Hong Kong was amazing, wonderful, perfect.  We all had a hard time getting on the airplane today and saying goodbye to clean streets, delicious food, and the English language.  Hong Kong today is even better than Hong Kong a decade ago when Keith and I met there.  It has changed- but only in good ways it seems- improving everything from transportation to cleanliness to public bathrooms!  We couldn’t get enough of it all!  The English level there is astounding- it seems like every single Hong Konger can speak English with ease.   Not knowing Cantonese was not a problem.  Cantonese is the dialect spoken in Hong Kong- it is as different from Mandarin (the Chinese we “speak”- using that term loosely- it should really be the Chinese we “butcher on a daily basis”) as Spanish and English- if not moreso.

I have many many photos to share, but I’ll start with the girls’ favorite day- Hong Kong Disneyland day (aka American Thankgiving Day).   The park in Hong Kong is very manageable in size and there were really NO lines for any rides.  There were lots of people there but it seemed like it just worked out so we never had to wait for anything!  They met princesses and rode rides to their little hearts’ content.  (FYI: All princesses at Hong Kong Disneyland are “imported” from the west.  Wouldn’t that be a fun job for a 20-something girl?)

Prices on things were sooooo reasonable!  T-shirts were (US $) about $20, polo shirts were about $25, giant burgers with fries were about $7 for lunch.   I was expecting much higher prices and was really happy that we were able to get a few little things for the kids and not break the bank!

All of the park employees had stickers that they passed out to the kids for free when they got on rides and such.  We ended up with about 30 different stickers that have a character on them and say “Hong Kong Disneyland”.

The girls had never been to a real amusement park before but they loved everything except Space Mountain.  YES, we took a 4 and 5 year old on Space Mountain.  I don’t know what we were thinking!  We’d been told that the Space Mountain here is slower than the California one and they were both well over the height limit so we tried it.  BAD idea.   Eliza was sobbing and clinging to me and Katie was just petrified.   I spent the whole ride talking to Dad outloud in Eliza’s ear so she would calm down!

Eliza’s favorite was the teacups (above).  Katie’s favorite was Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters where you ride in little cars through a “space adventure” and use little lazer guns to shoot down the evil Zerg.  It was really fun- it keeps track of your score as you go and you try to beat your neighbor.    I was imagining my sisters’ boys on that ride- they would LOVE it!

A few more photos from the day:

Mickey pizza = Thanksgiving dinner.

in Tarzan’s treehouse:

Katie climbs Tarzan’s rope.

I just want to eat little Katie up!  She was bouncing up and down squealing that Disneyland was the “best place ever ever ever ever ever!!!”

Feeling the jungle rhythm in Adventure Land.

They had an amazing Christmas parade in the afternoon complete with TONS of songs and dances to various Christmas songs.  It was very well done and the girls were completely in awe of all of it.  Oh yes, and excited to sit on the ground because “it isn’t dirty”.  That was a BIG deal in our world!

Side Note about Katie: I have to share this. She will hate me someday, but it is ok.   She was very disappointed that it is inappropriate to pee outside on the ground in Hong Kong.  Just minutes after getting back to our apartment complex, she and I set out to buy vegetables to make dinner.  Along the way, she dropped trou and started peeing on the ground and exclaimed “I just love peeing outside.  I’m so happy I can pee outside in Tianjin mommy!”   I still DO NOT approve of this- but I’ve just had to close my eyes and let go of my disapproval.  When in Rome do as the Romans do?  I think??

Back to the parade… little stars twinkling in Eliza’s eyes as she spots Snow White.

We spent the vast majority of our day with two friends from Tianjin- Marilyn and TJ.  Marilyn teaches music at the girls’ school and TJ is a first grade teacher.  It was fun to share the day with them (and Pooh of course!).

At the end of the day there was a “Royal Christmas Ball” in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.  They had a local Hong Kong girl “randomly” chosen to be transformed into a princess.   After the whole show, her boyfriend proposed to her.  Bad photo, sorry, but it was soooooo sweet!  I was all teary and said “Katie, her Disney dreams just came true!” and I don’t think it was nearly as sappy and sentimental for my kids as it was for me, haha.

The castle- it changed colors every 30 seconds or so…. so pretty!

Main Street as we were leaving after the Fireworks.  A bit full of people, eh?

We were given little glasses before the fireworks and if you looked through them it turned the fireworks into SNOWMEN- it works on any light, actually- and if you walked down main street you would see a sea of snowmen… if you turned your head left and right it looked like the snowmen were dancing.

Eliza said she has “News” (show and tell) for the rest of the year now- she was saving all sorts of things to share with her class- just bursting with joy over new stuff!

The subway train to and from Disneyland is specially made just for Disney- LOVE the Disney ears cut out for the windows!!  We made it home at around 10:00 pm and the girls were sooooo wiped- Eliza fell asleep about 1 minute after this photo and we still had to change trains 3 more times!  She basically slept while walking from train to train.

It was a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving for our family.  We definitely felt thankful all around!   Especially to Uncle Sam for the economic stimulus tax refund that made this trip possible, haha! :)  I don’t think it was intended to stimulate the Hong Kong economy, but that’s ok!

Hope you and yours had a wonderful Thanksgiving and were able to remember all of the wonderful blessings Dad has placed in your life this year.

Today, we headed out to take some family photos.  In front of Nankai University, a giant top-rated university located just down a major street from us, there is a “canal” that had potential for photos.  Of course, we had to avoid fishermen, gawking onlookers, and the charming green tarps and bamboo “tree” scaffolding that has recently been erected for wintertime.   They throw green tarps over trees and tack up bamboo poles around trees I guess to keep them from getting damaged in wintertime?  I don’t know.  It is quite unattractive!

I’m very pleased with how they turned out!  We did all of our shots of the kids and mom/kids, dad/kids shots and then a friend came with her family and she did our family shots and then I did their family shots and other photos while Keith took the girls for a walk.  We topped it off with amaaaazing cheeseburgers at TGI Friday’s.   That’s a pretty awesome day in my book!

Almost-6-year-old Eliza.

Thank you Emily for the coordinating sweaters!  Love them!

Katie’s jeans have a cool story- there is a little market that just opened by our house- little strips of small stores in buildings that look a lot like a U-Rent storage space center in the US.   We were walking around that market last week and wandered into a kids’ clothing store.  It turns out that the owner of that store is the mom of one of the girls from Katie’s chinese preschool class- the little girl that came to our house last spring for a playdate.  So she gave us a great deal and we promised to keep in touch so the girls can play again soon.  And her jeans were super cute!

Eliza- with her missing 2 bottom teeth and one very wiggly top left tooth.  She wants to be missing her two front teeth for Christmas- we shall see!

And sweet little Katie bug.

Have a great day! :)  Grandmas and Grandpas- I’ll be in touch soon about getting you an updated family photo!

The answer to this is very obvious today!  FAMILY who loves us so much to ship a GIANT, HUGE, FEICHANG DA (that means REALLY BIG in Chinese) box to us.  THANK YOU to Grandpa Bill, Grandma Cindy, and Aunt Emily for their roles in this huge box of love!

By the way, Emily, packing up the clothes I ordered from Old Navy in “Christmas boxes” so they looked like presents was a great way to ensure I didn’t have to pay any import tax! MUCH appreciated!  Love you!  And dude, I am SO reusing those boxes!  THANK YOU!

Here’s Katie and the 41 pound box… you can see Keith in the background… he said the postal workers and other customers were gawking at the size of our giant box.   Katie was *very* excited to open this up and see what was inside!  And dad, we nearly had a heart attack when we saw the postage fees.  Um, wow, what can I say other than THANK YOU!!!

The box was stuffed full of fun things- Christmas presents, birthday presents for Eliza, clothes for me (thank you!!!), clothes for the girls, and all sorts of toys.  Oh yes, and twizzlers!  And a whole slew of “The Office” stuff for Keith.  We LOVE the DWIGHT notebook and memo pads!  They’re so awesome!

The girls were both THRILLED with the Fairy Princess kits!  AMAZING!

Eliza loved the sweaters, Emily!!

And the girls all dressed up as fairy princesses:

Thank you thank you thank you to our lovely family!!!  We appreciate it!!

Also, to add to our thankfulness… we were told today that our company has approved buying us a NEW heater for this winter for our apartment!  Although the heat was turned on last week in our building, our main heater- the largest unit- in our living room wouldn’t turn on this year.   We are so grateful that next week we will have a new heater installed!  And rumor has it that we will be able to control this one ourselves- i.e. we can turn it on whenever we want.  It feels like such a foreign concept to me- I seriously can’t express how exciting and cool this is to us!  The thought of turning on the a/c because I’m hot or turning on the heat because I’m cold- well, it just sounds so great! 

Here’s some awesome pants from E-Mart.  Have you ever seen Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin split pants before?  I didn’t think so!!!

What about Dubble Bubble?

Right… something tells me *those* pants are not licensed!!

Yesterday, I shared lunch with a sweet little 7 year old girl from the orphanage.  She has Down syndrome and is a very precise, meticulously neat little girl.  My friend Jenny and I really enjoyed dining on nuggets with Hui Hui!  She was very interested in my camera lens and really wanted to lick and touch the front of the lens (eek!!).   I was cringing inside but she was so cute I couldn’t resist!

We’ll be in Hong Kong next Wednesday-Sunday!  I’m so so so excited about that!

I had the privilege of spending lunch yesterday with 3 of Tianjin’s finest young men…

Yang Yang (7), Hao Hao (6), and Li Kun (5) are 3 boys from the Tianjin orphanage.   After a too-long hiatus from McD trips, we finally had the chance to do another one yesterday.   Thank you to Marilyn for the photos from yesterday’s trip! There were 4 of us “foreigners” on the trip yesterday.  Here we are leaving the orphanage.

This day was full of many firsts for these boys- first time using soap from a dispenser, first time using an electric hand dryer, first time eating ice, hamburgers, pickles, ketchup, and french fries!  They relished each new experience.

The two older boys ordered cheeseburgers and couldn’t get over all of the flavors on them and ended up passing the burger insides down to little Li Kun.  At only 5 years old, he was the big eater of the crew, downing 2 cheeseburger patties, his own chicken nuggets, and a crazy amount of french fries.  At one point he had so many fries in his mouth he couldn’t move his mouth to swallow.

After lunch, we had two important stops to make.  Number 1: Comic books!  We stopped at a little magazine stand and the boys picked out Automan (like Transformers kind of- it is a cartoon series here on tv and they have lots of other Automan things to go with it) books.  They were so excited.  They rarely have the chance to pick something out to own just for themselves.  It is something I take for granted every day in life.

Number 2: New Clothes!

First up, Hao Hao quickly found a blue Automan shirt.  He was very proud of his shirt.  In this photo, Yang Yang is telling us that HE is the tallest and HE should get the cool Automan shirt!  There was only one Automan shirt and we were scrambling for something COOL for the other kids so they wouldn’t feel left out.

Yang Yang’s sadness didn’t last long- he found an awesome track suit that left him feeling like a superstar!  He was so sweet- he put the outfit on and was ecstatic- he thought he looked like Yao Ming!  Then before we left, he took it off and put his other clothes back on- he didn’t realize we were really BUYING the outfit for him.  I think it was too good for him to believe.  We had to insist it was okay for him to wear those new clothes and carry his old clothes back in a bag.   I love that even the storekeeper was sharing in the joy of these kids!

Li Kun was our last shopper.  He needed a coat because the little denim vest he was using as a coat isn’t thick enough for a Tianjin winter.  But Li Kun has a mind of his own, and he wanted something Automan.  We put a nice red coat on him and his little face dropped and he said “Chuan bu yao!!” (I don’t want to wear this!!)  He wasn’t defiant or rude, just so sad that he couldn’t have an Automan shirt of his own.    We looked through stacks of coats trying to find something that would work for him.  In what I consider a gift from Dad, one of the boys spotted this TINY Automan tag on one of the coats- it is not an understatement to say that Li Kun was the happiest boy in Tianjin when he put that coat on!  You can see the AOTM “Ao Te Man” logo on the top of the chest.    I told him it looks like it is his nametag so we should call him Automan Li Kun!

The happy shoppers after shopping…

Yes, these trips are for the kids- but I have to be honest.  After a day like that, seeing joy on kids’ faces, I walk on a cloud for a few days.  It is a gift for them, yes, but it is also a gift to our hearts.  All of us foreigners left with grins on our faces and peace in our hearts.  It is such a privilege to love these little ones the way our Dad loves us.

Nice title, isn’t it?

Today I went out to take one month baby photos of my friend WeiWei’s baby.  She was so excited to get to shower and leave the house again now that she’s reached the one month mark!  Lots of baby pics at the end of the blog today.

On the way, I took a taxi.  There is a bus that goes near her house, but I’d forgotten the number of the bus and the idea of standing in the cold didn’t appeal to me. (we’re in the 40’s today and will drop to the low 30’s tonight- we’re eager for the heat to be turned on soon!).

The taxi driver was one of our regular guys who hangs out at our apartment complex.  I’ve had him literally dozens of times.  Today, he asked where I was going and why.  I told him.  The following is our conversation:

I’m going to see my friend.  Her baby is one month old today, so I will take pictures of her.

Oh, is she giving you her baby?

No.  She wants her baby and loves her baby and doesn’t want to give her to me.

Oh.  Why isn’t she giving you her baby?

Because she likes to be a mom.   And I don’t want to steal her baby.  And I really don’t want a baby.  They are too much work.

Oh.  Yes, you are lazy.  Do you want my son?  You can have my son.  I will give him to you.

(pause)  Isn’t your son about 25 years old?

Yes, he’s 22.

Sorry, he’s a little bit old.  I’m only 29.  I don’t think I can be his mom.

Oh.  If I have another baby do you want that one?

Um.  (change of conversation)

Seriously, is that a bizarre conversation or what?!?  Apparently I missed the notice that today is “National Say Crazy Things to Foreigners Day”.  Or wait, is that every day?

All of that aside, here are some photos of sweet baby Jia Jin Xuan.   I didn’t want to put her down to take pictures of her- she’s so pudgy and cute!  The outfit she’s wearing is size 3-6 months and she’s one month old today- she’s such a little butterball! She is over 10 pounds  now!

They wanted some “natural environment” photos.  Photography studios here have a tendency to go waaay overboard with props and accessories and scenery and lighting and the baby ends up looking “fake” as WeiWei said!

We wanted to do one of those shots with the baby on the dad’s arm, but it was just TOO cold to take the baby’s clothes off- she looks GIANT on her dad’s arm!

Asleep on mom.

The happy family

Love baby yawns… and sleeping babies!

I love the way she’s hugging her little teddy bear here! The blanket she’s laying on was made by our friend Dan’s mom who lives in Missouri.  Such a sweet gift from her “American Grandma”!

Last one… I just love how her little chubby cheeks push on her eyes- we had to keep rearranging her cheek pudge so her eyes could open!!  So cute!

Thank you to our friend, Dan Kennedy, for his faithful videoing of children’s events!  We are terrible about videoing, so I’m thankful for Dan!

We wanted to share a few of his videos of the kids.

First, Eliza’s class singing “Ba Ba Do Ba Ba” at International Day- you can hear her Australian teacher for a bit and then the cutest little kindergarteners rocking out!  We give props to her awesome teacher for the enthusiasm- it is contagious and the kids really sang their hearts out!

See that video >>here<<. You shouldn't need to register with facebook to see the video.

Next, you can see a video of the girls dancing at fellowship, >>here<<.

I've been subbing a LOT and blogging is really slipping- I will aim for once a week now! I even went so far as to make a list of interesting things to share one day. And then I lost it.

Boringly yours,
Kimberly

P.S. Happy Election Day! I voted! Did you?

Last night, the girls went Trick or Treating as a dragon (Katie) and a princess/dancer/fairy (Eliza).  She couldn’t quite decide what to be, but just wanted to be sparkly and beautiful.

Ayi and the girls just before Trick or Treat time.  Ayi thinks Halloween is pretty funny… China doesn’t have anything like that, so she was in awe of the massive vat of candy I had ready for the other western kids who were coming by our house!

Eliza looks SO old this year… sigh!  Katie, well, she’s just Katie- she makes me laugh.  What in the world is that expression anyway?

Of course, every Halloween needs some Wii time… Eliza playing Dance Dance Revolution.  She’s getting better at it!  I think they’re both improving their hand/eye/foot coordination & motor skills from playing!

We’re pretty sure our downstairs neighbors completely hate us at this point.  We know when the people above us are walking around their apartment- so I’m sure they know when we’re stomping around the DDR mat.  Between that and all of the Wii parties we’ve been having… yes, I’m sure they’re plotting their revenge against the crazy foreigners!   We’ll have to invite them over sometime to let them play so they understand WHY we are so noisy!

Before we got our Wii, my sister Emily had given me weeks worth of commercials about how GREAT the Wii is and how it “will bring your family together like never before”.  It was like listening to a Focus on the Family promotion or something.  Super cheesy but it is true!  We’ve spent every night in the living room playing together!  We’ve had friends over to play several times and it seems like everyone- from any nationality and any age- picks it up instantly and has a great time.  It transcends all language barriers too!  And it is a surprisingly good workout for most games!!

Life is busy and good!  We’re counting down (2 weeks to go!) to the arrival of heat for the winter!  And until then we’re just piling on the layers and playing more Wii to stay warm!

Have a great day!   And thank you for the WiiBoxing help!  Now I’m going to go conquer Keith in Mario & Sonic @ the Summer Olympics.  I believe the gold medal will be mine!