Gotta love being a tourist!

Noah had his dream come true, a train that went up a really steep hill - wow Thomas and scary thrills all rolled in together. In Paul's last week of holidays we fitted in as much as one pregnant mum can stand in this heat - one day we went up the Peak Tram, another day we drove off to Big Wave Bay near ShekO - both trips were brilliant!

Man it is hot here at the moment. Around 35 degrees each day, which is hot, but the worst thing is the humidity, who knows what measurement they have for that but I have the drip measure - dripping off your nose is really bad, dripping from the temples is not quite as hot, and dripping under your clothes is normal - well this day was a dripping off your nose day just to put you in the picture.

We got to the Peak Tram before lunch, and hey, wouldn't you know it, a whole lot of people had the same idea as us so we waited in a hot sticky line with India attempting to pull my arm free from my body (gotta love that little balancing act of the toddler - how far can I lean out from mum before she moves or I fall over??).



Finally we got on the train and headed up the hill. The trip only takes about 10 mins but it is awesome! What a great way to appreciate Hong Kong's natural beauty (yes it actually does have some) - as you leave behind the apartments (in itself a really interesting peek into some amazing places to live) you ascend into trees and masses of greenery.


Once at the top we walked around the horrible multi layered shopping mall they have popped up there and finally escaped outside to let the kids play on the playground (this was real nose dripping heat let me tell you!!).



The trip down was a bit nerve wracking as you do it in reverse, ie you descend while facing forward. For those with vertigo it wouldn't be good! But Noah just loved it and the view again was very clear right across to the Dark Side where we live (Kowloon). Once our feet were back on terra firma again Noah promptly asked if we could go up again. We managed to keep the enthusiasm high by promising him that we can take Nana up the tram when she comes in October - so watch out Nana, you are going straight up the hill!









On another day we decided the wonderful weather called for more beach action. We headed off to other side of the island in search of Big Wave Bay. It was a hike but man it was worth it. We parked the car and started walking down the hill. We passed broken this and broken that (reminded me of lots of places in Thailand), then we came to the surf orientated shops that had surf and boogey boards for hire. We wisely chose to hire an umbrella and popped it in the sand only metres from the waves. Glorious cool water was our reward for this rather long journey. The waves were fun, the amateur surfers weren't as much fun to avoid. The kids jumped and played in the water while Paul and I took turns swimming out by ourselves. A rock pool at the base of the surf patrol tower occupied them for an hour or so, then back to the waves again.




Finally the lure of lovely small grain sand meant some digging was required. Somehow Noah became the object to pile sand on and India and Paul took great delight in loading him up.











Finally just his head was showing and India promptly sat on him - the victor! Once our tummies could wait no more we began the hike back up the hill (such a shame to be so hot at the top after being so cool at the bottom of the hill) - and took off in search of a yummy lunch. Another great Crowhurst adventure.

Food, food, food....

So moving to a new country holds lots of challenges - driving (huge for directionally challenged people like myself), making friends (still waiting for that to happen), join new things (life doesn't start here until Sept so we are making our own fun) and food is a huge new area to overcome.

We have been out on 2 food shopping expeditions so far - the whole family involved as it is such an eye opening experience. Our first one took us to what Paul calls "a very local supermarket" - they had good deals on strawberries, but that was the end of their appeal as I perused numerous aisles of oil, noodles and soya sauce. After that shocker we went upstairs to the more international supermarket (but read here slightly more, there is hardly any baking stuff, very little dried fruit, kidney beans in a can are in the special section - you kind of get what I mean). Seriously there is nothing more daunting than looking at some packaging for a good 5 min and you still aren't quite sure what product is held within its confines - hmmmm do you buy it anyway as it could be fun to get home and open it???? Its always great walking through their meat/fish area - you find yummy tidbits like chicken feet (marinated or not - your choice!), all different kinds of jelly (not the bright red kind either), unidentified bits and pieces that you apparently make into a soup of some kind???, any kind of meat that doesn't have an english translation on it is interesting - you think you know your meats until you are faced with it being cut differently and not being labelled, suddenly you can't even figure out how much it weighs let alone what part of the beast it is.....

Anyway the second shopping spree turned out to be much better - we went to a much more international supermarket, and other than the fact that the shopping trolleys are like our kid play ones (I kid you not, that is why asian people are skinny, the shopping trolleys only hold 3 things so they are always hungry@!!) so it took Paul with a trolley, myself and India, we managed to get heaps of our normal food. Now don't get the wrong impression, we are eating dumplings and pad thai and sweet and sour pork, but we just can't do without our home made cereal in the morning, or our raisins for morning tea - and choc chip cookies made at home are the bomb, so it is essential to find ingredients to complete these kiwi yummies.

Cereal making can be dangerous however and here are a couple of photos showing Paul administering home remedies to his burnt tongue (metal spoons used to stir cereal conduct heat - one science experience I hope he remembers!!)

That's peas on the tongue in case you didn't know!

You know how people in NZ can't quite understand why dairy products are so expensive, well I have a bit more sympathy with dairy being expensive in Hong Kong. I mean if they actually said the stuff was from around here I would be skeptical - cows is one thing I haven't seen hide nor hair of since being here - perhaps there are big herds up in the national parks roaming around waiting to be milked....???? Well just to give you an impression of cost of dairy (so you all feel better about buying it in NZ) - we bought a 750g block of Mainland cheese for $90.00 HKD which is about $15.00 NZD and it was on special!!!! Milk is really expensive too, so we are calling some of our cooking trails different names - like Hong Kong choc chip cookies. This is because butter and milk are so expensive that we are using oil and soya milk as substitutes - I need to contact my friends with dairy allergies to find out how to do this dairy free baking! So far the results haven't been so bad......

When I sat down at the computer tonight to write our blog I was flicking through photos and noticed how many we have taken of the kids eating...so thought yeah I will write about food. We had a total shocker the other night, I must have had a total brain lapse when purchasing 3 x broccoli heads. My thought was to make soup, but my mum hat must have been left at home with that decision. Paul made it that night and I thought it was lovely!!



I have never seen both of our kids turn their noses up at a meal, but lets just say there was a whole lot of shivering and whimpering going on. Lots of toast was consumed in an effort to conceal the fact that not much green soup was going down!! I even popped the ultimate carrot on the table to entice them - sliced up watermelon! But no, green soup is a kid nightmare!!!

And just to prove that I can give out treats as well as disasters, heres a photo of Noah recently eating an icecream at home while watching the Misty Island Thomas dvd. He was so enthralled by the movie we had to keep giving him commands to lick every 3 mins or so.

Finally after all the eating is done here are 2 videos showing Paul and kids playing after dinner (the whale isn't allowed to play, she just has to shoot the footage). The first one is rumbles, and the second one is an ode to the All Blacks (the Blacks as Noah calls them).

Ok so some funnies to get you all laughing - the other day we were trying to get to church and I was on navigation using iPhone, Paul was on driving, Noah was on commenting and India on singing. We were doing ok until Paul took a turn....into a bus terminal - it was hilarious...there we were dashing past all the buses and it felt like they were all thinking, "look at that white family, they are so lost" as I just covered my face and Paul uttered things like "oh just help me get out of here fast" and Noah kept saying "whats so funny mum??". Sometimes its great being a foreigner!!

Well the weather just keeps turning out the cracker days for us - its great as we are having a fantastic holiday before Paul goes back to school and real life hits in. The other day we shot off to a beach on the island called Repulse Bay (what a shocking name, like repulsive, not what marketing people would use I am sure). Paul is now telling me why it was called Repulse Bay, something to do with pirates being repulsed out of there or some such story....ok ok, maybe it has some historic value..



Anyway despite the name it was awesome, found a tree (hope some dog hadn't found it before us for morning abulutions!), and headed for the water - great temperature and we happily frolicked around for an hour before heading back to our towels for marmite and chippie sammies - oh the taste of home!. Of course no trip to the beach would be perfect without the mandatory icecream - and aren't you just pleased that the ocean is never far away after kids eat an icecream in 36 degree heat!!














































I am trying to learn to drive in Hong Kong. We have bought a bus, actually to be fair that is a bit sizist, it's really like a minibus....we feel like people are trying to wave us down for a lift....its great for transporting lots of potential visitors around (thats a hint that you are welcome to visit us), and great when Noah needs to stand up and stretch as he can stand up in it no prob, but bad for parking as the car parking designers over here think we all own smart cars. I have told Paul my strategy for parking will be to just take up 2 of the blighters!! That way can't get squashed in by others :) That is how a foreign female solves that problem.





Anyway learning to drive a minibus in Hong Kong has some interesting moments, like when Paul's iPhone ran out of power before we got on the freeway....hmmmmm.....that was pure fun! If your idea of fun is like hitting yourself, running into brick walls or negoitiating full on dense traffic with a husband with no idea where to go and instructions like "get in the right lane, ummm no actually the left lane looks good, quick otherwise we head off to China!!" - at least our kids see how mum and dad cope under stress (one goes really loud and angry (umm thats me), and the other goes matter of fact and patient (thats not me at all). The good part of the story, he really was right, the left lane worked like a charm and we made it home, yeah!!

A couple of day trips

Finally, finally the sun has started shining. I seriously thought it was a joke that it was meant to be summer over here, it had rained every day since we arrived, but the sun has emerged - yeah!!!

We have borrowed a car which is - exciting, nerve wracking, challenging, easier, hot and bothering all at the same time! We took off to investigate some of Hong Kong Island (we live on the Mainland so a 10 min drive to Pauls school on the island). The tunnel under the harbour was Noah's favourite part - loved not being able to see the end! We were both happy to make it through that navigational nightmare with no marks on the car and all passengers in tack!

We popped into Paul's school - nice to meet some people he works with. It's great as we can leave the car there and then shoot off to town easily (its a nightmare parking in central so much easier and cheaper to leave it at his school).

Here is a photo I took on the mini bus we take down to Causeway Bay:



First stop was Ikea (such a great place, such a shame to have to own children when you are shopping there!!!) - after that all of us needed some serious calorie loading after expending so much energy either racing around (if you are 2 or 4 yrs old) or being very grumpy (if you are the old cranky mum). The only option according to dad was McD's - now as a general rule I never enter through the golden arches but this was a once a year treat - my kids have never been inside a McD's before so it was all new to them - of course they loved it much better than the Chinese restaurant we forced them to go to the day before!!!





After that we decided to do a tram ride to the Midlevels escalator (meant to be the longest in the world, however Paul wonders about the validity of this claim as it is broken into parts but still very cool to just keep going up and up and up). The tram ride was great fun - two levels so Noah had to stay and "drive" it downstairs for a while while Paul and India kept calling for us to come up the stairs. A very cheap and fun way to see the city.





Our day ended after the last escalator ride we could find - just jumped in a taxi and raced back to dad's school - 2 kids had a nap through the tunnel and home - a really cool day out and about.




















The next day we took off to Sai Kung which is about 25 mins the other way. This is a small village on the coast - lots of expats live here but it still retains the older style village feel. There are lovely big trees that shade lots of the walkways so makes it much cooler to get around. We watched the ships in the harbour, and were amazed by the fish in the tanks (can't wait to go to that restaurant once I am not preggers - seafood!! yum)



- and finally headed off to the pool. What a great place!!! It had this small hydro slide for the littlies, water guns they can operate and other water things to play with while mum and dad lolled around in wonderful cold water!!! Oh bliss! Heres some photos of our second visit to Sai Kung pool (it was a bit more dramatic on this visit as a boy knocked out one of his teeth on the hydroslide - oh blood, tears...but his mum assured everyone it was wiggly anyway, just a great story to tell his friends)

The transforming apartment

So we have a bigger apartment than some (and much smaller than others) - 1300 sqf, but that includes window sills etc cause we like to perch on them occasionally!!! So apparently if we take out all those handy window sills and shared entrance way we are left with about 1060 sqf to work with. Now imagine a white space, white floors, white walls, white roof, thats our place!!! And then just for fun imagine these lovely dangling crystal bits of glass that hang from the roof in the bathrooms, that my friend is our decorative feature, the point of difference in this apartment. There are no wardrobes, very few cupboards, and the few we have in the kitchen like to fit one bottle of oil that is about as tall as Noah - real handy for food that is of a normal stature - oh and did I mention they are all about ceiling height, and while I applaud them for their use of space, I mean most places don't utilise that ceiling area very well, it does make it difficult for a person of my height to get things in and out of them!

So here we have a white canvas on which to begin creating. I took some photos to show the bleakness of our condition, suitcases, ugly free mats Paul got. I missed out the bed rolls that we slept on for the first week waiting for Ikea to deliver.

KIDS BEDROOM


KIDS PLAYROOM

Because we are kiwis and frugal as a nation we opted to build our own furniture - of course Paul and I saw this as a great bonding experience - he built and I navigated the instructions and sorted nails, nuts and bolts. Quite a good set up for me! I did give my opinion and technical advice more than once which sometimes was received, and sometimes just ignored. We were in good spirits until we almost finished the bed and Paul declared they had sent the wrong one - well all the air went out of us as we contemplated another night on the couch/bed roll. We decided to plough ahead and sleep on it anyway (the mattress was correct) and deal with it in the morning.

Noah got in on the action the next day, helping dad make up his bunk bed. Took all day but Paul can put up one of those in his sleep now as he had to take it apart twice to correct colours and ladder placement :) gotta love the wives like me who are definite in their thinking on these matters.

Old Indi Pindi is still in her broken porta cot (didn't used to be broken but I think Noah jumping in it might have made it age faster than it intended) - just can't face the thought of her moving into a bed of her own - she already takes an hour to go to sleep and thats in a cot!!!

So we are half way there - still the wrong bed for us, the right one is at least a month away so our room still looks like some half way house. The kids sleeping room is looking better - just working on storage - the playroom looks bereft - still waiting on our 21 boxes from NZ - I actually shudder when I think about fitting all that stuff in - I might have to take back my sarcastic comments about windowsills and actually start storing things on them!!

ONE PART OF THE PLACE THAT IS SORT OF FINISHED

First week in Hong Kong

The first week has passed in a blur of activity. Every day has been filled up with official stuff, poor kids!!! We have tried to add some stuff in for them but the rainy weather has stopped most of our ideas. One thing that has caught both of their attention is travelling on the trains - India hates being confined to her backpack, but if she can hold onto something like daddy then she is happy (most of the time).

Noah just loves using the poles to practise being Fireman Sam, much to the amusement of the people of Hong Kong as I am quite sure that none of the other children every act out their own imaginery scene from Fireman Sam all on their own in the train carriage - with the finale always being a big jump and slide down the pole - never sure whether to be proud of his creative imagination or slightly embarrassed at his lack of awareness of how very different that sort of behaviour is here.

The water shooters have provided hours of fun for our kids. They are on each day for 3 hrs down at the park. Great when the weather is muggy. The first day Paul took them down while I went to buy exciting things like rubbish bins etc....that night I asked what had happened to Noah's back (it was all red) - apparently Paul had been dragging him around the water park and both of them thought it was brilliant fun until later on when we saw the fake grass burn on his back - poor little guy, looked quite sore.

Both of the kids love the big couch we have bought, they play squirrels with the sleeping bags, do massive belly flops, use the cardboard boxes to slide off it, conduct crawling races etc...hours of fun for a very small second hand price. They can be great friends when all the stars and moons align themselves - if they aren't quite all lined up then Noah tries to convince India to do any number of naughty deeds - or India squeals and shrieks as only women can when Noah takes her dolly for a rumble on the couch (the response is just so dramatic no wonder he does it numerous times!)

Departing is always a challenge....

We got through the family goodbyes, we got through closing the suitcases, we even got through weighing the darn things (only 30kg over weight, nothing a pregnant woman looking flustered can't get for free though) - it wasn't until we actually got on the plane that the challenges of flying with little ones struck!

One hour delay on the tarmac as they fixed the airconditioning in the baggage hold - just to make sure all of our potions and lotions didn't melt away I suppose...just try to get your 2 yr old to sit on their seat for an hour, go on, I dare you, its actually really hard!!! Only so many games you can play, songs you can sing and things you can point out to them with that awestruck wonder adults adopt when trying to distract them. Oh, and did I mention that Paul had been moved up to business class, so he was lounging back in his private bed having a snooze while I monitored how many kicks to the back the person in front of India received.

Well eventually we took off (all of us munching gummy dinosaurs, bet they didn't offer those in Business class!) and then the reality set in - 11 hours of kids on a plane....hmmmm.....no phenagan......interesting. Paul finally made an appearance to see how we were doing, my face being like thunder urged him to offer his seat for a couple of hours while he manned the kids. Before I left I took a couple of shots of both of them playing - India being a cover girl for La Leche League and Noah playing with his Bob toys he got on the plane.

I skipped off to Business class, and what a shame, a meal was served while I watched the movie. After that we took it in turns of 2 hours on, and 2 hours off, so you can't really say it was all bad (but 1 1/2 hours sleep for two preschoolers out of the whole 12 hour ordeal does sound pretty bad if your babysitting shift didn't happen at that time).

We got to our apartment midnight local time (4am NZ time) and Noah was amped, he was bouncing off furniture and whizzing around the place chatting about it all. India thank goodness had finally given in to sleep and was conked out in her car seat. We popped her into the porta cot, Noah got put on the bed roll Paul had been using, Paul was lucky to get the portacot mattress and I lounged around like a whale on the couch! Bring on the shopping spree at Ikea I say.