, and equivalent to, say, the slighter differences between Dutch and German or Spanish and Italian?

We don't even have to be drinking to come up with this stuff.

2010-05-12T16:19:00.000+08:00

I paid way too much money for a package of Oscar Mayer wieners today. Desperate times call for desperate measures. My kids need protein.

B headed out for the day to go run some errands and attend a work meeting. I ran into someone earlier and they asked if he was home. I answered "yes, he's in town this week but he's in Kowloon today for a work meeting". That's when the oddity of that sentence really hit me. Who has a work meeting in Kowloon? And it's at a bar but I was told (by him) that it's irrelevant.

Best news of the day? He was successful in getting the broken/dead iPhone repaired! I cannot tell you how much I miss my blasted iPhone. I didn't realize I had become so dependent on that thing. I am so thankful someone here had an extra phone laying around that we have been able to borrow. But seriously, T9 texting is so 2005.

Phone numbers over here have 8 digits. There's no area code like in the USA. Why does that one extra digit throw me off SO much? I can't remember anyone's number at all. I can't even remember my own.

It is a gorgeous day here today. Warm and sunny. The mountains look extra green and the water looks extra blue. Hong Kong is really a very beautiful place. It is so loud and bright and in- your-face that sometimes it's hard for me to relax enough to see that beauty. I am beginning to adjust though. To be able to just take it all in stride for all the craziness that it is without having to think about it or remind myself to chill out first.

Yesterday when I was shopping at the street markets in Wan Chai, there was a woman taking a nap with her head down on a pile of some of the clothes she was trying to sell. Just catching a rest and knowing that if somebody wanted to buy they'd wake her up. Hong Kong is safe--she didn't need to be worried about anybody stealing her stuff. The only reason it struck me at all that she was sleeping was because of all that was going on around her. People shouting greetings at shoppers passing by, a jack hammer doing intermittent work across the street, the smell of rotten meat/trash wafting by from who knows where, metal push carts being dragged along the street which is way louder than what you might think... It was total craziness all around. I cannot imagine being able to fall asleep in the middle of all that.

2010-05-11T21:35:00.001+08:00

I am official! Picked up my Hong Kong ID today at Immigration. I didn't even have to wait in line. On the way out of the building I had a guy with a clipboard stop me to ask if I was a Permanent Resident. (They are all about interviewing and surveying us non Asians around here.) He totally killed my mojo because I was stoked to have a shiny new card to prove I was any kind of resident. It takes 7 years to achieve "Permanent Resident" status. I am not even sure what that means or what it does for you though...

I started my morning off with a cooking class. There are tons of places to go to cooking classes around here. I eased in today with a cheap one (it cost about $10 usd for a 2 hour class) that was just a watch and see class. I didn't actually cook anything. It was just a small classroom with stadium seating where we watched the teacher prepare the dishes and then we got to taste a sample of the recipes he prepared.

Today's topic was Vietnamese food. We learned two recipes. Lemongrass pork chops and shrimp on a sugar cane stick. I came home and made the pork chops tonight and B liked them. The kids? Not so much... as I expected. At least they both actually tried it. And really I think G even liked it but she can't tell us that! Heaven forbid she like something that's not pasta or a chicken nuggets. Ugh.

I am really looking forward to getting into these cooking classes once we get a bit more settled and I can shop around and see where I feel the most comfortable to dive into the actual hands on cooking classes. There are a group of girls over here that go pretty regularly and there are classes at the place we went to today every day of the week. I went with two girls today. I am really excited about the whole thing!

After the class we stopped into the nearby market to shop for some of the ingredients. I actually bought a bundle of sugar cane. That was a first. The people at this market spoke very little English but they were so friendly and wanted to interact so it's wasn't a big deal. Lots of finger counting to discuss prices and lots of smiles. We even had a local woman who happened to be standing there offer to help us translate. We thanked her kindly but said we thought we were doing ok. It was fun. I put my pointer finger on a bundle of sugar cane and asked "how much?" The woman said "sixteen" ($2 usd). We had seen bundles at a different stall that didn't look quite as fresh and were told they were $28 ($3.50 usd). So I nodded and initiated the transaction to buy them and I got out $16 in change and held it out to her. She picked and pecked at the money in my hand and took $6 hkd (.75 cents us). Not 16. Dang! I hate when I misunderstand but my friends were standing there too--we all heard 16. So we laughed later--what had the woman actually said when we thought she said $28 at the other stall?

We had a little lunch at an Indian restaurant and then hit the street markets in Wan Chai. I had not been marketing in Wan Chai before. It was impressive just like it is everywhere else around here. There were some pretty good toy vendors and toy shops around there so that was good to find out. And we had the pleasure of seeing an entire not yet butchered whole dead pig on the floor in a meat vendor/butcher shop. Wow. No words can describe that one. And one of the girls I was with mentioned that she and her husband had been witness to the beheading of tons of live chickens on that very block earlier this year. At least we know it's fresh. Right?

B went to the park with the kids this morning and then took them to McDonald's for lunch. He said that during lunch there was a song playing over the speakers and all of the sudden G shot to attention and asked if he heard the song. The singers were singing "wo ai ni" which means I love you in Mandarin. She heard the song in Chinese and understood it. So cool. B said she seemed pretty proud of herself. And she should! It's awesome!

2010-05-10T20:09:00.000+08:00

The Wing On department store by our house received a huge shipment of dehumidifiers today. We have been in the market for another one of those since we've been here. For a while, it was peak season and everywhere we went to find them they were sold out.

We just happened to be walking by today while they were stocking and so we picked one up. Woohoo. One dehumidifier was totally not enough to keep up with our 1100 square feet in this apartment. Or flat. Or whatever you want to call it.

With an additional dehumidifier, now we'll be able to start hang drying some clothes which will speed up our laundry. This thrills me way more than it should. B thinks we could even use a third one. Doesn't that just blow your mind? Three dehumidifiers in 1100 square feet?

I thought I had a good idea about the humidity and what to expect. We lived in Florida for 3 years. I have lived in NYC in the summer with no air conditioning for goodness sake. I went to Catholic School in the midwest. But I was wrong. It is completely something else. If Phoenix feels like walking through an oven, then this is like living inside an aquatic center. No. Inside the locker room of an aquatic center because it kind of smells moldy.

Every morning when I throw open my curtains and shout "Good morning, World!" (OK I don't really do that. Only B does.) ...but every morning my first thought is always "Oh wow it rained last night." Ummm I am finally wrapping my mind around the idea that it doesn't really rain every night. It's just that morning dew is more like morning drenched.

I met a group of girls for coffee a week or two ago. Most of the people there that day have been in Hong Kong for a while. Just me and one other girl were so new. So they were offering advice about all kinds of random things. Then the topic turned to beauty regimens and everyone began talking about how your skin and hair just change when you live in this climate. And that the products you have sworn by for years suddenly don't really work for you anymore. Great.

B is home all week so we are each taking a day for ourselves. I get tomorrow. I have to stop by Immigration to pick up my Hong Kong ID card so I will be super official now. My picture is so hilarious on it. The lady made me take of my glasses for it and I am completely blind with out them so when she asked if the picture was ok I just said yes. And then I put my glasses back on and was like oh wow that is really a funny picture. It's not bad per se... it just really doesn't look much like me. B did a double take when I showed him the paper copy photo on my temporary id. He was like "whoa that really doesn't look like you at all." Hilarious. I will have to post it to facebook. Why can't I wear contacts or be a Lasik candidate like a normal person?

And I am super excited because tomorrow I am attending my first cooking class in Hong Kong. The topic is Vietnamese cuisine. I can't wait to learn about Pho. Pho sho.

2010-05-09T15:48:00.001+08:00

B participated in his first race event here in HK today. It was an "adventure" race. He said he didn't fully understand what all was involved... but that it was a fun time none the less. He survived. No broken ankles and he didn't poke an eye out. They ran on the beach, swam across a reservoir (our own drinking water supply no less), did some trail running and even some climbing.

The guys over here that work with B are all into being active. Lots of mountain biking, rowing, running and all kinds of healthy crap going on. Thankfully the women just enjoy meeting for coffee or lunch and perhaps some shopping. I heard someone was hosting a movie afternoon at their house to watch a chick flick while the kids were in school last week. Since it was D's first week of school and I was supposed to hang out there with him I had to pass. It is extremely social here. Always something going on which is really fun and also exhausting at the same time.

B took the kids to the grocery to pick up some stuff to make me a Mother's Day dinner. He said I was welcome to go out and eat by myself if I wanted. Which may sound weird but he knows me well--that's a very nice offer for me. I love to have alone time and never get it anymore. But I can't refuse a dinner prepared by him and the kids. I hope they make me a cake. I deserve it.

2010-05-07T23:35:00.000+08:00

So I have been holding out on all of you. There is a huge piece of the puzzle I haven't yet shared. At first I wasn't sure if I was going to discuss this part of our lives here in Hong Kong at all but I have been poked and prodded by my few friends who know into sharing.

Also B thinks I should lay it all out there. He says that when this blog is turned into a screen play and becomes a major motion picture (in which I would be played by Sandy Bullock and he would be played by Tom Brady), Oprah is going to totally call me out just like she did with that guy who wrote A Million Little Pieces.

So here goes.

We are in the process of hiring a full time domestic helper. Aka: housekeeper, nanny, cook, my new BFF. Not because we think we need one mind you. But because it is just what you do here. I am not even kidding.

We have known that having a "helper" is commonplace over here for a long time. It had no bearing on us deciding to take this move here to HK. In fact, we were kind of creeped out by the idea and we (especially B!) were adamant we were not going to indulge in this bit of the culture. It seemed weird. And it seemed like the helpers were being exploited coming here to HK to live away from their home countries and their families to work for low wages. It did not sound ok at all. And we didn't want to partake.

I cannot begin to write about how we have come to better understand the culture and come to accept that it's a win win situation for both us and our helper. I am not a good enough writer and I don't think it matters anyway. Unless you are here living it, it really will make no sense at all.

I am new enough over here that I can still see it from the other side. From the viewpoint that A) I couldn't afford help like a regular nanny or a cleaning lady in the USA. And B) I'm a stay at home mom. The least I can do to contribute to the household is clean it! So I understand that this whole thing may not sit very well with some people reading this. As if our sea view isn't enough, right? I know. ...By this point I am so excited about it that I am over feeling guilty. But I assure you, I did feel guilty for a few minutes when it was officially decided we'd do it.

So now what should I tell you? I should tell you that most domestic helpers here in Hong Kong are from the Philippines or Indonesia. From what I understand, in their culture, it is an admirable thing to do to come and be a helper. It's a great paying job for them and they get to send all the money home to their family. If a helper has her own children, they are raised by their grandparents. I understand that it's a common situation for families that have done this for generations--the kids are always raised by their grandparents while their mom goes and works elsewhere as a domestic helper. Their dad has a day job too of course... So then the helper currently working will go on to raise her grandchildren when the time comes. Crazy huh?

We were put in contact with the girl we are hiring by a word of mouth recommendation from another family that's here from B's work. Their helper's sister in law was here and looking for a new family. So we contacted her and she began to come on her off days or whenever she had time which has been once or twice a week since we've been here.

This trial time gives her a chance to hang with the kids to see if the kids like her (they LOVE her, especially D) and to see how I like her too. And it also gives us the opportunity to view her work habits and talk with her about what kind of food she can cook and what she is willing to do for us.

B just finally met her when he was home last week and gave me the go ahead. I mean really I had already decided but I had to give him the chance to at least meet her! In the process of hiring helpers, the husbands don't matter so much. It's all pretty much in the hands of the wife. Me. I will be her employer. Even though I don't even have a job/income. But I am married to the guy with the job/income... so it's ok. Again: weird. But whatever. So, since I found I can hire people, next on my list will be a masseuse. Don't tell B.

Our helper's name is M. She's Filipina, almost 28 years old, married and has an 8 year old daughter. She has a degree in hotel/tourism/restaurant management and worked in that industry in The Philippines before deciding to come make the big bucks as a domestic helper here in Hong Kong.

So it goes something like this: her current contract of employment ends at the end of May. Her current employer sponsors her current visa so by law she has to go back home to The Philippines to (enjoy vacation with her family!! and) await the approval and issue of her new visa which will be sponsored by us. Me. (You don't need a visa to visit HK, but you do need one to work or study here.) The papers have been submitted and should be filed with Immigration next week. It takes about 7 weeks. So by the end of June or the beginning of July, M should be back here in Hong Kong working for us.

When she left my house on Tuesday she said that she was so excited to begin working for me. She told me she has it all in her mind how she will do everything in the house and take care of it all so I can relax. Insanity.

2010-05-06T20:46:00.000+08:00

I'm so in love with my new wok. It totally has made it to the list of my most prized possessions. I have had a cast iron for a long time and always felt like I never knew how to use it. Or clean it. This new wok is the real deal. If you ever make it over here to HK, set aside $8 and bring an empty suitcase. Everybody should have one of these. I guess you'd need a ring/stand for it too. My stove in my apartment actually has a wok burner with a built in stand. Which is pretty cool unless you aren't cooking with a wok. Then its just in the way... but I think I am going to try scrambled eggs in it tomorrow because I love it so much. It just looks cool. I don't want to put it away.

G made me a craft at school today for Mother's Day. It's hilarious, of course. It has her picture on it and things glued to it. Standard Pre-K craft. There are two poems pasted to it, one in English and one in Mandarin. The Mandarin one is written in Chinese characters and also in Pinyin which is phonetic (Romanized) Mandarin. She kills me when she pronounces this stuff! I asked her to read it (recite it) for me and she did and then I asked her what it meant and she knew. Super cool. So now we know how to say I love you in Chinese. Wo ai ni. She gets so proud of herself. It really is neat.

Since the kids don't have school tomorrow I need to figure out what to do with them. The weather has been icky. So I'm thinking about maybe taking them to a movie... This week is going really fast and easy. And B will be home in 36 hours. Perfect!

2010-05-06T12:33:00.002+08:00

Finally made it into the doctor's office today to pick up the insect repellant. It IS a very nice doctor's office and the pharmacy is right in there too. How convenient! Hopefully I will be able to wear shorts or dresses or anything other than pants here pretty soon.

On the walk over there we passed by a group of about 20 people doing tai chi in a big open area. My kids both stopped dead in their tracks to watch. I was explaining to them the little that I know about tai chi and pointing out the instructor/leader and just letting them take it all in. I asked G if she thought they looked graceful and beautiful kind of like ballerinas. She responded by asking if I saw the lady in the Hello Kitty yoga pants. How could I miss her? She was no younger than 55 years old. Petite Asian woman with hot pink, black and white huge pattern print of Hello Kitty faces covering her pants. And a matching black t shirt with a rhinestone outline of Hello Kitty's head. It was pretty amazing.

I saw a flight attendant in uniform walking toward the bus terminal today. It really made me want to go back to flying. I should know better. It's a feeling I get sometimes when I see airplanes in the sky or when B talks about certain things about his trips. I really miss flying sometimes. But like I said: my head knows better, it's my heart that tends to forget. The five year leave I took when G was born will be over in another year from now. I don't have room in my brain to think about that quite yet. But seeing that girl today brought it to the surface. Laugh if you will but being a stay at home mom is by far the hardest "job" I have ever had. I think because I care more about it than any other job I have had so I know I work harder at it. Going back to flying sounds literally like a vacation. But the commute from Hong Kong sounds like a nightmare...

2010-05-05T22:04:00.000+08:00

D didn't do that great at school today... It wasn't horrible but it just wasn't that good either. The kids are off school Friday for Mother's Day. I find this to be a cruel and ironic joke. So his next day will be Monday. Hoping it goes a bit more smoothly.

I keep hearing people talk about Hep A vaccines. Word on the street is that it's a smart thing to have in Asia. I wonder if I have this. Or if B has it... he probably needs it more than I with all the travel he's doing. We specifically asked the pediatrician if we or the kids needed anything and got a "hmmm I'll look into that." And it sounds like that's the answer most people were given when they thought to ask in the USA. But then you get here and you learn answers to all your questions that just can't be answered from over there.

We had been told our insurance coverage was outstanding here (that's one of the reasons that helped reassure us that this was a good move to make) but I really didn't know what to expect as far as where we'd go to the doc or what it would be like. Turns out that, just like most everything, the doctor's office is a 5 minutes walk from my house. I haven't heard a bad thing about them yet. From the office staff to the few doctors in there, the office has a great reputation. What a relief! So I guess I need to research this a bit more and call our moms to see if they know if we have this.

At McDonalds here, you don't throw away your own trash. My kids are so well trained that they FIGHT over who gets to clear the trash. And there aren't even trash cans in there! It's the weirdest thing. Last time we were there someone came to clear the tray the second we were finished. My coke zero wasn't even empty. These people are not joking around. Their work ethic is a major source of their personal pride. (What a novel idea.)

I should tell you more about McD's over here. It is more upscale or something. Most of the locations also have a McCafe inside which is no less than a Starbucks by the way it looks. If you get a coffee drink (not to go) they serve it to you at your table in a big porcelain mug. Pastries, sandwiches, sparkling water... And it's inside the McDonalds. I have not had a coffee from there to tell you if it's any good. I am admittedly too picky when it comes to coffee anyway so my review would be kind of pointless.

At the McDonalds counter the cashiers all speak pretty good English. They will raise a hand (like they want you to join them in song in church) to let you know when it's your turn. If they have a question due to the language barrier they whip out a laminated menu that you can point at to figure it out together. They always point to the total amount on the screen as they say it so there's no misunderstanding.

You can get corn as a side dish with a Happy Meal. It looks like drained canned corn just dumped into a sundae cup with a lid on it. Just in case you want a side of corn with your corn. I can't resist the reference to Omnivore's Dilemma thrown in there.

You can also get McWings. I wish I could think of what else that is odd on the menu. I know there's more... Everything looks the same but the taste is ever so slightly different. Different frying oil perhaps? I don't know. And the chicken nuggets have a higher percentage of dark meat parts than they do in the USA.

Some of my fellow food people may wonder how often we take the kids to McDonalds. Once a week. Shame shame I know my own name. But I feel better now that that's out there in the open.

2010-05-04T22:28:00.001+08:00

We met some friends at the park today for a play date. G's new friend started school here the very same day she did and they became instant BFFs. And as luck would have it her little brother is in D's class at the play centre and will be in his preschool class this fall. The girls and the boys get along so well! And the best part? The mom is pretty cool too. I told her last week that G was cracking me up with her new British accent and we laughed. Today she told me that her daughter has started sounding very American on some of her words and now she knows what I mean about it being pretty funny. It's such a relief and a wonderful thing to have nice people to hang out with. I am very grateful we connected with them so early on.

On the way home the kids and I got on the wrong bus. Whoops. I caught it quickly. The worst part was wasting the money on the wrong bus fare. It was a good lesson for the kids to see that it's really easy to get complacent and make mistakes. But that it's no big deal, you just have to keep aware of your surroundings. They actually thought it was kind of funny/silly that we got on the wrong bus.

This afternoon I snuck my Costco size bag of Starbucks coffee (from our shipment) into the grocery store to steal the use of the grinder in the store. No one said a word. And it's not like you can truly hide a Costco size bag of coffee, you know. So I guess we can put off buying a grinder for a few more weeks.

It's starting to get hotter by the day around here. Due to the vampire bugs thinking I am delicious I am kind of stuck wearing pants. My legs are healing--they don't itch anymore, but they are still a hot mess. I have been told the best bug repellent is sold at the doctors office in the plaza. I guess they just sell it over the counter. Picking some of that up is on my list of things to do tomorrow. And I am considering dermabrasion for the welts on my calves.

After G got home from school the kids rode their bikes to the plaza. Talk about an after school party! I sat down on the steps and set my bag and our water down and hoped no one would get hurt. Another mom had some bubbles and the kids were running and going crazy chasing them so I went over to tell my kids to get off the bikes so that they didn't kill anyone. In the meantime I saw a kid with a uniform shirt on from a school we are very interested in sending our kids to for primary. I deduced who his mom was and went to talk with her about the school. She had great things to say about the school which made my day. And it was interesting to talk with her because she was Czech and she was telling me that her son really likes the school and is doing ok but the language is a big issue because he is still working at English and not yet fluent so it makes school harder for him. The kid is 5. So impressive that he's doing it at all!

While I was talking with her I realized I couldn't find D in the crowd. I could see G, but not D... Where was he? As soon as I could politely excuse myself from talking with her I set out to find my baby. I found him sitting on the step by my bag and our water crying quietly. Until he saw me. And then he freaked out and began to cry in earnest. Poor kid. But I was so proud of him for staying put and waiting by my stuff. What a smart cookie. I guess maybe my kids do listen to what I tell them.

Today was about as close to a routine as I have come with the kids. I hope it continues to improve. We have been here for an entire month now. I expected a little craziness with the jet lag but did not expect to be unable to reestablish a daily routine. Slowly but surely we will get there. And we officially found out that the kids will be in the afternoon session of school in the fall so at least we won't have to change it all again once school starts back up!

2010-05-03T21:30:00.000+08:00

I know I have told you that we don't have any outlets in the bathrooms but I think I failed to mention that, just as inconvenient, there are very few outlets in the whole house. We have two in our room. The kids each have only one in their rooms. The living and dining room (which is one long narrow room) has 3, and my kitchen is a galley/hallway style and it has one on each side.

And these are not double plug outlets like in the USA. I am talking ONE socket. Single plug. Doesn't that just make it a hundred times worse to hear that?

So I went to a mall yesterday to pick up some power strips at a store called Fortress which is similar to Best Buy. B took some pity on me and kicked me out of the house for some alone time since I have been spending so much time solo with the kids.

This weekend was a holiday over here. Don't ask me what. I have no idea. I do know in two weeks my kids have a 5 day weekend in honor of Buddha's birthday but that has nothing to do with this story. For those of you who have been following my adventures since the beginning you may remember that we were over here in February during Chinese New Year which is the mother of all Chinese holidays.

Places get SO crowded. The mall was packed. Every (authentic) restaurant had a line of people waiting to go in and eat dim sum. Even Pizza Hut was packed. Pizza Hut over here is truly a fine dining establishment by the way. Glass wine goblets and cloth linens. B says the one in Guangzhou is like a Denny's/Cheesecake Factory but with all kinds of Asian food. Thai, Pho, Chinese, Indian... and pizza. Weird.

So the mall was loud and crowded just as I expected it to be. And really I was one of very few non-Asians around. I don't get looked at though. My hair is too dark and I'm petite enough that I blend in at a glance. I know my tall/blond friends sometimes feel like they get stared at. Not me, thank god.

And everyone speaks English. And I swear they get such a kick out of speaking English to me. Either they get a kick out of it or it makes them really nervous if they think their English is bad. SO different than Europe. Completely opposite. The funny thing is that even when someone's English isn't great it's still fully usable. I know zero Chinese. I am just awed all these people know English. It's amazing.

It's not like anyone is fully fluent and conversational in English though. You can't chat or have too much small talk with anyone. Small words. Short sentences. Easy grammar. No use of contractions. And you'll be fine. I mean you will be fine.

But there are still communication issues. I was checking out at a housewares store yesterday and expected my total to be around $120hkd. The cashier said "one ninety". I ask if a certain item rang up clearance. She said yes. I was stumped and I was feeling kind of flustered because I wasn't sure if my math was wrong or what. She immediately turned her screen so I could see it too and then I saw the total: one nineteen. Not one ninety. I just pointed to my ear and said "so sorry my fault" but she was nervous laughing and apologizing up and down for mispronouncing something so I didn't understand. She was obviously embarrassed. Which is crazy. I was embarrassed. That's something that could have been misheard in the USA. And here she is a cashier at a housewares store fully functional in a second, completely different, language and she's apologizing because she thinks she's not good enough at it.

When you pay for something by credit card (or when you give someone your business card) you are supposed to present the card with both hands so it's facing so the person can read it when you present it. I have such a hard time remembering to have both hands free when I pay with credit card so that I can use them both to hand it over. The cashier will take the card with both hands too. It seems very formal but it's just what you do.

A few weeks ago I was out and about in a fairly touristy area. There were hoards of high school kids all in uniform. I was guessing a field trip but it seemed odd. Then I was approached by two girls and quickly understood what their class was doing there. Practicing English. They had a clipboard with a list of about 10 questions and, of course, the first one was to ask if they could have a few minutes of my time. Their English was a little rough but I could totally talk with them well enough. I answered their questions which were mostly about my nationality, my home country, my favorite places in Hong Kong and things like that. They were probably sophomores or juniors in high school. Somehow I used the phrase "west coast" and they had never heard that term before. I was asked to spell it. And then I described it like north, south, east and west... and went on to tell them that people in the USA regularly use the terms East Coast and West Coast and what states they usually mean. I helped them write it all down. And I helped them with their pronunciation when they needed it. It was so cool to think I taught them something. And I was so impressed with these kids all out in the city to practice their English. How great for them that they have access to that!

2010-05-03T09:09:00.000+08:00

B is back at it again today. He was scheduled to be on reserve this week but got called out for a week long trip that started this morning. He is not actually based in Hong Kong. He technically flies out of Guangzhou, China which is a few hours north of here. Very few expats live up there. It's a very industrial city/town and not quite as suitable for our little American family as it is here in HK.

To answer the question in the comment from my last post (thank you for giving me something to write about Donna), it is easy for him to get to work. We are pretty close to the Hong Kong airport. He walks to the bus stop from our house, gets on the bus to the airport and it only takes about 20-30 minutes for him to arrive at the terminal. He usually catches a ride on another airline, like Dragon Air or China Air, up to Guangzhou to begin his trip. But the weird thing about it is that since he works at night he has to go up way in advance to meet his rest requirements. Without going way too far in to duty/work rules, he left on an 8am flight this morning, will spend all day in Guangzhou at the hotel so he can "rest", and then go to work sometime late tonight. In some instances they do provide a limo/van service to shuttle the guys up there but it's not quite as common.

He seems to be adjusting well and enjoying the craziness. Anyone in the airline industry knows there is always a period of adjustment when you transfer to a new base. Learning new things about different cities you didn't used to go to (let alone in a foreign country!), base dynamics are different everywhere, and just the ins and outs of new airports, new hotels, new pick up points... And he's on a different airplane. Lots of changes for him both at work as well as here at home.

My changes at home are enough to keep me on my toes. I don't even want to this about all his changes. But fortunately we like change and, though it is kind of nuts right now, we are both learning every day and it gives us lots of things to talk about and work through. Which is fun and interesting. There's always something new to figure out.

D starts school at the play centre today. I am required to go with him for the first day or three depending on how he does. I am hoping he is all good and settles right in so I don't have to worry about him! I think he will be fine.

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Just a side note about the blog--I hope you guys find it interesting! Please don't hesitate to ask questions via email or in the comments. It makes it so much easier when people give me ideas and let me know what they want to hear about.

I did intend on having more photos to post here on the blog but I am finding that I barely have the time to sit down and write let alone add the photos. I am aiming to keep us kind of anonymous because I have this set up so that anyone could find it. So I am being very general with my descriptions of us and other people on purpose.

For those of you who know me personally, you can find a link to our photo sharing website on my facebook profile. And if you aren't on facebook I can send you a link via email if you want to check out our photos.

For now I think this will continue to only be simple text. When I get a little more settled and can determine a daily routine around here I would love nothing more than to add photos and links and share recipes of things we are trying. I have tons and tons of ideas. So hang in there! I am trying my hardest to write something everyday and I really wish I had the time to do more. Thanks for reading!--T

2010-05-01T23:09:00.000+08:00

We are killing all of our electronics lately. Without naming names (B and I have both been at fault), in the past 2 weeks we have suffered through the loss of a laptop that got dropped, an iPhone getting dropped and killed, and another USA iPhone that got a software update and now is a paper weight over here. This is unlike us. In the 10 years we have known each other we've never had to deal with a lost or broken phone. Computers, yes, but not because they've been dropped. I hope it's not the new trend.

We are waiting on re-boot discs to arrive but remaining optimistic the computer will make it through. And as soon as the iPhone hackers figure out how to "jail-break" the newest software my iPhone will be usable again... Right now B and I are sharing a single borrowed phone with a sim card in it...

He is currently researching phone plans as I write this . We wanted to put it off but I think we're headed to sign a phone contract tomorrow for a real local service plan. Which is good. I am used to roughing it over here with my iPhone only being a phone since I don't have a real data plan. Getting access to the internet for mapping while I am out will be so awesome! And I will be able to facebook outside! And there are tons of apps for public transportation schedules. Will be nice. I suppose if you aren't an iPhone user this will all be kind of over your head.

We did end up going to Kowloon today. The kids did great and we had a really good time. The kids got to go on their first ever taxi ride today and I think they thought it was a pretty cool ride. Blaring talk radio in a foreign language, not having to sit in a car seat, going through the Cross Harbour Tunnel. Good times. We had the taxi drop us off near the Middle Road Children's Playground. Huge, beautiful playground and it was just crowded enough to be a really fun time.

We ate a little lunch out and there was a talkative guy at the table next to us from California. He was engaging my kids in conversation and so we chatted with him a bit and we told him we moved from Oregon. Our waitress was standing there at the time and she interjected "You're from Oregon!?!? Near Portland maybe?" Her English, of course, was excellent. I told her yes, from Portland, and she told me she was moving to Portland in June to go to University. She's never been to the USA before but she has family in Portland so she's going to give it a try. How cool. This world gets smaller and smaller to me all the time.

After lunch we bribed the kids to take a stroller nap. I told G I'd buy her some new headbands. We walked north to the street markets near Shanghai Street. I LOVE the street markets. LOVE THEM. I don't know why. I hate TJ Maxx and this is like a whole different level of having no idea what you'll find. I just really get a kick out of seeing the randomness of the stuff available. Maybe it's not random at all and I am just too new to have it figured out. Actually I am sure this is the case. But really, to my Western eyes, it is a crazy sight to see.

These markets are outdoor stalls. Cash only. Just a few in a one block walk today included: towels for bath and kitchen, ladies pajamas, hair accessories/jewelry, purses, kids undergarments, kids clothing, kids dressy clothing (tuxedos and wedding gowns for toddlers). I could go on. But you just have to see it.

We headed a little further north to a few blocks of commercial kitchen and restaurant wares. Rice cookers as big as your washing machine. Dishes, tea sets, wine glasses. Everything you need to get your restaurant up and running. B bought a huge pot for his beer brewing adventures. I got an $8 usd carbon steel wok. It's the coolest thing! We had to season it before we cooked dinner tonight. And for it's very first use, it was awesome.

2010-04-30T14:28:00.000+08:00

I was helping G out with her "homework" this morning and was wowed yet again. The directions across the top of the page read something like "Circle and color the foods that are healthy." As food is one of my favorite things we talk a ton about it here at home so this task is no problem for her. We circled the fruits and vegetables, the milk etc and decided that the french fries, little candies and some jello mold looking bundt cake thing were not healthy enough to circle and color.

So here's the crazy part--of the five healthy things we worked on, two of them were only ever referred to in Mandarin the whole time. Rice and corn. The words "rice" and "corn" never came out of her mouth. She only talked about them as "yumi" (corn) and "mi fan" (rice). Very neat!

Today, since it's the last day of the month, the kids at her school get to dress up in costumes and non-uniform clothes for the monthly party. However, no one tells the new people anything, so I had no idea until I sent her off on a bus loaded with kids all dressed up. The look on her face was so awful! And I'm sure the look on mine wasn't much different. I came back upstairs into my apartment, grabbed one of her princess dresses and speed walked over to the school to deliver it. She was ecstatic! It was cute. After the torrential rain yesterday, today is gorgeous! It's a good thing because yesterday I probably would not have been so quick to decide to take her a change of clothes in that pouring rain.

I am trying to talk B into taking the kids to Kowloon tomorrow. That's where our mail from the USA is delivered and there's a playground I really want to take the kids to. And we've been needing to do some market shopping for various random things that you buy in markets. Like a clock and extension cords and a huge pot/kettle for beer brewing.

We have this children's book called "Gai See, What you Can see in Chinatown" and the kids love it. They always pretend to go inside it when we read it. They say they want to go in that world. I am so excited to actually take them to that world. I hope they can hang. And I hope no one barfs.

2010-04-29T22:47:00.000+08:00

It rained cats and dogs here today. Or worms and snakes. That actually fits better. Big wormy/snakes all over the place. I won't go any more into detail. I don't even want to think about it.

I don't like being outside at night here. That's when you see all the creatures. The other night we had a play date and dinner at a friend's house. On the walk home I saw a few GIANT roaches. I was sure they were on me when we got home. Shudder.

Our building has a faux wall with an area where the trash bins hidden behind it. So when you walk past it looks all nice and clean and you can't tell what's back there. A few nights ago I finished up cleaning the kitchen at about 10pm. My kids had long been asleep. I tied up the trash and was slipping my shoes on to quickly run it downstairs. Then I started thinking too hard about what might be lurking back there by the trash cans in the dark of night. I didn't want to find out. I decided the trash could wait until morning. I mean, when I hesitate to go back there during the day, why on earth would I want to go back there at night?

It really is a jungle out there. Quite literally.

And as I have mentioned, the bugs are loving me. Better me than my babies but, still it's pretty much crazy. I hope my body adjusts soon or I can find out what works to keep the bugs at bay. I read that taking a high dose of thiamin (B-1) can make you taste/smell bad to bugs. I need to swing into GNC tomorrow and pick some of that up! (Yes I can walk to a GNC from my house.)

This area where we live, Discovery Bay, is relatively new. I think the first buildings were built in the late 1970's or early 1980's. Our building was built in the mid 90's. Back then there was no road access to this place at all. Only ferry. I sometimes can't help but think about those workers coming over to build those first buildings and how crazy it must have seemed to them: building resort style residential housing a 25 minute ferry ride away from the city. And that was before the ferry was in service so how did they get to work? Did they live here in temporary housing (with no food or anything--only the jungle surrounding them) or did they take a boat and go home at night? The developers really had a vision. And it has happened--this is a busy, crowded and thriving suburban community.

But it's still a jungle!

Despite all that, we really are enjoying ourselves. I had enough contacts here (via email) and did my fair share of research so there haven't been any big surprises or things we didn't expect. I mean there are things that happen every day that are unexpected but it's not earth shattering stuff. In fact most things tend to surprise us in a good way. I wish I could come up with examples...

I am getting back into my cooking routine which feels good. I made soup today with a squash that had no sticker. I guess it was local? And leeks from Holland. There's lots of produce from Holland here. It seems like the produce is local from China or from Japan, Holland, Canada, USA, or Chile.

The meat seems to be local from China or from Australia or New Zealand. The deli counter has stuff from every country. There are about two name brands from each major country. I can get Sara Lee lunch meat (turkey, ham, or chicken) sliced fresh from the deli! I did not expect that. Plus all the different salami and ham, cheeses of the world: all the good Euro stuff. It's quite the spread.

Tomorrow we are going to a pitch in to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. We are bringing guacamole and chips. We didn't pack our 15 pound molcajete over here for nothing! So I rsvp'd earlier to say that's what we'd bring and then realized I am not in Kansas anymore and I had no idea if I could find any avocados (ripe or otherwise) by tomorrow. Thankfully we found some at the first store we tried. But what we couldn't find today? Tortilla chips. So tomorrow's mission is to score the chips. I hope that works out.

2010-04-27T19:55:00.002+08:00

I had an a-ha moment today about the bugs. We were standing waiting for G's bus and I felt myself getting bitten. Looked down to see my entire exposed shins and calves dotted with those evil sand fleas. I shook them off and then turned my attention to my kids to see if they were getting the business too. Nope. And then I realized it's because they were MOVING. They were chasing each other and jogging around and jumping and dancing and being kids. And I was taking a 5 minute break resting while I stood there. Completely immobile. A perfect easy target for the bugs. So I started to dance and act a fool on the sidewalk with my kids to get the bugs to leave me alone. Too little too late I'm afraid. My legs are worse today than ever.

I did finally get myself some bug repellant spray. Armed with that and my new knowledge to keep moving constantly, tomorrow is a new day.

And B gets home tomorrow which we are all so looking forward to. It's been a long 10 days. I feel like I am picking up so much information about so many things that I want to talk with him about and we haven't been able to talk much at all. I have been sending him email notes briefing him about topics that I'm learning about. It like there's a list of things in my mind that is so long I know I will forget to share some of this stuff. Even in our normal old lives--a lot happens in 10 days! I can't even tell you the crazy of amount of information overload I've had this week. I've been bombarded.

There was a time (a long ago era called B.C.--before children) that I knew where he was while he was at work 24/7. I think it goes back to September 11th. After something like that you can't help but want to know where your loved ones are. Especially when they are airline pilots. So nowadays the past few years I never know where he is. Occasionally he will leave a printout of his trip schedule if he thinks about it. Sometimes he emails it to me. We got lazy about it. Usually when he calls (he is always the one that calls me--he works nights so he calls when he wakes up) my first question is always "Where are you today?" And generally the answers would be something like Tallahassee or Iowa City or Newark or whatever. It is beyond weird to hear him say Saigon or Bangkok or Singapore. That's insane! I think I need to start making sure I get myself a printout before he leaves.

2010-04-26T14:21:00.006+08:00

I am in a serious food rut right now. My freezer in Oregon was full of good stuff. I cooked things in huge batches a few times a week so I would have good stuff to eat and then freeze the leftovers.

Staple number one: verde sauce. Main ingredient of verde sauce? Tomatillos. They don't have tomatillos in Hong Kong. I have asked everybody.

Staple number two: soup or stew. I have not made the time to make soup or stew once since we have been here to begin stocking the freezer. I used to always have 2 or three different kinds from which to choose. I put my foot down and tonight I made a pot of beef stew. For myself. It was awesome.

Staple number 3: salad. Organic greens are terribly expensive here. For a bag of lettuce or a small plastic tub it costs around $5-7 usd and most often it doesn't look very fresh... And I don't trust my fridge. I still haven't found the sweet spot for the temperature that will keep my drinks cold and not frost bite my produce. So I haven't been buying salad. And salad dressing? Selection is not good. Paul Newman Sesame Ginger, where are you? I know i could make my own easily but when I don't have the greens, why bother? I used to eat salad daily...

I could go on... there's plenty of food here in HK. Plenty of brands I recognize as well as entirely new things I have never seen in my life and have no idea what to do with (which is exciting except I am a little too busy to delve into brand new food right this minute).

I am really struggling to find my stride trying to settle into a routine of house holding that works. My kids aren't getting enough sleep. Afternoon school and all the extra physical activity during the day leaves them dirty and tired at the end of the day and they can't seem to get enough hours of sleep at night.

But aside from overtired kids I am also dealing with not having a trunk in which to put my groceries. I am very used to frequent trips to the grocery for a few items to complete my dinner menu. But I am also accustomed to driving to the grocery once a week to buy a ton of stuff. And actually having a place to put that ton of stuff when I got home. That is key. So here, I don't have space for storage of bulk purchases so I can't really make bulk purchases. And along with that the food supply is kind of unpredictable.

Like I said--there is always enough food! Don't get the impression the shelves are ever bare or anything. That is not the case at all. But the shelves are always different... Like my kids love apples. In their ideal world they would each get an apple a day. I am weird about apples and will only buy them organic. I haven't seen any organic apples in over a week. Tons and tons of apples in every variety. None organic. Bananas? Today they only HAD organic. I finally broke down and bought some unverifiable apples. They were unwaxed and looked right. The label was all in French. No idea what their status is. I tend to trust the French when it comes to food though. They don't mess around with food.

I buy the pints of Haagen Dazs ice cream. Our allotment is one pint a week. Do not tell my kids. They do not know this. The grocery always has pints of Haagen Dazs. But what you never can guess is what the flavors will be. Jonesing for coffee? Nope, sorry. But they had it last week!!! Ugh. Usually there are no more than 5 or 6 flavor choices but 2 of them are always Green Tea and Mango. I am not sure if this is because we're in Asia and these are the most popular flavors or if it's that those pints don't move and I am seeing the very same containers each week...

I'll have an idea for a meal. I have 4 out of 7 things I need to complete the meal. I get excited about the meal. I go to buy the other 3 fresh ingredients and can only find 2 of the 3. And the meal just isn't worth making without that one thing. Like how can you make a thai dish without basil? It just wouldn't be that great. How can you make Mexican food without sour cream? Why bother?

It keeps it interesting and really forces you to be creative. Two things that I usually strive to be in the kitchen but it's not as fun when it's not by choice. Ah well. Live and learn. I am slowly figuring what will work and what won't as far as menu planning but I've got a long way to go.

It felt really good to make that stew tonight! But it was funny peeling and chopping the Japanese (organic) carrots because they are big and fat and look different. And they taste a little different too but kind of in a good way.

And buying the meat was a trip. The meat counter didn't have stew meat. I was using my own personal short hand English and sign language/Italian hand gesturing to ask if he knew what meat I could use or if they had it somewhere else. He just shook his head no. If you've seen Big Business it was like Lily Tomlin trying to speak Italian to the guy she thinks is Italian and he mutters something like "Ah I don't know... you foreigners" exasperated with her for not speaking English. This poor butcher is thinking the same damn thing dealing with all these people who don't speak his language all day long.

Anyway I found the meat packaged on a saran wrapped tray with all the other meats not at the butcher counter. Perfectly square cubes of meat that didn't really look like stew meat (too lean) but it was close enough (and it was good--worked great). But you know how in the USA the stew meat is just jumbled in a pile when you buy it? Not here. These packages of meat had each cube separate and in perfect rows laid out like tiles under the saran wrap. I found this amusing. Odd. But amusing.

2010-04-25T21:54:00.002+08:00

You should see my legs below the knees! I look like I have chicken pox. I have so many tiny bright red bug bites and so many huge mosquito bites. And it itches SO BAD.

Supposedly we've heard that when people first arrive here they tend to be very sensitive to the bugs. Which are mosquitos in full force and tiny little flea type bugs. I think people refer to them as sand fleas. Anyway all these bugs must hover close to the ground because I only have bites on my lower legs. And thankfully my kids are unaffected by this. I haven't noticed any bites on either of them and they are not complaining they itch. I am so thankful for that but I don't understand how it's even possible. It's to the point that today I was almost ashamed to wear my capri pants.

We had a really low key day today of groceries, drugstore, and a play date and dinner at new friend's house. All of this with out ever getting in a vehicle. All on foot with my trusty stroller. I love not having a car when I can truly be on foot. We specifically chose the apartment we are in because we can walk to the Plaza where all the stores and restaurants are in 3 minutes. G needed a band aid yesterday and we just walked home to get one. It would have taken the same amount of time to go walk over to the drugstore and buy them. And I was able to grab juice boxes and a water and go to the bathroom in my own house before going right back out. I am really happy with our location!

I have lived in big cities without a car enough to know that I get irritated when I am waiting for the bus/train. We decided to make location our priority when we house hunted here and I think we did a good job. Of course I still have to take the ferry to Central or the bus around to the train to get to Kowloon but I am right here next to the ferry and the busses. It eliminates a whole leg of the commute. We do still take the bus within Discovery Bay to go to the awesome play ground and to go to the newer less crowded grocery sometimes. But it's always by choice. And the kids love taking the bus. They get so darn excited about the bus. I wish I could share in the bus loving excitement... I think I lost my love for the bus somewhere in Queens, NY.

2010-04-24T17:29:00.002+08:00

We JUST got back home after leaving at 9am this morning. What a long day! But it was perfect. The weather was great, sunny and warm with a cool breeze and the kids got tired in the end but they really were troopers.

We took the 9:30 ferry from DB to Central. We were pulling into the ferry terminal area. We were THERE. And D barfed everywhere. Couldn't handle the sea sickness. ! I knew he was feeling rough but, oh man, we were like 2 seconds from getting off the boat. Ah well. He was fine on the way home and that was even a choppier ride. Go figure. So hopefully it was just the shock of a boat ride. Poor kid. So he made his grand entrance into Hong Kong wearing a Pull Up. Cool.

Sat him down on a park bench, gave him a granola bar and some water and he snapped right back. So we decided to press on with our day. It really was so funny. I will never forget that!

So first thing on the agenda was finding him a new outfit. To the mall! Which thankfully is always only a 2 minute walk in any direction you choose to walk. The main problem was that it was 10am on a Saturday morning. Were any stores even going to be open? All stores and markets open later in the morning and stay open until way later at night that what we have going on in the US. We were in luck and went directly to a store called Zara which has adult and children's clothing at fairly reasonable prices. Picked up some light weight khaki pants and a little short sleeve button up shirt. D was carried into the bathroom sporting a pull up and smelling a little like vomit, he walked out looking like a frat boy wearing his sun shades. Our day was off to an awesome start.

So we headed back down to catch the bus and head up to the Hong Kong Zoo and Botanical Gardens. It was about a half hour bus ride which was longer than we expected but I always forget to take the traffic into account. The park was nice. To call it a zoo is definitely a stretch but we knew that going in so it was just as we thought. Great playground! Kids had a blast and did great on the commute home where they were rewarded with McDonalds complete with ice cream cones.

It was a great day. Minus the puke part. But really that part was so comical and makes for such a good story that it was totally worth it.

2010-04-23T16:08:00.002+08:00

I hope B doesn't get jealous but I have made plans to take the kids into the city tomorrow morning to go to the Hong Kong Zoo and Botanical Gardens. It will be their first time to ride the ferry and their first time to go to the city. It should be fun... I am really interested to see how the kids do!

A new friend of mine mentioned that she wanted to go there sometime and didn't think her husband would ever care to go so I jumped on it and asked if she'd come with me and my kids. She said yes! So I pressed on and said "how about tomorrow?" And she said yes again. Woohoo! So I have spent some time this afternoon researching what bus we need and the schedule of said bus and reading reviews of the park to see what all is there. Admission is free: bonus. The bus we need is going to take us on a really cool drive through the Midlevels and the stops are located so we won't need to walk far and I won't have to bring a stroller: double bonus.

My kids are tired. I am weaning D from his daily nap since he's starting afternoon play school in a week. So he's a crazy person by dinner time. He spilled his drink twice tonight during dinner. Can you say delirious? And G is just still off from the jet lag. Sleep begets sleep is the word on the street. Well lack of sleep begets less sleep and that's where we're at with her. She got off the bus from school today at 4:25 and when we got upstairs into our apartment she asked for her jammies. And to take a rest on the couch. They were in bed by 7:30 tonight.

G has made a new little friend. (And I am working at making friends with her mommy.) We had a play date today and the girls are so cute together. They seem to adore each other. And the funniest thing is that, much like Madonna, G is picking up some of her accent. It cracks me up! She also has the British teacher so that probably has a lot to do with it too. She will say a sentence to me and one of the words will be exaggerated British sounding. And then she'll laugh and say "Did I just say (British sounding word)? HA! I mean (American sounding word)!" and then she'll say the word both ways back and forth a few times. I know you're like "What word???" She does this often with many words but the one I that sticks out from today was "bones". As in her bones are growing...

And tonight we were reading a book with English and Mandarin and the word for biscuit (cookies since this place is British) was in it. And I asked her if she knew that word from snack time at school. I said it in phonetic Mandarin (Pinyin) as it was written in the book with my best Chinese attempt and she then said it back, the right way, like she hears it every day. It's really neat to hear her play around with the language and saying things. I did not expect the whole British thing and her picking up the Queen's English but it's just her little brain at work learning new things. Even if it's slightly annoying, the idea of how her brain must be so hard at work is really cool.

2010-04-22T22:36:00.004+08:00

Just got back from my night out on the town. I actually got home at 9:30. Which sounds kind of lame but it is Thursday night and everyone has stuff to do in the morning...

We rode the ferry over to Central and went out to Thai food in an area called Lan Kwai Fong or LFK if you're in the know. It's the chic area to go when you go out. Lots of restaurants, bars and neon lights. It's a little ways up the hill from the IFC Mall and the Landmark in Central on Hong Kong Island. Hong Kong Island (and really all the islands that make up HK) is a mountain. Not a lot of flat surface. (And from what I gather most of the flat surface that exists and is built on is all man made.)

So we walked up the hill a bit and settled in to dine at an angle in an alley. For real. The tables were ever so slightly at an angle and we were seated in an alley between buildings. We ordered WAY too much food but we all agreed we wanted to eat family style and we wanted to try a bunch of stuff. For the most part the menu was pretty similar to what you'd see in a big Thai restaurant in the US. They are a little freer with the bones and the dark meat chicken but for the most part it looks and tastes the same and the names of the dishes are similar to what you see in the states. Two of the dishes we got were whole fish prepared two different ways, another dish had prawns the size of my forearm (if anybody saw B's picture on facebook you will know what I mean) and the other dishes were various curries. It was all delicious! Especially one of the fish dishes! B will be in heaven when I take him back there for that! The fish was soooo good all by itself but the sauce was out of this world.

My use of chopsticks was respectable tonight. I made a valiant effort and I can barely type right now because my hand is all cramped. I'm kidding that my hand is cramped. Sort of. Seriously tonight was the first night I impressed myself with my chopstick prowess. But I am kind of hungry right now and I don't understand how this can be! I think I cannot physically eat as much in the same amount of time when using chopsticks. I may consider throwing all my forks away. This could be a good diet trick.

It is customary in HK that a restaurant will add a 10% service charge or tip to your bill. You are not expected to tip over and above this 10% (but it's added to your bill so you can't leave less). You can leave more if you feel the service was outstanding but they don't expect it from what I've been told.

Cash is king here too. I am so used to not carrying cash and always paying for everything with a credit card. You can do that here but no one does... People pay with cash. I was at dinner tonight with about 10 people. Every single person had cash to pay. If you went out to dinner in the USA with a party of 10 would that EVER happen? No way!

So after dinner we stopped into a swanky bar to have one drink. Honestly I would have rather been out walking amongst the neon lights and the people and taking it all in instead of heading into this dimly lit overpriced bar but I'll take what I can get! I was just glad to be out.

This week has been incredibly busy but fun. I am working hard to be very social so I can get to know people here. And the best way to learn is by listening to people. Today I learned that I can refill my Octopus card (for public transportation and more!) at the 7-11. I don't think B knows this... If he does he has been holding out on me. I was under the impression you could only refill it at the machines in the subway station so this is great news! And it makes perfect sense. I mean for god's sake if you can pay your utility bills at 7-11 and buy a sim card for your USA AT&T iphone at the 7-11 then you should easily be able to reload your Octopus card.

And remember yesterday how I made a little joke about boiling my dish towels and 60 degrees C was the hottest setting? I totally lied. I was playing with it today and it just defaults at 60 degrees. It goes up to 90!! That's 194 degrees F. So you really think it can make the water that hot??? The wash time on that setting with 20 degree water is 55 minutes. For 90 degrees it's 1 hour and 50 minutes. Plus 2 more hours to dry. That's a whole bunch of all kinds of crazy.

2010-04-22T16:02:00.002+08:00

I have been extremely busy the past few days! I did not get a chance to sit and write anything yesterday and I was sad about it! Today is turning out to be much the same as yesterday but I am making time for a blog entry.

Tonight a big group of the wives are going out because someone's got a friend in town visiting. I was not anticipating being able to go since B is at work and I haven't had time to scope out any child care. One of the wives called me yesterday and offered to watch my kids so I can go! I met her once, briefly, in passing so the idea that she offered to do this for me is just awesome. It really is like a big family of people here.

I am looking very forward to getting a night out!

We stopped into a dance school this morning to try to get G signed up for ballet. Since she's in afternoon school it really limits us because they don't offer too many extracurriculars in the morning. There are a few dance school in our community but this one is the closest one to our house and it happens to be the only one that offers morning class options. We were put on the waiting list. Kind of a bummer because I was really wanting to get her in. The bright side is that we made the "magic number" on the length of the waiting list so the lady said they will consider opening another section. She was going to call all the people on the list to see if they'd be interested in a new Thursday class. Keeping my fingers crossed that there's some interest and that happens soon.

2010-04-20T15:00:00.004+08:00

I stopped into the play centre today to drop off D's enrollment paperwork. He was standing watching the kids as they sang their songs with the teacher and he did not want to leave! I think he is excited. Too bad he doesn't start until the first Monday in May.
He says he wants to "go sing songs about words in a chair". He's got it all figured out.

There's a big sign posted in the grocery that says since the volcano eruption has shut down all the airports in the UK we should expect to see a reduction in chilled foods available in the store. Crazy.

And I learned something helpful today--when you order deli meat or cheese you order it by the slice. Who knew? It's all priced by the pound which I find odd. I assumed it would be in kilograms. So if you say half a pound you can tell the poor lady gets a little nervous and she will keep showing it to you to make sure it's the amount you want. Or she'll totally hide it from you and give you twice as much as you asked for simply because she has no idea how much a half a pound is. So today I happened to hear the person in front of me in line order 10 slices of whatever. YES! Of course. By the slice. Good to know. It's funny too because last week B got some ham and he said it was the strangest thing because he ordered a half pound and he said the guy kept saying numbers to him. Like 12, 15, 20... and he was so confused. Slices!!

I really miss having a dishwasher. A lot. I feel like I am doing dishes constantly. And we have to be careful not to put things away when they are still damp or else it will make the entire cabinet smell musty. So I go through tons of dish towels to get everything dry enough to put it away. And the used towels don't dry even when you hang them up so once a towel gets damp at all, it's done. By the end of every day I have a load of dish towels to put in my washer/dryer that absolutely cannot sit overnight. The have to get washed! With really hot water. My washing machine uses Celsius to measure water temp and it tells me 60 degrees is my hottest choice which is 140F. I think in the US it's like illegal or child abuse to have your water heater set over about 120-125. Oh not here in China. They don't really consider safety too much... But that is for another post at another time. Right now we are talking about boiling my dish towels. So anyway between the laundry and the dishes it's a good thing I don't have a day job. Because that is my day job.

2010-04-19T14:56:00.003+08:00

Back to the grind--B left for a 10 day trip this morning. 10 days. Ugh. After him being in training for the last 6 months and gone way too much, 10 days is not so bad. But from here where I sit on day 1 it seems like an eternity.

It is a sunny and gorgeous day here in Hong Kong today. It's not sunny very often I'm beginning to learn. Lots of pollution makes it always look kind of gray and overcast most of the time.

G rode the bus to school today for the first time. She kind of had the big eyes when the bus pulled to a stop right in front of us. But she's a big girl and I'm sure she is feeling super cool about it now. It was SO nice to not have to walk her up hill both ways to school. The walk isn't long. It can't be a half mile. But the hills are brutal! She is having school pictures taken today too. I am really kind of excited we made it for her to be in the class photos. I can't wait to see them. She wanted to wear a pink headband with flowers, a purple barrette with dangly boingy strings on it AND a pony tail holder with pink jewel hearts on it. She really wants to look good for these photos. Too bad she hasn't had a bath in days. She fell and skinned her knee a few days ago so she is very anti bath time lately.

After she got picked up, D and I headed to the plaza to get a coffee and a cookie since I didn't get my morning coffee today. We shipped over a metric ton of coffee beans with our junk and the joke is totally on us because we cannot find a grinder to buy anywhere. There is a chain store called Wing On. The closest thing I can compare it to is Kohl's. They carry one brand of grinder that is for drip or espresso. We use a french press. And I annoy myself but I am so picky about my coffee. It's a curse. Anyway we bought this grinder hoping it would work and we were eating coffee grounds because it was grinding way too fine. And as luck would have it the grinder didn't really work anyway so we didn't feel too guilty returning it. So here we are with 40 pounds of beans and no way to grind them. This is tea country, you know. Coffee is not the thing around here. B is headed to Saigon this week and he has been told that it's THE place to buy coffee. I told him if he came home with coffee he'd be on my list. But if he came home with a grinder... now that would be something!

When he went to return this coffee grinder to the Wing On he said it took about 20 minutes for 4 employees to decide what to do. And thankfully it really didn't work correctly so there was real reason (other than our personal preference) for returning it. Returning things isn't really in the culture here. I don't know enough about it to explain why... and they did take it back... but it's not something a consumer is expected to do. So we have a paper in-store credit slip to use at the store now. And even though Wing On is a huge chain with countless stores around Hong Kong, we can only use it at the location right here by our house. Which of course is the smallest Wing On I've ever seen.

We got our cable tv hooked up yesterday. Haven't watched anything except some Disney channel yet. It's not in English. Well the shows aren't. The theme songs are in English and the shorts between shows are but the shows themselves are dubbed in Cantonese. The kids are not phased. They really seem to be fascinated by it. And for anyone who has spent time in a non English speaking environment for a few days, you will know what I mean when I say that when it is actually in English I don't even realize I understand it at first. We have basic cable with some sports, some news, and I don't even really know what else. Cable comes in a bundle package with internet. It's dirt cheap to get basic cable and then you just pay for the other channels you want. Genius. So we are paying for Disney. (Because we thought it would be in English, but I am starting to think it's better that it's not.) The rest is basically free, included in our internet bundle. We have European, Australian and Asian news channels in all languages and, perhaps most interesting, is Al Jazeera English. I am really curious to watch that and see what it's all about.

2010-04-16T21:20:00.002+08:00

Today I had to go to Immigration to apply for my Hong Kong ID card. I had been to this place before when Brandon applied for his ID card back in February so it was not a complete unknown. But on that trip we had our relocation lady and a car with a driver. There was no effort that day. Today I had to work at it.

I caught the 8:50am ferry from Discovery Bay. It's about a 25 minute boat ride to Central. Hopped in a taxi and headed over to Immigration Tower in Wan Chai. I paid the super cheap fare--taxis are really cheap here--jumped out of the car, looked up to see which direction I should go, took a few steps... turned around took a few steps... couldn't get my bearings AT ALL. Even though I knew I was in the right spot. Discreetly as I could a peeked at my map in my bag and yep I was pretty much standing right in front of the building according to the map. You would think there would be a sign right? Then I saw the reflection of some flags from the windows on a building down an alley. Flags usually mean government right? So I went that way and when I got a bit closer I could see in the reflection the word "Immigration". Bingo. Thank goodness for the reflection!

Headed up to the 8th floor via escalator. And it was straightforward from there. I got scolded for filling out part of the form incorrectly. She said "next time you fill out like this" and I was like next time? Ok. And my picture is AWFUL. In a hilarious way.

After I was done there I took a little exploration walk around Wan Chai since I hadn't really been over there on foot before. And then I walked back to catch the Star Ferry to TST (in Kowloon) from the Wan Chai ferry pier which I hadn't done before either. We get forwarded mail from the USA delivered to a mailbox over there so I went to get our mail and then do some shopping.

From the Star Ferry pier in TST I took the ferry back over to the Central Ferry Pier where I caught my ferry back to Discovery Bay.

So nice to be out and about by myself! I really love this place.

Got back here to Discovery Bay just in time to meet B to walk G to school. And I have been so tired from all that thinking and walking I did earlier today that I can't hardly think straight. Jeez.

2010-04-15T11:20:00.003+08:00

I just got a phone call from the pre-school/play centre to say they have a space available for D to start next month. Fantastic news! This play centre is affiliated with G's school but it's in a different location. They do play school for 18 month olds-3 year olds, until a kid is ready to begin K1. He's going to go 3 days a week. The lady asked if I wanted him in 3 days a week or 5. Do you know how badly I wanted to say 5?!?! But he's not ready. I hope he's ready for 3 days a week!

Now, if I hear back from the dance school today to tell me I there's a spot for Gwen in a ballet class, our little lives will be back on track. G did ask today when she'd start swim lessons. Ummmmm in the fall, honey. In the mean time we can just go swimming at the pool which I know is what she means anyway.

I am so used to emailing people as my main form of communication and being able to accomplish most everything online. It's not like that around here. You actually call people. Like on the phone. I hate the phone. But I am learning I need to get over it if I want to get anything accomplished around here. Long gone are the days when I "accidentally" leave my phone out in the car or in the bottom of my bag all day and miss a few texts or a call. Around here people ring you when they want you and they expect an answer. And all the calls end with "bye bye" in a high pitched kind of fake tone. But that's what you do. So whether on the phone or face to face you hear "bye bye" or "by bye for now" or "bye bye see you soon" or to my kids people say "bye bye baby bye bye". I have adopted the see you soon bit as my catch phrase. I like that one.

It's cold and windy here today. Too cold to go outside and play so we've been hanging out inside and I have been trying to get this house more organized. And I even wore a coat to walk Gwen to school. She's all signed up to begin riding the bus next week and she's excited about it.

B is back from his ride. He sustained a just few minor (normal) injuries. I think we need to buy some stock in Neosporin.

2010-04-14T21:59:00.003+08:00

What a busy day we had today. My apartment is a total disaster. Hand prints on the windows, crumbs on the floor, peanut butter still on the seats from lunch. It was one of those days. Busy!

We have been stalking the for sale ad postings on our local neighborhood forum for several household items. We are hoping to avoid having to buy new stuff. (There is a pretty active use of craigslist in HK but for our local community people just use the local forum instead.) This morning we went to see a refrigerator that someone had listed for sale. We decided if we could find exactly the size we wanted for the price we wanted to pay we may buy one so we could have a second fridge in the closet room off the kitchen. The fridge that came in the apartment is an older model, it runs loudly and it's too small for our family of four. And it's too small for us people who actually cook. The vacant unused space around our current fridge got us dreaming of how wonderful it would be if that whole space was full of cold food storage... I digress. So we found the perfect one! We've arranged for it to be moved here on Friday morning with a little local moving company. I'm so excited for a newer prettier BIGGER fridge and B is excited to have an extra fridge for his beer brewing adventures. Have I mentioned he brought tons of beer brewing goods? Should be interesting. He used to brew beer years ago but hasn't done it since I have known him. And I am excited to learn about how it works. I'm sure I'll be writing more about that soon enough.

I am such a Nosey Nelly I cannot tell you how excited I get to go into people's apartments when we go check stuff out that's listed for sale. This is infinitely more fun for me than taking walks through my neighborhood at dusk hoping people haven't closed their curtains for the day and I will get to easily peek in their windows. Doing that used to be one of my favorite past times. But now I have advanced to actually going inside on the pretense I might buy their junk. It's awesome. Last night we went to check something out on a street that is way way way out of our budget. These people were literally ON the beach. Ridiculous. So we go in and head to the room to see the goods, came out 2 minutes later and couldn't find G... oh there she is on the couch with this woman's kids watching tv with them. We all got a good laugh out of that. I think G thought we had gone to visit and meet some new friends. Too funny.

G had her first field trip today to the grocery store. They rode a bus there and everything. She said they looked at different types of food and compared healthy choices to the unhealthy choices. We asked her to learn the word for pineapple today but she couldn't remember. Oh the pressure! She did come home yesterday and volunteered her first word in Mandarin. "Yumi" means corn. Wow. It was the exact same feeling you get when your kid speaks their first English word. Now the funny part is that B and I can't even say it right. yoomee. How hard can it be? Apparently it IS hard! She is totally saying it with a tone or a flavor that B and I can't quite get. I can clearly hear her say it the right way and then I butcher it with my American twang no matter how hard I try. Pretty weird.

Tomorrow B is taking his mountain bike out with the boys for his first ride in HK. He is pretty pumped. I hope he has a great (safe) time. I will not allow myself to worry!

2010-04-13T21:29:00.000+08:00

G did awesome at her first day of school yesterday! I am so thrilled. It's such a relief to have that behind us. When we went to pick her up the teacher talked with me for a few minutes and said that G was happy, engaging, wanted to be line leader, participated in story time and (last but not least) played Mother Hen to the other new little girl who was very apprehensive. I could not have asked for a better report. She is already talking about going to school "forever" and D wants a backpack and a hat just like hers. I think I can exhale a little bit now.

Today when I dropped her off her teachers were both waiting by the door. One with a bottle of hand sanitizer and the other with a temporal thermometer. She was very excited all morning and basically ran the whole way up the hill to school. I was holding her backpack until she saw some of her "friends" wearing theirs and then she wanted to wear it. Cute.

There are workers doing some repairs on the water pipes near our building today. There was a sign posted last night warning us that we'd be without water from 9am to 5pm today. Really? It's a good thing we had already planned a morning excursion to go shopping for another dehumidifier and we already agreed we'd be eating lunch out. By the way our water is good here. I had read during my research that the water was fine to drink but I didn't have my hopes up. After living in Florida where the water is so disgusting and knowing the climate here is similar to that (but here it's way way worse in the humidity department I am realizing) I didn't have my hope too high. But it's fine. Which is great--saves us money and the effort of hand carrying store bought water home.

Going to the mall was an event this morning. We took a 25 minute bus ride to the "outlet" mall in Tung Chung. I hadn't been there before so it was nice to get there and see it. Unfortunately they had no dehumidifiers in stock at the home appliance there today. So we remain moist.

I am feeling challenged. Food is expensive and I don't have much storage space in my small fridge. Fruit needs to either be refrigerated or consumed pretty quickly. I bought 3 oranges last week. Three days later I had one orange left and noticed only after I picked it up that it was way too squishy and covered in powdery white mold on the bottom. In three days?!?! And I am really finicky about my produce--I know it was fine in the store.

So we are forced to shop almost every day. Menu planning has really never been my strong suit, but I really feel like it's a life skill, or at least a financial skill, around here and I need to work on it. I do not want to have to throw food away because it sits out one day too long.

I bought a miniature pineapple a few days ago. I had never seen a pineapple so small. Think the size of a grapefruit if you just reshaped it to be more oblong like a pineapple. It was about $1usd. It is the best pineapple I've had since eating pineapple in Hawaii. Super good. And the limes! Oh wow the limes are special too. And there's so many different kinds of onions... And I got a little container full of tons of Thai hot peppers (the red ones you see swimming whole in your Thai food sauce) for less than $1 and they are something else! HOT.

Tonight I am going to attempt homemade corn tortillas so we can make tacos with the Australian ground beef we bought. They don't have (or I haven't found) authentic masa harina to make bona fide corn tortillas. I did find Bob's Red Mill organic corn flour and I am going to attempt a flour tortilla recipe using the corn flour. We'll see what happens. They do have packaged tortillas here. They only come in packages of about 8 and they are full of preservatives. Not what I would have bought at home. Oh and they cost $4 usd for this package of 8. I'll make my own thanks.

I think I need to invest in some sweatbands for all this cooking over here. In Oregon it was a great way to get some secondary heat in the house during the winter. Here it's just a necessary evil.

2010-04-12T14:38:00.002+08:00

G is currently at school. Hurray! She's in the afternoon section which goes from 1:30-4:30. I hope she's having a good day... The drop off went smoothly and she looked really sweet in her little uniform. I got a good vibe from the English speaking teacher and the Mandarin speaking teacher seemed very friendly with the kids but I didn't talk with her. We'll get her signed up for the bus later this week so she will begin to ride the bus next Monday. The bus is like a hotel van or an old folks home van. Smaller, since it's not American-over-sized, but the equivalent. We live fairly close to the school so it'll be a 5 minute ride for her. And there is a bus mother. Sweet deal.

I made bread for the first time here yesterday since we got our shipment delivered. Wow it makes my kitchen hot when we cook. You should see how fast dough rises around here! Like 3x as fast as in Oregon. It's crazy. And I dare say it's probably my best effort yet. We made pizza crust with the dough for dinner last night and I baked a loaf of bread this morning. Delicious. I think it has a little to do with the climate and a little to do with the crazy good British flour I bought.

It has been extremely humid the past few days. Like exceptionally humid. Our dehumidifier filled up in the middle of the night last night and when we woke up this morning it read that we were at 80% humidity in the house. 50% is comfortable in a normal place. We aim for low 60's in our apartment. 80% is down right rainforest. Our windows were all fogged up and the tile in the bathroom had visible condensation on it. Gross.

2010-04-09T16:36:00.002+08:00

There are a few things about my apartment that I am still not used to. For example:
My stove top has a lid. You lift it before you cook. ???Why??? The burners and oven are gas which I am used to but they light differently. It's more of a manual operation and I still fear I am going to blow something up. Glad I am used to gas. Can't imagine coming from electric to this gas! And is it possible for gas to burn hotter in China? I feel like I am cooking with a smaller flame and still burning things. I'm hoping it's the cheapy cookware we bought to get by but I feel like it's hotter.

I've mentioned there are no outlets in the bathrooms. Did I mention the light switch to the bathroom is in the hallway? There is a special outlet for a men's shaver in the bathroom though. Just like in an old school airplane lav. The exhaust fan is installed in the window and you turn it on by a pull chain. So the cover blows open and the fan blows out. Can you say easy bug entry? I don't get it. My bathtub is high. G can barely climb in and out and D cannot do it at all. This makes him angry since he was able to do this before.

We also do not have central a/c. We have a window unit in each bedroom and a big wall unit like you see sometimes in a hotel in the living room. Plus a dehumidifier. Lots of white noise going on. We have a little balcony with French doors and all the windows have panels that can open. But no screens. And the bugs are big. I've only had one little bee type bug fly in through an open window. But I tell you what, I would lose my mind if one of the mothy/butterfly/bat bugs flew in here. Lose. My. Mind.

We walked to the "nice park" today. Gave me a great workout since it's literally up hill both ways.

There was a naughty little boy at the park. He wasn't messing with my kids or anything. I don't even know what he was doing wrong and really I never did figure out which kid he was. The lady that was with him (caregiver, mom?) kept shouting what sounded like "Osheet" over and over with URGENCY. Every time she'd yell "Osheet" I would instinctively jolt and look up because I thought she was yelling "oh shit" as in "oh shit somebody's hurt!" I never did get used to it. And I feel sorry for that kid if he has aspirations to ever move to the USA or UK. Not cool if your name sounds like "oh shit" in English.

Somehow we lost one of D's shoes on the walk over. Bummer! I know this happens to moms everywhere but it was a first for me. We retraced our steps exactly and didn't find it on the way home. He's been having such a growth spurt they were destined to be outgrown soon anyway. And they were full on leather wintery shoes so not ideal for HK anyway. I am choosing not to worry about it. Our shipment gets delivered in the morning and he's got new shoes in there. Between now and then he has purple fuzzy slippers and dinosaur rain boots. He's all set.

Hurray for our stuff getting delivered tomorrow! It's gonna be like Christmas! I hope the kids stay clear of the workers.

And B gets home about lunch time tomorrow. So it's almost safe to say I've survived without him for the week. Let's hope I make it through tomorrow morning with the movers coming.

School

2010-04-08T13:18:00.004+08:00

When the movers came to pack up our house in Oregon my salad spinner was in the fridge with salad in it so it didn't get packed. I was annoyed about this at the time since it took up tons of room in my suitcase but that salad spinner has been a life saver this week! For spinning salad, of course, but also the inside bowl works as a colander and the bowl itself has been doing duty as a mixing bowl. What a godsend!

I know you guys are curious about G's school and the school system in general here in HK. That was probably the most complicated thing for us to try to learn about. I think I have a pretty good handle on it at this point but I hope I can explain it to you clearly.

First, a little general info.
Kids are put into grades according to the calendar year of their birth. My kids are born 2006 and 2007 so they will be in back to back grades here. In the USA their birthdays fall so that they would have had a school year between them. I have no idea what this will do to D once we return to The US... He is an October birthday and the cutoff in Oregon is September so he is close enough to the cutoff that whatever happens will not cause me too much stress. Not worried about it at this point. Kids start school in the calendar year they turn 3. D will be 3 in October, he starts school as a 2yr old in August.

Kids do 2 years of Kindergarten here, called K1 for 3 yr olds and K2 for 4 year olds.
Primary grades are P1 for 5 year olds through P6. Primary school is called College.
After that I have no idea what it's called. Does not pertain to me right now. No room in my brain!

Hong Kong is loaded with people from all over the world. Therefore there are international schools of every variety. American, German, Swiss, French, Japanese... you name it. International schools here are outrageously expensive. Outrageous. Think college tuition for a private college. Or more.
There are, of course, local schools. Local schools do not cater to kids who don't speak Cantonese. There are families who go this route but I understand that the kids have to spend tons of time with a tutor and most of them may have one speaking parent.
The major "school system" for English speaking expats is the ESF (English School Foundation). ESF schools use a British curriculum. They can be difficult to get into because they are priced so much more reasonably than the International schools.
There are other schools like montessori and religious affiliated schools and even day care style preschools like we have in the US...

Now a word about G's school (and it will be D's school in the fall too):
It's a Kindergarten that also has a P1 section available for kids who don't get a spot in the primary school (college) of their choice. It's like a backup plan just in case. So ideally, kids will go to this school for K1 and K2 then get accepted into a primary school (college). But if they don't get a spot they have another year to hope for an opening on the wait list of their first choice school or they can apply and be wait listed elsewhere. Make sense? At this point I can't even tell you what our first choice primary school would be. We've got a year to figure it out.

This Kindergarten has two sections. The International section is for kids who are intending to go to International Colleges (primary school). The bilingual section is for local kids who are in to learn the English and for English speaking kids who may end up trying a local school or a bilingual school. We are hoping to do a bilingual school IF we are even here that long. We can't afford International schools and we want to expose the kids to the language. And we don't think we will be here for too many years for it to matter too much. For us it was an easy choice to choose the bilingual program.

For K1 and K2 the kids attend either a morning or afternoon session just like in the USA. P1 is a full day of school.

In the bilingual section my kids will have 2 teachers, one Mandarin speaking and one English speaking. They will hear everything both ways 50/50. They will also learn to read and write Chinese characters. Kids in the International section have dedicated lessons of Mandarin during school, like our high school foreign language classes. They do not learn to read or write characters, they only learn to speak and listen.

The school uses a British curriculum and Jollyphonics if any of you teachers have ever heard of it. ??? We were warned there would be phonics and grammar (English) homework. Fine by me. I am a grammar and spelling nazi anyway.

Now did you catch that I mentioned the local school are Cantonese but my kids will be learning Mandarin??? This is the craziest part. People from Hong Kong speak Cantonese (and at least a bit of English). The cashiers working at the grocery, taxi drivers, people with stalls in the markets, waiters/waitresses. Everybody speaks Cantonese. These people, for the most part, do not speak Mandarin. But Cantonese is a dying language, a dialect of Chinese spoken only in southern China. But if you go into an office building in downtown on Hong Kong Island all the business people will be working speaking Mandarin and English.

Here's some facts: Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken dialect of Chinese. It's actually the most widely spoken language in THE WORLD. 1.1 billion people speak Mandarin. For comparison, 330 million people speak English and 300 million speak Spanish and 70 million speak Cantonese.

So Mandarin seems like it will be the most useful for my kids to learn. It will also be possible for them to easily continue with the Mandarin once we go back to the USA if we decide to pursue that. There are a hand full of schools in Portland with Mandarin programs. Not so for Cantonese.

It's a can of worms isn't it? Information overload!

I love taking requests for things to write about! If you have more questions about school that I didn't cover feel free to ask.

As for the healthcare, I need to learn more about that before I try to tell you guys about it. Back when we were ready to move to Paris I learned all about French healthcare. I could tell you more about healthcare in France than I can tell you about Hong Kong. I will make it a point to learn about it and to learn if our insurance and coverage is the norm for expats and I'll see what the local people have access to as far as their medical care.

It's a rainy lazy day in the neighborhood...

2010-04-07T10:43:00.006+08:00

I just had a totally normal trip to the grocery. For $12usd I got:
3 sunkist oranges
4 organic apples
about a pound of grapes (all from the USA)
pint of blueberries from Chile (same package we see in the USA)
3 bananas from the Philippines
2 cups of yogurt from Switzerland
and the 8 piece loaf of organic bread from the bakery

I think that seems reasonable. Hopefully the sticker shock was just more apparent when we had to buy EVERYTHING.
We walked to the grocery without the stroller so the kids could get some activity. There's a big open space in front of all the shops surrounded by picnic tables called The Plaza. At any given time of day there are kids running and playing. Always something happening. I ended up carrying D half the way home but oh well. He'll get there and it's good for him to get his walking legs. We got back home just as it started to rain so I am glad we got out this morning.

The best description for Discovery Bay that I can come up with is to say that it's like a big college campus. (Much like Purdue except it's not flat.) You can walk to wherever you want to go but there is lots of bus service and that is the faster and less sweaty way to get around.

We took a walk yesterday to the school G will start attending next week. It's Easter break right now (spring break) so no one was around. Which is perfect for my daughter. She likes to assess things and know what she's in for. We walked along the building and she looked in every single window. Very good for her to see it in a relaxed setting like that! She starts next Monday. She'll be in the afternoon session of school and we were told to just show up 10-15 minutes early so she could get fitted quickly for her uniform. That is going to be a crazy 10-15 minutes when that all happens! She may or may not do well on that day. I hope hope hope she enjoys this school and is not overwhelmed to be joining the bilingual program toward the end of the school year... In the admission paperwork they included a temperature chart. We are required to take her temp every morning and the chart is to remain in her backpack. She is not allowed to go to school if her temp is over 99.5. I think this is genius. These Asians don't take these pandemic flu bugs lightly!

I got a phone call from a lady about our shipment today. It is here in Hong Kong! Yay! But she needed some information sent to her so that customs can clear it. And it has to be cleared by customs for her to arrange delivery. So we are close but it's still going to be a few more days...

I could write a whole post about what it's like to have a phone conversation with a Chinese person speaking the Queen's English. They all learn British English since Hong Kong was ruled by England until 1997. I get a headache from focusing so hard. This woman spoke really clear English. Thank God. Every time my phone rings I about have an anxiety attack because it can be so hard to understand when you can't see the body language. Sometimes it's hard even when you can see the body language!

What do I miss most from my stuff? Well at first it was cookware! But we broke down and bought a cheap fry pan and sauce pot after we realized it was going to take longer to get our things than we thought. So I miss my cookware but I am managing.
Toys for my kids!!!!
More towels for my kitchen.
My clothes. I am working with about 10% of my wardrobe right now.
Cloth grocery/shopping bags.
chip clips to close up our food!
my pillow

Obviously these are things I could have brought over when we flew here but we didn't think it would take this long to receive our stuff. And I'm not sure I would have come up with some of this stuff. Honestly--chip clips? Who knew I'd miss them sooooo much? Don't take your chip clips for granted, people!

More about food...

2010-04-06T12:29:00.004+08:00

I am glad you guys seem interested about food! It's one of my favorite things in the world!

I had somebody ask me on facebook today about the price of milk and it made me realize I didn't go into the prices in my last post. I hope you are sitting down.

I'll convert all the prices to US Dollars to make this an easy read. And keep in mind most of this is organic or the healthiest choice I can make.

Fresh chilled milk is sold by the quart here. It works out to be $10/gallon. (ouch!)
Free range organic eggs are $5.50/dozen (not too bad?? I'm used to paying the premium for local eggs...)
A brick of TIllamook colby jack cheese is $7 (what!)
Envirokids Panda Puffs cereal $4.50/box
5lb bag of organic flour $7
3 conventional sunkist oranges $1.40 (yay!)
normal size container of strawberries/or small pint of blueberries (conventional) $4.75
small pint of organic strawberries is about $5.50 and they never look very good
organic salad mix in a bag or plastic box just like we see in the US is about $5.75
pint of haagen daas ice cream is $7 (this is probably for the best)
frozen package of 2 organic boneless chicken breast is $14
sandwich bread is sold is 8 piece loaves from the bakery counter--for organic multigrain it's $2.80, for conventional wheat bread it's $1.80. (You should see the ingredients on the conventional bread! I can't even remember... margarine was one and some preservatives identified to letters and numbers. Are you kidding me?)

Wow I think I'll stop now.

But when you think of how all this stuff gets here it is mind blowing! Gone are the days of really trying to eat locally as is so fashionable to do in Oregon. All the food here is flown in from somewhere. Not cheap.

A few nights ago we were craving some chips and salsa. It was $20 to get a bag of chips and little containers of fresh salsa and fresh guac and a tub of creme fraiche (instead of sour cream which is way harder to find). After we were trying to add up what it would cost to buy all the ingredients (our kids were not having it when we were at the store so that's why we bought the prepared stuff...) and we figured it would have been stupid expensive. And I still haven't seen fresh cilantro. It's got to be here. Thai food is chocked full of it right?

Our poor kids were sick of cereal breakfasts and we bought a toaster so we thought we'd treat them to a box of Eggo waffles. And of course that requires maple syrup. Normal size small bottle of Canadian maple syrup $10, box of Eggos $5. Dang!

Now on the other hand you can get a McDonalds ice cream cone for a quarter. And B and I had a few meals out when we were here in February for under $20 at some dim sum places. Street food is dirt cheap too. And it tastes great but I know it's probably not very good quality... We can go out for family pizza and only spend $20. It almost seems like eating out is the cheaper way to go... If only it were as healthy.

Monday is the 2 for 1 night at our local pizza place so we planned to do that last night but once we got all these groceries home we decided to cook here. It was a great little dinner but the pizza would have been much cheaper.

Grocery

2010-04-05T13:01:00.003+08:00

Today we decided to make a big trip to the grocery to obtain all the things that we've been without. Like flour and butter, some canned food and condiments. General pantry items so I can cook stuff. Things that we didn't (or couldn't) ship. (By the way, no word on our shipment. It'll be here when it gets here I guess.)

We live in a "suburb" of Hong Kong called Discovery Bay on Lantau Island. It's is an outlying island accessible by a high speed ferry from Central on Hong Kong Island or by subway and then bus from the north side. The community of Discovery Bay is about a mile from end to end and is narrow. It's a self contained community. There are many restaurants, a departments store, a few drug stores, bookstores, salon, etc.

There are two grocery stores in DB. The one closest to our house is older and has tons of stuff in not a very big space. The aisles are narrower and the store is always crowded. There is another store at the other end of the community that happens to be brand new. It's gorgeous! It's a whole brand new shopping complex and it's still kind of a ghost town because the grocery is the only store that's open so far. Today we chose the 15 minute bus ride over the 3 minutes walk so we could go to the new and uncrowded store. I wanted to be able to concentrate and be able to do the currency math and amble about at my leisure. It was a good choice.

Delivery. All over HK people get their purchases delivered. It's not like you leave the store and have the trunk of your car to fill up and drive home. Most everybody is on foot or public transport so you can only take what you can carry. And for big trips to the grocery, what you can carry is your perishables and freezer food. So they take your dry goods for delivery and you leave with your cold stuff and produce. So my fridge and freezer are now stocked up. The dry goods will be delivered tomorrow afternoon. Sweet deal.

The grocery stores are well stocked. They look like any grocery in the USA except for a few differences. There are many brands I'm not familiar with, mostly British and Australian brands. The food selection is much more international but it's not anything crazy. There's still a meat and deli counter, the booze section, all the normal stuff. And sometimes a huge fish tank with live fish adjacent to the seafood counter. So if you want really fresh fish you're in luck. There's all kind of produce that I have never eaten before. Very exciting to have new food available! It's easy to find things that I bought in the US. It may be outrageously priced since they had to fly it here but it's here at least!

Most things come in smaller packages than we are used to seeing in the US. Partly because, as I mentioned, people are carrying this stuff by hand all the way home. And partly because the kitchens are smaller and there's not as much storage space so a smaller package takes up less space. As in Europe people tend to shop for food every few days or even every day. It's not like in the US how most people go to Costco or Sam's Club to stock up and do big grocery trips once a week. It's a whole different way to shop. We have lived within close walking distance to a grocery store for the past 4 years so it's not really a stretch for us. So it was really funny to see gallon jugs of peanut and vegetable oil for frying. I am buying milk by the quart, butter by the stick, and ice cream by the pint but I can get a gallon of oil? How bizarre.

This new grocery is running a promotion where they give you a booklet you fill with little stickers. When you reach a certain amount of stickers you can redeem them for knives. We earned two knives today. B is very excited about this. And they are actually nice knives.

Oddly enough they have the O Organics brand that Safeway stores carry in Oregon. This is like store brand generic organics. I was shocked and elated to see that! And Bob's Redmill has a pretty full selection too. It's also nice because with the big selection of European and Australian food available I know it's an ok option since their rules for food production are stricter than the US. Not to sound like a freak--I don't want to make this blog about food (I could have a whole different blog entirely about food!)--but I am a conscious consumer. Once you read Omnivore's Dilemma it's a downhill slide. For those of you who are curious--I am confident that I will be able to continue to feed my family mostly the same way I did in the US. With the exception of produce. Organic produce is 3x more expensive and with the shipping time it never seems to look very fresh... This makes me sad! And they don't carry organic milk--but Australian milk is a good bet since they have never allowed hormones. And I need to learn more about meat... I think (grass fed) Australian beef is the best bet here. And we have been warned to stay away from Chinese produce and meats. I don't even want to know about the meat but I do know that the produce is grown on farms that are likely to have water contaminated by the pollution and excessive use of pesticides... I will stop with the organics talk here. But if anyone wants to know more about that aspect of the food here, let me know. I will post as I learn if I think you're interested. I still have a lot to learn...

Thoughts from this morning...

2010-04-02T06:36:00.004+08:00

My kids need to stop waking up at 1:30am. It's making me cranky. Yesterday B got up with them at 2am. Today we were pretty much up from 1:30am but we were at least successful in keeping them in bed to rest until 3:45. It's finally daylight now but everyone has gone back to bed. I had coffee so it's over for me. I'm up.

I successfully paid our Hong Kong electric bill yesterday, the first bill we've received in the mail. Nothing like logging into a foreign bank account with foreign money in it and paying a bill you don't really understand how to read. Well, we didn't understand it until B called. Now it's clear as mud.

Yesterday was about 80 degrees here. People had on coats. This is troubling to me.
We had to empty our huge dehumidifier 3 times yesterday and, relatively speaking, it was a cool and comfortable day. This is also troubling to me. We have some major acclimating to do!

We're Here!

2010-04-01T12:30:00.003+08:00

We made it safe and sound. The kids did so well on the plane we still can't believe it! My daughter was up and wide awake at 2am this morning and there's a 50/50 chance my son is sick but that is all to be expected. We are here and we're glad to have that day of travel behind us.

It's sunny and warm here in Hong Kong today. We went for a walk and had second breakfast at one of the coffee shops. First breakfast happened at 4am before I was even awake... Then we stopped into the grocery to get a few meals worth of food. Our shipment still hasn't even left The States yet so who knows when it will get here. Until then we have only paper plates and plastic utensils. Until we get our stuff we are surviving without pots, pans, knives... you know, pretty much everything you need to cook anything. It will be lots of cereal, salad, sandwiches and probably restaurants until our things get delivered. Which will probably happen while B is at work next week.

I am adjusting to my combination washer/dryer. That's right it washes AND it dries. And it's in the kitchen. A full load of laundry in this thing equals about 3 pairs of adult pants. Or 4 outfits for the kids. Or a couple of t shirts and some socks. Not much. What would have been one load of lights and one load of darks has now morphed into about 6 of these new mini-size loads. To run the full cycle of washing, spinning, and drying takes about 3 hours. It's nice to not have to rotate the laundry from the washer to the dryer but it seems like the laundry is just going to be a 24/7 project to keep up with us. I will adjust. I am very glad that it's pretty quiet (except for the spin cycle which sounds like airplane engines spooling up for takeoff). I am more worried about not having a dishwasher or garbage disposal!

There's no electrical outlets in the bathrooms. How weird is that? So I stood in my bedroom to dry my hair today. It made me think back to being in college and not getting ready in the bathroom. The bathroom is humid and hot and has bad lighting so I am thinking that I will not get ready in there? Not sure what to make of that situation... Our water pressure is outstanding though so that is a bonus.

The internet guy came already so we are up and running with that. This guy would have been really easy to draw as an anime character. He had a crazy spiky haircut and he was carrying his stuff in a giant reusable bag with a Knorr Chicken Flavoring brand motif. He had a blue tooth in his ear and I guess it was kind of like those Nextel walkie talkie phones because he would talk with B in English and then in the exact same tone he'd switch to Chinese and be talking with someone else in his ear. G was fascinated with him. She asked him if we'd have PBS.org and he laughed nicely with her but of course didn't answer her--he has no idea what PBS.org is. And then she told me that she'd doesn't speak his language everyday. Which I think means "mom, what the heck is this guy saying?"

The kids are napping, B is looking at work stuff, and I am just relaxing and enjoying my sea view. Trying to convince myself that we are really here and this is really happening. And waiting until it's time to put in the next mini load of laundry.

Out Shopping...

2010-02-16T15:15:00.002+08:00

Things said to me while out shopping today.

(As a side note I had no intention of buying anything at all. My suitcase is full for going home tomorrow and I will be back in a month. Not really in the market to buy...)

"Ladies tailor?" at least 10 times
"Copy watches"
"Copy handbags"
"Copy watches copy hand bags take a look we have a showroom" total for watches/handbags about 15 times
"Everything on sale today" at least 25 times

And my favorite interaction of the day went a little something like this:

"Welcome look around everything on sale."
me: thank you
she starts to follow me around
"These purses? (points) All on sale."
me: thank you
A few steps later...
"These scarf? (picks one up) All on sale."
me: thank you
I make my way back to the door and see some cute kids clothes. Like a dumb ass I stop.
Almost laugh out loud when I see the HK$399 price tag. I have seen these same dresses from HK$35-$100 depending on quality.
"You have daughter?"
me: yes
"How old?"
me: 4
"Oh 4 year old need size 6. Right here. All on sale. Half off. $199.
me: not today
the other sales lady approaches and shouts "Cheaper for you!"
"Yes. Cheaper for you today. You like? $99."
me: I don't think so. Not today.
"Oh (seems genuinely sad) you no like the price?"
as I walk out the door
the other lady shouts "Cheaper for you! Cheaper for you!"
me: have a nice day.

Hello, Followers!

2010-02-16T12:21:00.004+08:00

I am so excited and nervous to think people are signing up to follow this blog! I will try to keep it interesting. Feel free to email requests for topics. I am more than happy to take your requests!

Today is my last day solo in Hong Kong. I head back to Portland tomorrow morning. I was just getting ready to step out amble around the city when I realized my cell is about to die. So as I give it 20 minutes on the charger I thought I would check in with you all.

When I get back home to Portland the list of things to do seems endless and overwhelming. First I am going to kiss my kids 1000 times! Man I miss them! Then I need to get down to business. Start the ball rolling with the property management company that will handle the renting of our house. Arrange for movers to come and crate our household goods for shipment here to HK and send the rest to our storage unit. We are selling a car. The list goes on. Not to mention next week my daughter turns 4 and both kids are enrolled for a spring session of swim lessons twice a week for 5 weeks starting the Monday after I get home. It's going to be busy! So this blog will probably be pretty quiet for the next month.

B still doesn't have his schedule for the remainder of Feb or March. We know he has vacation the last week of March so that is when we are planning to come back to HK with the kids. As long as all the loose ends are tied up at home. The kids will tentatively start school here in HK April 12. That is when school starts back up here after their Easter break. So the timing is pretty good all things considered.

As overwhelming as it all is I really can't wait to get back over here with the kids. I think all the craziness will be totally worth it. This is one heck of an opportunity!

Avenue of the Stars, Kowloon, Hong Kong

2010-02-15T20:51:00.001+08:00

Waiting for fireworks with a million of my newest friends. Avenue of the Stars, Kowloon, Hong Kong