A country club and a monkey mountain

Each year the same gentleman who treated the new teachers to snails and cooking utensils also hosts an evening of golf and recreation at a country club followed by a dinner for the staff at CAIS and their families. We took a big chartered bus right from the school and then drove about an hour to the north part of Hong Kong- almost to the China border. You could either golf or hang out by the pool. It was actually a bit chilly to swim since pools here aren't heated, but that didn't stop the girls! Annika was over-the-moon excited about the whole thing. Her teacher, her classroom EA, her friend Olivia, her friend Rachel, her music teacher, and her computer teacher (I didn't actually know until yesterday that she had a computer teacher) were all on the bus and at "the restaurant". She kept giggling nervously whenever she saw any of them.

(playing in the pool with her pal, Olivia)

Annie and her teacher, Mrs. G. Annika told her that she had looked forward all week to seeing her here. She is such a good teacher, and so perfect for Annika. I'm sure after teaching kindergarten all week there was nothing she'd rather do than listen to Annie chatter to her all evening!
Mike was part of music number with some other staff. They sang "He who began a good work in you". The food was a buffet, and even though we didn't eat until seven and had some starving kids (we were hungry too!) it was worth it because it was really good! I had such a moment when we were trying to find a place to sit where I badly missed the teachers at LWCA. We had some great times at awkward staff functions and I wished for a moment that I could sit at a table with Mike's old staff!

Today we went to Monkey Mountain. We've heard about it, but it's a bit elusive because we couldn't even figure out how to get there! Basically it's just a mountain in Hong Kong where lots of monkeys live. The girls have been watching a Hong Kong cartoon that we get called "Ming the Minibus" and on one episode they go to Monkey Mountain, so they were interested in going. At the staff dinner, Jocelyn offered to take us there today, so we figured why not? She said to make sure to bring an pointy umbrella so we'd have something to ward off the monkeys in case they swarmed us (!) and also no food or drinks.

Well, today was a beautiful day, and we had been thinking about going to the beach, but we decided to do this instead. The area was really pretty, but as soon as we saw the monkeys, little Rachel started crying and was not happy to be at Monkey Mountain. So Jocelyn decided that she should take her back home, but to catch the bus, we had to take a footbridge and cross the busy street. We needed to cross it as well to get to where the monkeys were, but as we climbed the stairs and walked across we got closer to monkeys than any of us really wanted to.

There were signs that warned against feeding them, provoking them, and one warning said not to make eye contact with them, which is practically impossible since they always seem to be looking right at you. I wasn't expecting that I would get so panicky about being near them-My heart was pounding out of my chest! I think it was partially because of the warnings, and also because Mike and I have been reading The Hunger Games, and I also suddenly remembered the story of Joel's co-worker who got attacked by a monkey when they were in Thailand. In any case, I wanted to scream and cry like Rachel was doing and knew that I did not want to stay any longer. Mike and the girls agreed. There were lots of people and lots of monkeys in this parking lot, but we weren't brave enough to even make it that far!

I swear this monkey bared it's teeth at us while we made direct eye contact with it! Annika told us later that she was sure the monkey was going to eat her, but she was very brave and kept that to herself.
It was too bad we were such chickens because there were walking trails that looked so scenic and it was a beautiful day with bright blue skies. It's been very rainy and cloudy lately, so it seemed like we should be taking advantage of such nice weather.
So we took the bus back to an area called Mong Kok, and Jocelyn showed us the "fish market" which is a big strip of stores selling fish, turtles, aquariums, etc.

(busy street in Mong Kok)

So... Monkey Mountain... been there, done that. And lived to tell about it!

a few sights around hong kong

(chopstick fun)

(it's very common to see little altars set up with incense and little offerings to the gods)

(many buildings have laundry hanging out of windows. we're not allowed to do that in our building, but I can see why people do it as our clothes rarely come out of the machine dry)

(we take these green minibuses for short distances. Big double-decker buses for longer distances)

(China may be communist, but there are signs of Christianity all around Hong Kong)

(Mike and Annika's school. The McD's is frequented by staff and students)

*credit to Mae for the first two pictures*

weekend highlights

Some highlights of our weekend:

- we went to a lovely park called Nan Lian Garden. My friend Jocelyn showed it to me the day we went swimming, and I wanted to come back and see it again. There's also Chi Lin nunnery attached to it that held many many Buddas. It's a really nice place to walk around. In fact, when I was there was Jocelyn, we met a man from Wisconsin who was on a six week tour of Asia. He was lagging behind the rest of the tour group taking pictures. We asked him what the best thing had been (this was his last day of the tour), so he thought about it for a bit and said that he thought this garden was the best thing he saw. I don't personally think this garden ranks over something like the Great Wall of China, but to each their own, I guess. It is pretty nice!

- Saturday was a national holiday, which is why we chose to go to Disneyland the Saturday before Annika's birthday rather than the one after. We were told it would be extra busy. It didn't seem overly busy when we were out and about, but maybe Disneyland still would have been. Anyway, that evening, we went over to our friend's place who live close to us. Their flat is on the 36 floor, so they had a great view of the fireworks that commemorated this holiday. Honestly, i'm not even sure what the holiday even was! The girls have both been scared of fireworks ever since Canada Day, but hopefully this helped change that because we were far away and they weren't noisy at all. Just really spectacular- who knows how much money had been spent on them.

- on Sunday we were feeling pretty good that we had made really good time getting out the door to go to church. We thought we'd even get there on time! Mike and Annie were sitting in the very last row on the top floor of the bus, and Leila and I were sitting in the seats in front of them. Suddenly we heard (and felt) a loud bang, and as it turns out a truck had rear-ended our bus. There was a bit of confusion, and eventually it was clear that we had to get off the bus and figure out alternate transportation. So we ended up hopping into a taxi, and then actually got to church early! I always thought the driving was crazy and wondered if accidents happen very often, so now it's a bit unnerving to know that yes, they do! We'll just hope our guardian angels will protect us while the girls take a big hiatus from being in carseats!

- a downside of the weekend (for me) was running into the leg of our couch and badly stubbing my little toe. It has since turned purple and a good part of my foot is bruised. I will spare you a picture of it, because I don't ever enjoy seeing pictures of feet. It left me limping a bit on Sunday, but it feels better already even though it still doesn't look very nice.
- we went to a mall that was beside Nan Lian Garden, and there was some kind of a big event going on. It involved babies racing each other by crawling. There seemed to be different legs of the race. We wondered if the spectators were placing bets on which baby would win? So funny!
- and finally, another typhoon has rolled in. On Sunday, level 1 was hoisted, and we were hoping it would either stay that way, or go to an 8 which would mean that school would be closed. We didn't want it to be a three, because that means that only Annie misses school, and she didn't want that. But this morning we checked, and it was a level 3. The strange thing is, the weather doesn't seem bad at all! It's overcast and breezy and that's about it! It's so strange to me that kindergarten would be cancelled, but maybe there was danger that it would get worse? Anyway, we are hoping that it will all blow over because Wednesday is another national holiday and Mike and Annie will have the day off. We'd like to do something that day, and don't want to be stuck inside with a typhoon! I guess we'll see...

you only turn five once...

Well, the typhoon is over, and things are back to normal. On the walk to school, we saw lots of debris on the sidewalks, and some really huge branches that had fallen. I'm guessing that by the time we pick Annika up, things will be all cleaned up like it never happened!

I didn't know what we would do for Annika's birthday since we are so new here. I suggested to her that we just celebrate as a family, and she said "but what about the kids?". Somehow I couldn't say no to that, so Mike and I talked about three options. We could invite our fellow expat friends to a little party, but the people we know with kids have children closer in age to Leila than Annie. We also thought of just having a little party with the kids from the building, but it is really hit and miss who we run into in the playroom, so we don't really know people that well. There's one little girl Annie's age who's often there, but she isn't even that nice to her! So our final idea was to invite the girls from Annie's class. This made me really nervous, as planning birthday parties isn't my favorite activity to begin with, but I have never met any of the kids or their families. I didn't know if they would come, and what cultural expectations we may not even know about. Apparently birthday parties are a really big deal here, so I wasn't sure what I was stepping into!

So I bravely sent invitations with Annie to school to the seven girls in her class, with a letter explaining that we are new to Hong Kong and that their daughter and whoever in her family that would like to come was invited to join us in the Function Room of our clubhouse for a very "simple" party of pizza, cake, and games.

Out of the seven invites, five responded favorably, one couldn't make it, and one I never did hear from. It was a bit awkward and I did find it stressful to figure out where to get a cake (I don't even have an oven so I was off the hook for making one!), how and where to order pizza, where to collect all the paper plates, party favors, balloons, and all those details that make up a birthday party. Somehow we managed, and I think it was a success. The girls were sooooo excited to see each other outside of school, and Annika was a very happy little five year old!

This is such a bad picture, but my mom sent her a "Boy Barbie" that you can record your voice and make him talk like a man. It's so funny- we've all had fun with it!
My dear friend Lisa gave me a gift to give to Annika on her birthday back in June at Leila's party. I managed to get it all the way here, and Annie was so surprised to receive something from her friends in Canada. Thank-you!

The cake! I ordered it from a bakery near us. It looked much better than it tasted.

After cake was eaten, we "released" them into the playroom, and I wondered if the whole building could hear us! They were extremely excited to play. These are Annika's friends Hoi Yee, and Belle.

The whole gang... Ajax, Ashley, Olivia, Autumn, Birgitta, Annie, Leila, Belle and Hoi Yee. It was fun, but is it bad if I say I'm relieved we don't have any birthdays coming up for a while? Haha

Typhoon!

Yesterday when we woke up it was sunny and warm with blue skies and no wind. When I got to kindergarten to drop Annika off, the EA at the drop-off door said that there has been a Level 1 Typhoon warning issued, and if it got to level 3, I'd need to pick her up. This was the first I'd heard of such a thing- it didn't look like any storm was about to happen. I had plans to take Leila swimming with our friend Jocelyn and her daughter Rachel, and Jocelyn told me I shouldn't worry- level one is pretty meaningless, and she and her husband had been following the storm (actually they were hoping that a typhoon would hit so there'd be a day off work, and they think they're kind of exciting), and it looked like it would pass us. She said that in the last two years, there haven't been any, but the first couple years in Hong Kong there were lots- some even as high as level 11.

By the time we went to bed, wind had picked up, and I wondered if Annie would have school. And then this morning we found out that it had been upgraded to level 8, and schools across Hong Kong were cancelled! Annika and Mike were both pleasantly surprised to have a day off. The wind was howling, and it was raining on and off. We could see that the streets looked pretty dead- buses weren't running, and shops were closed. It looked like we should just stay put at home. After we had breakfast and were all dressed and ready for the day, I took the girls down to the clubhouse to run around in the playroom. Turns out the clubhouse was closed! So what do you do when you're stuck in a tiny apartment for the day?

Well, we popped some popcorn and I put on Aristocats, which they never want to watch because they say it's too long. Well... today we had all the time in the world! It was also very nice that Annika had lots of new toys from her birthday party that they could play with.

The only action we could see on the streets is that the window of a hair salon had broken, and I noticed police surveying the damage. Also, all the pool chairs had blown around and it looks like there are palm tree branches and one of the pool chairs floating in the pool.

My most wonderful husband let me nap in the afternoon and took the girls across the street to McDonald's (which evidently was still open) for some ice cream. Then they went to the arcade upstairs and played arcade games. Mike said the place was hopping. I guess our kids weren't the only ones with cabin fever! When they came back, we somehow ended up watching Sharon, Lois and Bram videos. The girls loved them, and it made Mike and I so nostalgic. We hadn't realized Eric Nagler is so talented... He's the Aaron Parker of the group!

By late afternoon, the typhoon had been moved back to a level 3 (does it just go level 1, 3, 8 or are there levels in between? That's what I've been wondering) so we went back across the street, and went to a Japanese fastfood place called Yoshinoya for some noodles. The clubhouse was then open again, so the girls could run off some steam, and went to bed nice and early.

All in all, it was a good "Typhoon Day" for us. But the wind is still howling and it is still at level 3, so now I am hoping that it will die down tonight and tomorrow will be back to normal. One home day was good... more than that would be a little much!