Shopping pictures

We went to Tai Po Market to do some more shopping today.  Tom took a few pictures to show what it is like. 

Here is the general shopping area with all the different shops.

Fruit stands

Jenneke buying some grapes.

Our house

Our new house

There are always new things to figure out when you move into a new home.  Moving to a new home in a new country is even more challenging.  Here are some of the different things about our house:

Of course the outlets are different.  They use 220V like the UK, so none of our appliances will work over here.  Also, the light switches are much smaller.

Light switch (with dimmer) and air conditioner remote

Instead of having central air, we have an air conditioner with a remote in each room.  I actually really like this feature.  It gets really hot here and it is nice during the day to be able to turn the air up and close the door in the living room when the kids and I are playing and not to have to cool the rest of the house.  The same thing at night, we can cool the bedrooms down without paying to cool the rest of the house we aren't using.  We saw this system in almost all of the houses/apartments we looked at when we came in November.  I am not sure if they do it this way because it is cheaper/easier than running duct work or if it is because it is considered more desirable.

Air conditioner unit

                                                           

There is a switch in our kitchen to turn the water heater on and off to our sink.  At first, I thought this was really strange.  We have a small, instantaneous hot water heater that works just for the kitchen sink (there are 2 others that are for the master bath and kids' bath).  We don't have a dishwasher, so we definitely need hot water to wash dishes.  When you turn on the hot water, you can hear the gas firing and the hot water heater starting up.  The switch is actually nice because you can turn it off when you are finished doing dishes and you don't have to waste gas when you turn on the sink to get a drink or wash your hands and the nozzle isn't all the way on cold.

Our kitchen is very small.  Our refrigerator is very small, less than half the size of my one at home.  It also, as well as the ones I saw at the appliance store, has a top freezer, middle refrigerator and bottom vegetable drawer.  A small fridge is another reason I will have to go to the grocery store so frequently.

Also, apparently most Chinese do not use an oven.  They cook everything on the stove top, mainly in a wok.  Therefore my oven is very low end.  My oven doesn't have any temperatures on it.  It has one knob that points to a bunch of different squiggly lines which I am assuming mean things like broil, bake, convect, although I don't have a manual and a lot of the symbols have rubbed off.  It has a second knob that is a timer and a third knob that regulates temperature.  It has a picture of a thermometer and that is it. There are no markings or numbers.  I thought the biggest challenge I would find with baking would be converting between Celsius and Fahrenheit, I never imagined my oven wouldn't tell me ANY temperatures.  I made some enchiladas the other night and I definitely didn't have the oven hot enough.  Luckily, they just needed to be heated and nothing really had to cook.  I don't know how I feel about cooking meat in the oven.  It will be interesting when I try to bake Charlotte's birthday cake later this summer.  I will have to find some sort of thermometer to put in the oven.

Oven knobs.  The middle one is the temperature.

                                          

They pick up our trash twice a day.  Yes, twice a DAY.  I thought for sure she meant week when she told me, but someone comes around in the morning and evening to pick up trash.  You just put it outside your gate.  This has been great because I never have to worry about the trash smelling and since they don't recycle in our neighborhood (I have seen a few recycling trash cans in the city, but it is not prevalent here), we actually have quite a bit of trash each day.

We had to buy our own blinds/curtains.  Even though many people have lived in our house before us, there are no coverings on any of the windows.  Apparently it is standard for each person to have to put up their own blinds or curtains.  We had our curtains installed today and I am really excited because there is a huge street light right outside our bedroom window and it has felt like I have been sleeping with a spotlight in my eyes each night.  It also gets light outside at 5:30 AM, so it will be nice to not have the sun wake me up quite so early. 

We also had to buy our own washing machine.  Apparently most Chinese would not want to use someone's old machine.  For hygienic reasons they get a new one each time.  Therefore, a landlord will not provide a washer.  We went to the appliance store and they had probably 20 or so washers and only 1 dryer.  Most people here, as well as many in Europe, do not use dryers,  They line dry everything.  They did have combination washer/dryers, but the dryer could only dry half as many clothes as the washer could wash, so when the wash cycle was finished you had to stop and get half the clothes out before you could dry them. I decided not to get that and to try just having a washer.  Our new washer got installed today and we had lots of dirty clothes, so I did 4 loads of laundry.  I had problems finding places to hang them all.  (My clothes drying rack and ALL of our hangers are in our shipment.  I tried to get another drying rack, but that was one of the things I haven't been able to find.)  Also, there is only 1 outlet out by the washer, so I have to unplug the hot water heaters for the bathrooms to be able to plug in the washer.  Hopefully, I don't forget to plug the hot water heaters back in before someone wants to take a shower.  :)

Washing machine with hot water heaters above.  You can see the 1 outlet they share on the wall.

                

There are some things that are not different here.  Our washer was scheduled to be delivered between 12 and 4 and they showed up around 4:30.  They also forgot one of our items.  :)

School visit

Today we went to see the kids' new school.  It was my first time visiting it.  Our appointment was at 8:30 and school starts at 8:15, so it was nice to see the end of dropoff.  There were a lot of moms standing around chatting after the kids had gone to class.  Everyone keeps commenting on how this school has a greater community feel than most of the other schools in Hong Kong, mainly because it is the only school in this area so everyone in the community goes to this school where most other areas have many schools so the neighbors would be spread out between multiple schools.  First off, we met our next door neighbor.  It was the first neighbor we have met.  She knew someone new was moving in and figured it was us when she saw us.  They are from the US (although they have been in HK for 2 years and London 6 years before that) and have 3 kids.  Their youngest is a 6 year old girl and will be in Tommy's class next year.  Her name is Chloe and Charlotte is already talking about her like she is her best friend even though we haven't even met her yet.  It was the first conversation I have had with someone since we have been here that is a native English speaker from the US.  Most other native English speakers are from England or Australia/New Zealand and have accents (to me).  :)

The principal showed us around the school.  She was very nice.  She said about half the kids would have Mandarin or Cantonese spoken at home, about half would have English spoken at home, and there might be a couple that have a completely different language.

Charlotte is going to be in Reception next year.  That is what they call kindergarten here.  I was concerned at first because Charlotte would have 1 or 2 more years of school in the US before she went to kindergarten and I didn't think she was ready, the principal she said there is a lot of pressure here to send the kids to kindergarten as early as possible, so they start at 4 and call it kindergarten (or reception), but the curriculum is appropriate for an (advanced) 4 year old program.  We met Charlotte's teacher, she was very nice.  We also saw her classroom as well as visited the classrooms of the nursery students who will be in her class next year.

                                                Charlotte's classroom for next year.

                                                Reception and Nursery outside area.
Tommy will be in Y2.  He is excited to "skip" 1st grade even though the Y1 is more on par with what he did in his kindergarten class and Y2 is the correct grade for 6 year olds.  He is excited to have Chinese class everyday where he will learn to speak, read, and write a little in Chinese as well as learn about Chinese culture.

                                                 Tommy's classroom for next year

                                            Classrooms for older students (Y1-Y6)

They were both excited to see their school has a library.  They will both have books at their reading level sent home by their teacher each week(picture books for Charlotte and a fiction, non-fiction, and Chinese book for Tommy), but they will also be able to check out whatever they want from the library.

                          The library.  They loved looking at the books and didn't want to leave.

We also saw the playgrounds.  The classrooms, especially the reception and younger students, go outside a lot.  They have hats with flaps on the back to cover their necks they have to wear anytime they are outside.  The school has an outdoor garden with a planting box for each class.  They also have a green field to play on.  Apparently it is the only school in all of Hong Kong to have a green field.  Grass is hard to grow here and land is really expensive.  They are very proud of their field.

                                    Outdoor basketball courts with green field in the background

The kids were a little reserved, but I think they will really like going to school here.  They both really liked their old school, but I think they will adjust fairly quickly.  Charlotte was ready to go to school this morning (the last day for the current students) and was asking when she could invite her new friends over.  Her only concern was she doesn't know any of their names yet.  Tommy is more than happy to wait 2 months before starting school.  :)

Unique Food of the Day

Mmm grape and aloe

I've been grabbing drinks that I don't recognize (and don't have English on it).  Today it was MinuteMaid grape something.  Turns out it's white grapes with chunks of aloe in it (unless "aloe" is poorly translated English, which I doubt).  

It's very sweet and actually quite good.  After taking a sip I figured out you're supposed to shake it as it's non carbonated and the aloe settles on the bottom.  The aloe is similar to the tapioca balls in bubble tea, but smaller and very soft.  I'd definitely buy this again; the only downside is it's sold in a small bottle.

Food item #2 was for the kids - Ritz crackers with Lemon filling.  This appears to be packaged and made in Indonesia and has nutrition information in Indonesian.  It was a big hit!

Shopping

There are a lot of things different about shopping in Hong Kong versus the US.  Hong Kong has a lot of HUGE mega malls.  We went to one the other day in Sha Tin that had 7 floors and 3 "phases" which basically meant it was 3 different malls connected by long walkways.  It also had a huge outdoor playground called Snoopy's World complete with a water amusement ride.  The mall had a lot of stores I recognized (Gap, The Body Shop, Victoria's Secret, H&M, Sketchers, etc.), but a lot of new ones as well.  Some of the stores sell high end designer items, while other shops sell discount items.

On the streets, there are also blocks of small, inexpensive shops.  Most shops specialize in a certain type of item, like small electronics, clothes, or tools.  There are also a lot of open air food stands.  The Chinese buy their fruits and vegetables fresh every day, so there are many stands around the cities.  Often the stand will only sell fruit OR vegetables because they wouldn't mix the two, they should be kept separate. (However, we did see several shops that sold raw meat and vegetables.  It would make more sense to me to separate those.)

Shopping can be an adventure here because first, we don't know where to go to buy certain things.  We went to 5 or 6 different stores before we found a digital lit clock for Tommy's room.  We tried at several department stores and a couple bigger electronics stores similar to a Best Buy.  We finally found one at a small, hole-in-the-wall electronics store.  We wanted to buy more, but he only had 1 in stock.  The stores are so tiny, they often don't want to waste space with multiples of items that apparently don't sell well.  I definitely miss being able to go to Target for pretty much everything we need.  Also, communication can be difficult.  Often, if we would ask someone where to find something they would point to or go get someone else who was spoke English.  Even with the English "speaker" there was still a lot of pantomiming and often we still couldn't find what we were looking for.  Also, since we do not have a car, I have to think carefully about what I want to buy because we have to carry everything home on the bus or train.  If we order big things, they will deliver things for free, but everyday things like groceries have to be carried.  I have seen a lot of people with knapsacks on rollers, our relocation agent told us she and her friends refer to them as "granny bags" (she has one though).  I might have to get one soon.  Our house it about 2 blocks from the grocery store and I think I will go almost every day just because I can't carry much more than that at one time.    :)

Learning to write Chinese the Pizza Hut way.

Tommy learning to write Simplified Chinese thanks to our local Pizza Hut ad.  :)

Quite a trip

                                 Us with our 10 bags and 4 book bags ready to leave STL

I have been pretty lucky in my life to not have experienced many issues with air travel.  Unfortunately, we had several issues on our trip to Hong Kong.  We had several delays on our flight out of St. Louis, including both a weather delay and a mechanical delay because the incoming plane hit a bird (always comforting to know the plane you are about to get on has a mechanical issue).  The kids were great, although Tommy did mention that waiting for 5 hours in the airport wasn't a lot of fun and wasn't quite what he had pictured.  He spent the entire flight to Chicago looking out the window and asking questions.

                                                              Tom and Charlotte

                                         Tommy checking out the safety pamphlet with Mommy

We ended up missing our flight to Hong Kong and had to spend the night in Chicago.  We thought it would be nice to relax in Chicago, sleep in, and start the day with 1 less flight to take.  It wasn't as restful as we had envisioned when all the hotels near the airport were booked and after hours and hours of waiting and confusion, we finally got to our hotel after midnight.  Tommy was excited because it was the latest he had ever gotten to stay up.  The flight to Hong Kong went really well.  The plane was about 45 minutes late, but when you have a 16 hour flight, you barely notice it.  The kids did so well on the plane.  They loved being about to watch movies, all the food and snacks, and Tommy really enjoyed watching the map of where we were in the world.  They were awake the majority of the time, but each slept a decent amount.

                                           Enjoying our orange juice/champagne before takeoff.

When we got on the plane, one of the stewards with a clipboard had asked us 3 times how many bags we checked.  He seemed perplexed.  When we arrived in HK, we were relieved to see several of our bags come out at the beginning.  Unfortunately, one of our bags didn't make it (we checked 8, so 7 out of 8 isn't horrible).  With the plane delay and stop to report our missing bag, we didn't end up getting to the hotel until after 12:30 AM (It was 11:30 AM in St. Louis and the kids were wired).  Tommy and Charlotte had fun looking at the different sights and admiring their new city. 

                 Tommy and Charlotte enjoying the view from our hotel room on the 29th floor.