Imagine a sign saying "No Screaming"....who enforces that??

While out cycling today I noticed a sign hanging on the gate of a small basketball court.  It had 3 commands on the sign.

1. No Screaming.
 2. No Ball Games.
3. Who cares because you just took away all the fun with the first two commands!!!

And you see, as I cycled on by, I reflected on why so many Chinese families choose bubbles as their preferred form of entertainment in parks.  Bubbles are safe, noone gets hit with them, noone finds them that fun that they start screaming either, so you are safe on two big no no's....but lets face it, bubbles are good for like 5 minutes then you want something else to do.  Well actually thats only my kids, the Chinese kids I see think bubbles are way cool....they play with those things the whole time they are at the park.

Obviously it comes down to expectations.  I see a park, or a small basketball court, as a place for fun and exercise.  A place where my kids can run around, making heaps of noise, and blow off some steam.  The Leisure Department obviously sees them in a different light....they are places of serenity and calm, concrete walled enclosures where people will just walk around the painted lines, forwards or backwards they don't mind, as long as they don't run or make noise or heaven forbid actually throw a ball into one of those dreaded hoops!!

I didn't know that I was bought up to believe a whole lot of things until I arrived in Hong Kong.  I thought everyone thought the same on some things, not others of course, but some things.  Like a beach is for swimming in if the weather is hot - well you see you shouldn't take things like this for granted....because not everyone thinks the same.  The beach is a dangerous place that one must warm up for (no kidding they put that over the loud speakers and I have seen fathers showing their children how to warm up in the shallows, hysterical let me tell you!!).  It's a place to be very cautious about even if the sky is blue and the waves a mere ripple.  I have been on the beach when they warned everyone to leave the water as the waves may be high and I swear I couldn't see a ripple out there.  It's hard not to feel like an intrepid traveller who is very daring when you actually decide you will keep swimming despite the warning from the speakers....when in fact you are just being a sensible hot adult!

But I digress - I think Hong Kong is a great place to live, its just that I can't always understand everything and find I ponder things in those rare moments when my whole attention is not taken up by 3 children.  And speaking of those 3 children I have just looked back through my photos and realised I haven't blogged about our lives for too long again....its netball's fault, it sucks my will to live, I just want to veg and watch West Wing when I find myself at home.....but here goes.....life in Hong Kong over Chinese New Year and Easter.

We had the best Chinese New Year, and the worst Easter so I guess that equals it all out :)

Noah's birthday fell right around Chinese New Year celebrations so the cake had to go to school early.  This year he chose Billy The Plane (that only means something to people who have the cake making book) and I thought it looked ok considering it was cooked in a glorified toaster.  Paul nicknamed it the Stingray which I can definately see his point.  The kids only noticed the M & M's so they were super happy.

For his 6th birthday Noah just wanted a family day - awwww so cute.  Actually I think he forgot he had said this because he asked me later why he hadn't had a party....Oh well son, a mother never forgets it when her son says he doesn't need a party this year!!!  We took the whole family out to the Dumbo restaurant.  This 3 story floating restaurant has a buffet breakfast on the top deck.  It was brilliant fun except for the fact it was a boat and we had an 18 month old to watch.  But other than that it was great, free flowing sparkling wine and yummy buffet food.  Pretty good for a 6yr old do I thought.

One of the great things about Chinese New Year (I know this blog is pretty late!!! considering this all happened in Feb of this year!).....is all the colourful decorations they put up at this time.  I took a photo of this large poster and I got lots of photos of lanterns (coming up later :).

 So after that great day of yummy food and fun times out on the floating Dumbo restaurant the next day we wisely headed to the Yee's house to join them for a hike.  We hiked out from their apartment and it was really lovely.  Just the right temp, cool so you didn't get too hot while walking, but no freezing breezes to chill us when we stopped for food.   Our kids love hanging out with these guys...they are such nice kids.....

This is how Tobias does food on the run

A lovely view for lunch

Wish I was this small and could just sleep as someone carried me!!

Just hanging out

Following on from the hike the day turned out so nice that we all went to the reservoir and hired the pedal boats - man what a fun time.  The kids were with me while Paul was lucky enough to score Lizzy and Isaac.  Thank goodness I had Abby Yee on board, for a 13 yr old she sure knows how to power up those pedal boats, she was yelling instructions at me like a drill sargent!  Mind you if she hadn't we would have been beached many a time as our steering was back to front, so think lady backing a trailer and that was me in charge of that boat!!!

We had bread on board to feed the ducks but Paul pretty quickly made it into a food fight on the water!!!  The kids loved it!!  The other Chinese families paddling around quietly could not believe it!!  Such noise and pandomonia.  Bet we were breaking quite a few rules that day!!  Laughing and shouting probably being two of them....

We raced at each other, reversed up to zoom away while chucking lovely wet yucky bits of bread the whole time - what a tummy work out I got from laughing so much!!

This is a view of Pauls charge at our boat - amazing that I had time to grab the camera as he raced at us with his minions ready to bombard us with bread!

Next on the holiday list was going to Tai Po Park with Darsie and her clan.  Now let me explain to those not in the Hong Kong weather know.....Chinese New Year is notoriously wet.....and cold.....and the Chinese like it this way as it bodes for a prosperous New Year the colder and wetter it is.....so just to say that there must be a whole lot of unprosperous people around here as the weather for this holiday was spot on startling!!! 

This wonderful waterfront park was filled to the brim with Chinese lanterns and they looked so wonderful up in the trees - like massive flowery blooms.

After playing soccer and eating lunch we took the kids to the Bug House (not sure what its official name is).  They really liked it in there (not just because of the air con either!)

After looking around the Bug House we ended up along their pathway that was supposed to allow us to see all of said bugs.  Gotta say wasn't too sad to only come across this pretty butterfly (it's the sort of bug that I like to see, the rest I just pretend to like so my kids don't grow up totally fear full of bugs like myself :)

We finished up with a drink thank goodness, it was soooooooooooo hot this day!!!

I tried to get Tobias to go to sleep at one stage (what was I thinking!!!) and so took him off for a walk along the waterfront.  As I say its a pretty nice park so heres a couple of shots to give you an idea of it.

And that was it....Chinese New Year was all done and everyone raced back into working mode...of which I will update you in my next blog (promise it will actually be written in the same month that I send it next time :)