Day Seven - Noahs Ark and a Not Well Zach

Believe it or not the rascals have now been here seven days.  We have had a blast and Zach has spent the last three days trying to work out how he could stay on an extra week.  Not sure he has fully comprehended that I do not spend all my time checking out the theme parks of Hong Kong!  He would however fit right into the local culture with his fixation with shopping :-)

Today we went to the Noah's Ark park for a look around.  It is an odd place - kind of full of good intentions but stuck in the 1970's.  The gardens are fantastic.  The indoor exhibits - not so fantastic.  We ha a nice wander and sat through a couple of little presentations in Cantonese with English sub-titles.  The first was a rendition of what it would have felt like in the Ark - complete with strobe lighting lightening and a shaking floor.  All very dramatic!  The second was a little attempt at giving us a little Christian message on the back of 'we are destroying the earth with our bad conservation ethos" while trying to appeal to the secular Chinese population with cool 3-D images. Did not really work - the lasting images in our minds were that there was smoke for some inexplicable reason, the floor shook again and that Noah had a rainbow coloured beard.  Probably not what they wanted us to come away remembering!

We had planned to come back home, cleanup and then head back into town to meet Andrew for a good-bye dinner and viewing of the nightly night show on the HK harbour.  Unfortunately poor old Zach's tummy had other ideas, and he got off the ferry from the Noahs Ark Island just in time to lose his lunch to the fish (great aim over the side of the gangplank leading from the boat!).  He proceeded to feel unwell and show us so in the taxi on the way home, so was put to bed for a rest and recovery - we really thought he was just sea sick.  After the poor kid had to use the bowl again an hour later we cancelled dinner plans and let him go to sleep - hopefully he will stay that way until morning and then all will be well!  Please pray for Sandra's sake that both kids are well for the flight home tomorrow night.

So Jayna and I sorted a movie night and we settled down for Nachos and a Movie.  Uncle Andrew provided the sound effects to the movie - he sings along so well to Disney, and entertained Jayna with his 'burp-along'.  Rude boy.

Tomorrow Zach really wants to go 'last minute shopping' and Jayna wants to go up The Peak.  Hopefully we will manage both activities without anymore throwing up!

Photos for the day.

Zach feeling photogenic

 Now you see me.....

Now you don't!!!

The animals of Noahs's Ark

And just for Kyla

The New and Improved Disneyland HK - oops ours days are out of order and I do not know how to fix!

With much excitement we got ourselves into a taxi good and early this morning to being our adventure into 'A Whole New World'.  Believe it or not, Disney has introduced two new worlds since I visited with the boys - Toyland and Grizzly Grulch were both very popular and had some great new rides.

Jayna has some excellent photos from Disney on her blog (jaynapalmer.blogspot.com and I left my camera behind....so suffice to say, Disneyland still plays inane music, I am still very grateful that I do not work there, and we had a great day!

Oh Darn - It is Tuesday....and so the Wetlands are closed!

Well we made it all the way to the New Territories this morning to visit the Wetlands.  But they were closed. Darn - if only I had had Jordan here to - he would have checked out the website in advance and known important things like which days of the week they were closed!


So...we headed back into Kowloon and hung out at the Science museum.  I even got an admission that the museum was actually cool and not boring at all.  Quite and achievement I thought!

In the afternoon we headed to Dialogue in the Dark.  This is an incredible 75 minute, totally black adventure.  You cannot see a thing - not even your hand put right in front of your face.

A blind guide then talks you through a set of everyday HK experiences - going to the park, the market, onto the star ferry, to a concert and finally to a cafe.  It is incredible to feel how your other senses kick in - the sounds and smells of HK are very distinctive and you really could tell where you were 'supposed' to be from what was going on around you.  We came away feeling grateful that for us, blindness was a short experience that we could emerge from back into the light - and a new appreciation of how people who are totally blind perceive the world.

Ocean Park tomorrow - what fun!

It is Wednesday - must be the day for Ocean Park

Much excitement again this morning as we got ready to pop just down the road to Ocean Park.   After the long trips to Disney and the (closed!) Wetlands we were grateful for our quick taxi ride.

Ocean Park is a fantastic mix of thrill rides and educational animal exhibits.  The warm HK weather makes the indoor exhibits very welcome breaks.

We'll let the pictures tell the story today.......

On the way up to the Thrill Zone in the cable car

The Mine Train - yep they really are going sideways!

Space Ship anyone?

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

We let Sandra come to Ocean Park with us.  She was pretty smiley all day - except when she was screaming! 

 Pirate Boat

"Smelling" the Penguins!  They really are stinky little fellows and Jayna was not impressed :-)

He does not know I got this photo - great job Aunty Sonia!!!!

Can you believe they went on the Dragon - FIVE TIMES!!!!!!  Sandra managed once, Sonia managed twice, but then it was just the kids....

Zach avoiding the camera.... a common pose

Saluting  "General Trash". 

That was us for another day..... well almost - first we had to SHOP AGAIN!!!!!!  That boy has far too much money and not nearly enough ideas as to what he wants to spend it on :-)

Off to see Noah's Ark and then flash dinner with Uncle Andrew tonight.  Hard to believe the week has gone by so fast - we are running out of time for 'Last Minute Shopping' :-)

- Sonia

Off to Macau (this feels familiar!)

Saturday saw us packing up the kids for a couple of days in Macau.  Cirque de Soleil are no longer playing there, so we had to find a different show to keep us amused.

To prove that we do learn from our past mistakes, we decided not to attempt to come back to HK straight after the show - little people are too tired and they snore on the ferry!  So... we used Hilton Honors points and booked a couple of rooms at the Conrad Macao.  The hotel was absolutely fantastic - huge connecting rooms with a lounge area in between.  The head concierge had emailed me before we arrived to say that he had noticed I had booked two rooms, and was that because we were bringing children..the result of some further email communication was these waiting for us in the room

After grabbing lunch at the local food court (where both kids managed to find Butter Chicken amongst the predominately Asian offerings we wandered around the Venice themed mall so that Zach could do some more shopping - he sure loves to shop that one  - and then headed off to our 5pm show.

The House of the Dancing Water was amazing.  Very talented acrobatic troop with the added interest of a huge pool that that the stage rose up out of - some of the show was completely in water, some on a floating stage.  It was incredible how fast they could 'empty' or 'refill' the set - really just the time it took for them to transition from one scene to another.  Jayna had some scary moments at the beginning with the scary pirate people, but we all loved it by the end.

Zach's favourite was the Motor Bike stunt men!








Dinner Saturday was the Hard Rock Cafe and we have the pictures to prove we were there.  We even got the Motley Crew on camera for Craig...

We happily went off to our hotel room and agreed to meet in the middle room to go down to breakfast at 8. Andrew and I knew we would never wake up that early in a great pitch black hotel room with a comfy bed so we set the alarm.  Sandra was pretty sure she had two alarm clocks so did not bother.  Andrew and I were on time.... Sandra, Jayna and Zach not so much!  Jetlag had finally been overcome and the kids did not wake at 3 or 4 or 6...they were still all asleep when we knocked on their door just after 8!  That must have been 11 straight hours for the rascals and was a great start to the day.

Hotel breakfast buffet, morning by the fantastic pool, 2pm ferry back to HK had us back home around 4pm.  Andrew offered to make dinner (yeah Andrew!) but first we needed to walk to the supermarket to get ingredients.  We made a quick detour to the dog park to attempt to count the dogs - so many that it was impossible - they kept moving and being double-counted!  Andrews fried rice was delicious and an early night was order of the day to get us all ready for Disneyland on Monday.  Not sure who needs the early nights more - Zach and Jayna or Sandra and Sonia! 

Let the fun begin!

Hard to believe that the much awaited visit with Zach and Jayna has arrived!  I managed to win the "let's fly to Hong Kong" race by just an hour or so thanks to their slightly misfunctioning A380 that required them to return to the Sydney terminal for an hour or so to have some mysterious message on the cockpit monitors resolved.

After collecting our combined luggage and only just fitting it into the boot of the taxi we were on our way to find Andrew, Jenny and two rascal cats.  Andrew and Jenny were just find and seemed happy to see Sandra and the kids.  Miyako was curious at who we had dragged home this time, and Sachi was plain unimpressed!  She is definitely never going to be our most social cat - even when one of us is away a few days it takes her a while to warm back up to us when we return.  It took her all of Friday before she was prepared to even be in the same room as our illustrious guests, and until Saturday morning until Zach could entice her to let him pat her.  

Anyways, we needed to decide what to do on Friday so out came the thinking caps and we started through the list.  Zach was quick off the mark.  He wanted to go shopping.  He wanted to go to every place in Hong Kong that sold Lego.  And so we did... Some of them we even went to twice! Believe it or not we spent the whole day shopping.  We came home to make piza for dinner and then packed everyone off to bed for a nice early night before heading to Macao on Saturday

Zach is still waking early - Jayna not so much!  Sandra had a lot of fun convincing him that 3.30, 4.00, 4.30, 5.00 and 5.30 were all way to early to get up.  6.00 was deemed just acceptable, and out came the Captain Crunch cereal.  Amazing how much that kid can eat!!

We left home at about 9.00 to catch the ferry to Macao. The first order of the day for Zach was some more shopping - money sure burns holes in his pockets!   At five we headed to the theatre for the House of the Dancing Water Show.  Jayna will tell you that it had some scary loud moments!  All in all though I think we al/l enjoyed ourselves. Hard Rock Cafe for dinner was the end of our day. Very yumm! Photos tomorrow when we are back homed 

Today's achievement

Ok, so today's achievement is running (without stopping) 12km at the gym.  Running on a treadmill, 9km per hour, while watching Brad Pitt pretending to be Achilles in Troy.  I felt a bit flakey at around the 9km mark, probably because lunch was an Onigiri (rice ball).  We'd had a bigger breakfast at the cafe before church, but on reflection I probably need a bit more than an onigiri if I am going to run that far.  Still, I made it in one piece.  I've run 10km a few times before, including last Sunday.  There are vague ideas of trying to do a half marathon at some point.  Will have to see how things go.

The picture below is from the treadmill.  My Nike+ sensor thinks I ran 12km, not the 12.8 that the treadmill thinks.  Not sure which is likely to be more accurate. 

The 'cone of shame'

Forgot there were requests for a picture of Miyako and her cone...
Without putting it back on her, here is the best I have. Altogether now - how cute!
Sonia

What is there to say - my cat is smarter!

Miyako might look cute under Andrews sweater... But Sachi has worked out that the time capsule (the box that backs up our computers) is warm all the time. This is now her favourite reclining place :-)

Miyako is cold

Hong Kong has got a bit cold. Miyako was curled up on the floor. I decided she looked cold, so I threw my sweatshirt onto her. She thought this was a great idea, and promptly stretched out underneath - nose poking out one end, tail out the other. She still wants to monitor what is going to, so her eyes are wide open whenever there is a noise. But this doesn't last long, as a snooze wins out.

Chicago airport

Chicago

I write this update from Chicago airport. Up until this morning I was not sure that I would be able to come home today. There were lots of storm warnings being bandied around yesterday, however these were cancelled in the early hours of the morning. They were expecting to have very heavy snowfalls and a bit of wind. In the end the city is covered in a nice dusting of snow but nothing to really worry about. So now I am sitting in the lounge, killing an hour or two until the flight departs.

JFK

Sitting in the airport at JFK (New York), waiting for my flight to Washington DC. It was a long but uneventful flight from Hong Kong to NYC, at about 15 hours start to finish. We were late leaving Hong Kong, although it was not clear what the holdup was. I think in the end we were about 30 minutes late taking off, but luckily we made up the time enroute. My transit time is 4 hours, the first of which was spent moving between terminals and suffering through the ridiculous and unfriendly security setup. The USA really needs to learn "customer service" from pretty much any country in Asia, or perhaps the world. They are not even just unfriendly, they are actually rude. Miyako went to the vet a couple of days back. Her tail was swollen, and some of the fur was matted. Sure enough, it looks like she had hurt herself, and had a cut about a centimeter long. The vet shaved the fur off around it, and we've been having to wash/disinfect it, and then put ointment on it. Which she promptly licks off, so we have had to put the cone collar back on. Shouldn't be too long before things are back to normal. We think the cut happened when she managed to tip a vase over. The vase is full of rocks and water, and has bamboo growing in it. It's heavy. We think it landed on her tail. Hopefully the resulting pain and indignity of the collar will stop her from doing it again. Wishful thinking...

Cats

Just worked out that Sachi prefers her meat ham, and it must be Parma. Hmmm.

All good things must come to an end

Hard to believe they were here 10 days - the house will be quiet without them.

This morning we agreed to skip church seeing it was their holiday and we did make them go last week :-)

Instead we headed out in the mini again (it really is kind of squashed with four of us!) and meandered our way down to Stanley Market.  Last dollars were burning holes in pockets so shopping was the order of the day.  The suitcases had already been packed (we had to lend them one of ours to get all their stuff home again....) so I was trying hard to keep the purchases small knowing I was going to have to find a place to squeeze them in.  Braden bought himself a remote controlled helicopter and a red paper lantern.  Jordan was taken with the digital alarm clocks in neon colours.  I'm not at all convinced he needs an alarm clock - he seems to wake up quite early enough! - but he is now the proud owner of one.

We came back home to drop off the car and pick up the bags before heading by taxi into the airport express station where we could check in early for the flight.  We used the first class check in line as I had my frequent flyer card with me - the loud announcements the boys were making to the rest of the line 'but we are only travelling economy' probably did not win us any friends, but it saved us a long line up in the economy queue :-).  We checked in the bags and got boarding passes before heading off to Kowloon to prepare for Rugby mania.

Now really I am not convinced we have two rugby lovers.  One for sure.... but the other one cannot sit still for 80 minutes and I am sure he missed most of the highlights both last week and this!  Talk about a wriggle worm!

Waiting for kick off

The big outdoor screen (singing the National Anthem)

There was however much whooping with delight when we managed to hold on to that one point lead - and Jordan was super excited to watch the cup being handed to his illustrious team captain.

We headed out to the airport at about 7pm on the 25 minute express train.  8pm was the designated time for handing our charges over to the nice Cathay Pacific lady so a few minutes of very last minute shopping had the final dollars spent on Lego Miniatures.  There sure is a shared obsession with Lego going on there.... and then they were gone.  Home is very quiet.  The cats don't know what to think.  I'm sure they will quickly adjust!

Sharkey 1 and Sharkey 2 waiting to Board

Bye boys!  Come back soon!

Sonia

Do you think Miyako will miss them?

Saturdays are busy days in Hong Kong.  Most of the population of 7 million people are off work, and as apartments are small, most of them head out to the malls and tourist attractions.   We decided that after a busy week we could take it easy and not join the millions on the street.

We jumped in the car rather than using public transport and ran a couple of errands before heading to Times Square for Dim Sum lunch.  Braden ordered chicken feet.  He did not get very far through them on his own :-).  Jordan is a prawn fan - anything prawn based was his pick.  We made them eat veges.  They thought we were mean.  Oh dear, how sad....

We then did a little bit of shopping at Times Square before heading home.  The boys had a computer game marathon session from 3 until 6 - guess that is their computer time used up for a week!  We bbq'ed on our little deck for dinner and then settled in to watch a movie (Johnny English) while nibbling popcorn.

So not so much to write about today.  But do you think the cats will miss them?

Meow

Meooooow

MEEEEOOOOOWWWWWW

Ngong Ping 360

Today we really needed a slower start after some full on days of fun, so we took it easy and did not leave the house until about 11am.  We headed down the hill to catch the bus into town and connect up with the train to the gondola at Ngong Ping.  Early lunch was a local picnic  (more Cafe de Coral) eaten by the fountain at IFC Mall before heading off on our adventure.

Ngong Ping 360 is a huge 5.7 kilometer cable car that takes about 25 minutes to whip you up to the Monastery and Giant Buddha on Lantau Island.  The ride was spectacular even though today was quite polluted.  On the way back down we were in a glass bottomed gondola - freaky for those of us who aren't so great with heights!

Section down to the mainland

Over the hills and far away...

Believe it or not... that blip under the left hand cable is the
Buddha - it really is huge and dominates the skyline as
you get closed

Giant Buddha

I convinced the boys I was too old to climb the stairs to get a closer look, but they were keen so off they went

At the bottom of the stairs up to the Buddha

We were not finished with out sight seeing, souvenir buying and return cable car trip until about 5pm, so we opted out of visiting the market today (we'll try and fit it in tomorrow).  Instead crazy aunty proved again how crazy she is by putting everyone on a bus heading the wrong way down Nathan Rd (we were trying to get to Harbour Centre by the Star Ferry to buy a new book).  We got a nice sit down on the bus, and great views of Nathan Road, but there were many groans when the boys realised what had happened!  We jumped into a cab to the shopping mall in time to grab a quick dinner and then be out on the Avenue of Stars in time to see the Light Symphony at 8pm.

Night view of HK Island - the people in the photo are just random
passers-by

Then home, so loud laughs on the laptop with some new game Andrew had downloaded and then off to bed.  Hard to believe there are only two more sleeps in Hong Kong!

Sonia

Just call me "Donkey"

I am sure that is the best way to describe the poor soul that gets to carry everyone's stuff up and down hills all day long!   Ocean Park has a ridiculous number of hills.  Some have outside escalators to transport you - the boys estimated it was 4 - 5 stories per escalator, and there were four of them in a row so it was a pretty steep hill.  The rest you have to do by foot.  I learnt that 11 year olds have a dreadful sense of direction which meant we criss-crossed across the park numerous times :-)

The boys learnt that they have an even crazier Aunty than they thought.  After getting home I sent the to have a SECOND shower for the day (something to do with the sweaty wet patches on the back of their shirts!).  They have traded - we've agreed they do not need another one when they wake up in the morning.

We headed out at about 9.30 this morning.  Ocean Park is close by to our apartment so a quick taxi trip had us arriving in plenty of times to get our tickets and be queuing at the entrance five minutes  before it opened at 10.00.  First stop was the shop to buy yet more batteries for Braden's camera.  I am sending the battery bill home with him... we have now been through 14 in his camera alone!  Something to do with the constant clicking of shots and then the review of them afterwards to see how they look :-).  We had decided to them head straight up on the gondola to the second section of the park where most of the rides are as we had read online that they were less busy first thing.  The ride up to the second section is spectacular with great views over the South China Sea

Second section up to the Summit section
of the park

First Section of the Gondola

And the South China Sea off to the left

Eager to start the day

Cute smile :-)

Ocean Park was a blast.  The rides were far better than the HK Disneyland ones, and our planning worked and we stood in very few queues.

There had been a lot of discussion about roller coasters.  There are two at Ocean Park.   One called the Mine Train that has no loops, and a second bigger ride called The Dragon that came complete with a full upside down circle.  The consensus was that we should try the Mine Train first, and if that was not scary enough we would try the Dragon.  All very brave we boarded the train, had our insides turned just about inside out and decided that the Dragon was definitely not a necessary ride!  Braden was brave enough to try to the Mind Train on his own again later in the day - Jordan and I had more sense!

Ready to Ride
(Yep I really was right  behind them...)

And here is where we were headed!

The wet rides were a big hit - The Raging River was visited four times and the Rapids got a couple of tries.  They were targeted at just the right age group - exciting without being ridiculously scary.

Down down down

Splash!!!

Lots of other traditional rides - funny how the oldies are still goodies!

Arghhhhhhh....

Here we go again!

Grilled Korean Squid snacks anyone?

Like Disney, Ocean Park has some shows throughout the day.  We caught the acrobatic one, and then the lights show complete with a light up fountain, a lake that could have fire burning on top of it, fireworks, and a very cool projection of 3-D dragons onto the 'screen' created by the fountain.  Well worth the wait until 7pm to see.

In front of the fountain waiting for the finale

There are also many wildlife exhibitions.  The smallest monkey in the world, the jellyfish and the giant pandas were all hits.

Now that is relaxed!

Lei Lei the Panda

Andrew was home from India by the time we got back and had sorted pizza for dinner.   A quick nibble and then off to bed - all our feet are tired.  A couple of times today the realisation that the end of the holiday is getting close hit the boys.  They will be pleased to get home to see everyone (expect them to talk non-stop when they get back!) but will miss the excitement that has been Hong Kong.  I have been quick to tell them our lives are not normally non-stop entertainment!

Sonia

Oh - and "General Trash" got salutes and much respect all day!