Friday, March 18, 2011

HKG020: Admitting Defeat = Taxi

bug's upside down self portrait

bug's capturing quinny

upside right self-portrait

jammie portrait with our incredible mess in the background and the flash covering her face

climbing at chai wan park

quinny trying to imitate sissy

still trying to imitate sissy

fountain at chai wan park

quinn at jumpin' gym

sissy playing a driving game at jumpin' gym

this was hands-down the best game at jumpin' gym...miniature bowling with 8 frames. livie LOVES bowling, so this was right up her alley (pun intended).

quinn deciding he was done with this ride

the monkeys together in a dinosaur ride...without tokens, and they didn't complain!

concentrating on chocolate, papaya, and vanilla yogurt with white chocolate chips

sweet sissy feeding quinny

taking turns making sure no yogurt is left behind...

today, the kids and i headed out to find one of these jumpin' gym u.s.a. places...there are many of them all over HK island. of course it was not simple...i was the person in charge of getting from point A to point B...did we expect anything different? nope. i did manage to get us to the same place as we were earlier this week : victoria park...since i have been there before, i figured it was a good mid-point and where i wanted to make our bus transfer. i neglected to consider the size of the park, and when i couldn't find a bus stop that included bus number 8, i began walking. i have no sense of direction....have i mentioned this? we did eventually find a stop for bus number 8, and away we went. i knew we were headed to heng fa chuen, but i wasn't sure what street i was supposed to get out on. i undershot it. we found a great park in the process (the chai wan park) and had a great time there. josh looked some stuff up for me while we were there, and he mentioned that the mall was right next to an MTR station...i saw signs for an MTR station near the park and figured we were golden. nope. i cried uncle at this point and flagged a taxi...that was the best 24 bucks HK i have spent yet.

we were starving by the time we got to paradise mall, so we stopped at a KFC before venturing into the jumpin' gym...that was an exercise in frustration. even with a picture menu and me holding up fingers to show the number of meals we wanted, we still ended up with one meal between the three of us.

jumpin' gym didn't look too fantastic upon first entering (there were NO jumpers), and all the signs were in chinese, so it took me a while to figure out it was a token system and where to get the tokens. fortunately, the token station had some signs in english; i quickly ordered the smallest number of tokens and off we went.

the first machine ate all 8 of the tokens i had given livie (we had purchased only 35 of them for about 6 bucks u.s.) without actually working. we found a game for quinn to play, and then a few others for both kids. there was not a whole lotta jumpy about the place...we found only one bounce house that was 6 to 8 feet square and cost an extra 3 dollars u.s. per kid to jump in it.

after our disappointing venture into the non-jumping place (it was like an expensive CEC without the pizza), we did find a great frozen yogurt place, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves there. we found a stop for the number 8 bus right outside the mall. i made the executive decision to ride the bus to the end of the line b/c the end of the line is in wan chai...an area i thought i was becoming quite familiar with. wrong. once we reached the end of the line and got off the bus, we walked around for a long time trying to find a bus stop for the number 1 bus, which would take us back into happy valley. no dice. eventually, we walked long enough and far enough that i realized we were right near josh's building, so we stopped in for an impromptu visit with daddy. our plan after that was to flag a taxi back to happy valley, but it had started to rain, and for whatever reason, just about every taxi we saw was out of service. i did flag three different taxis that were in service...only one stopped and when i told him i wanted to go to happy valley, he shook his head "no" at me. this is actually becoming a common occurrence that taxis won't pick us up...this happened to us in the mid-levels last week, too...a gentleman near me that saw it happen explained that taxis often won't pick up a family because they think that the family will want to go only a short distance and not be a good fare. whatev. it made our afternoon long, but we did eventually get home in time for some hot chocolate (it's cool and rainy here today) and some relaxation before dinner.

so, the moral of the story is that i still haven't figured out public transportation, i need a compass, and jumpin' gym stinks....at least this particular location.

3 comments:

  1. when ever we go to Toronto, we always plan a dim sum outing with my mom coz it's actually really good in some places over there. when we go, we take a note that she gets a colleague to write in chinese for us that says 'no pork' and we use it every time a server comes by (most of the time, they don't speak english) and it works great!
    I know it would mean extra baggage, but maybe for now you can ask one of Josh's colleagues to help make some flash cards for you in Chinese, that have key words on them? like one with just numbers (you could use this at restaurants and bus stops by pointing to a number), a couple of areas you'll be frequenting, maybe even asking where the nearest restroom is. just basic stuff too make it easier to get by? just a thought. =)

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  2. Lori, I have loved reading your posts every day! It does get better, I promise. And this from the person who once flagged down a taxi to drive a whopping mile from the grocery store to our apt because I couldn't bear the thought of pushing the stroller for even one second more. Hang in there!

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  3. That yogurt shop reminds me when we went out to the Korean restaurant and stopped by the yogurt shop afterwards at Anderson Lane. The sweet memories!

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