Halloween

We weren't sure about Halloween in HK, but once October hit, the candy and costumes started appearing, so we knew we had a candy coming! The neighborhood hosted a party Saturday night, which is where the first picture was taken (Forrest and Ellis were busy).  And, on the night of Halloween, the kids can go door to door from 7 until 9 trick-or-treating.  We were given a pumpkin sign to put on our door, which indicates we are participating in the candy fest. 

I thought it would be fun to go back to as many Halloweens as the iphoto has stored.  

 2013 - Anne Bonny and the Egyptian princess

2012 - Lady Jane Grey and the Egyptian princess (the first time).  Ellis is on the other side of two other children in this picture, but I cropped him out because I'm pretty sure it's bad blogging etiquette to include photos of children who are not my own.

2011 - I know it might be obvious, but Forrest is a professional ping pong player.

2010

2009 - I think I'm getting these dates right. I'm also noticing that we often do repeats on costumes. 

2008 - Breaking the rule on "other children on the blog." First of all, Anna (between Forrest and Claire) and Jennifer (between Claire and Ellis) are like our daughters (and to this day still call us mom and dad), so they don't count, and, second of all, the other two girls were exchange students who, I am certain, wouldn't mind being on this blog. 

Because we tend to be in costume so much around this family, I think it's only appropriate for this post to also dig into the characters who didn't appear at Halloween.

2Forrest as a revolutionary- 2007

2007 - Ellis and Taylor in the Ten Plagues play

 2008 - Ellis and Forrest 

 2009 - Claire would put that hat and those black 4" heels on and tell me to call her Lizzy (Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennett).

lost in translation

I just wonder who buys this.  

Dim Sum

Dim Sum after church!  Yum Yum!   Taylor's missing because she was invited to KFC! 

Priceless

Our resident photographer.  Yes, he's priceless, but he's not the subject of this priceless.

 I'm so thankful he's looking out for my blog!

He's got the eye!  The boy can't sing, but he sure can use that camera.

We found the horses

We thought the liklihood of Taylor taking riding lessons in HK would be slim to none.  We knew of places to ride, but the waitlists are horrendous. Before we moved we found one riding stable near the jockey club, but the waiting list is around two years (that's what we read online).  We have since learned there have been people who have waited six years to get their children in to this stable.  

So, we kept asking around and we found a farm in the New Territories (still HK) in Clearwater Bay that has a spot for her.  We made the trek out to the farm and found it to be an amazing oasis in the midst of this crazy busy city.  But, like everything here, it's not an easy commute.  Here's the day's schedule:
Neighborhood shuttle bus - 5 min
Wait for city bus to arrive - 20 min
City bus to subway terminal - 35 min
Walk to MTR (subway) - 10 min
MTR to Clearwater - 15 min
Taxi to farm - 15
Stay at the farm - 1 hour
Return trip!!


I find it funny that I have zero photos of horses from this little outing.  

 That's a crop sticking out of Taylor's backpack - it looks like an antenna. Of course, I feel like I have antenna sticking out of my head when I walk around - I will never stare at people again!!

Yep, that's right, she's wearing a jacket. This is around 9am and it was about 70 degrees, which feels cool here.  We were sweating bullets by noon, but it's a step in the right direction. 

Almost there!!

 Isn't that georgeous?  Again, no pictures of horses.  Also, no other pictures of the farm. I think I was exhausted from the public transportation to get there.

This proves my exhaustion.  We left the farm by taxi, which dropped us at the MTR station in the NT. We ran into the train and I looked down at my feet and this is what I saw!  I had slipped my flip flops off while we were sitting at a table at the farm and when I slipped them back on I obviously paid little attention. When we got on the train, I thought my feet were hurting because of all the walking.  
I have seen people with their shoes on the wrong feet but they are usually under four years of age or over ninety years and have very little supervision. 

 Back on the south side! Whew!

Cantonese lessons

As part of our relocation package, I receive fifty hours of language training in either Cantonese or Mandarin.  From those who have been in HK for a few years, I have been told to take advantage of this training, but to do it sooner rather than later. So, I jumped right in and ordered a tutor!

Oh my word!  I have six hours of teaching per week, and Tuesday was my first two hour lesson.  My head hurt when the tutor left.  I would ber repeating her - or at least I thought I was repeating her - and she would tell me, "no," so I would say the same thing again - exactly the same in my opinion - and she would say, "Hiai a," or yes.  Honestly, the tonal language is going to be the death of me. She says that when I say the number nine, pronounced "gow," I am actually saying the word, "old;" and when I am saying the number four, pronounced "sie," I am really saying, "dead." The word for nine and the word for dead sound exactly the same except one is said with a higher tone than the other. 

Today was my second lesson and it went a little better - maybe because I knew what to expect, or maybe because  I am pretty good at asking her questions about something random and getting her focus away from Cantonese for a few minutes.  At any rate, I can tell time and tell someone the day of the week and the month of the year, which is really helpful for the Cantonese speaking person who has memory loss.  

We are mostly working on conversational Cantonese right now, so I am learning phrases as well as single words.  I can't tell you the number of times she has giggled and said that I am saying a "bad word."  This makes me a bit nervous to try out my skills on the general HongKonger! Again, where's the guy with memory loss, or at least with a poor hearing aid?

I might get brave and record part of a session and let my sweet friends hear what geek I am!

Bus message

This is my prime mode of transportation and I love these buses. They are very clean and super easy to utilize.  When it's crazy hot, I am sure to instantly have my sweat frozen, which is completely okay with me. They are also incredibly cheap to ride.

All the buses have ads on the exterior. Many of the ads on the buses are just beautiful. But, today I found myself with that "tilted head" expression as this bus passed, so I took a picture in order to get my head straight. I sent the picture to friend and ask her to translate, and this is what she said: 

It's an Ad for Hong Kong Discussion forum.

Man: don't move.
Woman: you don't move. Taking a picture of you to post on Hong Kong Discussion!

 I must say, even with the translation, my head is still tilted.

Girls' Outing 2

While the boys had to stay inside during school today (not allowed to go outside for PE, etc) because of the high API (air pollution index), we opted to flee the city and head toward an outlying island, Lantau Island.  This is where the HK airport and Disney Land reside, but we were there for the short half day visit, which meant we got to visit one place. I think I've said this before; I am able to do one errand per day, no more.  Today, I really wanted to girls to ride the gondola on Lantau and this is what it required:

Bus from the neighborhood down to Stanley (5 min) at 11:30

Bus from Stanley to Central (45 min)

Walk to to Central Pier (15 min)

Ferry to Lantau (35 minutes because we accidentally took the fast ferry, but I really wanted to take the 50 minute ordinary ferry so we could acutally see where we were going - lesson learned)

Bus 2 to Ngong Ping (40 min)

Walk around little village and up the 268 steps to the big buddha and back down to have a snack and buy our gondola tickets

Gondola to MTR - subway - (25 min)

MTR back to Kowloon and then on to Hong Kong Island (1 hour)

Taxi home because I just couldn't bring myself to get on the bus to Stanley (15 min)

While we were waiting for our 5 minute neighborhood bus home, a mom who lives near us stopped and picked us up.  It was 6:15.  She asked us where we had been and I told her. Her reaction was funny.  "Whew!"  So I asked her, "Do you notice that you can get one thing per day done here, but when we lived in NC (she moved from North Carolina a couple of years ago) we could get 20 things done per day?"  She replied, "Yeah, and still feel somewhat normal when you got home, instead of totally exhausted from trying to get around HK."  

 The buses are always freezing.

We passed the Apple store while walking to the pier.  That's an amazing space. Claire went to this store last week for a field trip and she pointed out the area to us where she visited.

The fast ferry.  This is just not the way to travel to Lantau. The boys and I took the "ordinary" ferry which is open air and just a lovely ride.

I have no idea why Claire loves to make theses faces in almost every photo, but it sure captures her big personality.

Nogong Ping

The "crystal cabin" gondola from Ngong Ping to the MTR station. I'm not sure why I can't remember to take a picture of the actual gondola. The glass bottom is really cool.

By the time we made it to the MTR station, the girls were just wacky and I just let them be wacky!

Girls' week

This week is the fall break for the girls (joys of kids being in different international schools), so they are getting the same trips around HK the boys got during their week off from school.  Today, we had a quick trip to Lamma Island.  

These boats continue to cause us to cock our heads to one side and just wonder.  First, we wonder how in the world they are floating, much less cruising along. Next, we wonder about their purpose.  Then, we wonder about the poor souls who run these things.

This time, I knew the correct bus to take to get us to the ferry. I had no idea which bus to get us back, so we opted for the taxi (Taylor is the queen of hailing a taxi).

At any rate, we made it to the pier and had a nice walk down the promenade, which is really nice with these lovely bronze statues all along the promenade.  

The only drawback to the early morning stroll on the promenade is the rather strong exposure to bleach.  The cleaners were out, as they are every morning, disinfecting HK.  

I had to get a picture of this. Almost every morning I'm on the bus, I see older men and women swimming at the beach or having group exercises outside or just walking briskly and swinging their arms high or wide in an obvious effort at improving health.  So, the girls saw something bright and plastic from afar and started running for a "little playground" only to come upon this.  

On to the ferry to Lamma.

We had to make our time count today because we had the daily struggle of commute time coupled with my first day of language training, which started in the early afternoon.  So, there's time on the bus, time for the short walk from bus to ferry, time on ferry (to and from Lamma), and time on the ride back home (taxi today).  

For us, we needed a quick walk to hit the high points.  We took a short hike, saw the beach, hunted for shells, saw the cave, saw the doggie latrine (these are pretty common), looked at the live seafood for sale, had an ice cream, and jumped back on the ferry.

The ferry back to the pier is quite comfy for some.

Last leg home. Taxi drop at neighborhood bus stop.