Adventures in Sai Kung Part 2

We haven't really given Sai Kung much of our chance since our initial encounter during Mike's grade 6 camp. We figured spring break would be the perfect time to return and meander through the cute little "town" of Sai Kung. We started off with lunch at Paisano's Pizza. We've eaten at two other locations of Paisano's in HK, and it's massive pizza slices haven't let us down yet! Mike was still able to manage the big piece with a sleeping girl in his arms!

What we didn't try were all the fresh seafood restaurants located along the marina. We need to be more adventurous, but all the squid and shells just don't look appetizing to us. I'm sure there's something that's good, but we need to know what it is. Maybe Linc will try when he comes. He's brave when it comes to food!


Annie's not looking at the camera because it's too sunny. It's been so grey for so long that we've all turned into vampires and our eyes can't handle the sun when it comes out.

Here's an example of all the fresh seafood. You can choose what you want, and they'll cook it up for you.

This place looked interesting... a little taste of home... haha!

Always a temple to explore...

Inside the temple.

Some of the detailing on the outside...

So pretty and green.

Mom, look what I found! I've never seen a Curves in Hong Kong, but there does seem to be a lot of expats in Sai Kung. You can even go have a "taste of France in Hong Kong" when you're finished your workout.



Ending off with some playground time.

I'm procrastinating packing. Tomorrow we head to "the mainland" for a circus, zoo safari and crocodile adventure...We're only gone for one night, so packing shouldn't be hard, but that's exactly what's making it hard. The weather has been unpredictable. Grey skies can mean so many things... wet, cold, hot, damp. Anyway... will post when we return if we don't get eaten by a white tiger.

the happiest place on earth

When I bought our tickets for the first time we went to Disneyland, I looked into getting year passes, but saw that the 365 day "Magic Access Pass" was really expensive. There are weekday passes that cost less than the price of going twice, but I didn't think that seemed like a good deal either because you can't use them on weekends, and there are blackout dates during holidays. My friend Jocelyn has one, and it makes sense for her because Rachel is still free since she is two, so she takes her to Disneyland literally once a week! We have a standing invitation to join them, but I'd have to pay full price for a ticket for me and for Leila, and Annika would be bummed if went without her, so we've never taken her up on the offer.

But we were thinking about going to Disneyland during spring break, and I know it's on my mom's list for when she comes in October, so I went back to the website and looked closer at the dates for the weekday pass. It turns out that despite the blackout dates, there still are dates during all of our holidays this next year that would work to go. And Leila and I can now join our friends during the week, and if Linc wants to go when he comes, we can. There are also a few weekend dates throughout the year that are open with this pass. And how often do you live in a place with a Disneyland? May as well take advantage!

So I reserved passes online and we "just" needed to pick them up at the ticket booth when we arrived.

Well... I guess our first clue should have been that the train to Disneyland was probably three times as crowded as when we went on that Saturday in September. Yikes! We finally got off the train and the line was sooooo long to get tickets! If only we'd picked up our passes the day before at one of the locations in Kowloon we could have just skipped ahead, and from now on, we can just skip ahead (they actually scanned our fingerprints, so that's what we'll do from now on!), but instead we had to stand in line fooooorrrrrrevvvvvveeeeerrrrr. Clearly the park was busier than usual thanks to Spring Break and Easter!

We finally got in, and went to one of the rides that we hadn't done last time- the Space Orbit, or something like that. It was another long wait, but this time Leila was excited about it instead of scared.
After that we met up with Jocelyn and Rachel who decided to join us, even though they'd just been on Tuesday (they really love Disneyland!), and we decided to go meet some of the characters. We chose Pinnochio because it was the shortest line up!
While we visited Pinnochio, Mike stood in line for us to see Minnie Mouse. Leila had burst into tears from fear of Pinnochio and was whimpering at the prospect of meeting Minnie. But when it became our turn, she suddenly became brave and had hugs and kisses for her.

Annie was pumped to show her the Minnie Mouse shirt she'd worn especially for the occasion. Minnie even clapped her hands to show her how much she appreciated the effort! :)

After that, we had to once again get in line so we could see the showing of "The Golden Mickeys"- (Disneyland's take on the Academy Awards) which was something else we hadn't had time for last time. It's in Cantonese, which is why we opted out last time, but there are lots of Disney songs with all the characters, so the girls loved it. The funny thing is, they've barely even watched any actual Disney movies, and Mike and I are really out of date as well. They showcased Lilo and Stitch, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan, and Tarzan and we haven't seen any of those ones!

We came out of the Golden Mickey's to find out that it had started to rain while we were watching, and quite hard, too! What??? That wasn't in the forecast! So we hurried into "It's a Small World" which the girls were set on doing so we could stay dry.


Such a classic! They love it as much as I did when I was four! BTW, Mike says he was posing for me when I snapped that picture. It wasn't actually because he was so taken by the tulips in Amsterdam.


After "it's a Small World", we looked and it had gone from raining to pouring! We tried to wait it out, but it was crowded (of course... like everything was today!), and it didn't look like it was going to let up, so we decided to get the stroller and make a run for a restaurant to sit in. Unfortunately all our hoodies in the basket of the stroller were now soaked, and we only had one small umbrella with us. We said goodbye to J and R who were heading home, and ran to a restaurant, but of course it was completely crowded with a line-up to go inside. I think Annika had actually been directly under the rain that was pouring off the edge of the umbrella, because she was more wet than the rest of us. All three layers she had on were so soaked that I could wring them out. So as her luck would have it, that meant she got a new t-shirt because there was no way we could have made it home with her being as soaking wet as she was! At least our Magic Access Pass gets you a bit of a discount in the gift store. HA!

So, we called it a day and headed home, once again standing in line forever for an extremely packed train. I felt bad for all the tourists who may have only had today at Disneyland. At least we can come back, and maybe it won't be as busy or wet! When has it poured this hard in Hong Kong? Not in recent months, anyway. Oh well... Annika said she still had fun, but she had more fun last time. Leila said that she did have fun, which I don't think she ever said about last time. She was way too traumitized. But is it really the "Happiest Place on Earth"? I don't know... I saw a lot of meltdowns as we walked through the crowds.

kindergarten homework is hard work...

and it doesn't help when mommy gets out the camera and tries to document it all...

bike rides in Kowloon City

We don't have bikes here in Hong Kong. We could get the girls some bikes, but if we did, we don't have a place to store them. I have one smart friend who bought a parking space in her apartment and that is where they keep their double jogging stroller and their bikes. I thought that was ingenious... I hadn't thought of doing that! But they live close to a lot of bike paths, and they've lived in Hong Kong for nine years, so naturally are a bit more settled than we are.

Anyway, we just discovered a place not too far from us where you can rent bikes and bike around some bike paths. Maybe in summer we can work on getting rid of those training wheels that Annika still needs, but at least the riding part came back to her.



We are LOVING the sunshine that we've been having again. It was a great Saturday activity and we will have to do it again.

Kowloon City is famous for Thai restaurants, so we had to have some Thai food for lunch before heading home! Yum!

The Happy Skirts Arrive!

Annika and Leila are the lucky recipients of their second round of "Happy Skirts" made by their Grandma Ruth. They were a Valentine's Day present, but unfortunately the lady at the post office sent them "surface", rather than air mail. So we've been watching the mail for a loooooong time! When the door lady gave them the packages, Annika started shrieking "the Happy Skirts! The Happy Skirts!". Thanks, Grandma Ruth! They looked very cute at church wearing them, and were very easy to spot at the playground later in the afternoon.

my point of view

The other day I had our air conditioning units cleaned. Not something I would think of to do, but makes sense that you should do this before it gets hot again so that the air is (somewhat) clean that comes out of them.

They basically invaded our little flat leaving not much space for Leila and I, so I put on a show for her to watch, and despite the loud noise of them working, I looked over and this is what I saw. Not much cuter than a sleeping child! :)

Sickies

I have to say, we've been pretty healthy in the 7.5 months we've been here. I would have expected that being exposed to new germs and bugs, and with Annika in kindergarten bringing home germs that we'd have been sick a lot more. But last Wednesday when I picked Annika up from kindergarten, she whimpered the whole way home that she was cold and as soon as we walked in the door she went and laid down on the couch and spent the rest of the evening lying there under a blanket. I kept her home from school the next day, and Leila was putzing around the whole day annoying Annika who had a fever and wasn't feeling well, when all of a sudden in the late afternoon Leila joined her on the couch with her blanket. Our ear thermometer quit working, and once you've had one of those nifty things you never want to go back, so I bought a new one and it is even better than the last one because it beeps twice if you have a fever and also shows a happy face/sad face depending if you have one or not (in addition to showing the temperature). So while Annika bounced back except for a hacking cough, Leila continued to make the thermometer show a sad face for five days straight. Finally on Monday I decided it was time to see what a trip to the doctor in Hong Kong is like.

There is a hospital right across from CAIS, so Jocelyn showed us where to go and what to do. You pretty much just walk in and ask to see a doctor. You pay up front, but get reimbursed from our health insurance provider once we submit our claim. I was pretty impressed- we didn't have to wait all that long, and the doctor's English was really good. The only thing is that all the nurses and doctors have masks, so that made it a little hard to understand them because their mouths were covered. But he was really thorough, and even recommended a chest x-ray to eliminate the possibility of pneumonia. I just wanted her checked out because she had an ear infection last spring and never once told me that her ears hurt. In the end, he said it was mild bronchitis and sent us home with FOUR bottles of medicine! Isn't that crazy? And so confusing to keep track of all the instructions. One of them is just Dimetapp which is good because our reserves of Canadian medicine have been getting low. So I've just been giving her the antibiotics and the fever/cough/phloem ones as needed. And she's already feeling a lot better.

But I have been feeling the whole time that the girls have been sick that I may be getting a sinus infection. I hoped I could fight it off, but today my teeth started tingling (does anyone else get that with a sinus infection?) and realized that it was my turn to see the doctor.

And look! My own little pharmacy of pills. They give them out like candy! Now Mike came home with a hoarse voice, so he may be next. There have been lots of kids absent in both his and Annika's class, so there is definitely stuff going around. I think the cool damp weather doesn't help.

But I'm sure soon we'll be back to our healthy selves, and now we have a better idea of how the doctor/hospital system works. One good thing is that the girls go to bed SO easily while they've been under the weather. We've pretty much thrown Leila into bed as early as 6:30 some nights, and Annika is quick to follow. And all this talk of bed is making me want to retire early myself... Good night!