Visitors!

We were so excited to have our first visitors in Hong Kong.  Tom's parents, Jan and Don, came to visit for 2 weeks and we had a wonderful time.  We had fun showing them around where we live and taking them places we had been before.  We also did some fun things for the first time.  The kids loved having their grandparents here to spoil them for 2 weeks.  (Tom and I were also spoiled by all the extra help.)

Don and Jan with Tommy and Charlotte getting ready to ride the Star Ferry

I will write about some of the new things we did separately, but we had fun taking Jan and Don to school, the Country Club, and our local grocery store.  We also took them on the shuttle bus to the train station and the 2 local shopping markets (they even felt brave enough to take the shuttle by themselves 3 times to go shopping and explore).  We ate dim sum multiple times and rode the Star Ferry and the Peak Tram.

Riding the Mid-levels escalator on the way to the Peak

Tommy and Grandpa pretending to drive the Peak Tram

view from the tram

Birthday parties

Charlotte has been to 2 birthday parties so far.  For whatever reason, it seems like about half her class has a birthday in either August or September (including her).  It seemed like every other day she was coming home with a birthday invitation or a goody bag to celebrate someone's birthday.   

I RSVPed for the first party and she asked me how many people were coming and told me siblings were welcome.  A friend had told me that is a cultural thing that when you invite a child to a birthday party, usually the whole family shows up.  I told her I would bring Tommy as well.  I thought Tommy would enjoy the party and there was a chance Tom would have to be go out of town that weekend, so it would be easier to bring him. The party was for twins, one in Charlotte's class and the other in the other Reception class.  They invited everyone in both classes so I knew it would be a lot of people.  They had rented a large outdoor facility with beautiful gardens.  They had many decorations including a nylon banner with "Happy Birthday" and life size pictures of the kids on it.  The theme was Frozen and superheros for the boy/girl twins.  My friend had warned me that some of the families here have quite elaborate birthday parties.  I am used to parties in the US where the parents might have an outside party and rent a bouncy house, hire a magician or fancy face painter, have a pinata, or have animals to pet.  This one had ALL of those.

Charlotte with her princess face paint

Charlotte loved the magician

The magician also did balloon animals and swords

Petting the goat

Then it was time to eat.  Instead of just pizza like I am used to, this party had a full buffet of at least 30 items.  They had things like mini sandwiches, lots of desserts, fruit kebabs, and, of course, croissants filled with smoked salmon and caviar.  The food was really good.  Then, they brought out the cakes.  They were amazing, a Frozen castle and superhero cake.  

When it was time to leave the party, each child (including siblings) got a goody bag with their name on it.  They had already gotten a full bag of candy from the 2 pinatas.  The goody bags each had several nice sized toys, including a mini (knock-off) Lego set (Iron Man for Tommy and Frozen for Charlotte).  The kids had a great time.

The next weekend, Charlotte had another party.  This one was very nice, but not as elaborate.  They sent an email telling everyone to dress up like a princess or superhero if they wanted.  Charlotte was excited to wear her Sleeping Beauty costume from last Halloween. 

She had a great time at the party.  I only took Charlotte and I had several people ask me where my son was.  The party was a Frozen theme and the parents did a great job.  They labeled all the snacks with new names, for example, potato chips were Hans' ice chips.  They also made cute Frozen labels for the bottled water and renamed it melted snow.  The kids played pin the nose on Olaf as well as some other Frozen games.  She had a lot of fun.

Cloudy Hill

If you look out our front doors, you can see a "mountain" called Cloudy Hill.  Tommy has asking to try to climb it for a while.  A few weeks ago we decided we would try to do part of it.  We went with the neighbor next door in Tommy's class and her mom. 

Cloudy Hill is the hill on the left. The path goes up the hill on the right then the hill on the left.

It was a hot day and it is about a 15 minute uphill walk through the neighborhood to get to the start of the path.  Several areas of the trail are so steep they have stairs instead of a path. 

Chloe and Tommy at the start

The kids did a really good job.  Once we got up the stairs, there was a nice breeze and it was a a nice walk.  We took plenty of water breaks.  There was nice area at the top of the first hill that had several benches as well as green bumpy walkway you are supposed to walk on without your shoes to massage your feet.  We all took a walk on it on the way down. 

Tommy on the trail

The bumpy walkway massages your feet.

We made it about halfway up before we decided to turn around and go back. 

View of our neighborhood from the top

The kids were tired on the way home, but they made it.  Tommy was really dragging once we got to the neighborhood.  He got home and told me he wasn't going to try to climb Cloudy Hill again for a long, long time.  The next morning, the weather was nice and Tom jokingly asked Tommy if he wanted to climb Cloudy Hill again.  Tommy seriously agreed, it is so funny how quickly they change their mind at this age.  Instead Tommy and I decided to take a walk on the bike path near our house.

The path is a nice flat path that runs along a river as well as the MTR train tracks.  Tommy enjoyed counting the trains we saw on the way (I think it was 12 MTR trains and 2 trains to China).  We ended up walking to the Tai Wo train station, about a 40 minute walk.  We were going to get an ice cream cone at McDonalds and walk home, but it was 10:15 in the morning and McDonalds wasn't serving ice cream yet.  Instead we decided to take the shuttle bus back to our neighborhood and get a drumstick at the grocery store.  It was a fun, active weekend. 

At the train station

Star Ferry

While Tom was in Shanghai last weekend, the kids and I decided to take a trip on the Star Ferry.  There are several ways to get across the harbour from the Kowloon side of Hong Kong to Hong Kong Island.  We usually take a train or bus that goes through a tunnel.  The Star Ferry allows us to take a boat over the water and has great views of the Hong Kong skyline.  I told the kids we were going to ride a big boat and they were very excited.  We got off the train and walked toward the waterfront.  There was a huge cruise ship that was docked nearby.  Tommy saw the cruise ship and was pretty sure that was our ship.  I showed him the actual Star Ferry.  He wasn't impressed and asked me multiple times when he could ride on a cruise ship. 

The cruise ship

The Star Ferry

We had fun on the ferry. You sit on long benches with great views of the water.  The backs on the benches fold to the other side so you don't have to sit backwards on the return trip.  Another nice thing about the public transportation in Hong Kong, and especially the Star Ferry, it is very inexpensive.  It costs the 3 of us less than $1 USD total to ride the Star Ferry each way. 

Great view of the Hong Kong skyline

Once we got off the boat, we walked to a nearby mall to have some dim sum for lunch. Along the way, we saw a new Ferris wheel they are putting up on the waterfront.  It looks like it is almost finished.  We will have to make a trip down to ride it soon.  :)

Tropical Cyclone

The kids didn't have school today.  Typhoon Kalmaegi is moving through the area.  Hong Kong has a system of warning ratings depending on the conditions of the storm.  The ratings are as follows:
1 - Standby
3 - Strong Winds, sustained wind from 26-37 mph with gusts up to 69 mph
8 - Gale or Storm, 38-73 mph with gusts up to 113 mph
9 - Increasing Gale or Storm, 55-73 mph
10 - Hurricane, 74+ mph

Apparently they used to have more levels between 3 and 8 that depended on the direction of the storm, but they consolidated them all to a level 8 to make it simpler. 

Instead of individual schools deciding when to call off schools like snow days in the US, the government has mandated rules.  If the warning is a level 3, all kindergartens and below are cancelled.  If the warning is a level 8, all schools are cancelled as well as non-essential government jobs.  Therefore, even though Tommy and Charlotte go to the same school, if the warning is a level 3, Tommy would have school, but Charlotte would not. 

The threat was a level 8 today so everyone got to stay home.  The shuttles in our neighborhood didn't run, the gym was closed, and they didn't pick up trash, the MTR also ran a lighter schedule.  Tom worked from home, it would have been difficult for him to get to the office if he had wanted to.  We had a lot of storms last night.  We lost a few branches from our trees.  One of the houses down the street is under construction.  They have a temporary metal wall enclosing the property.  About 3 AM, one of the pieces of the wall fell on top of one of the cars parked on the street.  Luckily, it looks like the car just has some scratches and nothing major. 

You can see the missing part of the wall that fell down.

It was an unexpected and fun day off.  The kids did a little bit of school work this morning and had the neighbors over for a playdate this afternoon.  The threat has already been reduced to a level 3, so hopefully they will be back at school tomorrow.

Mid-Autumn Festival

September 9th was the Mid-Autumn Festival, a public holiday in Hong Kong.  September 9th was a Tuesday.  That is something different I have noticed about holidays in Hong Kong versus the US.  Except for a few holidays that always fall on a certain date (Christmas, Fourth of July), most US days are moved to a certain day of the week (usually Monday) to make them more convenient.  The US wants to celebrate the holiday, but they also want everyone (or at least people who get off for holidays) to have a 3 day weekend.  In China, most holidays depend on the lunar calendar and fall when they fall.  The only time they will move the official day is if the holiday falls on Sunday.  Then, they celebrate it with a day off on Monday.  If the holiday falls on Saturday, then the only people who have the day off are the ones who normally work on Saturday.  In a few weeks, the kids have a Wednesday and Thursday off for a public holiday.  I am guessing there will be a lot of people absent from school (and work) that Friday.

We tried to watch a video to find out the history of the Mid-Autumn Festival.  We watched 2 videos, that gave very different stories.  One thing that was the same, is the holiday celebrates Chang'e, the moon goddess of immortality.  The holiday is sometimes called the moon festival.  People eat mooncakes to celebrate, which are small cakes with a egg yolk filling.  The filling is usually circular, so when you bite into the cake it looks like a full moon.  The cakes are also baked in a special mold so they have Chinese characters imprinted on the top.  People light lanterns to celebrate as well.  The legend is the lanterns are lighting the way for Hou Yi, Chang'e's husband on Earth, to find his way to Chang'e on the moon.

We went to a celebration for the holiday in our neighborhood.  It was very nice.  The strange thing (to me) is even though the celebration is designed for kids, it didn't start until 8 PM.  My kids are usually in bed by then.  The celebration had food and drinks, games for the kids, and a raffle.  Everything was free.  The food and games both required tickets to help make things more fair, but you could get a free sheet of tickets whenever you ran out.  The kids came home with a bag of freebies.  Finally, around 9:30, Tommy told me he was tired and wanted to go home.  We had a great night. 

Tommy being silly for the camera. :)  They both got glow bracelets and fans.

  

The crowd

The Peak Tram

I am little behind on blog posts.  Now that the kids are in school, I am going to try to get caught up.  A few weeks ago, we rode the peak tram up to Victoria Peak.  The kids and I rode the train down to Central and met Tom after work.  It had rained on and off all day.  I was hoping the Peak Tram wouldn't be too crowded because of the weather.  One of the highlights of riding the Tram is the great views of Hong Kong from the top, but there wouldn't be great views on this cloudy day.  We walked to the station and found there was a long line anyway.

A great day for an outdoor adventure

The line was long, but it moved fairly quickly.  Once we got to the inside area, there were some displays to look at while we waited.  

Tommy and Charlotte being silly in front of the old tram display.

The Peak Tram takes you to the top of Victoria Peak, where they have built a mall with lots of shopping and restaurants.  The tram travels at a pretty steep pitch.  The floor has ridges to help people who are standing from falling.  You can also pay extra to go to the roof top terrace to get an unobstructed view of the Hong Kong skyline.  We skipped this option because of the weather.  We still had a fairly decent view from the windows and outside walkways.  There are also several nice restaurants that advertise fantastic views.  

Selfie on the tram.

Cloudy view of Hong Kong

Charlotte and Tommy in front of the Peak Tram sign.

When we were done eating, we got in line to ride the tram back down.  At this point, it was raining pretty hard.  The line was outside, under an awning and we had umbrellas, but it was also very windy, so we all got soaked.  The kids both complained they were cold.  Then we went in the indoor section where it was dry, but even colder with the air conditioning.  I think it was the first time since we got here in June I was truly cold.  :)

Finally, we walked back to the train station and traveled a new route Tom has been taking home from work.  We sat in the first class train on the last leg, which has nice cushioned seats and is much less crowded than the other cars.  The kids thought it was a lot of fun.  I can definitely see why Tom prefers this route.  We had a great day!