Happy Birthday, Jimmy!

Another year has flown by and London has grown by leaps and bounds!

London at 7

London at 8

I can't believe my little guy is now 8 years old!

I started asking him a few weeks ago about planning a birthday party, but he said that he didn't want one. 

Well, that just led me to a wonderful idea for his birthday instead!  A few weeks ago, I was at Outdoor Rec on Kadena and saw the sign for paintball...and low and behold, the minimum age was 8!  Oh, boy would London like that!

So Stevie, along with our neighbor Eric and Cannon's friend, Marc, and his dad, Mike, headed out on the morning of London's birthday for a round of paintball!  Kadena has this huge outdoor wooded area that they've converted into a paintball range where all the action goes down. 

London, learning how to shoot.

The motley crew

Needless to say, there are some serious paintball players around here.  I mean, think of all the military guys that are trained to really shoot in the woods.  So when they saw our motley birthday party crew, they probably thought they were going to have some easy pickins!

Stevie tells great stories about the day - about how he and Cannon hooked up with two Marines and they stormed a hill, laying down cover for each twosome to climb up the hill - a shoot and scoot.  And how there was a bunker in the middle of the road which Stevie made a run for and then London had to join him in a hail fire of paint balls, but only got hit in the foot about 5 yards from the bunker!  And the best was how Stevie was getting fired at by some Marine who was trying to capture the flag and London jumped up from behind Stevie and shot the Marine twice square in the chest.  You know that wasn't a happy guy when he realized he's been "killed" by an eight year old!

Yes, they definitely had fun, but the day was definitely not without its share of injuries.  This is Cannon's back!  And Mike took one in the neck that must have been really painful.  But these just added to their tales as they proudly flaunted their "war wounds".

Later in the day, he got to open presents and then that night, after a dinner of Daddy's famous hamburgers, we had some of the neighbors over for cake.  The cake?  A trash can, as designed by his brother.  Why a trash can?  Because that's the way our London eats!

Happy Birthday, London!

Hong Kong - Day 3

Today we decided to head over to Hong Kong Island since technically the whole trip we’ve been in Kowloon. So we headed back to the subway to the Tsim Sha Tsui area of Kowloon and to the famed Star Ferry, except right when we got to the ferry it started to rain. Well, it wasn’t supposed to rain today, but I guess there is another typhoon headed to this area of the world (one passed on this same route on Thursday of last week) so we got some showers.

What to do, what to do? Well, of course, another mall!


I have to say that Stevie and I were both pretty jazzed up at the prospect of shopping on this trip. After all, it’s been over 2 years since we’ve been in a mall and our shopping prospects are basically the Exchange or online, neither of which is ideal. But both Stevie and I thought the shopping would be different. When we think malls, we think anchor department stores and lots of retailers running sales and promotions and such. Well here the malls are plentiful, and nice, but the stores are all UPSCALE shopping without the good deals. And no matter how desperate I am to shop, I still refuse to pay $300 for a Polo sweater. Not gonna do it!

After deciding to stop delaying our day, we headed to the Star Ferry port to catch a ride to the other side. This is a short ride across the Victoria Harbor and gives you great views of both sides of the city.

Since the rain was still coming down, we grabbed a cab to take us to an area where supposedly there were clothing bargains to be had. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant featuring specialties from Shanghai (got my dim sum I’ve been wanting!) and as a bonus it had a great view!

So finally, after all this searching, we found an area called Jardine’s Crescent that was a cattle shoot of small stalls offering some fairly good deals on clothes. But it was SOOO crowded. And we did find a shop offering reject designer clothes like Jos A Banks and Hurley – but only one. And this is what I thought the shopping here was going to be!

Stevie looking like a giant among the Asian women.

Watch anyone?

Care for some "fresh" meat?  I wouldn't venture any further into this market - didn't know what I'd see!

So after a run through the gauntlet, we caught another cab over to our one touristy stop of the day – The Peak Tram.

So you’ve probably gathered from the photos that Hong Kong sits in valley opening onto a safe harbor. Built all around the harbor are huge apartment and office skyscrapers. Some of these skyscrapers are actually built on the sides on the mountains – an engineering feat I’m not sure needs to be tested. So the Peak is the top of one of these mountains that looks down onto the cityscape below and is an amazing view. I mean how many times do you get to look down on a city? The Peak Tram, as its name suggests, is a tram car that climbs the mountain, sometimes at a 45 degree angle. It’s pretty fantastic! At the top of the mountain, at the Peak, is not only a spectacular view, but also lots of shops (surprise!) and restaurants. Since we made it to the top slightly before sunset, we got the experience of seeing the view in the daylight and with the evening lights.

Stevie (and apparently the man behind him) looking thrilled at the hour long wait to go up to the Peak.

Look at the crowds!

Going up?

And up...

Yes, I'm taking my own photo because Stevie was in a safer place.

The Peak Tower - restaurants and shops

Stevie's face says it all about the ride back down the mountain!

View from the top

The view off the back of the Peak.

And the lights come on...

Hong Kong at dusk

So after our trip down the mountain, we headed back to the hotel to Skype the kids and then out for dinner at a yummy Thai food restaurant.  And that caps day two - we were pooped!

Hong Kong - Day 2

How nice to be able to sleep in, go work out with my hubby and then have a leisurely breakfast at the hotel’s buffet! To some, that may seem ordinary, but for us it was a special treat!


So loaded up with foods from around the world (got to love breakfast buffets at Asian hotels – they serve everything from pancakes to steamed pork dumplings to lox and capers), we headed back out into this crazy city.

Now, I’m just going to preface this whole day with one thing – today is National Day in China, the crowning glory of Golden Week, which ranks right up there with Chinese New Year as one of the most important holidays in China. Yes, for the second year in a row I’ve scheduled a vacation to China during the busiest travel time of the year. You’d think I’d learn!

Our first stop was the Bird Garden. In China, a popular hobby to have is to have a song bird and to take it out every day for a walk. Older men (didn’t see any ladies) have these beautiful little song birds in these beautiful little bamboo or wood cages and take them to the Bird Garden to talk (the men talk, not the birds) and to compete with other birds on who has the best song. In the garden there are stalls that sell the cages, the birds and the treats that are fed to the birds (crickets, worms, etc.) It was fascinating and so Chinese! And yes, I did buy a bird cage (but not the bird to go in it!)

Carrying his birdcages

Let me out!  Dinner for some lucky bird.

There were scores and scores of these cages with birds for sale.

Admiring birds

Our cage looks a lot like the one on the right.

Moon gate into the park.

A display of "happy birds" (as the sign called them).

The old men with their birds hanging on the poles.

Next to the Bird Garden is the Flower Market – it’s really no more than a long street full of store after store of flowers and plants for sale. But it smells so good and looks so pretty. There were lots of flowers I knew, but some I’d never seen before and I so wanted to buy up a huge bouquet, but had to be satisfied with one pom pom chrysanthemum. Yes, I know, we’re leaving in two days, but it was so happy looking!

Stevie really wanted the red Christmas tree.

From the Flower Market we wondered into the Ladies’ Market (yes, it’s really called that) where it was stall after stall of “ladies’ things” like clothes, bras, yarn, household goods and – for some reason – kids toys? I was tempted by a few shirts and thought about some wool, but ended up with nothing.

Stevie looking at the chickens for sale.

Ladies' market from above.

From the Ladies’ Market we moved over one street to the Goldfish Market. Not only do the Chinese like to have birds in their homes, they also consider it lucky to have an aquarium. This one street has store after store of all types of live fish and aquarium fixins’. Some of the poor souls were stuffed into baggies and hung on the wall – how they didn’t run out of air or how they got food, I’m not sure? Looping around up the goldfish street brought us back to the flower market and then back to the Bird Garden where we stopped to pick up our previously purchased bird cage. After dropping that at the hotel, we plunged back out for more adventure.

Fish in a bag

Colored rocks and sand for your tank.

This lady was selling quail eggs and other roasted treats in the middle of the street!

Now I started this entry saying it is National Day on October 1st in China. It’s a super big holiday where everyone and their brother are off work and, apparently, shopping! We started walking along a famous shopping street called Nathan Road and I have to say I’ve never seen so many people and so much traffic nor heard so much noise. The cacophony was intense! Too intense really to enjoy any of it. It was sensory overload so all the sights, sounds and smells just blended into a lull that was numbing.

A lot of the shops on Nathan Road (at least the part we were on) were jewelry and watch stores. Can I just say I have never seen so many high end jewelry stores in one place in my life? Rolex, Tissot, Tudor, Oris – any kind of watch you could want was there and not a single one was under $500. Try more like $5,000. And the thing is that the stores were just packed with people. I think the Hong Kong economy must be doing a little better than ours.

So after a while we jumped on the subway to come out a little further south on Nathan Road and closer to Victoria Harbor.

This the downtown section of Hong Kong (or at least Kowloon, the side we were staying on), and guess what was downtown? That’s right, more shopping! Needing a break from the people and the shopping, we found a cool place called Jimmy’s Kitchen which was as close to an upscale British pub I’ve been in outside the borders of the British Isles. We chilled at Jimmy’s with a pint or two before going to dinner at a delicious Indian restaurant called Gaylords. The food was super good!

After dinner, we joined the masses of people heading towards the harbor in preparation for the evening light show and fireworks.

The famous Peninsula Hotel.

Every evening at 8:00 Hong Kong does a light show and fireworks display for the entertainment of the people. Of course, tonight’s show was different since it is National Day. The light show went off at 8:00, and then at 9:00 the holiday fireworks show began. Three barges on the harbor synchronized their displays to light up the city. We couldn’t get close enough to see the water, but were down by the clock tower and the Star Ferry terminal. It was an intimate affair of us and about 5 million other tourists and natives! The show was really impressive, and it’s funny to note that even Hong Kongers “ooh” and “ahh” at fireworks!

I was trying to photograph the crowd behind us, but missed.  Still, I think this is a cool photo!

After the grand finale, we joined the mass migration of people heading back to their residences. We honestly thought it was going to take us a couple of hours to navigate the streets and subway to make it back to our hotel but in true Asian style everything was orderly and timely and within 45 minutes we were putting the key into the door of our hotel room.