How are you doing?

How are you doing?

This question comes up almost daily. It can take on many forms and mean many things depending on the situation of person being asked that question.

I sometimes wonder what “tone” is behind that question. Do people ask because they want to know and wish the best for you? Do people want to know because they think you are crazy for moving to another country and they want you to say you hate it?

Most of the time I jokingly answer, “everyone is happy and no one has died”. There are times when we get homesick, but still, more often than not, we are all pretty happy.


Here are some of the things we have done recently:

Spanish Galleon ship Andalucia

One of our friends took a wrong turn and ended up in Kowloon instead of going to Clearwater Bay. Lucky us, because if she didn’t we would have never had known about this ship. The Andalucia is a replica of a galleon that would have sailed from Spain to the America’s. It was pretty interesting, and honestly, I was in awe of it … when I wasn’t feeling like I was going to hurl from the rocking motion of the ship.

What a great thing that I got to experience with the girls and the other friends we went with. If we were actually going to a school, the three of us would have not gotten to see this because it was only here for 4 days, and only open during the school day hours. This was one of the many experiences I hoped to get from homeschooling the girls.

National Day – October 1, 2010

Jonathan got the day off work and it was really a great day. We went to lunch … Burger King (sounds awful, but sometimes, you just need a reminder of home so that you DON’T get homesick) and then went to the Wan Chai Computer Center. Jonathan had read on the internet that this was THE place to go if you needed computer stuff. We walked in and it was a flea market of all computer geek stuff. It was a building filled with little kiosks about 10x10 that were crammed full of geek out stuff. We needed to go there to get some more memory for the girls’ laptops, which we found almost immediately. We explored the rest of the ground floor and then moved up to the next two. We found a great Apple seller that had an older model of Mac book pro for $US900. It was a bit tempting … but we didn’t buy it!

Autumn Festival/Lantern Festival

A week ago was the Autumn Festival and the Lantern Festival. This festival is based on the Full moon in the 8th lunar month. During the time of the festival, you eat a pastry called Moon Cakes. Traditional moon cakes have a sweet bean paste along with a salted egg yolk. The bean paste is pretty traditional in Asian culture and the yolk represents the full moon. Many moon cakes have been “Westernized” are also now filled with things like chocolate, custard and nuts. We got some from Disney that were in the shape of Mickey and Minnie. Others have taken a more “adult” approach to Moon cakes.

 

 

 

We went to Victoria Park to partake in the festival. It was really very beautiful. They had lights and Lanterns everywhere.

During this time period they also have a “Fire Dragon” in one neighborhood near us. The story goes that in 1880 the fisherman from this neighborhood slayed a serpent from the sea, and after doing so, a plague broke out in their village. During the plague, a old village man saw Buddha and he told him to perform a “Fire Dragon Dance” and light firecrackers and the sulfur would drive away the disease. They have being doing this ever since. The dragon is 220 feet long and the body is divided into 32 segments. They burn close to 70,000 sticks of incense over a 3 day period.

High School Musical

In June we saw that HSM would be coming to HK. We thought that it might be a nice treat for the girls to take them to see it. We didn’t tell them where we were going, but at a week out Jonathan gave them each a clue a day, and they had figured it out by Thursday. They had a great time.

 

 

Disney – Halloween

KPMG bought ticket for each family to attend Disney and bought each family dinner at one of four restaurants. It was really a nice treat because Disney had just rolled out Halloween. It was GREAT. I loved seeing the villains and all the Halloween stuff. We went through two haunted houses and the girls had a great time. One of the best times was during the villain parade at the end. I loved it, and so did everyone else!

Home School

This is really going well. We have gotten into a routine and the girls seem to be adjusting well to it. We have daily subjects of Spelling, Math, Geography, LA, and Math word problems. On Wednesday’s we do a co-op called “Mapping the World” where the girls learn to draw the world from memory. Even if they don’t actually memorize it, it is really nice for them to learn what countries are out in the world, rather than thinking that the US is the center of it all! We are also incorporating museum trips and zoo visits on these co-op days.

 

 

Hipstamatic

After seeing our friend Joe’s pictures on facebook, I decided to give this gadet a try. You can download it from ITunes for your Iphone. I have to say, I LOVE it. I bought the black and white film and some more lens (99 cents each) and found a great new way to take pictures from the Iphone camera. I love the “old” look that it creates, but I also love the “artsy” look that I can get from it. You can see that many of my pictures are now coming from this application.

Funny enough, Jonathan did NOT like it at first, but has really liked some of the pictures that it takes. I’m sure you will be seeing it on his FB page too!

Next Up:

2 Peaks race for Jonathan on Lantau Island – 12 miles
Moontrekker run – 23 miles at night over a mountain (I don’t really get it either)
Beijing and Xi’An

Random thoughts about Hong Kong and our the last couple of months

Random thoughts about Hong Kong and our the last couple of months

People like to drink their coffee out of little stir stick straws.

There are many places to sit in a mall when waiting for someone – No benches or those nice massage chairs.

People care more about being up to date on clothing styles than in the US. I'm not sure how fashionable this is though.

 

I found a store that sells Abercrombie stuff. They are selling a pair of jeans there for $850HKD. Remember that the exchange rate is about $1USD = $7.75HKD. This would make these pants around US$110. I don’t think so.

I have found that single people don’t like to take the train or mini bus. The want a cab, even if it takes longer than just getting on a train and going 4 stops.

I think that all cab drivers drive with two feet here. There is no easing off the gas pedal; it is either full on or breaking. I should be cured of any kind of motion sickness I had by the time we come back.

I have not seen orange hair here. They have perfected the coloring of dark hair, I even have seen a few blond Asian’s.

Jonathan thinks he’s Asian. He of course is still white and tall … but has been complimented on for the use of his chopstick skills.

 

The girls and I went to the Western Market.

 

I have posted this picture on Facebook, but it was so good, I had to do it again.
This is a lizard of some kind. It is cut open and made to look like a kite.

 

Shoes still don’t come in my size here. You would have thought that after 20 years (the last time I tried to buy a pair of shoes in Taiwan) they would have gotten a couple of pairs of bigger sizes in.

We have tried to make the most of our opportunities here. We finally figured out that we live about 10-20 minutes from the beach (depending on traffic). We started going to the beach either on Saturday or Sunday mornings and staying for a couple of hours. This was one of the things that the girls really thought would be cool about living here when we first talked about moving. They still get excited about going and just playing in the water and sand. It is really great. I think that currently, our beach of choice is Deep Water Bay. It is close, you don’t have to go around so many turns that it makes you sick in the cab, and there is plenty of shade to sit and read and still enjoy the time outside.

 

This is at Stanley Beach.

 

Jonathan has reduced the amount of stuff he has taken on. Family, working, running, CMA studying, Canto class, Kanji writing, and sleeping have taken a toll on him. I have finally managed to beat him into submission and he has taken away the canto class at the Y, but still studies a bit by himself. The Kanji writing has stopped. I love that he loves to learn and integrate himself into this culture, but some things had to give and the first 4 were NOT! Jonathan has always had a “I’m going to prove you wrong” attitude. If someone tells him he can’t do it, by God, he is going to show it CAN be done. Not this time. I know that he will learn more Canto and Kanji at a later time.

We are now in our 6th week of school. It is going as well as I thought it would. Hannah is doing a fantastic job. She seems to be “getting” it more and more every day. Her Math (not her strongest subject) is going well for her. We are using a “teaching textbook” for the both of them. They do their lessons on their computer with a cartoon professor. Much of what they are learning now is review, but this is what they would be doing at traditional school right now too.


Gabby has had a bit of an awakening. For most of Gabby’s schooling, it was very easy for her to just breeze through her work. I don’t know if I expect more from her, if her textbooks are for older kids (grade 5-7) or because the answers are not written in bold type for her. She has had a couple of temper tantrums, and because I have (after 9 years) started to realize the signs, have redirected her and had her take a break and then restart it again later or a different day. This has started to work well.

We are getting together with a homeschooling grouping here every week. It is really great. It is a great group

 

We have made plans for our first major trip while here. We are going to go to Beijing and Xi’an in October. While Jonathan and I talked about where we thought we might want to go, we also talked about how we wanted to do the trip. We decided to backpack it. We didn’t want a lot of extra “stuff”to lug with us. We wanted to see everything … without the fluff. We are staying at a family hostel in both places. I think that one night, we are supposed to be camping on the Great Wall of China. How many people can say they did that? We will also be taking an overnight train to Xi’an to see the Terracotta Soldiers and the other sites near there. We were going to go to Sanya, but decided to take that out because we couldn’t get the logistics down.

Tonight we are going to see High School Musical Live on Stage. The girls are super excited. Next week KPMG is having an afternoon at Disney Land HK. This should be fun for everyone.

I have some random thoughts. Many of you will just think that it just a normal conversation with me.

Here are some pictures of the apartment:

 

 

 

This is a picture of the outside of the building and the road around us:

 

 

 

 

Trash Can
I wanted a trash can that was small and silver with a step pedal that opened it up. You wouldn’t have thought that this was a problem to find. It was. When I finally found the one that I wanted, it was over US$100 for a small 20L can. I said no, and then found one that looks just like the expensive one for US$20. Much Better!

Running/Hiking
Here are some pictures from Jonathan’s runs. He was telling me how great the run was. There were beautiful views of Central and the Harbor from where he was running. The only problem was it was over the top of a mountain, and one wrong step and you were a goner off the mountain. Ummm … No thanks.

 

 

 

 

I have started to run again. Holy crap, GA almost looks like the middle of Kansas compared to Hong Kong. The humidity is really not like anything I’ve dealt with before. Hot, Humid and Hilly (Jonathan’s 3 H’s)


Apartment Living
Apartment living has been good for the 3 weeks we’ve been here. The walls are made of concrete and we have not heard anything around us. We live in a great little complex that has a total of 11 apartments. What is really nice is that the whole building is owned by one person. This really keeps things pretty nice and uniform for everyone. We have a guard on duty here. (Almost all the buildings around us have them). They really aren’t guarding anything, but really are more like building maintenance and are there if you need help. So, while we are talking about “needing help”, here is a little story. I was in need of a bit of “alone” time, so I told the girls to stay in the apt, and don’t do anything bad. How hard is that? While I was out, my phone rang, but I didn’t hear it. I checked in with the girls around 15 minutes later and they had told me that an alarm went off in the apt and Mr. Peter, the guard, came to the door. The girls were instructed to not let anyone in, but they knew him and let him in. It seems that somehow, this button was pushed. No one has yet to claim responsibility for it yet. This button is a panic button that is next to our bed and it alerts the guard who then comes to check on you to see if you need him to call the police. BTW, the police station is right across the street and if I really needed them, I cold just yell out my window to get them.

 

We have these really nice big windows in the living room/Dining room. When you sit on the couch, you can look down into other apartments that have their curtains open. No big deal, except when someone in the other apt complex has his “Hulk” gloves sitting in the window. I still laugh at it.

 

Cantonese vs. Mandarin … the saga continues
Jonathan is taking Cantonese classes at the Y on Tuesday nights. He has really been pretty open to learning this language and has started teaching the girls some lines. One of the lines that he taught Gabby was, “What kind of beer would you like?”. She “practiced this line with Jonathan while they were walking up the street. A local heard what she said, and whipped his head around. So either she said it quite well and he understood her or she butchered it and said that Jonathan has 3 goat heads.

I did try to sign the girls up for Cantonese classes, but they didn’t have any classes for kids. When I went to sign them up for Mandarin classes, we found that they were taught from a base of Cantonese. Damn …

I just ordered Rosetta stone in Mandarin for us to do while we home school. Jonathan is still against us learning Mandarin, but what are you going to do? I am a hard headed, stubborn person, and I’m really going to do what I want. (Shocked?) I really think that the girls will benefit more from knowing Mandarin in their lives.

Home School
My mom sent all the girls books two weeks ago and we got them last week. We have started spelling and zoology. I am slowly getting this started. I think that we will start adding more subjects on 1 August. The girls seem to be enjoying it. (We are only on day 2)

Trips
We planned our first trip for the upcoming weekend to Macau. Jonathan is really looking forward to being outside. We have been inside for so long, it will be nice to have a drink by a pool or coffee on the balcony in the morning. We are also planning on a fall trip. I think that Korea may be in the plans for 4-5 days. I also think that we are going to go to Phuket, Thailand for Christmas. We are not going to fly home, and no one is coming here, so we are going some place with palm trees.

We have also been talking about some of our other trips that we want to do while we are here. I think that we originally thought JC would do the Great Wall of China marathon next year, but we started to look at the cost of it. It looks like it would cost of somewhere close to 8K for the 4 of us to go for 11 days. Instead, we talked about staying at family hostels and do a back packing things through parts of China. I have found that I don’t need the highest quality hotel; I just need someplace clean to sleep.

 

Typhoon Season
Typhoon season is upon us. Today is our second time we have been at a T1 warning. This just means that there are some winds in our area. Here is a link to the whole warning system. http://www.hko.gov.hk/informtc/tcsignal.htm

When the warning went up last week, there were some BIG winds. Interesting to watch, not much fun to be in it.