July 7 2006 - Visiting Children, Seafood

Having my kids here is both wonderful and sad right now, because Sarah will be leaving tomorrow night. I just can’t help thinking that it will be September before I see her again, and Lee won’t see her again until December. That part of living overseas is just very hard. And it doesn’t make that much sense, since in the US it could easily be two months before I saw her again. There’s something about the distance that makes it seem longer.

We’ve been having fun together. I’ve gotten a kick out of showing off this new city where I live. It makes me aware of how incredible it is when I see it through the astonished eyes of a visitor. I also told the kids that showing them around is good practice for when other people come to visit. I’m learning how much people can handle in one day. I forget that everyone isn’t used to the heat (or the frigid air conditioning), that not everyone likes weird foreign food (my kids are adventurous eaters though), and that walking around this hilly city can be very tiring. My kids have both commented on what good shape Lee and I are in from all the hill-climbing we do!

One thing that has worked well with both kids is to get out and do some standard tourist stuff on the very first day. It helps them stay awake and gets them out in the sunlight. With Sarah we went downtown, walked through the little wet market in Soho, rode the escalator, walked over to the Peak Tram and rode it to the top of Victoria Peak. With Daniel we rode the ferry over to Kowloon and walked along Hong Kong Harbor. Then we took the ferry back to Wan Chai and walked through the giant wet market there. I hadn’t been there before so that was fun for me too.

My kids are great wet market companions. They took pictures in front of flopping fish and pig carcasses, bought strange “scary candy”, and marveled at the odd fruits and vegetables. I’m really getting into shopping for fruit in the wet markets. It’s so much cheaper than the grocery stores, and the quality is better too. I’m not buying meat (or weird eggs!) there, but fruit and veggies, you bet!

Sarah and I have been doing some serious shopping. We’ve toured the malls, but her main interest has been the little boutiques. She loves the fact that things fit her here, and she’s been going a little crazy in the purse department. She’s bought so many purses that she’s not sure if they will all fit into her suitcase. She keeps insisting that several of them are gifts. I hope so, for her sake, or she may need to rent out an extra room to store them in!

Yesterday I took the kids to the lady’s market. They had the same reaction as I did initially – what a lot of junk, and what a lot of fun! Last time I was there it was all fake Prada’s. This time fake Longchamps were the thing. Sarah and I both bought several. I love how they come in so many different colors and fold up so nicely for storage. Even Daniel bought a fake Diesel book bag. Everyone was very proud of the great deals we got; who cares if we know we probably spent twice as much as a local Chinese would spend. When you’re spending $12 US for a nice purse (fake but nice) who cares if a Chinese person could have gotten it for $7?

The second day that Sarah was here we went on a hike in the New Territories, to the beautiful beaches up by Sai Kuhn. They look like something out of a travel brochure for some tropical paradise. You’d never guess that you were actually in one of the most densely populated areas of the world! One of the reasons that the beaches stay as nice as they are is that the only way to get to them is via a very mountainous hike. We hiked 13K total and went to 3 different beaches. We signed up with a guide because we didn’t know how to get there and it’s pretty remote. We did fine, but Sarah was sore the next day. The trick is to drink copious amounts of water, because of the humidity.  If you stay hydrated you can go a lot longer. The stop at a beach restaurant for Singapore noodles and beer didn’t hurt either!

Last night we did something very interesting. Before I got to Hong Kong Lee had gone on a 3M outing to these seafood restaurants where you pick out your own seafood and tell the restaurant how you want it cooked. He wanted us to have the experience too, but it was a bit of an adventure, since when he went all the details were taken care of for him. But what the heck! We rode the MTR up the harbor, and then took a little bitty ferry across to Kwun Tong and the Lei Yue Mun Seafood Bazaar. All along the harbor there are all these restaurants with fish tanks in front of them. As you walk along looking at the fish the hawkers try to convince you to buy their fish and eat at their restaurant. I got a huge kick out of it, because usually when I’m with Lee I’m the one that gets accosted, but this time if they tried to talk to me I just pointed at Lee and said “he’s in charge”! And boy, did they go after him! One lady was literally trying to drag him by the sleeve over to her fish tanks. It was pretty hysterical. He took it well.

We went to the restaurant where he had eaten with the 3M group. We picked out prawns, lobsters, a grouper, and scallops, and then trooped into the restaurant. The matre ‘d was very good about suggesting ways to cook our various items. No menus. We had Chinese tea (of course) and wine, with our meal. The absolute BEST was the grouper. It was simply to die for. And, it was so much fun to watch them dismember the thing. We’ve heard all kinds of stories about people eating fish heads so I was a bit apprehensive that one of us was going to be served a fish eyeball, but not to worry. I guess they didn’t want westerners leaping up from the table and running screaming out of their restaurant! They did serve us the fish cheeks though, which turned out to be very tasty!

On the way back we decided to just take a taxi. I had never taken a taxi back from Kowloon before at night. That Hong Kong skyline just goes on forever…it is SO beautiful. It has got to have one of the most stupendous skylines in the world. New York has a beautiful skyline, but it is probably one-fifth the size of Hong Kong’s, and it doesn’t have mountains in the background!

I’m glad Daniel will be here for the next two weeks. It will be fun to have him around for that long. He is such a comfortable guy to hang out with. I told him I was glad that I was going to have someone to play with for all that time.

Well this is what happens when I don’t post anything for a couple of weeks…what a long blog entry!