HKG136: The Flying Pan Part Deux

we met up with josh for lunch today. we headed over to another location of the flying pan that is closer to josh's office. our chicago friends had highly recommended this location b/c it has buckets of toys and unique seating (big cushy couches). it was awesome. not only were our sandwhiches hot, delicious, and served quickly, but the ambiance was just perfect for our family. we will definitely do that again.

the rest of our day was mostly quiet. i caught up with friends and family on skype this morning, and the we had a friend join us for dinner tonight. i tried out a new recipe, mushroom chicken tetrazinni (i added spinach and lots of garlic to our version), and it was delicious. it was nice to share a meal with a friend and just kick back with some adult conversation while the kids busied themselves with their dinners and a movie.

tomorrow, we hope to take josh either to the kennedy town pool or playtown candyland...two adventures we have greatly enjoyed but that he has not yet experienced.

q taking a break from building lego sky scrapers to hoover up some apple juice while daddy holds the glass still. we have found that very few restaurants here have kid-friendly cups, and today, i forgot the sippy. ooops.

HKG135: The Flying Pan

today dawned cloudy with a high probability for rain (or tears). as soon as we were up and at 'em, the kids and i headed out to the flying pan for breakfast. it turns out that i was right that my navigation system does not know where this place is. while standing less than 50 yards from it, my navigation system was giving me directions to walk the opposite direction for about 2 miles when all i actually had to do was walk a few feet to my right, turn right, and go straight up a hill. bleh. since we started out the trip "listening" to my navigator, it took us a bit, but we found the restaurant, and we had a yummy, if somber, breakfast.

after our break-the-routine breakfast, we came back to the apartment to chill a bit. both kids sprawled across the couch looking super sad while they watched finding nemo. we chose to watch finding nemo because our friend, c, has this way of speaking that is much like nigel, the pelican in the movie. *sniff*

after moping for a while, i gathered the kids up to go to the pool for a bit, but that turned out to be a bust b/c it started raining soon after we got there. despite it being hot here, our pool is not very warm b/c it is mostly shaded. the combination of being in cold water while cold water splashed down on us from above caused two of us to have blue lips. livie, our little polar bear, could have stayed in the pool for another hour or so without showing the least bit of discomfort.

this afternoon, josh came home early so we could head over to a travel agent near us to see about booking a cruise this summer. we are looking at a cruise to vietnam and should hear by tomorrow whether we're able to get space on it. i sure hope we are, because it sounds awesome!

silly bug....she wanted to listen to music while she also was having her ears cleaned/treated after swimming :-)

q workin' on his OJ at the flying pan

blurry bug workin' on her OJ at the flying pan

my personal coffee thermos...the coffee was not as strong/good as it was when josh and i had a late dinner at this same restaurant, but it was still enough to do the trick.

HKG134:Saaaaaaaaaad Goodbye

today, we had our last playdate with our chicago friends; they are heading back home tomorrow. we had an awesome day of play and shared meals today, but we andersons are now feeling pretty down in the dumps at the prospect of them going home. we have had soooo much fun exploring hong kong together and just hanging out. we look forward to talking to our friends on skype and to staying in touch via snail mail.

i am planning some special treats for the rest of this week to help get us out of the funk of missing our friends. i hope the tricks i have up my sleeve work! first off, we will head out for a special breakfast tomorrow, and then we will probably head over to kennedy town to check out playtown candyland again.

q helped himself to c's car seat tonight...just plopped himself i it as if it was his very own baby lounge chair. bah! i know that as soon as i try to sit his wiggly little butt in one of these things for real when we come home to visit, that he's going to lose his doo-doo. the irony that he CHOSE to sit in one tonight!

waffle decided to camp out on one of the girls. i love this cat. i love that he has no boundaries or social graces ;-p

q is a messy, messy boy. he's taken the mess-making to a new level these past few days...purposely spilling his drinks onto toys/furniture, spitting out mouthfuls of his drink, and this latest trick of crushing cookies/crackers to a powder that takes me many, many swipes with the vacuum cleaner to get up. i have begun insisting that he help clean up these messes, and he does a great job cleaning up, but i would far prefer he not make the mess to begin with.

waffle "helps" the girls play wii, and then gets a little fetch playdate of his own.

HKG133: Central Library and Victoria Park

kids inspecting the rising water levels around their feet. it rained HARD and the puddles were fierce. the kids, of course, thought this was pretty awesome. me? notsomuch.

we met up with our friends this morning. at victoria park. about 7 minutes after it started raining sideways in sheets. we were all soaked despite ponchos and umbrellas. we regrouped and decided to head to the central library to play for a while and see if the weather would clear.

the central library has a toy library/playroom, and that's what we were most interested in. it's a popular place. there was an hour wait, a reservation required, and a rule about no more than two kids per adult. there are three kids in our friends' family. there were two adults between us today. after kinda standing in front of the reservation desk open-mouthed in wonder at this ridiculous stipulation, we decided to move on. we went to a bookstore downstairs to look around before deciding to head to our friends' apartment for some play time and lunch.

we had a great time hanging out, had a delicious lunch, and then headed back to our house to get q down for his nap. this afternoon/evening's been very quiet. we look forward to another fun day with our friends tomorrow!

HKG132: The Return of Rainy Season

we had soooo much fun this past weekend that we are completely worn out from all of it. we started off really slow this morning and decided to meet up with our friends in late morning. victoria park and the train park/indoor play area were on the table. the train park won out, and boy am i glad it did. less than five minutes before it was time to get downstairs to flag a taxi, the skies opened up and the rain fell in sheets. surprisingly, we were able to catch a cab quickly, though the driver took a scenic route, and it took almost as long to get to the sports centre as it does when we walk. i think that as a shiny new expat, i have a sign on my forehead that says "bilk me for a couple extra dollars."

we finally got to the sports centre and headed in to the indoor play area. it was nearly empty, which was nice after last week's run-in with the hour-long wait for another sports centre play area close by. we had a ball playing with our friends, and after an hour or so, the rain stopped and we headed outside to have a picnic lunch and play on the outdoor playground. it was a great time...nice and low key, but still very fun.

this afternoon, we kept it pretty quiet except that we headed out to get some stinky fish treats for waffle falafel la fu. yes, the poor cat is going to have an identity crisis if his name does not stop morphing. this little kitty is HOOKED on these incredibly stinky dried fish treats, and i'm a sucker for a cute face, so he has more.

we went to our favorite pet store that is also a boarding facility. there were two poms and one yorkie on site today. we know the yorkie well and know to leave her alone. she was abused by children and as such is very scared of them. if i can get the kids occupied on something else, i can love on her, but she gets skittish and snappy as soon as the kids pay any attention to her. the two poms that were there were having a mild pom throw down over olivia, yapping and growling at one another in competition for more pets from her. it was funny, yet alarming...i had to keep asking her to move away from them. my favorite thing about these poms, besides burying my hands in their fur to scratch them, is that one was caramel colored and the other was dark red. i have never really noticed that pom colors can vary so widely!

practicing head stand form together after watching miss m do a perfect tripod and head stand in the middle of the floor!

bug doing a head stand with a little help from her friend, the wall.

waffle helping olivia make a mii. i swear that about half the time livie spends playing the wii is spent creating new miis. she has a collection of about 20 of them now.

olivia is getting really good at her reading skills. here, she's reading to q before bedtime. we are reading in the hall. why, you ask? because josh had to disable q's light to keep him from turning it on all night long. q is in a "monster" phase right now. we put a night light in his room to give him some comfort, but we had to disable his main light b/c he'd have it blazing at 3 in the morning. anyhoo, i digress.

the other day, we were in a grocery store checking out, and i was distracted with paying and keeping q from his typical mommy-is-not-100-percent-focused-on-me-mutiny when all of a sudden, i heard her say something to the effect of "that says..."...she was reading a sign on the wall to me. she got all of the words except one on her own. ironically, the only word she was stuck on was the word "shopping." despite many hours spent with duck and sahark on word world, the "sh" sound still gives livie some trouble. if you've not seen countless hours of word world, this statement will make NO sense to you ;-p

HKG131: Dolphin Watch

today, we got up early and met up with our friends to go on the Hong Kong Dolphin Watch. the boat ride out was mostly relaxing...chasing the baby boys reduced the relaxation a bit. we "arrived" around 11 and sure enough, we got to see some dolphins jumping and swimming around. unfortunately, q was at the apex of his fussiness during this time, so i didn't see a whole lot first hand (neither did josh), but our friend is a magnificent photographer, and so we've gotten to enjoy the watch via her photographs.

the bus ride out there was an opportunity to learn about dolphins in hong kong, and it's a sad tale. because of the waters being incredibly polluted and overfished, a dolphin's life span in hong kong is about half as long as in other parts of the world. the chinese dolphin is white, but when s/he gets to swimming a lot, s/he turns pink! the babies are born a dark grey color, and by the time they are adolescents, they begin turning white/pink. this phenomenon is not completely understood.

it was a great day, and i thoroughly enjoyed having the opportunity to see the dolphins, but i can't say that the experience left me warm and fuzzy considering what i learned about these big, beautiful creatures and how hard their life is here.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

all photos (except where noted) are courtesy of michelle b.

HKG130: Stanley

today, we met up with our friends in stanley to enjoy the beach and do some shopping in the markets. we had a ball. it was pretty hot, so after about an hour and a half on the beach, we called it and headed in search of some lunch. we ended up at a really relaxing and fun spot right on the beach. we sat on a covered patio where there were toys for the kids to play with and plenty of room to spread out with our crew and all our gear.

it was a super fun day, and we are all tuckered out and ready to tuck in for some rest so we can have MORE fun tomorrow. in the morning, we will meet up with our friends to go on a dolphin watch tour. i can't wait!!!

super tired q at the end of our adventure. shortly after this, we got on a bus to head back to central, and he crashed hard on the mommy pillow.

we found this great toy shop on the way to the beach, and it had this adorable little puggie as a mascot. this guy barely opened an eye even for scratches, but it was still a joy to pet him. man, we miss our dogs! we stopped 3 different people today to ask to pet their dogs.

cute bug squinting in the super-bright sunlight

sandy q working on burying his feet. surprisingly, q played only on the beach today...he did not go into the ocean further than his ankles.

q's friend, c, got to be part of the moat his family was building.